Baira Goryaeva, About Traditional Upbringing and Folklore

Baira talks about traditional upbringing, prohibitions, songs and well-wishes:As a child, we were always forbidden to do certain things, for example, to lay hands behind the back, to cry in bed, to sit like a dog, and so on. However, we did not attach special importance to these bans and prohibitions. I think that it was simply not explained why such actions were bad. Besides that, being afraid of older people, children rarely asked them why all these prohibitions should be observed. Today, young people are different. Children interrogate so that sometimes you do not even know what to say. In the past, Kalmyks had many children, and it was simply impossible to get distracted by their questions. Today, by contrast, families have one child, whom they carry in their hands and indulge with everything. Regarding the upbringing of children, my grandmother always told me that she rode a horse from the age of 3, and fetched water from a nearby spring. So, from the age of 3 she already participated in household chores. My grandmother also told me that they had one camel, which they used to transport water. Children were also made to collect dung in the steppe and to carry it home. When I was at university, I wrote down my grandmother’s memories of Siberia, songs and much more. Among my notes there is one special song. Imagine the life of ‘special settlers’ in Siberia. You cannot speak your native language or say that you are a Kalmyk, because it is dangerous. Kalmyks sent all important information to each other through songs, because if you are a (Russian) authority you would think that a song is just a song and ignore it. Once, one Kalmyk widow stole a handful of grain to feed her hungry children. She was caught, convicted and sentenced to 10 years. In order to tell others who lived far away about what had happened to her the Kalmyks made a song. I wrote it down. That's how the information was transmitted in the form of songs. And there are a lot of songs of this kind. In the 1970s and 1980s, N. Ubushaev, A. Kichikov, A. Badmaev and others wrote down a lot from Kalmyk folklore. In 1972, the first collection of Kalmyk fairy tales was compiled and published based on their notes. Earlier, in 1968, the first collection of fairy tales, which was written down from Sanzhi Ivanovich Manzhikov, was published. Our scholars also published various song collections. It’s a pity though that our scholars did not pay much attention to well-wishes. My grandmother, for example, could say well-wishes without a pause for 40 minutes at weddings. In the 1980s, Mandzhi Erdni-Goryaev traveled all over Kalmykia, recording well-wishes. E. Ovalov processed his notes and published a book, which includes well-wishes that they heard from my grandmother. However, what he managed to write down was only a small part of what the Kalmyks had. Scholars ignored this genre, by looking more for legends, fairy tales, long songs, and Jangar. Well-wishes constitute a special genre. There are long well-wishes, as well as short ones such as ‘Mini nasnd kyur’ (I wish you to achieve my age), ‘Ut nas nasl’ (I wish you longevity) that people said many times a day. Longer well-wishes, by contrast, were uttered on special occasions. My grandmother always uttered a well-wish before starting a new work.Sponsored by Arcadia Fund, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwi