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Funeral and Memorial Rituals of the Medieval Mongols and Their Underlying Worldview

Funeral and memorial rituals, like all rituals, are an expression of the worldview of an ethnic group [etnos]. They do not remain unchanged, although they are among the most conservative elements of culture. Particularly interesting are rituals accompanying the burial of rulers, who in traditional societies have a qualitatively different ontological status than do ordinary people. The ruler of a medieval Central Asian state in ancient times and during the Middle Ages was the receiver and conductor of the heavenly grace (charisma) necessary for ordinary daily life activities, both those of society and those relating to the natural world. This force normalized relations between Heaven and Earth, between upper and lower, between what is one’s own and what is alien, and between ancestors and descendants. It harmonized natural processes important to people who lead a nomadic life, dependent on weather and the fertility of the steppes. T.D. Skrynnikova has conducted a thorough analysis of medieval Mongols’ ideas about the sacral character of the supreme ruler. She enumerates objects that embody charisma and, as a result, become cultic objects: “heads (skulls) and hair, belts, arrows, bones, banners, (spears, lances), walking sticks, knouts, drums, anthropomorphic images, trees, mountains, burial places, and so forth.” The burial places of medieval Mongol rulers is the subject of our study. Skrynnikova explains the well-known expression, “every mountain became an