Dashaa
Basic information
Interviewee ID: 990243
Name: Dashaa
Parent's name: Humbaa
Ovog: Borjigon
Sex: f
Year of Birth: 1938
Ethnicity: Halh
Additional Information
Education: blank
Notes on education:
Work: retired
Belief: none
Born in: Aldarhaan sum, Zavhan aimag
Lives in: Bayangol sum (or part of UB), Ulaanbaatar aimag
Mother's profession: herder
Father's profession: [blank]
Themes for this interview are:
(Please click on a theme to see more interviews on that topic)
work
belief
cultural campaigns
repressions
illness / health
Alternative keywords suggested by readers for this interview are: (Please click on a keyword to see more interviews, if any, on that topic)
herder
game naadam
work - labor
repression
cultural campaigns
ger furniture
belief
red injection
To read a full interview with Dashaa please click on the Interview ID below.
Summary of Interview 090703A with Dashaa
I was born in 1938 in the place called Nogoonhoshuu in the Zavhan aimag centre. I never attended any school for I was the only child in the family, therefore they didn’t send me to school. Until 1967 I tended the livestock and then I worked at the aimag food factory, and in 1974 I came to Ulaanbaatar to work for 17 years at the railway station affiliated to the Central Post. Then I went out to the countryside and in 1995 we moved close to the city to accompany our two children.
My father’s older brother was said to be an old man with a moustache. The people of his nutag used to say that he gave his livestock to the cooperative and became poor and he remained in his black ger. By 1959 the livestock amounting to more than 50 heads [per household] were cllectivised and all the people joined the negdel under pressure. My parents said they were given a few young animals. One of my two children went to serve in the army and he got married. He has never joined a collective.
One older brother of my father, who was respectfully called Böndög, was said to have been arrested; was it in 1937 or 1938? He was shipped on a truck and was confined in a big black ger. My father said they were made to dig a pit in a graveyard and at night time they were shot dead. It was said, at night time there could be heard guns shooting. It was said the people who had ranks higher than Gelen [a particular Buddhist title] were arrested. At that time people were very fearful when the lamas would be arrested. The astrologer Damdinsüren was said to have fallen into a hollow place right at the hill where he was shot. The people of his nutag protected him and, when the autumn came, they moved, putting him in a basket and in the summer he hid in the mountains, it is said. He is said to have come out of hiding in 1960.
At that time the chests of the ‘ails’ were ransacked and the Buddhas and sutras were confiscated therefore the ’ails’ used to conceal them in the caves. The aimag representative was selected and he was assigned to go to the brigades and seize the Buddhas and sutras from the ‘ails’. He would visit the ‘ails’, rummage around and say, “Destroy it while I look! I will check later!” So, the people took them to the mountains and exalted them in the mountains praying, “Please, my Buddha, forgive and save!” I think the peopel of Ulaanbaatar took them to Gandan. The useless Buddhas and gold and silver inside the grannies’ sewing box were cast at the foot of the bed.
