Jambaa
Basic information
Interviewee ID: 990566
Name: Jambaa
Parent's name: Puntsag
Ovog: Tsagaan ochir tergüün
Sex: f
Year of Birth: 1929
Ethnicity: Halh
Additional Information
Education: incomplete secondary
Notes on education: This most likely means 7 years of schooling.
Work: retired / negdel account, clerk
Belief: Buddhist
Born in: Bugat sum, Govi-Altai aimag
Lives in: Yosonbulag sum (or part of UB), Govi-Altai aimag
Mother's profession: herder
Father's profession: spy
Themes for this interview are:
(Please click on a theme to see more interviews on that topic)
childhood
education / cultural production
relations between men and women
collectivization
repressions
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To read a full interview with Jambaa please click on the Interview ID below.
Summary of Interview 100808A with Jambaa
When Jambaa guai was 9 years old, her father gave her to the Tonhil 'department' (for education) . At that time the ‘ails’ were reluctant to give their children to the department therefore 17, 18 year old children used to study there. The school provided the children with clothes and the food was decent. There were piles of clothes from the shamans and the lamas near the school, and the disciples from the horoo were directed to put on those clothes by the lamas and they did this to frighten the schoolchildren. The children often had measles and they were treated in beds around the ger. There were very few people who had medical knowledge.
Having graduated elementary school, Jambaa had tended livestock until she reached 18 and since she was literate she was sent to the sum to teach in a 'temporary group'. Those who studied well learned math and reading and writing in seven days. In 1949 the temporary schools were closed.
At that time the men often went away for schooling and military service, therefore generally the burden of all the collective work was on the women’s shoulders, Jambaa guai said.
In 1938, 1940 the educated people, the noblemen and the lamas with ranks were arrested by the ‘green hats’ and among them there were educated lamas, it is said.
Jambaa guai said the cultural campaigns were carried out twice and the first one she doesn’t remember well. If the cups were dirty, they had the people hold the cups and took the pictures of them and then hung those pictures on the board which had a great effect.
In 1957 Jambaa guai’s husband Genden, through his own initiative, assisted in establishing the collective called ‘Socialist way’. The herders were given incentives if they tended the livestock well and over-fulfilled the work requirement. At first, the establishing of cooperatives failed, and this was called a rightist deviation, and later the establishment of the collectives equalized people's living standards.
