Mendnasan
Basic information
Interviewee ID: 990568
Name: Mendnasan
Parent's name: Dalh
Ovog: Hoid
Sex: f
Year of Birth: 1947
Ethnicity: Halh
Additional Information
Education: tusgai dund
Notes on education: nurse
Work: herder
Belief: Buddhist
Born in: Sharga sum, Govi-Altai aimag
Lives in: Yosonbulag sum (or part of UB), Govi-Altai aimag
Mother's profession: herder
Father's profession: herder
Themes for this interview are:
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childhood
herding / livestock
collectivization
illness / health
privatization
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Summary of Interview 100810A with Mendnasan
Mendnasan guai together with her husband worked at the hospital, and then were directed by the party to herd livestock. When they worked there the children’s section had manual heating and the hospital attendants made the fire.
When she was small, the children first learned to ride goats in order to learn to ride horses, and she learned to ride horse when she was six. In 1958 she went to school and the schoolchildren had uniforms which was blue drill-cloth deels for boys and green for girls.
Mendnasan guai’s uncle Sambar was arrested for reading a document to the lamas and he was taken away. The lamas arrested in their homeland were killed in the place called Nuur Mogoin Hüree.
During the cultural campaigns, in addition to inspecting the the households the administrative offices were also inspected and if it was dirty, a pig was given to the place. The hospital workers visited ‘ails’ every Wednesday with lectures. The literate people were assigned to teach the neighbouring people their ABCs.
Initially only the agitators subscribed to the newspapers and then later everyone started subscribing.
In Sharga sum initially a collective called 'Ulaan tug' was established and the collective took all the cattle leaving 50 head to each ‘ails’. Later the number of livestock increased to 75. In case the collective livestock perished, the herders had to pay but during the drought and zud they were taken care of. When the communes were founded before the collectives, a massive tax was paid according the number of livestock owned, therefore the people gave away their livestock to the poor.
Now it has become hard to tend the livestock and the articles on herders’ experience and knowledge are not published in the newspapers. Nature has changed and the seasons have altered and the summer and the spring are not different from each other.
Mendnasan guai told about a rare red tree that grew in their homeland and that she was going to take measures to preserve that tree. She has also re-stocked 12 households with livestock.
