20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

William Rockhill's observations of Inner Mongolian tribal rituals... 483lady tourist who would soon become his second wife. On April 27, 1899,ROCKHILL left Athens to return to Washington to assist Secretary of StateJohn Hay on problems connected to China, including negotiating theBoxer War indemnity settlement. 8First Trip through Inner MongoliaLet us return to fifteen years earlier, when through the influence ofa U.S. Senator related to his wife, ROCKHILL left Switzerland in 1884because he received an appointment to the U.S. Legation in Peking asSecond Secretary. His contact with Mongolia began in the winter of 1888-1889. Departing from Peking on December 17, 1888, he planned to travelto the closed country of Tibet by following the northern route to Lhasathrough Lanzhou in Gansu Province and on to Xining and Koko-nor inQinghai Province – all areas inhabited by Mongol nomadic tribes. He setout disguised as a Chinese with only two mule carts bearing his belongings.An inquisitive observer of the lifestyles of those he met, ROCKHILL onthis first journey learned to speak some Kalmyk (Western) Mongolian.His commentary notes carefully distinguished among Mongols, Chinese,and Tibetans. His experiences with Mongols were personal, social, andcommercial, with no particular political import. However, his observationsand assessments were the first analytical impressions of the Mongolianpeople by an American official, and likely they did have an impact onhis American colleagues in the Peking Legation, who were tasked withobserving political and economic trends during the last decades of theManchu Qing dynasty.While making his way outside Koko-nor to the large KumbumMonastery associated with Tsongk’apa, the founder of the reformed GelugpaYellow Hat sect of lamaism, ROCKHILL met a variety of Mongols fromdifferent tribes. He reported on the San-ch’uan, who had distinctly Mongolfacial features and language, although they used many Chinese and Tibetanexpressions and wore Chinese-style dress, except on celebrations, whenthe women dressed in traditional costumes. 9 He even encountered MuslimMongols: “The only Mohammedan Mongols I heard of were called Tolmukor Tolmukgun,” numbering some 300-400 families, whom he thought werethe same as the Chinese Tung-kou, Potanin’s Amdo Mongols, Prjevalsky’sTaldy, Doldy, or Daldy peoples, and Mongolia’s Zagan or White Mongols. 108ROCKHILL actually worked as Director of the International Bureau ofAmerican Republics, but seemed to have worked almost exclusively on Chinese matters.Wimmel, 76-77.9ROCKHILL, Lamas: 43.10Ibidem, 44-45, n. 1.