20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

556 Marie-Dominique Evenfather of the modern Mongolian nation, the herald of today’s values andthe solution to the present needs, the new historical narrative is eventuallyturning him into a myth. Ritual and religious features present in the officialceremonies associated to Chinggis Khan that develop up to state levelcontribute to strengthening the new myth as much as they depend on it.Of course, the existence of rituals concerning Chinggis Khan isnothing new among the Mongols. After his death, and parallel to thefamily cult going on at the camps of the various khans and princes of theimperial lineage, an official cult was set up in the Khentei mountain area,birthplace of Chinggis khan, where lie the graves and sacrificial places ofthe Chinggisids and their ancestors. A group of people taken from varioustribes and headed by a prince of the imperial lineage was eventually put incharge of various regular sacrifices to the spirit Chinggis Khan. The cult wascentered on worshipping various sacred objects and representations of thekhan that were preserved in the ordo(s), the royal camps of his main wives,and especially his black war standard (süld or tugh, made of horsehair), thesupport of the royal lineage tutelary spirit (süld) to which Chinggis Khanoffered sacrifices. Khubilai Khan moved the centre of the empire fromKharakhorum in Mongolia to present Peking in Northern China. There,under the Yuan dynasty he founded, a sinicized form of ancestral cult wasalso established next to the Mongolian form. Once the Mongols, chasedfrom China by a new dynasty (Ming), had returned to their life in thesteppe, Chinggis’ shrine was used as a source of political legitimacy by thepretenders to the throne. Mongol chronicles mention how the pretender hadto bow to the spirit of Chinggis for recognition. Following the migrationsof the Mongolian khans after leaving Peking, the imperial shrine endedup around the 16 th century in Southern Mongolia, and settled definitivelyamong the Ordos Mongols (named after the shrine’s “tents”, ordo). It wenton with some adaptation, still in the hands of a special community, calledDarkhad (“exempted of taxes and duties”). Today the “imperial precinct”(Ezen Khoriy-a) comprising the formely scattered Eight White Tents, islocated in the Ordos league of Inner Mongolia in China (due to the importantChinese colonization the league was turned into a Chinese town shi someyears ago). In 1954, the Chinese Communist government had decidedthe construction of a hall to house the tents and relics, against the will ofthe Darkhad who had earlier on, at the time of the Chinese Republicangovernment, already refused such sinicization of the Mongolian sanctuary.However, this time, the previously scattered sacrificial mobile tents andtheir relics were definitively installed inside a building. The site was badly