Intangible Heritage Section/UNESCO www.unesco.org/culture/ich/ July 2008

Safeguarding of the Traditional Morin Khuur Music of Mongolia

I. Background

The Morin Khuur, known as “horse-head fiddle” after the ornamental horse-head adorning its upper end, has figured prominently in Mongolian culture for over seven hundred years. The two-stringed instrument is an essential part of ceremonies, rituals and everyday life in nomadic Mongolian society.

With recent urban migration and other socio-economic changes, the Morin Khuur is increasingly detached from its traditional milieu and original functions. Having moved from the hearth to the concert hall, the Morin Khuur remains popular, but risks losing its intimate link with the people and their environment.

Responding to UNESCO’s 2003 proclamation of the Traditional Music of the Morin Khuur as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, the project under discussion was implemented between 2005 and 2007 by a team of the Mongolian Commission for UNESCO, the Ministry of Culture, and the Center of Intangible Heritage.

II. Objectives and activities

The project’s goal was to document, revitalize, and promote Morin Khuur music and, in the long run, to encourage individuals, groups, institutions - schools in particular - and organizations to create a sustainable local ICH management system. The main project outputs included:

 One-month courses at four secondary schools, on a master-apprentice model  The production and publication of a Handbook on basic methodologies and recommendations to learn to play the Morin Khuur and Ikel instruments according to traditional methods  Crafting of instruments: 5 Morin Khuurs, 20 Ikel Khuurs and 8 Tsuukh Khuurs (regional Khuur varieties  Establishment of a Morin Khuur theatre in Dundgobi Province and a Morin Khuur cultural centre in Darkhan-Uul Province  Local media broadcasting training sessions and performances  Audiovisual recordings of Morin Khuur performances, which were fed into an ICH database.

The project team organized one-month courses at four secondary schools, in participation with provincial governments, which granted instruments to selected families and supported players and artisans. At the schools, the formal, nation-wide teaching and professionalized training methodologies were enriched by apprentice-style informal teaching approaches, which explored local celebrations and rituals to ensure a contextually embedded transmission. First,

1 Intangible Heritage Section/UNESCO www.unesco.org/culture/ich/ July 2008 training sessions to raise the capacities of 108 Morin Khuur teachers were organized; they, on their part, in the framework of the project, trained 342 students.

Trainings were organized in various aimags (counties) - Dundgobi, Hovd, Bayanhongor, Hovsgol, Darhan-Uul, Zavhan, Gobi-Altai, Orhon, Gobi-Sumber, Dornogobi, Uvs, Umnu-Gobi, Orhon, Uvurhangai, Hentii, Dornod and Sukhbaatar - as well as on a smaller-scale and outside the project’s framework in Selenge, Gobi-Altai, Tuv and Bulgan aimags.

The project strengthened the professional quality of national audio-visual documentalists who compiled DVDs and VCDs and CDs of about 100 hours of Morin Khuur music from all regions of Mongolia. Publications include the Handbook on basic methodologies and recommendations to learn to play the Morin Khuur and Ikel instruments according to traditional methods and the recommendations from a National Safeguarding Consultative Meeting. Field research compiled an inventory of Morin Khuur varieties managed at the Centre for Intangible Heritage.

A notable effect of the project is that it stimulated provinces to undertake their own initiatives to multiply the project’s effectiveness and ensure its sustainability. For example, Dundgobi Province announced 2006-07 as “The year of safeguarding and propagating the musical and cultural heritage”, and created a Morin Khuur theatre, a children’s art festival, an award recognizing local artists, as well as cultural celebrations for individual districts in the provincial centre.

Darkhan-Uul Province established the Darkhan Morin Khuur Centre, whose Board brought together representatives of the governmental, non-governmental, and local, private companies. The Centre organized a youth ensemble, a youth competition, and periodic Morin Khuur trainings on local TV channels. The involvement of local media was an innovative approach to ICH transmission and one particularly sensitive to the growing number of nomadic people in possession of TV sets. Importantly, the campaign did not only use TV but also focused on master-apprentice interaction at schools and at the Morin Khuur Centre.

III. Lessons learned and on-going work

At the end of the project, the implementing team convened all those that were involved for an evaluation of their capacities, of resources, and of potential future partnerships. The team noted its inability to revitalize Morin Khuur’s use in herder households, as this is a complex, long- term process that requires on-going participatory activities beyond the framework of one project.

The workshop recommended that the government should improve training facilities in schools, and encourage the teaching and production of Morin Khuur through subsidies, micro loans, and tax exemptions, as well as non-material, symbolic awards, for instance in the framework of a Living Human Treasure Programme. It was also recommended that Mongolian cultural planning continue supporting local practices that are distinct from national approaches to

2 Intangible Heritage Section/UNESCO www.unesco.org/culture/ich/ July 2008

education and professional arts, as was seen in the divergent approaches to training methodology.

Schools, cultural institutions, and communities should all stimulate, in their own way, the music’s informal transmission not only in the nomadic milieu and at school - where Morin Khuur instruction still needs to achieve national dissemination - but also as an alternative pastime in urban areas, where estrangement, poverty, and violence among rural migrants could be at least partially addressed through musical projects that might strengthen social identities.

UNESCO’s recognition and this project encouraged the development of Mongolian cultural policies, with the Government, for instance, ratifying in 2005 the 2003 ICH Convention. However, outside the project, unsecured funding jeopardized the future of the Centre for Intangible Heritage where the Morin Khur inventory is kept and managed.

The participants considered that the various initiatives had contributed to a better appreciation of musical expressions of nomadic groups by Mongolian society at large. They recommended that local and national TV programmes on traditional music should be further encouraged.

Morin Khuur training in Gobi-sumber province with teacher B.Banzragch

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Teaching Handbook Morin Khuur training in Khovd province with famous player M. Dovchin