In our first six days in Siberia, we drove 1700 km, or 1200 miles. All this time spent on the road was not only a means of getting from here to there, but a cultural experience in itself. Our first long car ride took us from Ulan-Ude, the capital of Buryatia, to a small town on Lake Baikal called Ust-Barguzin. Bumpy dirt roads began right outside the city. As our two vans climbed in the mountains on precarious, unpaved roads, we made our first of many short stops. It looked like any other part of the road except here the trees were adorned with colorful pieces of cloth. The ground was scattered with coins and rice left by other travelers. This place was an obo, or holy place that blends Shamanist and Buddhist traditions.
Each color of the prayer cloths we saw has special meaning. Blue is a symbol for the sky, white for water, and yellow for family. Like at Buddhist temples, people offer coins, rice, and other small gifts to the gods at an obo. As everyone piled out of the vans and lined up along the road, our professor handed each of us a small cup of clear liquid. It was vodka – another gift, this time according to Shamanist tradition. We dipped the ring finger of our left hands, supposedly the cleanest, and flicked the drops to the four cardinal directions.
All of these practices are to ensure safe travels. We learned that the road we were traveling was one of the most dangerous in Buryatia. To ensure their safety, drivers never go past an obo without offering a gift. Sometimes a driver will toss rice or grain out the window instead of stopping. For one of our drivers, Zhambal, a plastic bag of rice was a permanent fixture on the dashboard. In her book Shaman’s Coat, Anne Reid provides an example of what happens when someone does not offer a gift at an obo: “The other week he hadn’t bothered to stop at a big obo on the road to Selenginsk. A few miles on his car broke down, and he had to walk all the way back to give the gods cigarettes. On his return, it started again straight away.”
We had a similar experience when our driver, Valot, fell sick a few days into the trip. We learned that when he called his mother she told him that the cause of his illness was neglecting to offer a gift at an obo. In order to get well, she said, he would have to offer something extra at the next opportunity. When we drove into Zabaikalsky National Park the next day, we stopped and Volot scattered milk into the woods. This area was unmarked but held special significance as a symbol of the beginning of a journey.
Of the many obos we saw on the road, we stopped at one especially sacred place on the edge of a huge valley. What makes this place so special is a naturally-occurring grey stone in the shape of a bull’s head. Like the obos we had seen before, the Bull Stone was surrounded by coin offerings and prayer cloths. We left our own offerings as we walked clockwise around the stone, the same direction of all movement in a Buddhist temple. We were not the only visitors at this site. When we arrived, a shaman dressed in traditional blue robes was performing a ritual with a family. From the small bowls they carried, the family poured a white substance onto the rock. This could have been belaya pishcha, or holy white food that symbolizes cleanliness and purity in Buryat culture. Near the rock was a large pile of glass bottles, evidence of many past offerings of milk and vodka.
What we observed at Bull Rock provided a good example of the mixing of Buddhist and Shaminist beliefs in Buryatia. As people raised in a Judeo-Christian society where different religions are treated as mutually exclusive, it has been very interesting to see two faiths of different origin so closely intertwined. Here in Buryatia, traditions seem to blend together into one faith. As our guide Evgeny Dmitrievich told us, “it’s all one God.”
Additional reading about obos:
http://baikal.irkutsk.ru/index.php?rubr=14&doc=62
Additional reading about Shamanism and Buryat Culture:
http://www.buryatia.ru/buryats/fire2.html
