Últims xamans dels Altai

In the month of July, 2005, I traveled to Mongolia with Odgerel Ochirjav, who had to help me with the translations from Mongolian into Catalan and through the video footage of the expedition to the west of the country.

After a few days of acclimatization in the capital, we took the plane to Bayan-Ölgii the heart of the Altai mountain range (near the border with Kazakhstan). The collaboration of the ethnologist Doctor Bikumar was definitive so we could approach and film the last redoubts of shamanic culture, as well as get in touch with traditional musicians of the region.

The music recorded and filmed with the instrumentalists of morin khuur (vertical viola of two strings), tsoor (vertical flute accompanied by voice for the same instrumentalist) and singers of khuumii (guttural song) of the Altai, reflected the proximity of the telluric song.

Once the recordings were made, both sound and video, we went to the Khovd region where Dr. Ganbold, ethnologist and expert of folklore and archaic forms of shamanism awaited us. Here we were able to approach the shaman A.Jhurmaan of Islamic tradition and film one of his ceremonies. In the same room in Khovd we were also working with a singer of tuuli (ballad form) of the Altai.