몽골의 민속종교사상 속에 내재된 영적세계관의 지속가능한 축제화

The Sustainable Festivalisation of Spiritual Worlds embedded in Folk Religious Thoughts in Mongolia

This article introduces how folk religious thoughts in Mongolia have been transmitted into contemporary Mongolian society. Also it suggests that these folk knowledge and tradition are still applicable and so should become a variable asset in the global context as world intangible cultural heritage. UNESCO makes a great effort to rediscover intangible cultural heritage in every corner of the world. As far as nomadic culture and tradition are concerned Mongolian folk religious thoughts would be world representative and the most unique intangible cultural heritage Mongolia has to offer. Mongolian folk religion often contains not only super-natural but also unique nomadic spiritual worlds and it compasses natural religion, animism, ancestor worship, manaism (preanimism), totemism as well as shamanism. One way of maintaining and preserving Mongolian folk religious thoughts today is to vitalize nomadic festivals like Naadam which contains not only folk plays but also religious rituals. In other words, to some aspects Naadam festival still preserves nomadic traditional spiritual worlds which are embedded in Mongolian folk religious thoughts. Since Naadam festival contains not only Mongolian tradition and folklore but also contemporary culture and fashion, Naadam festival was listed as World Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO in 2010. Naadam festival persisted from the old time through Ching s colonial era, nearly seventy years socialist era and the post-socialist period till today’s contemporary modern Mongolia. Also Naadam festival contains folk beliefs, traditional songs, music, clothes, food, plays, and other various traditions and customs. If we examine existing research tendencies on Naadam festival it would be possible to suggest relative new future research perspectives. For example, some topics of these research perspectives are annual customs, gender, constructivism, folklorism, cultural resources, cultural contents, intangible cultural heritage, sustainable development, etc. The relationship between Naadam festival and sustainable development seems so far to be the most important forthcoming research subject. Naadam festival is also called “Men’s three main games”, namely wrestling, horse riding and archery. Those folk games today present some elements of spiritual worlds of nomadic people as well as traditional religious thoughts. Hence, I suggest that in order to publicize and thus make sustainable development of Mongolians traditional spiritual worlds possible today would be festivalisation of folk religious thoughts through Naadam.