Unit 7, Listening 1, The Reindeer People


The Reindeer People

Narrator:       We were all once nomads; but in the central Asian nation of Mongolia, many of the people still are. Herders are constantly on the move, finding fresh grasses for their animals. Mongolia’s geography, a boundless wilderness with soil that can’t sustain agriculture, forces people to embrace the nomadic life. Sanjeem is a nomadic reindeer[1] herder. He and his people are caught between two worlds. Theirs, and one in which Mongolia’s urban elite calls on nomads to settle.

Sanjeem sits, mounted on one reindeer, and drives about 50 others with coats of white and mottled charcoal up a rock-strewn grassy slope.

Sanjeem (via interpreter): Our ancestors have herded reindeer here in mountains of Mongolia for generations. We keep our animals here, and we actually follow our reindeer where they want to go because the environment and the climate are perfectly suited to our reindeer. This is the basis of our culture.

Narrator:       Sanjeem’s an elder within a group of 207 people, 44 families. Every few weeks he moves camp in the taiga[2], a vast expanse of mountains, forest, and ice straddling Mongolia’s border with Siberia. Today, though, Sanjeem is worried. When Mongolia’s communist government was toppled[3] by a democratic revolution in the 1990s, his state salary was withdrawn.

Sanjeem:       Under communism, there was a policy of taking care of everyone. There was less poverty then. Personally, I prefer democracy, but we are a young democracy, and some of us are not managing to make a living.

Narrator:       Herders and their families are trying to cope. With the end of state subsidies, free veterinary[4] care ended. A reindeer is milked on a flat patch of frozen ground beside a teepee[5]. Reindeer milk, cheese, and yogurt are staples of the taiga diet.

Smoke from a wood stove escapes through the open top of the tent. The sweet aroma[6] of juniper incense fuses with the smell of musky canvas. Yudoon, a wind-burnt reindeer herder in his mid-30s, watches the fire. He and his wife, Uyumbottom, have a decision to make.

Yudoon (via interpreter): Honestly, I’m not sure our reindeer and our reindeer culture will continue to exist. I really don’t know what will happen to us. The number of families trying to leave the taiga is increasing, while the size of our reindeer herd is decreasing, due to disease and attacks by wolves. So I’m not sure we can expand our herd to the point it would support the families.

Narrator:       But Yudoon’s wife, Uyumbottom, isn’t willing to give up. She’s just returned from the capital, Ulaanbaatar. She went to parliament and met government bureaucrats[7]. She pleaded for financial and veterinary support. The economic advisor to Mongolia’s president did not have encouraging words. Uyumbottom received nothing of substance[8]. Only a pledge that the government will hold a seminar on herders’ issues at some time in the future. Still, she calls the trip a success.

Uyumbottom (via interpreter): We were at least listened to. We were able to speak for ourselves in our own voice. I’m encouraged by this.

Narrator:       There are Mongolians working to help the herders. Marnagansarma is a government veterinarian who’s made the trek—three days by jeep, then eight hours by horse—from the capital to visit Sanjeem and his herd. She’s here on vacation, working with two American NGOs[9].

Biologist Morgan Kay of Colorado heads the NGO Itgel, the Mongolian word for hope.

Kay:                Modernity has many faces, and if we learn nothing from encountering these people, at least let us remember that the way we choose to live in the West is only one way, and it’s still possible for people, even in the 21st century, to be living a subsistence[10], balanced lifestyle that leaves them at the mercy of natural forces that we’ve become totally separate from.

Narrator:       Herder Sanjeem still has hope.

Sanjeem:       As long as we can continue earning our living by raising reindeer, our culture will survive. Myself and other elders always tell the young people how to herd the reindeer properly. That is the obligation the older generation must fulfill to the younger generation.

Narrator:       Herders know they’re at a critical moment. They can settle. But Sanjeem says that would be the end of who they are as a people, and that’s a thought he can’t even contemplate.


[1] reindeer: noun a large deer with antlers

[2] taiga: noun a forest that grows on wet ground

[3] topple: verb to cause someone or something to fall over or lose power

[4] veterinary: adjective connected to the care of animals

[5] teepee: noun a tall tent shaped like a cone

[6] aroma: noun a pleasant smell

[7] bureaucrat: noun an official working in the government

[8] substance: noun a solid, liquid, or gas

[9] NGO: noun a non-government organization

[10] subsistence: noun the state of having just enough money or food to survive

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