Traditional Mongolian Archery
Today we went over to the Naadam stadium and watched the traditional archers, practicing and competing in the weeks prior to the big Naadam festival.
Note the jovial look on the archers firing……………. now look at the second picture, these guys are standing at the targets judging and then picking up the arrows. This has got to be the most unsought after job in Mongolia.
Like horse racing, the sport of archery originates from the warring era, starting from around the 11th century.
Archers use a bent composite bow made of layered horn, bark and wood. Usually, arrows are made from willows and the feathers are from vultures and other birds of prey.
Traditionally dressed male archers stand 75m from the target, while women archers stand 60m from it. The target is a line of up to 360-round gray, red and/or yellow leather rings (known as sur) on the ground. Usually there are only about 20 or 30 rings. After each shot, special judges who stand near the target (but miraculously never get injured) emit a short cry called a uukhai, and raise their hands in the air to indicate the quality of the shot. The winner who hits the targets the most times is declared the best archer, or mergen.
Wow …. amazin’ what that next mas muchos cientos dollares in camera technology can get you! I am purely envious …
Also, I guess I have to ask … why are they catching arrows? Do they just try to catch the misses, keeping the arrows from damaging themselves on the rocks or what have you?
Most importantly … do they get paid for this? In Thailand they’d just give them free Mekong but then, of course, you’d never see any older ones …..
Comment by MCMorgan — June 14, 2006 @ 6:39 pm
Actually they are not really catching the arrows, rather standing there and judging how close to the targets and then collecting them to take back to the archers.
Comment by Anonymous — June 15, 2006 @ 1:18 am