URIANCHAJOWIE – PASTERZE „PĘPOWINĄ ZWIĄZANI Z AŁTAJEM”. KRAJOBRAZ JAKO ŹRÓDŁO TOŻSAMOŚCI MONGOLSKICH NOMADÓW
URIANKHAI – NOMADS ‘TIED TO THE ALTAI MONTAINS BY AN UMBILICAL CORD’. LANDSCAPE AS A SOURCE OF IDENTITY OF THE MONGOLIAN NOMADS

Summary/Abstract: Nomads are often perceived as people who do not have their own place in the world and who would nowhere feel at home because their home is in constant movement. However, starting from the analysis of the spatial practices within ‘the shepherd’s landscape’, in this article I point out that for Uriankhai people – nomads living in the Mongolian Altai – moving is such a kind of travelling that de facto is not travelling. Here, we are dealing with movement, which actually could be called ‘lack of movement’ because it is based on a constant circulation within one space that is called Altaj Delchij (the World of the Altai). From the statements given by Uriankhai people, Altaj Delchij could be analysed on two levels: as a mountain range (high, majestic mountains with snow-capped peaks) and as a powerful ‘force’ or a ‘spiritual entity’. What is crucial is the fact that the relationship between nomads and Altaj Delchij becomes a source of what I characterise as ‘Uriankhai identity’. It should be emphasised that Uriankhai people remain bound to Altai ‘by an umbilical cord’. This unusual relationship generates a unique sense of community and interdependence between people, place, and various entities and beings that inhabit ‘the Altai landscape’.

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