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Counting sheep


Type

Video

Change log

Authors

Bulag, Uradyn E. 
Dorjraa 

Abstract

Sükhe, a Torghut herder in Bayanbulag, counts his sheep by letting them run on the rocky hills. Locals call these rocky hills the Snakehead Hill (Mogoi Tolgoi). As sheep and goats are in their robust condition in summer, there need to be some barriers, such as natural rocks shown in the video, to regulate them into a stream for counting. Sükhe says that August to September are an important period when they sell their domestic animals and get their annual income before the arrival of winter.Sükhe has 200 sheep and herds an additional 200 female sheep for another family at the cost of 100 lambs as his income per year. For this job, he hires a herder to whom he pays 60 lambs for his service. On average, 8 lambs will be deducted from the 60 lambs, which are lost due to various causes, such as wolf attack and disease. Therefore, in theory, Sükhe’s annual incomes totals about 240 lambs.

Description

Keywords

Torghut herder, counting sheep

Is Part Of

Publisher

Kalmyk Cultural Heritage Documentation Project, University of Cambridge

Publisher DOI

Publisher URL

Sponsorship
Sponsored by Arcadia Fund, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin

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