Tsorgin Mod: Wooden Tube for Condensing Milk Liquor
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In this video, Buyantai elucidated one of his lifelong skills: crafting wooden tools. According to his explanation, this includes household items used to fashion from wood, animal skin, and wool. The former two are crafted by men, while the latter is predominantly completed by women. Although most male herders can fashion their everyday items by weaving or knotting leather from their livestock, wood crafting is a skilful job known to a relatively small number of people, and Buyantai is one of those skilled craftsmen. Buyantai has crafted over a hundred yurts and numerous other wooden and leather tools in his lifetime. Two notable crafting activities featured in this video are milk wine distilling wooden pump and the wooden frame of the yurt. Milk wine distilling wood should be carefully chosen for its revered features, selecting naturally bent woods, especially those bending towards the sun, rather than downward to the ground. Hollow the wood into a tube, through which milk steams condense into liquor on the other side of the wooden tube. Choosing the distilling wood and crafting requires specific knowledge not only about the wood but also about craftsmanship, which is Buyantai’s specialisation. The second tool he described is used for shaping the wood frame of the yurt, known as Ajirga Mod or stallion wood in English. As shown by Buyantai in this video, crafting the wood into a specific shape requires preparation work, such as heating wood in fire ashes or other methods like burning sheep dung, before placing the heated wood between the Ajirga Mod for further processing. Based on his experience, Buyantai, collaborated with Davaan Tügjei and crafted an Ordo, which is much larger, stronger, and more unique than the normal yurt, for the fifteenth incarnation of Shaliwan Gegen. Buyantai made a similar one in size to an older Ordo crafted by Yondon for the fourteenth Shaliwan Gegen. It features roof (Uni) poles, each measuring 3.3m in length, and seven wall trellis (Terem), each consisting of twenty-four poles (2.3m in length), connected by eleven rawhide ties. The crown wheel of the Ordo, made by another esteemed craftsman named Tsurhain Jimb, has 82 holes for inserting roof poles, while a normal yurt crown wheel would typically have 70 to 75 at most. Buyantai reassured me about the size of the yurt, stating that it is probably the largest yurt without any pillars to support the crown wheel. Hence, this Ordo could be considered a reflection of the traditionally respected size of a people’s yurt and could also be regarded as the last Ordo of Hobogsair.