Mongolian Frame drum, also known as hengereg. Mongol shamanic drums have a single head stretched over a wooden frame and are held by an interior wooden handle. There are two such frame drums displayed in Ulaangom Museum, Uvs aimag (‘province’), Mongolia. The drum-handle of one of these, belonging to Badalgarav shaman from Züünhangai sum (‘district’), comprises two crossed wooden sticks. In addition, a twisted wire stretches along the back from which hang a row of small percussive devices (holbogo) in the shape of weapons. The handle of the second frame drum, belonging to a Tuvan shamaness, Yamaan, from present-day Naranbulag sum, is a single wooden stick representing the shaman's ancestor-spirit (ongon). The head and chest of the carved figure are coloured pink, its crown black, and its eyes and forehead bright red. The lower end of the figure/handle, with its red and blue patterns, give the impression of a costume. Along the wire that serves as ‘arms’ hang eight holbogo; others are attached to the drum's frame and also dangle as earnings of the ongon. Nine anklebones are fitted around the 185 mm-deep frame over which deer-skin is stretched. The beaters of both instruments are similar: one side bears percussive metal devices attached to a metal strip running like a spine down its leaf-shape; the other is made partly of single and partly of double hide.
Among Tsaatans of Hövsgöl aimag, north-west Mongolia, the frame and handle of the drum must be made from a larch tree struck by lightening. The instrument symbolizes the saddle animal on which the shaman travels or the mount that carries the invoked spirit to the shaman, and the animal is identified with that of the skin from which the single drumhead is made (Potapov). Among certain Mongol groups, the shamanic drum is called the ‘black stag’ (Heissig). That the Darhats of Hövsgöl aimag perceive the drum as a riding animal is indicated by the material used for it: horse-hair, reindeer's sinew, red cotton thread representing blood vessels, and anklebones; and the naming of its various parts: ‘ear’, ‘heart’, ‘backbone’, ‘sacrificial ribbon’, ‘halter’, ‘rein’ and so on (Diószegi). Drums are ‘enlivened’ during a special ceremony before being used for shamanizing. The skin of a Buryat Mongol shaman's drum in the possession of the Mongolian academic Tsoloo is decorated with representations of a moon and crow.
See also Mongol music.
W. Heissig: ‘Shamanen und Geisterbeschwörer im Küriye-Banner’, Folklore Studies , iii/1 (1944), 39–72
S. Badamhatan: Hövsgöliin Tsaatan ardyn aj baidlyn toim [A sketch of the lifestyle of the Tsaatan (reindeer) people of Hövsgöl] (Ulaanbaatar, 1962)
V. Diószegi: ‘Ethnogenic Aspects of Darkhat Shamanism’, Acta orientalia academiae scientiarum hungarica, xvi (1963), 55
S. Badamhatan: ‘Hövsgöliin Darhad Yastan’ [The Darhat yastan of Hövsgöl], Studia ethnographica, iii/1 (1965), 3–157
I.P. Potapov: ‘The Shaman Drum as a Source of Ethnographical History’, Shamanism in Siberia, ed. V. Diószegi and M. Hoppál (Budapest, 1978)
C.A. Pegg: Mongolian Music, Dance and Oral Narrative: Performing Diverse Identities (Seattle, 2001) [with CD]
CAROLE PEGG