著者

吉田 順一

出版者

Society of Inner Asian Studies

雑誌

内陸アジア史研究 (ISSN:09118993)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.31, pp.1-26, 2016-03-31 (Released:2017-05-26)

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This paper presents a study on crop farming agriculture of the Mongol nomads in the Mongolian highlands. The paper essentially concludes that both the nomadic Mongols of Eastern Inner Mongolia and the Khalkha Mongol nomads, who widely inhabit the central and northern parts of the Mongolian highlands, have been sharing a number of common features since the Mongol Empire, demonstrating particularly strong connection to millet – such as prefixing the Mongolian word for "millet" with the predicate "Mongol", referring to "millet" with the single word "Mongol", and predominantly cultivating millet. They also use the same cultivation method that does not interfere with their nomadic lifestyle and consists in sowing seeds after the rainy season in early summer just before leaving for summer pastures (with no irrigation or random irrigation) and harvesting on their return from the pastures before autumn frosts set in (in Eastern Inner Mongolia this traditional type of farming is called "namuγ tariy-a"). This method differs from the one adopted in the Western Mongolian highlands inhabited mostly by Oirat nomads who learned crop farming from the Bukharans and mainly cultivate cereals with substantial irrigation.