What is Mongolian shamanism?
Mongolian shamanism is the animistic and shamanistic tradition of the Mongolian steppe, known in Mongolian as Böö Mörgöl — roughly, böö worship or shaman practice. It centres on Tengri, the eternal blue sky treated as the supreme cosmic power, and on a class of specialists — male böö and female udgan — who enter altered states to mediate between the living and the spirit world. The tradition has existed in recognisable form since at least the Xiongnu period (3rd century BCE) and was the religion of the Mongol empire at its height under Genghis Khan (r. 1206–1227).
Mongolian shamanism vs Tengrism and Mongolian Buddhism
Mongolian shamanism is sometimes conflated with Tengrism, the broader Turkic and Mongolic sky-worship complex found across Inner Asia. Tengrism is a cosmological orientation — Tengri as the sky power, Earth as its counterpart — present across several steppe cultures without any shamanic specialists. Böö Mörgöl is the Mongolian practice built specifically around the böö as ritual intermediary. The two overlap in Mongolia but are not identical.
Mongolian Buddhism is a separate tradition. Vajrayāna arrived in Mongolia through the court of Kublai Khan in the 13th century and became the dominant religion from the 16th century onward. The two traditions coexisted uneasily for centuries. Buddhist monasteries absorbed or suppressed shamanic practice in central Mongolia, while in northern and western regions — especially among Buryat communities near Lake Baikal — Böö Mörgöl survived, often merging syncretically with Buddhist elements.
Tengri, Earth, and the spirit world
At the summit of the Mongolian cosmos is Tengri — in the phrase Mönh Khökh Tengri, the eternal blue sky. Its counterpart is Etugen or Eej Gazar, Mother Earth. Together they form the two poles of a living, responsive cosmos. The spirit world is further populated by ongons — spirits inhabiting specific places, objects, and animals — and by ancestral spirits who remain active in the lives of the living. The Mongolian tradition does not treat ancestors as departed. They are participants who must be regularly honoured and consulted.
The böö enters altered states through rhythmic drumming, specific garments, and spirit songs. Tasks include healing the sick, retrieving lost soul-parts, divining causes of misfortune, and guiding the recently dead. The drum, tövshin, is both instrument and vehicle: it represents a horse or reindeer on which the shaman rides across the three-tiered cosmos. Upper sky world, middle human world, and lower underworld form the vertical axis. This three-world structure is one of the features that shamanism researchers treat as recurring across Eurasia and the Americas independently of cultural contact.
History: empire, suppression, and revival
Mongolian shamanism reached its widest political expression during the Mongol empire. Genghis Khan performed sky-worship rites before campaigns and consulted böö specialists alongside Buddhist and Taoist advisers. As the empire fractured, Mongolian royalty shifted toward Vajrayāna patronage. The Mongolian People's Republic (1924–1992) suppressed both shamanism and Buddhism as superstition. Monasteries were destroyed, lamas executed, and böö forced to practice in secret or not at all.
The democratic transition of 1990 opened space for revival. New shamanic associations registered as civil organisations. Scholars including Caroline Humphrey documented surviving practice in Buryatia. Today the revival carries both a spiritual and a nationalist dimension: Böö Mörgöl is reclaimed as the pre-Buddhist indigenous religion, distinct from any imported tradition. Historians and practitioners disagree about what constitutes authentic lineage versus neo-shamanic reconstruction — the same debate that runs through most indigenous revival movements worldwide.
In the index
The index does not yet hold dedicated items on Böö Mörgöl specifically. The shamanism entry covers the broader cross-cultural context in which the Mongolian tradition operates. The animism entry addresses the worldview underlying it. Those approaching the tradition through its Buddhist encounter will find relevant material under Vajrayāna and the Dalai Lama entry, which traces the Mongolian-Tibetan patron-priest relationship in detail.