How to make a modern Buryat onion. Buryat bow and arrows. It all started with an ancient bow

The bow and arrow, native to the Buryats, is one of the oldest production tools and weapons. They were widespread among the Buryats until the middle of the 18th century; until that time they were the only type of ranged weapon, since the Buryats were forbidden to use firearms. In addition, reinforced bows were more convenient for horse hunting, and they were preferred over the primitive guns of that time. N. Witsen wrote: “And although they have very good muskets, they were still more willing to use bows and arrows against the enemy, because they could fire two or three arrows before loading the musket.” From the second half of the 18th century. Onions were used by the Buryats along with firearms. In the XIX - early XX centuries. The bow continued to be used by hunters, but to a greater extent it was now used in raid hunts, which was most likely caused by the greater adaptability of the bow and arrows to horseback hunting. A similar phenomenon was observed among other nomadic pastoral peoples of Siberia. Tuvans until the beginning of the 20th century. They hunted with bows and flintlock guns, and the population of Altai used bows until the 19th century. inclusive.

Boo The ryat distinguished two types of bows (nomo and manza no-mo). The first bow shape had an almost round kibit (wooden base) in the center, flattening towards the ends, while the second was flat and wide. The bow was very resilient and long-range. As M.N. pointed out. Khangalov, the Buryats brought such bows from Mongolia; in fairy tales and legends they were called bukhar shara nomo. Perhaps the shape of the bows is due to the fact that climatic conditions were taken into account when making them. According to the observations of an Arab researcher, bows with narrow horns, which included a lot of tendons, were made for moderately hot and cold regions; For areas with extremely hot and extremely cold climates, bows were made in which the wooden base predominated over others and had wide horns. Both varieties of onions among the Buryats, apparently, represented a new ethnographic form of a universal type of onion, called “Mongolian” in the specialized literature.

The length of the bow in a free state approaches 160 cm; archaeological materials from medieval Transbaikalia show that the size of complex bows at that time reached an average of 150-160 cm. The bow consists of four layers: from birch wood, on the inside of which there is horn or bone ; on top of the tree on the outside are tendons, and on top of them is birch bark. The first three layers give the bow strength (husen), providing it with long range, and birch bark protects it from dampness.

Buryat bows have five main sections, or parts, and four connecting, or nodal, points. All of them have different functional purposes: the handle (baryuul) and two shoulders (burees) contain the throwing power of the bow. On both ends with inside there are end plates 18 cm long. In addition, there are front end plates (slightly smaller in size than the first ones) with a cutout (hershele) for the bowstring (hubshe), under the knots of the bowstring on the plates there are fillets (tebhe). All components are connected at nodal points, which are like the joints of a bow. Tendons located across the bulb enhance the elasticity of the onion.

Bowstring stands carry an important functional load. This specific detail of Asian bows acts as a limiter for the inertial movement of the bow arms. By fixing them at the level of its height, it does not allow the bow to turn in the opposite direction after shooting and returns it to its original position. The front end plates have a similar load, allowing the kibiti to oscillate within the interval specified by them.

Technological The process of making a bow was quite complex, requiring professional skill and a long period of time. To make onions, the Buryats used dried birch, boiled birch bark, and cow horns boiled until soft, which they cut into flat pieces, leveled, and sometimes made a mosaic base of kibiti from horns of two colors, alternating them. For bows they took long tendons from spinal parts of the animal, sometimes they were removed along with the skin (a belt cut from this part was called sur (Nur)). The use of dorsal tendons of deer, elk, bulls and other animals was due to the fact that these long, strong elastic fibers had the ability to stretch under the influence of external influences and then contract again when this influence stopped.

An important technological process is gluing tendons: firstly, when gluing tendons, it was necessary to calculate the tension force of the bow, and secondly, gluing the next layer of tendons occurred only after the previous one had dried. This drying lasted from four days to a week. When the entire sticker was finished, the thickness of the tendons reached approximately the thickness of a thumb. It took about 2 years to make the bow. To give the bow range, or so-called reflexivity, the finished bow was placed in a special frame, where it was kept in a dry room at room temperature for a year. All parts of the bow were glued together with fish glue or glue made from the skin of a skinny cow or from scraps of skin and deer antlers. This glue fastened horn, bone, and tendons well, was highly resistant to moisture, and was also elastic; it firmly held the glued parts in those places where they were supposed to bend and stretch.

For tet willow, the Buryats used special raw materials, which was due to the fact that it, being the most important part of the bow, had to be strong and resistant to deformation - both pulling out the bowstring and shortening it are equally dangerous. The bowstring was suitable for grinding raw materials with spinal parts of the skin, as the strongest, but the skin from the belly of a skinny cow was considered the best. The rawhide belt was cleared of fat, stretched, twisted, the bowstring prepared in this way did not stretch or shrink, maintaining its original length. The bowstring was also made from the intestines of skinny sheep, which, when raw, were smeared with melted butter and then rolled. Such a bowstring was good for warm weather, but it stretched due to dampness. The bowstring is made of twisted raw horse hide, according to I.E. Tugutov, retained elasticity during frost.

The presented materials make it possible to assume that among the Buryats there is differentiation of the bowstring according to its seasonal purpose. A horsehide bowstring was more acceptable in the winter, and a string bowstring in the summer. There are two methods for the Buryats to fasten a string to a bow: in the first case, the support for pulling the bow is the feet of the outstretched legs of a sitting archer; in the second, in a “standing” position, the bow is passed under the left leg and the right leg serves as a support for pulling the bow. Methods for securing the bowstring are to some extent ethnically distinctive load, in the specialized literature the methods described above are defined as characteristic of the Mongols.

The wide range of uses of bows and arrows as hunting tools for various game and wild animals and as military equipment is indicated by the variety of designations for the arrow and its components in the Buryat language: arrow - nomo; an arrow with a horn or wooden tip - godli; arrow with feathers - uudhe; an arrow without feathers is moho; arrowhead - zebe; arrowhead with four holes - zen (g); horn whistle - zen, yanan zorho.

Along with the usual means of production, there were special tools for making arrows. Such an instrument was called mono, hence the name of the craftsman - monoshin. There are known references to special knives used to make arrows; in the Mongolian language they were called onibchi, in Buryat monuments - sumuchi.

Buryat craftsmen carefully selected material for bow shafts from good wood; this tradition has been known to nomads for a long time. Page spruces made from low-quality and poorly prepared wood were crooked and unsuitable for shooting. Dried birch shafts provided the main technical requirement to the arrow - it must be perfectly straight. This inherent quality is reflected in the language. The word nomo (arrow) is also used in the meaning of “straight (like an arrow)” and, in addition, has a figurative meaning of “straight, honest.” About high technical qualities Buryat arrows are evidenced by the fact that the eastern Tuvans valued them and exchanged them for furs.

The above materials indicate that the Buryats paid a lot of attention to the quality of their arrows. This was probably also due to the prestige of the male hunter, especially since at the end of the hunt everyone recognized their arrows and collected them. “In order not to risk losing honor and self-respect, I did not want to shoot with a wet or unusable arrow, for the one who shoots best enjoys the greatest fame among them.”

Buryat arrows reach a length of 80 to 100 cm, their thickness is 1 cm, at the end of the shaft a notch is made for placing it on the bow string, and above the notch it is wrapped with tendons, which facilitates the process of pulling the bow. For the same purposes, sometimes a thickening or several side notches are made above the “ears” on the shaft, which makes it easier to fix the arrow. These specific details of Buryat arrows are due to the characteristics of Mongolian-type bows and technical methods of use. They are functionally justified.

Opera Buryat arrows (usually 3 or 4) are made from the feathers of a goose, crane, eagle and other birds. For this, only tail feathers are used, since arrows covered with feathers from the wings fly obliquely. According to other sources, for the direct flight of an arrow it is important to use hard and smooth feathers, either tail feathers or from the flight wings. When fletching arrows, the Buryats observed the following rule: all the blades of the feathers must have the same length and width and bend in one direction, which gives the arrow helical rotation and stability in flight. In addition, when shooting at a target, the flight characteristics of feathered arrows were taken into account. So, for example, an arrow with feathers taken from the right wing of a bird rotates in flight from left to right, and vice versa.

The Buryats knew arrows even without feathers (moho). These were arrows with heavy tips. They could function without feathers and reach the target quite accurately, as this was facilitated by a heavy iron tip, which, by balancing the parts of the arrow, ensured straight flight. In this case, the shape of the iron tips played a significant role. The Tuvans made arrows with iron tips without shaft feathers.

Functional features determine the variety of arrowhead shapes. Birds and small animals were beaten with arrows with a wooden or bone cone at the end, as well as with light arrows with a narrow iron tip; large animals were killed with arrows with wide diamond-shaped metal tips. The Buryats chose arrows depending on the distance at which the horse archer was shooting: “At close range, arrows with narrower tips are used, at a distance - with wider and multi-feathered ones. This is obviously based on the fact that at a long distance it is important that the arrow holds further in flight and could, if not hit the target, then at least touch it with its sharp edge or edge.”

In hunting practice, they used tips with bone whistle pads. This ancient tradition of using whistling arrows in hunting was preserved among the Buryats until the beginning of the 20th century. When the deer left his pursuers, a whistling arrow was fired after him, which delayed the animal listening to its flight. Whistling arrows were used in squirrel hunting. Seeing a squirrel hiding between the branches, the hunter shot a “singing” arrow higher than the tree. Frightened by the whistle, the squirrel sank lower or jumped to another tree, and the hunter shot at it with an ordinary arrow.

We find interesting data on the use by the Buryats and Mongols of arrows with bone whistle pads for military purposes in N. Witsen. He wrote: “The arrows... had a thickened front end made of bone, they had three or four whistles on them, which whistle very loudly in the air, which is funny to hear. ... Their commanders of military detachments shoot such whistling arrows over their heads their troops in order to arouse courage in them, and also in order to give orders with this sound, depending on the direction in which they shoot.”

The synchronous distribution of these varieties of hunting arrows in the territory of Southern Siberia has been known since ancient times. In the graves of Kudyrge, an image of a broad-bladed arrowhead and a bunch of arrows that did not have metal tips, slightly thickened and pointed at the end, were found. Arrows with bone whistle attachments were widespread in the Xiongnu era and in the first half of the 1st millennium AD. A number of arrowheads, identified from archival materials, most likely relate to combat ones and are evidence of a developed military equipment among the Buryats.

For hunting, arrows with blunt wooden or bone tips, light ones with a narrow sharp spear, and also arrows with a flat, wide diamond-shaped iron tip were used. During hunting, tips with whistle attachments were used. Combat tips were intended for piercing armor and chain mail; according to the nature of the cross-section of the feather, they were flat and faceted. When choosing arrows, the distance at which the target was to be hit also mattered.

At Techniques for stringing a bowstring and methods of archery.

The Buryats draw the bow strongly, the right hand, in which the string and the end of the arrow are clamped, moves back so that the string is behind the ear, and the left hand is extended to its full length, and the tip of the arrow approaches the bow itself. To protect the fingers and hands, a special thimble was used, made from a hollow bone (yanan erhe) or sewn from thick leather, it was put on thumb right hand. When pulling the bowstring, the index finger was placed on the thumb, while the thumb carried the main load, and the index finger helped it by pressing from above. In specialized literature, this method is known as the Mongolian method: “The arrow is held deep in the notch between the thumb and forefinger. This way of holding the string helps it deflect to the left, therefore, with the Mongolian method, the arrow is always placed to the right of the bow.”

During round-ups, rutting and driving, the Buryats fired while galloping. This tradition of horseback hunting and mounted combat developed a long time ago and is characteristic of nomadic peoples. N. Witsen wrote very vividly and figuratively about the methods of shooting while galloping by the Buryat nomads: “...they sit low on the horse, which they do in order to more easily turn the bow in the direction away from the enemy, then they sharply turn towards him to shoot, but always shoot upwards so that the arrow falls straight from top to bottom when it has the greatest force, as he clearly showed me and how this is mathematically justified... When releasing the arrow, he kept both eyes open... and knew how to calculate the time so that when he shot the second arrow "After the first, I saw several times how the second almost touched the first, and both arrows fell at the same time, very close to each other. Truly I would not have believed it if I had not seen it."

The bow was held in the bow (khoromgo), with the bowstring down. The bow protected the onion from dampness and damage. The bow was made from a single piece of embossed leather (bulgari), the seam running along the long side of the product. The arrows were kept in quivers (saadak). In the XIX - early XX centuries. These quivers were of an open type, on a rigid frame wooden base, covered with the same leather as the arms. To conveniently place arrows in the quiver and protect the feathers of the arrows, it had distributors made of thick cord covered with red fabric. The quiver could store from 4 to 15 arrows, depending on the type of arrows and the nature of the hunt. Bows and quivers were decorated with metal plaques, which may have protected the warrior from enemy arrows.

The Buryats wore the bow on the left side, and the quiver with arrows on the right side. This was due to the fact that when shooting, the arrow was taken from the quiver right hand tip first. The bow and quiver were also attached to the belt with special rings. If the ring was placed in the central part of the back side of the bow, then the belt was threaded through it, while the bow hung not vertically, but obliquely, which was convenient for horseback riding. Quivers were worn on a long belt across right shoulder, positioned in such a way that they cover the right side of the back and forearm, resting on the elbow. Archaeological materials from Eastern Transbaikalia, dated from the 1st to the beginning of the 2nd millennium AD, show the presence of several types of iron rings and hooks for these purposes. The methods of attaching quivers and beams, preserved in this territory from the indicated time to ethnographic modernity, allow us to characterize them as traditional for Mongol-speaking peoples.

The ancient Buryats were completely dependent on the nature around them. A dangerous and restless life gradually led him to the conclusion that in order to successfully ensure his safety and obtain food, it was necessary to hunt together. M. N. Khangalov writes: “What could the ancestor of the present-day Buryats, armed with his simple tools - a bow, arrows, a spear, a knife or a spear, do with them (meaning predatory animals)? How could his safety be ensured, both from these terrible enemies and from an even more terrible enemy - man? How, finally, could the success of this man’s hunt be ensured if he went out alone?”

For a long time, each of the ancestors of the present-day Buryats independently resolved these issues, dying from the paws of a bear or the horns of an elk, before they came to such a simple idea that a connection with other tribesmen and joint action were needed. This is how the “zegete-aba” roundup hunt was born.

Brief descriptions of roundup hunting in the 17th century are available from Isbrants Ides: “In spring and autumn, they (i.e., the Buryats) unite in crowds of up to 1000 people and go on horseback to hunt deer and wild goats. This hunt is called "abaa". When they arrive at the place where they have tracked the game, they disperse separately around the surrounding area in order to more conveniently overtake the animal and surround it with a ring. If they can reach him with their arrows, then each shoots from his bow, so that the rare beast will remain alive, because each archer, one after the other, can fire thirty shots.”

Nature itself demanded improved hunting techniques and tactics, and preparation of young people for it. There were games and dances, imitative of the traditional occupation - hunting. With the change in the socio-economic conditions of the ancient Buryat, their transition to nomadic cattle breeding, games reflecting their labor process acquired an independent form in the form physical exercise.

The most significant and popular games of the Buryat people were archery, wrestling (buhe-barildaan) and horse racing, which went down in history under the general name - surkharban. It is also popularly known as “eryn gurban naadan” (three games of husbands).

Yesterday I found an interesting work “Land of Mergenov”, where 10th grade student Liana Munkueva talks about Buryat archers. The extensive material she collected also speaks about the Agin archers:

“With their national bows, Agin archers first entered the Avangard stadium in 1957, when the world festival of youth and students was held in Moscow. In addition to traditional types, they became acquainted with a number of sports innovations, including archery.
Polish, Czech and Finnish archers were surprised by the demonstration performances of Buryat archers using the national bow without a sight, which preserved the traditional form of ancient times. The arrows were wooden, longer than the classic ones, and instead of a target on the cinder track, colored felt rollers - “suras” - were laid in a row. The length of the rollers was 10 cm, and the diameter was 8 cm. Dressed in bright national costumes, the Buryat archers entered the shooting line and, easily pulling the bowstring, very quickly, as if not aiming, accurately sent arrow after arrow into the red felt roller - “lasti” , symbolizing the center of the target. Such precision amazed the entire stadium.

Bows and arrows that had been stored for many years were mostly unsuitable for shooting. But it was planned to organize mass team competitions. Who can restore seemingly lost bows? And such a person was found - Dondok Erkhetuev from the village of Zutkuley - a master of the most ancient technology for making national bows. It was he who, for 40 years, restored and restored ancient bows and made new ones. Thanks to such a master, it was possible to create the material basis for the development of mass national archery in the Aginsky National District."

It must be assumed that a year after the performance Buryat archers At the Avangard stadium in Moscow, the editorial office of the newspaper Komsomolets Transbaikalia sent its correspondent to Zutkuley, to Dondok Erkhetuev. It's time to talk about Buryat onions.

And a few years after these events, people started talking about Buryat archers all over the world.

The international festival "Altargana-2016" in Buryatia promises to be a major event in the history of Buryat archery surkharban. The government of the republic, together with athletes and activists from other Buryat regions, studied the situation with Buryat archery. The experience of previous shootings in Mongolia was taken into account, as well as new realities in the technologies for manufacturing the Buryat bow. The rules of surkharban at Altargan 2016 have been slightly updated.

Teams for Surkharban will consist of nine people (6 men, 3 women). On the first day of the competition, all participants will shoot at distances of 50 m, 45 m. For each day, two test shots are given at the initial distance. Then, at each distance, the participant performs 8 qualifying shots, in series of 2 arrows; if during the shooting process one or both arrows break, then only replacements are allowed. You cannot shoot the same arrow twice in a row, i.e. series. Sequence of distances: 50 m, 45 m. For knocking out the “lasty” the participant is given 3 points, to the left and right of the “lasty” - 2 points, the rest - 1 point. Number of sterns at stake: 6 pieces on each side of the “lusty” - 12 pieces in total.

Bows and arrows in Buryat culture remain important symbols, a kind of markers of tradition and at the same time dynamism, movement through centuries and generations. Buryat shooting surkharban has become one of those elements of traditional culture that has survived in the modern world and has a good chance of development.

Sports in general and national sports in particular, as researchers and specialists note, have an interesting dependence on the socio-economic indicators of the country and/or region. Thus, at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, seven of the top ten positions in terms of the number of gold medals were occupied by representatives of the G8 countries. However, non-G8 countries China (1st place), Australia (6th place) and South Korea (7th place) also showed excellent results. Among the countries of the then G8, Canada did not make it into the top 10, and the United States slightly surpassed China in the total number of medals (gold, silver and bronze). Note that Australia and Korea are far from leading in terms of population; their success is not the result of simple “pressure by numbers.”

The phenomenon of developed countries' success in sports is usually explained increased attention rich states to invest in the field, from the construction of capital sports infrastructure facilities to the holding of mass, but not rating, competitions and games in courtyards, in parks and on the streets of populated areas. On the other hand, historians pay attention to the mutual relationship of indicators.

The Industrial Revolution in almost all countries was accompanied by a massive migration of peasants to cities, where the level of alcoholism and crime rose. Reforms in the social sphere, including those related to the organization of life and leisure of the proletariat, caused not only a decrease in tension in working-class neighborhoods, but also contributed to an increase in the quality level of the labor force. In turn, the improvement of the social sphere, health and education of the proletariat allowed developed countries to move towards the production of high-tech products. Thus, the relationship between mass sports and the socio-economic development of a country/region manifests itself in both directions, although this manifestation is uneven in terms of time.

If government injections into sports infrastructure may affect formal results in the first 5-7 years, then tangible returns from the development of mass sports take a period of about a generation (20-25 years). At the same time, in mass sports, what is important is not so much formal indicators, for example, the number of medals, but rather the breadth of coverage of the population. In turn, the popularization of a sports lifestyle among the masses sooner or later leads to success in the international sports arena, which is clearly visible in Australia. In this country, the passion for sports immediately catches the eye, even on a rainy day there is no empty place sports grounds. On university campuses in winter time(and there darkness sets in already at 6 pm) on football fields turn on the spotlights and students practice until late evening. When the weather is rather unkind (in winter the temperature drops to +2-0 in the evening), in the rain and wind, you can see people running or playing sports everywhere in the green areas.

Quite noticeable popularization healthy image life in South Korea. In this country, the introduction of sports hobbies to the masses goes in sync with the so-called “Korean wave,” pop music and cinema, which promotes a total fashion for physical beauty. In densely populated cities, it is extremely rare to find people who are obese, significantly overweight, etc. Young people are amazed beautiful figures. The massive passion for team games, unlike in Australia, is not so noticeable, but, apparently, young Koreans devote a lot of time to individual lessons in fitness centers and gyms.

Korea, by the way, is a kind of non-Mongolian analogue of Buryatia in terms of a range of national sports. For Buryatia (and almost every other Mongolian region, with the exception of Kalmykia), horse racing, wrestling and archery were native and never interrupted traditions. Exactly the same applies to Korea, with the difference that here it is not the ancient ssirrym wrestling that has become more popular outside the country, but the relatively new martial arts Taekwondo.

Korean bow and Korean shooting technique are not the same famous brand countries like taekwondo, but it is, along with Japanese and Mongolian, one of the three most famous modern bows, which continue to be made using traditional technologies, and from which shooting competitions are held. Since there is a stable and, with the development of the Internet, growing community of archery enthusiasts in the world, interest in traditional types Archery competitions in the 21st century have also grown, perhaps by an order of magnitude.

Buryat onion, having its own history and technology (it differs from the “Khalkha bow” currently accepted in Mongolia), as well as annual competitions, is becoming increasingly famous every year. This is mainly the result of the enthusiasm of individual popularizers and masters conducting some kind of activity on the vastness of the global network. The state, being much more interested in formal indicators, tries to focus primarily on Olympic sports sports, and regular sports shooting from a bow.

This is the general approach not only of Russia, but also of many other countries. To some extent, Russia can be understood here, because there are a lot of national sports on its territory, and you can’t keep up with all of them. However, such exclusive and potentially spectacular sports as Buryat archery should receive more attention. The opinion that national sports have no prospects and supposedly have a limit to their popularization comes across examples of baseball and numerous martial arts in the countries of the Far East. All these species were promoted outside their regions, by and large, over a short period in the 20th century. Sooner or later, investments in promising sports will return, albeit not in direct form, but indirectly.

Today, support for Buryat archery is mainly carried out by the Republic of Buryatia and the Buddhist Traditional Sangha. On the territory of the Republic, according to estimates from the Ministry of Sports of Buryatia, about 300 people practice archery according to national rules and there is an upward trend. Starting this year, Republican competitions for children and youth begin to be held. An assignment project has been prepared sports categories to Master of Sports of the Republic of Buryatia. In terms of financing, small but still positive changes are also finally taking place, although specific numbers are not announced. All this inspires hope and demonstrates attention to the topic.

In terms of bow manufacturing technologies, life has made its own adjustments, and today the situation is such that athletes with bows made using modern materials are increasingly taking part in competitions. Such bows have an advantage over purely traditional ones, so the shooting distance on the surkharban will be increased. If previously shooting was carried out at distances of 45 and 30 m, then this year at Altargan it is planned to increase the distances to 50 and 45 m.

In the future, it would be nice to revive some ancient Buryat types of archery, which have increased entertainment value. First of all, it is worth mentioning the bai-harban competitions, which existed within the memory of living people, and were held during the Great Patriotic War in the Bichur and Mukhor-Shibirsky regions during prayers at the Oboo.

In addition, there was a very interesting tradition of shooting for accuracy and penetrating power at the same time. This type was apparently practiced the longest by the Buryats of the Ekhirit tribe. Here an original target in the form of a cart wheel was used, in front of which a piece of felt was hung. The arrow had to pierce the felt and hit the central hole of the wheel. Legends stated that some baturs could pierce wet felt or even several pieces of felt with an arrow. Presumably this most interesting view comes from the military exercises of the nomadic Mongols, who set up their camps (kureni) inside a ring of carts and carts. To protect against mounted shooting, curtains were installed in the smoking areas from freely hanging long pieces of felt, in which arrows got stuck, especially if the felts were wet. Shooting at the wheel through a piece of felt probably imitated an assault on such a nomadic kuren.

A software engineer makes Buryat bows using ancient technologies

The tradition of making Buryat onions may be interrupted. Kalmyks, whose regiments, armed with bows and arrows, took Paris as part of the Russian army in 1812, no longer compete in shooting from their Surkharban national type weapons. Is this really the future fate of the traditional Buryat onion? But once upon a time the ancestors of the Buryats in the Chinese Empire were called “the nation of bows and arrows.”

It all started with an ancient bow

No, I’m sure that the tradition will not be interrupted,” says Dilgyr Tsyrendorzhiev, a software engineer at the Buryat National Boarding Lyceum and a weapons enthusiast.

As a child, he saw Buryat archery competitions more than once, but he got the idea to make a real national bow himself eight years ago. Then an ancient bow fell into his hands.

The bow was already 150 years old, but it was in excellent condition, - recalls Dilgyr, - it is difficult to convey my feelings when I held it... I saw ancient battles. The whistling of arrows and the clatter of thousands of hooves. Horses snoring. Galloping horsemen, striking the enemy without missing a beat. The sound of a bowstring and the rustle of a flying arrow. The wind was in his face and the whole steppe was ahead... for a long time I didn’t want to let go of him.

Dilgyr Tsyrendorzhiev set himself the task of making a bow the way the Buryats did one hundred, two hundred, one thousand years ago.

Unfortunately, here in Buryatia, I was never able to learn from the masters,” says the master, “those people with whom I communicated are either jealous of their secrets, or are engaged in an outright “remake”, passing it off as a traditional Buryat bow . I had to restore the traditions of making the Buryat bow from books, from materials on the Internet, in personal conversations with historians and archaeologists. Last year I met one master who came from Aga to Surkharban. He has made several bows and is truly a great master in this matter. Unfortunately, I lost contact with him, as far as I remember, he is a former driver, and now, in retirement, he makes bows.

Dangerous profession

Dilgyr made his first bow for six months:

The bow turned out good, but I didn’t follow the recipes of our ancestors in everything, and as a result, after one of the shots, the horn on the bow broke off, and the textolite with which I replaced the animal’s horn was simply torn into pieces. It's good that I wasn't hurt during the shooting. After that, I decided to follow ancient technological subtleties in everything and use only original materials.

Dilgyr explains that specialists share everything traditional bows into two types: simple and complex. Example simple onion- this is English, you all saw it in films about Robin Hood. Essentially, it is just a wooden stick bent into an arc, the ends of which are pulled together with a bowstring. An English master could make several of these yew bows per day. The Buryat onion is a variety of the Mongolian compound onion, which was made for at least two to three years. He has five wooden parts glued at four connecting points, and three layers of sinew, wood and horn that accumulate energy when the bowstring is pulled. All this is protected from the outside by a thin layer of birch bark to protect it from atmospheric moisture. All of them have different functional purposes that improve the shooting qualities of the weapon.

Director of the Moscow Museum of Nomadic Culture, Konstantin Kuksin compares English and Mongolian bows:

An arrow from Robin Hood's bow flew only 300-400 meters, and from a Mongolian bow - 800 meters. Therefore, if Mongol archers and troops of European knights had clashed, say, in the 13th century, of course, the Mongols would have won. It’s as if they were now fighting with Kalashnikov assault rifles against flintlock rifles, that is, they were inaccessible to the enemy.

Work for two years

Dilgyr began making his second bow after long break, when he returned to live in Ulan-Ude from Moscow. This time it took him two years to make the bow. He began by visiting republican museums and traveling to villages, where he copied ancient bows and arrows and took drawings from them. Having decided on the model, he began harvesting wood.

The wood from which you can later shoot must be selected with special care. - says Dilgyr. - You need the trunk of a birch tree growing in the valley, where it stretches with all its might towards the sun, which is why it is straight and has almost no branches, and therefore no knots. From an already cut down tree, only the northern part is taken, because the wood is denser there. I followed all the recommendations that have survived to this day.

Dilgyr boiled the harvested wood in a large cauldron, and dried the resulting material at home for several months. He wanted to buy bull horns for bows at the BMP, but just before his arrival some wholesaler bought up a long-term supply of horns at the plant. I had to be content with cow ones, which are more tortuous and short. I had to straighten the horns by hand very carefully, heating them over a candle. The insufficiently long cow horns were supplemented with fragments of elk horn, and we had to use modern material - ebonite.

The tendons with which the outer part of the bow is glued were prepared in the following way: First, the tendons are separated from the carcass of a cow or horse and dried until they become transparent. Then, on an anvil, the tendons are split into fibers, divided into strands a millimeter thick, and only then they are long and carefully glued onto the bow in several layers. Traditionally, glue made from swim bladder Baikal sturgeon, but now it is listed in the Red Book. And the sturgeon glue, which is sold legally, was too expensive for Dilgyr at that time. So bone glue worked just fine. The ends of the bow, where the string rubs against the wood, were covered by the master with fish skin.

Dilgyr Tsyrendorzhiev took the bow he made with him to Kid `s camp, where, as a teacher, he taught lyceum students the basics of Buryat archery.

I deliberately made it loose enough so that even a child could pull the bowstring,” says Dilgyr. - Children shoot with a bow with great pleasure; one might say, they themselves are drawn to history. Many of my friends bring children to our field trips so that from an early age they know what a bow looks like, how the bowstring clicks when you shoot an arrow at a target.

Sacred family relic

Now friends and acquaintances bring Dilgyr old bows that have been kept in their family for many years. He almost always refuses requests for restoration.

“I saw examples of unsuccessful, almost barbaric restoration, when ancient patterns and the author’s trademark (“tamga”) were simply torn off from a two-hundred-year-old bow,” says Dilgyr. - Of course, I would be very curious to disassemble the old bow myself, to see how the ancient master made it, but it seems to me that it is better not to take it at all if you are not sure that you can do it right. I would only take on small repairs. My historian friends say that, by and large, the history of Buryatia has not yet been written. And it is very important to preserve antiquities as much as possible, especially in such an important area as combat history. I don’t want any talented historian from the Belarusian Scientific Center to remember me and my restoration with a bad word in the future. There is another reason why I do not recommend restoring bows. According to many beliefs, the strength of this family, this clan, can be stored in family weapons, which are passed down from generation to generation. And after the weapon is unsuccessfully repaired, the unique “tamga”, which has religious significance, is removed, the core of the family may break.

The master also told his favorite Buryat legend associated with a bow and arrow.

There is a legend that tells about a black enchanted arrow, says Dilgyr, once fired from a bow, this arrow will fly after its target until it hits it. It is impossible to hide from it or shoot it down in flight. The only way for the condemned to escape is to sprinkle arshan on it, then it will become soft and, having hit the person, will not kill him, but will only hit him lightly.

A bow could be used both for hunting and in battle. For battle, original arrowheads were used: the crescent tip cut off the enemy's head, the needle tip was supposed to penetrate between the joints in the armor, the serrated tip caused maximum wounds when it was pulled out of the body. Arrows with blunt tips that did not damage the skin were intended for fur-bearing animals.

Having made the second bow, Dilgyr is already thinking about the third. Now that he already has the wood harvested, the process of creating weapons can be shortened to five months. When asked if he will make custom bows, Dilgyr shrugs. It is unknown how much such work can be valued.

Masters of national bows are a “piecemeal” people. For example, in Korea with a population of 47 million, there are no more than 10 people who have dedicated their lives to making Korean onions. Mongolia has approximately the same number of archery masters. Dilgyr Tsyrendorzhiev hopes that in Buryatia young people will become interested in continuing the tradition of the Buryat onion. He is ready to help everyone with advice and pass on the experience of older masters.

It’s hard to describe the feeling you feel when you make your first bow, says Dilgyr, “it’s like joining the ranks with your ancestors, feeling involved in history and feeling proud. The Buryat bow is a time machine that transports distant ancestors to the era of harsh life and military glory.

Buryat bow and arrows Techniques for stringing and methods of archery Buryats pull the bow strongly, the right hand, in which the string and the end of the arrow are clamped, moves back so that the string is behind the ear, and the left is extended to its full length, and the arrow tip comes to the bow itself. To protect the fingers and hands, a special thimble made of hollow bone (yanan erhe) or sewn from thick leather was used; it was placed on the thumb of the right hand. When pulling the bowstring, the index finger was placed on the thumb, while the thumb carried the main load, and the index finger helped it by pressing from above. In specialized literature, this method is known as the Mongolian one: “The arrow is held in the depth of the notch between the thumb and index finger. Holding the string in this way helps it deflect to the left, so with the Mongolian method the arrow is always placed to the right of the bow.” During round-ups, rutting and driving, the Buryats fired while galloping. This tradition of horseback hunting and mounted combat developed a long time ago and is characteristic of nomadic peoples. N. Witsen wrote about the methods of shooting while galloping among the Buryat nomads: “...they sit low on the horse, which they do to make it easier to turn the bow in the direction away from the enemy, then they turn sharply towards him to shoot, but they always shoot up like this , that the arrow falls straight from top to bottom when it has the greatest force, as he clearly showed me and how this is mathematically justified. When releasing the arrow, he kept both eyes open... and was so good at timing that when he fired the second arrow after the first, I saw several times how the second almost touched the first, and both arrows fell simultaneously, very close to each other. Truly I would not have believed it if I had not seen it.” *** When hiking or hunting, the bow was kept in the bow (khoromgo), with the bowstring down. The bow protected the onion from dampness and damage. The bow was made from a single piece of embossed leather (bulgari), the seam running along the long side of the product. The arrows were kept in quivers (saadak). In the 19th – early 20th centuries, these quivers were of an open type, on a rigid frame wooden base, covered with the same leather as the arms. To conveniently place arrows in the quiver and protect the feathers of the arrows, it had distributors made of thick cord covered with red fabric. The quiver could store from 4 to 15 arrows, depending on the type of arrows and the nature of the hunt. Bows and quivers were decorated with metal plaques, which may have protected the warrior from enemy arrows. The bow was worn on the left side, and the quiver with arrows was worn on the right side. This is due to the fact that when shooting, the arrow was taken from the quiver with the right hand, tip forward. The bow and quiver were also attached to the belt with special rings. If the ring was placed in the central part of the back side of the bow, then the belt was threaded through it, while the bow hung not vertically, but obliquely, which is convenient for horse riding. Quivers were worn on a belt over the right shoulder, positioned so that they covered the right side of the back and forearm, resting on the elbow. *** Archaeological materials from Eastern Transbaikalia, dated from the 1st to the beginning of the 2nd millennium AD, show the presence of several types of iron rings and hooks for these purposes. The methods of attaching quivers and beams, preserved in this territory from the indicated time to ethnographic modernity, allow us to characterize them as traditional for Mongol-speaking peoples. The ancient Buryats were completely dependent on the nature around them. A dangerous and restless life gradually led him to the conclusion that in order to successfully ensure his safety and obtain food, it was necessary to hunt together. M.N. Khangalov writes: “What could the ancestor of the present-day Buryats, armed with his simple tools - a bow, arrows, a spear, a knife or a spear, have done with them (with the predatory animals)? How could his safety be ensured, both from these terrible enemies and from an even more terrible enemy - man? How, finally, could the success of this man’s hunt be ensured if he went out alone?” For a long time, each of the ancestors of the present-day Buryats independently resolved these issues, dying from the paws of a bear or the horns of an elk, before they came to such a simple idea that a connection with other tribesmen and joint action were needed. This is how the “zegete-aba” roundup hunt was born. *** A brief and rather colorful description of an episode of round-up hunting among the Buryat tribes in the 17th century is available from Isbrants Ides: “In spring and autumn, they (i.e., the Buryats) unite in crowds of up to a thousand people and go on horseback to hunt deer, wild goats This hunt is called "abaa". When they arrive at the place where they have tracked the game, they disperse separately around the surrounding area in order to more conveniently overtake the animal and surround it with a ring. If they can reach it with their arrows, then each shoots from his bow, so that the rare beast will remain alive, because each archer, one after the other, can fire thirty shots.” Nature itself demanded improved hunting techniques and tactics, and preparation of young people for it. There were games and dances, imitative of the traditional activity of hunting. With the change in the socio-economic living conditions of the ancient Buryats, their transition to nomadic cattle breeding, games reflecting their labor process acquired an independent form in the form of physical exercises. The most significant and popular games of the Buryat people were archery, wrestling (buhe-barildaan) and horse racing, which went down in history under the general name “surkharban”. It is also popularly known as “eryn gurban naadan”