Mongolia is a legendary country with vast steppes in all directions. But it's not all grasslands, and the Gobi.
Mongolia's more famous province in the South Gobi is the South Gobi Province, with an area of 165,000 square kilometers, which is the largest province in the country, with 14 administrative counties and 55 townships under its jurisdiction. It borders the cities of Ulanqab, Baotou, Bayannaoer and Alxa League in Inner Mongolia, China.
The most abundant minerals in South Gobi province are coking coal and copper, and there are two most important ports for raw coal exports in the province, the Gashu suhaitu port and the Xibokulun port, which are opposite to the Ganqimaodu port in Bayannaoer City in Inner Mongolia and the Ceke port in alxa league.
The southern Gobi province has the worst sand and dust weather, the coldest winters, and as a province dominated by animal husbandry, livestock breeding has been challenged as never before, so the province's livestock owners should mainly graze Bactrian camels and goats.
Bactrian camels can drink water for days without drinking water at a time, because the complex pipes in its nasal cavity prevent water from escaping from the body. And the camel is very resistant to hunger, and it is no problem not to eat or drink for several days, which stems from its hump and abdominal cavity. In addition, camels are very environmentally friendly and have little harm to the grasslands.
The Mongols have "five treasures", namely horses, cattle, camels, sheep and goats and other five animals, of which camels are revered as the "king of the five animals", camels can solve the problem of difficult transportation of materials, meat, fur, dairy products are also very popular.
Camels are lambed every 2 years and milked for 14 to 16 months per lamb. Camel milk has high nutritional value, and at the same time can detoxify snakes and relieve varicose veins.
The "custom of mother camel milk persuasion" in Mongolia's "camel culture" is also included in the list of world intangible cultural heritage.
In Mongolia, the mother camel has a bad habit of not feeding the lamb after the lamb is born, and not letting the lamb near her. Mongolian herders will comfort the mother camel who abandoned the lamb with pleasant music and evoke her maternal memory; At the same time, this method is also used to comfort the mother who has given birth to a dead lamb, let her adopt other lambs, and eliminate the grief of the mother camel because of the loss of the lamb. This method of using music to convey feelings to camels is known as the "custom of mother camels persuading milk".
But the prairie is not always serene and quiet, and there is always an undercurrent behind her, such as wolves.
In the southern Gobi of Mongolia, grasslands are badly damaged and the number of wild animals is decreasing day by day, resulting in frequent wolf plagues. Herders here herd livestock, not only to guard against the cold winter, but also to prevent the attack of the steppe wolves, and it is possible to lose all their money for a while.
Steppe wolves, with a cruel and greedy personality, will kill the sheep and camels, so they are especially hated by herders. Many herders do not dare to leave the sheep for a moment when grazing, as long as the wild wolves seize the opportunity, a bag of cigarettes, the livestock can be bitten to death by the wolves.
Steppe wolves not only eat sheep, but also plague sheep. If you are hungry, eat one, and chase and bite one by one, as if you are addicted to killing, as long as you enter the sheep, you will never bite one, it will always kill a lot of sheep in the flock, chasing and biting like crazy, and the result is that the sheep bitten by the wolf have become fragments. ”
Steppe wolves sometimes besiege herders' camels to death at the right opportunity, then drag them into the distance to eat them.
Sometimes steppe wolves also attack herders, and a proverb is popular in the Mongolian steppe: "The wolf shoulders shoulders, does not turn back, and may lose his life when he turns back."
The steppe wolf will put its claws on the shoulder of the person without the person noticing, or tap the shoulder of the person with its claws, and when the person turns his head, it will bite the person's neck and lock the throat to kill, but this wolf rarely attacks people, unless it is already hungry.
For thousands of years, the Mongols did not share the sky with the wolf, regarded the wolf as an enemy, and had to be exterminated. Herders who have lived on the grassland for generations chase after wolves when they see them, fight when they catch up, and must be killed, which is already a custom. The herders never idolized the wolf, but instead saw it as an eternal enemy.
Herders worship immortality, worship nature, worship ancestors, but do not worship wolves, why? Because on the steppe, wolves and herders are competitors for survival, and they are a hostile relationship between you and me. ”
There is a proverb in the Mongolian country: "Don't bring fire when throwing ashes, beware of wolves when herding cattle, no wolves that do not eat meat, no foxes that do not trick ghosts, hear dogs bite and take whips, hear wolves howl and take guns"
Herders fight back against steppe wolves
Herders do not easily provoke steppe wolves, and unless they find that wolves attack people or livestock, causing them serious damage, they will fight back and hunt steppe wolves.
In Mongolia, several herders would follow the footprints left on the ground by hungry wolves, and if they found wolves during the tracking, they would cooperate with each other to chase the wolves on horseback until the wolves were tired and slow down, and then they would suddenly wrap the neck of the wolf with a horse pole until the wolf obediently grabbed it, and then they would get off their horses and tie the wolf's mouth and carry the yurt.
Another method of wolf hunting is that when the herders follow the footprints of the wolves, they will never find any trace of the wolf, so they will lay a wolf clip in the place where the footprints of the wolves are dense, waiting for the wolf's self-casting net.
There is also a method of wolf hunting, holding a shotgun near the place where the footprints of wolves are dense, but this is generally more time-consuming, perhaps a day, perhaps a week, because the wolf's sense of smell is very sensitive, once detected, it will disappear without a trace, and the herders can only return home.
But the herders never hunt young wolves and pregnant she-wolves because they know the laws of nature very well.