HOW MONGOLIAN PASTORALISTS MANAGE THEIR HERDS OF SHEEP AND GOATS: Herd formation and control in Arkhangai province, Mongolia

Abstract

Goats and sheep are the oldest domestic gregarious herbivores. Day-trip herding of sheep and goats can be considered a man-animal interaction that forms the basis of the domestication process. Quantitative studies of man-animal interactions during day-trip herding have been conducted in Africa, where herds of domestic sheep and goats with fixed membership have two unique behavioral characteristics (Ohta 1982; Shikano 1984, 1999; Hazama 2002). One characteristic is that herds do not mingle with each other when they happen to come in proximity during day-trip herding. If they accidentally join, they separate by themselves. The other is that they have the ability to learn the route of the day-trip and repeat it autonomously with little intervention by the herdsmen. It is thought that these characteristics are acquired with the herdsmen's repeated interventions during day-trip herding (Tani 1976, Ohta 1982, Shikano 1984, 1999). However, I observed different results in Mongolia. Herds of sheep and goats mingled frequently, and on all such occasions, the herders struggled to restore them to the original herds as quickly as possible. The differences between Mongolia and other areas appear to stem from differences in socio-economic factors such as the social organization involved in- animal management, the folk knowledge of animal behavior, the concepts of animal management, and the influences of the natural and social backgrounds, as well as technical factors like herding skills. This article clarifies how herds of sheep and goats are managed in Mongolia from a socio-cultural perspective.