Fire sacrifice “Gal tahih”
The Mongols worship fire as a symbol of life and prosperity. To the Mongols, Fire is a god (Galin burhan) and on the grassland, fire is the most respected of all gods. In the past, Mongolians used milk wine to toast to the fire before eating. Now it is held on the 23rd day of the 12th lunar month each year.
There is a folk saying that the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month is the day to send the god of Fire to heaven. The god of Fire has lived in this family for a year. He wants to report to heaven about the good and evil of this family, because the daily life of the grassland herders cannot do without fire, so fire can see all the behavior of people. The herdsmen believed that fire was the messenger of heaven, and what the fire god said was related to the next year's harvest, luck and wealth.
The fire offerings of the Mongols are very particular, including lamb breast bone, ox shin, lamb ribs and so on. The cooked lamb breast does not touch the inside of the rib cage, and all the meat on the outside surface is scraped away, leaving only the complete breast skeleton composed of the basic bone body and surrounding soft tissue. The inside of the rib cage is placed upward in the special offering plate, which is filled with various grains, five-color cloth strips, milk food, incense, juniper leaves and other articles. From the sternal stalk of the breast skeleton to a pair of pectoral wishbones are wound with home-made wool or camel's wool thread, on which are placed the hollowed-out tibia with only a film, on which are placed a long strip of ribs with the same flesh shaved, and finally covered with a soft Hadag（silk ribbon), topped with cream, covered with a net of lamb's fat over the top of the sternum, and placed on the table in front of it with the head facing the fire. The "fire brace" is the stove, which is located in the middle of the yurt. It is a circular iron shelf formed by four brace bars and three or four cross rings welded. The lower end of the four brace bars is on the ground and the upper end is an iron pot.
In addition to the above offerings, there are also containers filled with copper coins, paper gold ingots, five-color strips of cloth, and milk food. There is also a container called a "Lucky drum" used for the ceremony, in which cooked meat scraped from sacrificial offerings such as lamb breast, shin bone and spare ribs and other essential meat such as meat sausage and honeycomb stomach are filled in ascending and ascending order. The "fire offering" is also the key, it is the main food during the fire offering festival and one of the sacrificial offerings. It is a thick porridge made from the broth of sacrificial meat such as mutton breast bone, beef shin bone, and mutton spare ribs. The ingredients include rice or yellow rice, red dates, and raisins.
The Mongolian fire sacrifice ceremony includes two parts: fire sacrifice and transport. The fire ceremony begins with the lighting of the butter Buddha lamp in front of the shrine and the wick in four small bowls containing the "fire meal" and cream located around the fire stand. Firewood is then added to the fire brace, and when the fire rises, the elders of the family chant the Fire Buddha Sutra, which is a prelude to the fire ritual. After the chanting of the Fire Buddha Sutra, the fire sacrifice ceremony begins. The master took out the net of sheep oil covering the top of the sternum of the offering, hung it on the four hands of the fire stick, and then scoops up the offerings from the "offering plate" with the nine-eyed spoon specially used for the sacrifice and offers them to the Fire Buddha. At this time, the flame in the fire stick dyed the whole ger(yurt) red, and the elders began to chant the "Fire Buddha's Benedictions" in praise of the kitchen God, and the fire sacrifice ceremony entered a climax. The master takes the offerings from the offering plate, raises his head high, spins three times, sends them into the fire stick, and offers the fire Buddha. When the host grabs the offering from the nearby "offering plate" and offers it again, the rest of the family grabs the offering and offers the Fire Buddha together.
The second part of the ceremony is the luck ceremony, which is meant to pray for a happy family and a prosperous herd in the coming year. The master or the young son will pick up the "fetching bucket", and the other members will pick up the nearest milk, wine, milk and meat to wait for the fetching bucket. The elder began to chant the Zhaoyun Sutra. The whole family raised their food, spun three times, shouted the hurai charm in unison, and knelt down to bow three heads to the Fire Buddha. The host offers the Buddha before taking a small piece of meat from the "fetching bucket" and placing it in the shrine. The recruitment ceremony is over.
After the ceremony, they enter the family banquet, and share the food in the "bucket" -- the "blessing of Fire Buddha", and start to eat the "fire food offering". In the three days after the fire sacrifice ceremony, Mongolians would offer offerings to the kitchen God every morning, recite a luck charm and kowtow for luck.
Nowadays, the living environment and life style of Mongolian people have changed, but the fire ceremony is still carried out in a new way. No matter in rural, pastoral or urban areas, all Mongolians are sacrificing fire and eating "fire food".
Written by Oyuntana
