THE PEOPLE OF THE WILDERNESS 



521 



Photograph from Horace Brodzky 



A MONGOLIAN SOLDIER SMOKING HIS PIPE 



The Mongolian never drinks water or anything cold. He uses brick tea, made of tea 

 dust from Chinese factories. A "brick" is as hard as granite. When a Mongolian wants a 

 drink, he wraps the brick in an old cloth and places it in hot cow dung until it gets soft 

 enough to enable him to break off a piece. This piece he grinds in a mortar and boils up in a 

 horrible mess with milk or lumps of fat. He uses salt instead of sugar in his tea. He has 

 a method of boiling his milk that makes it look like custard. 



544). The priests exercise complete sway 

 over the people by their unlovely religion 

 of terror, the Tibetan form of one of the 

 later sects of Buddhism known as the 

 Tantric — a revival of the morbid Indian 

 cult of Siva. 



This repulsive creed, with its hideous 

 demonology, is so well suited, however, 

 to a land where cruel and tremendous at- 

 mospheric phenomena make man appear 

 a helpless atom struggling against the 

 mighty natural forces of existence, that 

 it prospers. 



Like frightened children, the People of 

 the Wilderness desire to see their terrors 

 embodied in idols which may be placated, 

 and the cunning monks are quick to take 

 advantage of their fears. Thus monas- 

 teries arise and grow rich. 



These establishments are the finest 

 buildings in Mongolia. Resplendent from 

 afar in colors and gold, their lofty square 



buildings, often standing on some rise 

 of ground, lose their effect somewhat on 

 closer view, owing to the dirt in which 

 these communities of monks are content 

 to live. 



"the abodes of" the living buddiias" 



The most famous and best kept monas- 

 teries are the abodes of the Living Bud- 

 dhas. The current belief is that these 

 men are gods incarnate, and when they 

 die, or, as the Mongols put it, "change 

 the vehicle," are reborn into this world 

 with the power to remember their former 

 existence and prove their identity by 

 using plirases characteristic of the last 

 Buddha, selecting things that belonged to 

 him from among many which were not 

 his, etc. 



Great parade is made of the testing of 

 a new candidate. Of course, the chief 

 Lamas arrange everything and coach "the 



