In the records of folklorists and ethnographers, sometimes there are quite interesting legends that are in no way inferior to modern stories about certain anomalous phenomena. This mainly concerns the genre of bylichs, which tell about the meeting of people with evil spirits.
One of these stories, which can be safely classified as a story about a typical poltergeist, was discovered in the notes of the Mongolian philologist and writer Ts. Damdinsuren and published with a translation into Russian on the pages of the journal "Living Starina".
Over the years Damdinsuren has been recording stories about evil spirits and miraculous phenomena. His diary entries were made between the early 1960s and 1984. In 1991 they were partially published in Ulaanbaatar. Among them, special attention should be paid to the beliefs about the Chutgurs (variants: Chotgor; Buryat Shudher, Kalmyk Chutker) - evil spirits from Mongol mythology, by which they often meant the souls of the pledged dead, who did not find a subsequent rebirth and were forced to wander among the living, annoying them.
In 1964, a Mongolian scientist had a chance to meet a 75-year-old man Zhamyansharav, who was famous for "he himself saw the Chutgurs-Gamin in Borjigin." The Mongols contemptuously called the Chinese soldiers who occupied Mongolia, which declared its independence in 1919-1921, "Gaminami".
The events described just happened in these troubled times, which ended in 1924 with the formation of the Mongolian People's Republic. It can be assumed that the spirits of the fallen Chinese soldiers, according to popular belief, have joined the ranks of disembodied Chutgurs. These ideas are reflected in the recorded story.
Zhamyansharav, a descendant of the Borjigin family known in history, was at that time a monk at the Dzun-Choir monastery (apparently located in the area of the modern Mongolian city of Choir, the administrative center of the Gov-Sumbar aimag). He had more to do with trade than training, several times he went with caravans. During the Chinese occupation, according to Zhamyansharav, there were many gamins in Dzun-Choir, many of which were killed.
In 1923, in the "middle month of winter", marked by a terrible lack of food, the following mystical events unfolded. The yurt of Zhamyansharava was located at the northwestern end of the village, and not far in the southeastern side of it was the yurt of Brown Gimpel, an old lama who had many students.
In the latter, the Chutgurs "started up," as the popular rumor explained. Without going into a detailed retelling of the story, the full text of which can be found directly on the pages of the journal "Living Starina" (No. 3, 2008), we will list only the typical manifestations of the flared up poltergeist:
Promotional video:
1) Moving objects inside the yurt: a piece of frozen ram leg and a knife were moved, which subsequently stuck into it; throwing dung from horse droppings.
2) Moving objects in the street outside the yurt: there was a flight of a small piece of felt, which completed its journey, shutting itself behind the sling of the yurt Gimpel-guay (seen by Zhamyansharav). In the village, an independent flight over the ground of a wide thick board was observed, which was not given to the boys trying to catch it (seen by Zhamyansharav).
3) Impact on the dwelling as a whole: the yurt was shaking, as if someone was pulling it by the sling and squeezing the walls (Zhamyansharav himself observed).
4) Destruction of objects: the beads of Gimpel-guaya were torn and scattered; the candle was broken into two pieces and the wick was pulled out of it (the children had to dine in the dark).
5) Aggressive actions towards a person: an ax jumped up on his own in the yurt and hit the back of the person who entered. Sometimes at night someone invisible would not let Gimpel-guai sleep: he would throw off the blanket from him or beat him with a wooden boiler lid.
6) Self-restoration of destroyed objects: the winter hat of Gimpel-guai was burned out of harm's way, which deigned to “jump” on its own, but after the act of destruction, the same hat was found in the same place with the same “indecent behavior”. Once a bottle of vodka and a handful of Chinese coins fell through the smoke holes into the Gimpel-guai yurt.
The money was hidden under the pillow, and the bottle was smashed on a stone in the yard. Subsequently, instead of coins, there was horse droppings under the pillow (a familiar demonological plot, isn't it?), And the bottle of vodka was again intact, despite the fact that there were no fragments of glass in the yard.
7) Animal reactions: only one dog in the village, living in a garbage dump, showed an unhealthy interest in the "yurt with chutguras": she barked hard until it was hoarse, and sometimes ran away from her with a howl and a drawn-in tail, although no one drove her … No strange behavior was observed in other dogs.
8) Moving the poltergeist after its victims: when the desperate Gimpel-guay, together with two boys who lived with him (about ten years old), decided to leave their home and went to their acquaintances on the southern slope of Mount Samsar, they were accompanied by flying on the sides are empty iron cans. Disgraceful things also began to happen at a party: “everything began to fly and jump,” so we had to go back to Choir.
9) Ignoring sacred rituals: during the performance of a special ritual by the invited lama, who conducted it away from the monastery (it was forbidden by the rules to expel spirits near the monastery), while reading prayers and beating a drum, the "Chutgurs" mocked him, knocking in response to iron cans …
During the divine service, which was already being performed by another lama, while reading the prayers, one page disappeared from his book, and later a drum suspended from the ridge of the tent fell from above, injuring his head to blood.
In the late spring of 1924, Gimpel moved his yurt further north from the monastery. Many lamas tried to expel the Chutgurs, both from the local monastery and those specially invited for this purpose from other places. As a result, the efforts of one of them were crowned with success. Chutgurs disappeared on the twentieth of the last summer month. Thus, we can say that the poltergeist in Dzun-Choyra did not last for about a year and a half.
Such demonological characters as the Chutgurs appearing in this story are of interest when studying the beliefs about evil spirits among the Mongolian peoples. But at the same time, this story is also evidence not only of a contemporary, but also a direct eyewitness to some of the described poltergeist events.
At different times, in different peoples and in different cultures, we come across completely similar descriptions of fantastic events, the culprits of which were declared poltergeist, barabashka, djins, chutgurs … This phenomenon has many names, but the essence is the same.
What else can be said about the Chutguras and their properties according to the mythological ideas of the Mongols? Beliefs and stories about them are still alive, as evidenced by folklore recordings made in 2006-2007, but they no longer believe in Chutgurs, or they say that they no longer meet. In folk stories, the image of the Chutgur is somewhat vague and vague, often simply serving as a synonym for the concept of "evil spirits".
Chutgur can be called both the spirit of the deceased, and the soul of the shaman leaving his body during the ritual, and the shamanic spirit-helper, the spirit of the area, or simply numerous evil spirits. They are often invisible, but sometimes they can take the form of living beings. They can appear in the form of a light or glow at the burial site.
Chutgur can be those who died from a serious illness or who died not by their own death, souls who did not find a new birth. As a rule, Chutgurs commit minor mischief, but sometimes they can cause great harm, including the death of people.
These characteristics are generally vague, in places finding parallels with certain characters from Slavic demonology, which is closer to us. But only one thing is clear here: you can search for the next cases of poltergeist among the Mongolian peoples by mentioning the key word: "Chutgury".
Author: Victor Gaiduchik