The shaman’s call employs khöömii (overtone singing) and throat manipulation to produce sounds that seem to come from the earth and the sky simultaneously. This vocal art is believed to create a vibrational bridge between the three worlds—the Lower, Middle, and Upper. When the shaman calls, the spirit is compelled to come. The response may be a shudder, a gust of wind, or the possession of the shaman’s body.
In the vast, windswept landscapes of Mongolia, where the horizon swallows the sky and silence is as expansive as the steppe, sound becomes more than mere vibration; it becomes a lifeline. Within the conceptual framework of Mongol Heleer —the Mongolian language not merely as a tool for communication but as a living repository of nomadic consciousness—"The Call" (Дуудлага - Duudlaga ) transcends its literal definition. It is not simply a shout or a summons. It is a profound, often invisible tether that binds the human to the natural, the individual to the collective, and the living to the spiritual. This essay argues that the concept of the Call in Mongol culture functions as a central organizing principle of existence, shaping identity, survival, and the sacred relationship with the land. The Call as Ecological Dialogue For the nomadic herder, the Call is an act of environmental negotiation. Unlike the fixed addresses of urban civilization—street names, numbers, walls—the steppe requires a dynamic, acoustic form of location. The Duudlaga is how a mother finds her child lost in a sea of grass, how a herder gathers a scattered herd at dusk, or how neighbors locate a ger (yurt) miles away across an undulating valley. The Call Mongol Heleer
Yet, the Call persists in unexpected ways. In the naadam festival, the referee’s call to start a wrestling match is still a deep, guttural, ancient chant. In the countryside, grandmothers still call the wind to stop or the rain to fall. And in the diaspora, the sound of a traditional Duudlaga heard in a recording can trigger a profound homesickness—a nutgiin tani , a recognition of the homeland. This suggests that the Call is encoded in the Mongolian psyche. It is a frequency of belonging. The Call, in Mongol Heleer , is far more than a vocal signal. It is the architecture of a nomadic soul. It is the ecological sonar that maps the steppe, the social vocal cord that sings the song of community, and the spiritual breath that speaks to the eternal sky. To understand the Call is to understand that for Mongols, the world is not a collection of objects to be seen, but a network of relationships to be heard and answered. In a quiet moment on the steppe, when one person calls and another answers across the impossible distance, the entire universe for that brief second holds its breath—and order is restored. The silence is filled, and the tether holds. The shaman’s call employs khöömii (overtone singing) and
This is not a violent, commanding shout but a specific, tonally rich vocalization. In Mongol Heleer , the pitch, duration, and timbre of the Call carry data: urgency, identity, and direction. The long, undulating "Guuuii..." used to call a lost horse differs starkly from the sharp, staccato summons for a person. This linguistic ecology suggests a deep attunement: the speaker must read the wind, the topography, and the distance. The Call fails if the wind drowns it or if the landscape absorbs it. Thus, to Call effectively is to be a true child of the steppe—someone who understands that survival depends on listening as much as speaking. The silence that follows a Call is its essential counterpart; it is the space where the response must travel, teaching patience and acute auditory awareness. Beyond survival, the Call reinforces the intricate social fabric of nomadic society. The Duudlaga is the primary tool of hospitality and obligation. When a traveler approaches a ger in the middle of nowhere, they do not knock; they call out from a respectful distance: "Nokhoi khori!" (Hold the dog!) or simply "Ezen oron bain uu?" (Is the master home?). This Call is a ritualized performance. The response—or the silence of the hearth—determines the next action. A returned Call signals safety, food, and shelter. A non-response is a definitive, non-violent rejection. The response may be a shudder, a gust
This spiritual Call extends to everyday animism. Before pouring a libation of mare’s milk ( tsatsal ), a Mongol will call out to the spirits of the ancestors, the mountain, and the water source. A traveler passing an ovoo (stone cairn) will circle it three times and call out a blessing. In this worldview, the universe is not inert; it is listening. And the act of calling makes the invisible visible, transforming silence into presence. To stop calling is to forget the spirits, and to forget them is to invite their wrath—drought, disease, misfortune. Today, as Mongolia rapidly urbanizes, with over half its population living in the concrete ger districts surrounding Ulaanbaatar, the ancient Call is fading. The cellphone has replaced the vocal summon. A text message silences the need to project one’s voice across a valley. The cacophony of the city—car horns, construction, pop music—drowns out the subtle acoustic markers that guided the nomadic ear.
Crucially, the Call creates an unbreakable bond. In the epic tales of Mongol Tuuli (heroic epics), a hero often calls upon his horse or his companions across vast distances. To answer a Call is to accept a covenant. This echoes in daily life: if a neighbor calls for help during a zud (severe winter disaster), the response is not a matter of charity but of existential duty. The Call bypasses bureaucracy and contracts; it speaks directly to the clan-based memory of interdependence. Refusing a genuine Call is to sever oneself from the khamag Mongol —the entire community of Mongols—a social death more feared than physical death. Perhaps the most profound dimension of the Call in Mongol Heleer is its shamanic and spiritual function. The Böö (shaman) and Üdgan (female shaman) do not pray silently; they call. The ritual of calling the Tenger (sky gods), the spirits of the ancestors, or the Gazryn Ezen (masters of the land) is known as Duudlaga . This is not a request; it is a summoning through the power of voice.