Offerings and feeding the unseen
Worship at an ovoo
Circling a cairn of stones and wood at a pass or hilltop three times and adding a stone for a safe road.
Presented by ClearTrust Customs described as customs, free to read.
An ovoo is a cairn of stones, wood and cloth, built on a pass, a hilltop or a spring on the Mongolian steppe, as the seat of the spirit or master of the place. Travellers who reach one stop, walk around it clockwise three times and add a stone or an offering. The rite is a mix of older Tengrist and shamanic belief with Buddhist practice.
This is an outline of a custom, said as belief and practice. It is not instruction, it does not say that the rite works, and it is not medical advice.
What goes into it
- Stones and woodObjectThe cairn itself, added to by each traveller.
- Blue scarf (khadag)ObjectTied on the poles as a gesture of respect.
- Milk or vodkaOfferingSprinkled toward the sky and the cairn.
- Sweets and coinsOfferingLeft on or at the cairn.
- Three circuitsGestureWalked clockwise.
- Mountain passSpaceThe usual site of an ovoo.
- Object
- Offering
- Gesture
- Space
Each part has an equal wedge. The ring shows what goes into the rite, not how much. Colour is the part's role.
The steps, drawn
Each drawing shows the kind of act in that step. Details differ from place to place, family to family and practitioner to practitioner.
Step 1: Gather Stop at the cairn and collect a stone from the road. Step 2: Circle Walk clockwise around it three times. Step 3: Offer Sprinkle milk or vodka and leave a sweet or a coin. Step 4: Bind Tie a blue scarf on a pole if you have one. Step 5: Speak Ask quietly for a safe road and the favour of the place spirit. Step 6: Close Add the stone and go on your way.
What people do
Visitors give milk, vodka, sweets or coins, and tie blue silk scarves called khadag on the poles. Once a year, often in summer, a neighbourhood or clan holds a larger rite, led by a lama or a shaman, with prayers, horse racing, wrestling and archery. Women have been barred from some of the large rites in many places, although custom differs and has changed.
Meaning and changes
Each ovoo has a local spirit, and the site is cared for by the clan or district. In the socialist era many were suppressed or fell out of use, and since the 1990s they have been rebuilt, with state events and some tourist interest. The practice is spread across Mongolia, Buryatia, Inner Mongolia and Tuva, and visitors are asked to follow local custom and not to take stones or photograph a rite without leave.
What it is for
- Ask for safe travel
- Honour the master of the place
Who does it
Related entries
Also part of it, and being written: Tengriism (The sky religion behind the practice.).
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Sources and further reading
Original text and drawings by the EveryJaadu desk, written with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Closed or sacred detail is left out. If we have something wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Ovoo: Bouette ., CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Mongolian shamanism: Enrique Bendicho, CC BY-SA 4.0, source