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Elke Studer
Inner Asia 4(2002): 361-373
The article outlines the Mongolian influences on the biggest horse race festival in Nagchu prefecture in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR). Since old times these horse races have been closely linked to the worship of the local mountain deity by the patrilineal nomadic clans of the South-Eastern Changthang, the North Tibetan plain. In the seventeenth century the West Mongol chieftain Gueueshi Khan shaped the history of Tibet. To support his political claims, he enlarged the horse race festival's size and scale, and had his troops compete in the different horse race and archery competitions in Nagchu. Since then, the winners of the big race are celebrated side by side with the political achievements and claims of the central government in power. In the course of time this event developed into the main Northern Tibetan festival. From the eighteenth century onwards the new secular and the new ecclesiastical district governor of the Tibetan government in Lhasa started their terms of office with offerings to the local mountain deity, welcoming Gesar singers and organising the horse race festival. Taxes were collected and Nagchu became the main centre for bartering and trading in the Changthang. After the 1950s and the turmoil following the Cultural Revolution the horse race festival in Nagchu ceased to exist. But the festival was revived in the 1980s, when Tibetan traditions and customs were encouraged once more. Like the Mongolian Naadam, the annual Nagchu horse race festival is nowadays an important political event.
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