Jessica Brooks

Milking yaks. Part of the typical Mongolian herding calendar
Spend time in Mongolia and you will notice that a majority of families own a dog. Very rarely are they fashionable, small, pedigree dogs as traditionally the dogs role was to alert it’s owners to the arrival of strangers arriving from the wide-open steppe, herding the livestock when families moved to new pasture and guarding against the threat of wolves. Did you know that in Mongolia, dogs traditionally are the only animal given their own name? It is a sign of honour and part of a belief that dogs are the last stage before humans in the reincarnation process. When a dog dies, the owner whispers in the dog’s ear his wishes that the dog will return as a man in his next life. They are buried high in the hills so that people do not walk on their remains. Their tail is cut off and put beneath the head, and a piece of meat or fat is cut off and placed in the dog’s mouth to sustain its soul for its journey; before the dog is reincarnated, the dog’s soul is freed to travel the land, to run across the high open steppe for as long as it would like.
Dashdorjiin Natsagdorj - Mongolian Poet
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Mongolia is ... photo
Stupa at Khamariin Khiid Monastery
Trans Mongolian Train Extensions - Local Trans Siberian train
Rainstorm Mongolia's Gobi Desert
Amarbayasgalant Monastery - Selenge Province, Mongolia
Landscapes of western Mongolia
Mongolian horseback archery
Photography in Mongolia
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Mongolian children on their horses at the start line of a Naadam Festival horse race
Mongolia's Orkhon River Valley
Book Cover - Hearing Birds Fly
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