This essay considers “Naadam” as a gathering shaped by pastoral life, sacred landscape, historical memory and national belonging.

“Happy Naadam!” (Сайхан наадаарай!)

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NAADAM BEYOND SPORT

Naadam is not simply a sporting tournament. It is a layered Mongolian gathering in which ritual practice, political history and collective identity overlap.

“Naadam” is held principally during the short summer season, with the National Naadam celebrated in Ulaanbaatar in mid-July and local naadams generally taking place during the warmer months, according to regional pastoral and ecological conditions. Yesterday (12 July 2026) was the first official day of this year’s festival celebrations. The timing permits dispersed households and communities to gather, while also marking a favourable seasonal moment for horses, travel, hospitality and public celebration (Rhode 2009, 14–16; Thompson and Matheson 2008, 233–34).

In its pastoral dimensions, Naadam celebrates the knowledge and relationships sustaining Mongolian mobile life: horses and skilled horsemanship; bodily endurance and practical competence; relations among households, kin and local communities; and seasonal practices of gathering, hospitality, exchange, courtship and reunion. Children encounter riding, songs, etiquette and local histories through participation.

The horse race, in particular, is not merely an athletic contest. It makes visible the relations among child rider, trainer, household, herd, pasture and locality.

Wrestling and archery, likewise, display valued forms of composure, dexterity, strength, reputation and embodied knowledge whose historical meanings extend beyond modern categories of sport (Rhode 2009, 11–12; O’Gorman and Thompson 2007, 161–65). Ethnographic research also shows that Mongolians value Naadam as an opportunity to spend time with relatives and friends, renew acquaintances and affirm shared cultural life (O’Gorman and Thompson 2007, 161–62).

Naadam as a whole is not intrinsically a Buddhist holy day, and the present National Naadam is formally a civic and state festival. Nevertheless, particular historical naadams possessed substantial Buddhist dimensions.

From the seventeenth century onwards, existing games and public festivities were incorporated into ceremonies associated with Mongolian Buddhist governance.

Danshig Naadam (Даншиг наадам) developed as an offering or tribute gathering honouring the Mongolian Bogd (the highest Mongolian Buddhist hierarch) and brought together ritual, political authority, public assembly and the three games. Such festivals could provide a setting in which Mongolian Buddhist institutions, nobles, herders and regional communities gathered within a shared ceremonial order (Rhode 2009, 11–13, 138–44).

There was also considerable overlap between Buddhist ceremonies and Mongolian practices centred on ovoo (овоо), ritually significant cairns associated with mountains, waters and local protective beings.

Summer gatherings could be associated with mountain veneration, milk aspersion, offerings and requests for favourable weather, health, prosperity and the wellbeing of people and livestock.

It would be misleading to divide such practices neatly into either “Buddhist” or “pre-Buddhist” components.

In Mongolian settings, monastic ceremonies, local guardians, pastoral prosperity and relationships with particular landscapes have often been brought together within the same ritual and social field (Rhode 2009, 126–44; Humphrey 1995, 135–62).

The ritual and cultural traditions surrounding the games remain visible in praise songs, libations, practices concerning victorious horses and understandings of their dust or sweat as auspicious (Thompson and Matheson 2008, 233–35; Pegg 2001, cf.).

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The modern Great National Naadam Festival (Үндэсний их баяр наадам) is also a ceremony of state.

Its twentieth-century form came to commemorate modern independence and the 1921 revolution, while later celebrations have invoked longer histories of Mongolian statehood, the Great Mongol Empire and national sovereignty.

The festival’s ceremonies, spatial arrangements, processions and historical representations have repeatedly been adapted to articulate changing political orders.

Under different governments, Naadam has therefore served as a public arena in which authority, national unity and the location of the state are made visible (Rhode 2009, 13–15, 146–78).

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This public presentation now also unfolds before a substantial international audience. Recent visitor-perception research suggests that Mongolia’s distinctive cultural practices, landscape and hospitality remain central to international tourists’ experiences.

This gives Naadam considerable value as a public presentation of Mongolian cultural life rather than simply as entertainment.

Yet this visibility produces a tension already identified in earlier Naadam research: tourists may support cultural continuity and international recognition, but the organisation of the festival around packaged access, reserved seating and tour itineraries can separate foreign visitors from the social life through which Mongolians themselves experience Naadam (Krishnamoorthy et al. 2023; cf. O’Gorman and Thompson 2007).

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These modern national and international meanings have not erased the festival’s older pastoral, local and ritual dimensions.

Naadam continues to function as an annual enactment of Mongolian collective identity, bringing together clothing, music, praise singing, food, horses, family memory, locality and pastoral knowledge.

Research among participants indicates that cultural identification and the affirmation of Mongolian ways of life are inseparable from the competitions themselves (Thompson and Matheson 2008, 233–40).

Naadam may therefore be understood as a celebration of Mongolian continuity—of people, herds, land, skill, community, sacred relationships and historical sovereignty—expressed through festive competition.

Its specifically Buddhist character is clearest in particular historical and contemporary forms, especially Danshig Naadam (Даншиг наадам), rather than constituting the exclusive meaning of every Naadam.

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FURTHER READING

Humphrey, Caroline. 1995. “Chiefly and Shamanist Landscapes in Mongolia.” In The Anthropology of Landscape: Perspectives on Place and Space, edited by Eric Hirsch and Michael O’Hanlon, 135–62. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Krishnamoorthy, Achyut, et al. 2023. “The Perceptions of Foreign Nationals Visiting Mongolia.” PASOS: Revista de Turismo y Patrimonio Cultural 21 (2): 395–404.

O’Gorman, Kevin D., and Karen Thompson. 2007. “Tourism and Culture in Mongolia: The Case of the Ulaanbaatar Naadam.” In Tourism and Indigenous Peoples: Issues and Implications, edited by Richard Butler and Tom Hinch, 161–75. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Pegg, Carole. 2001. Mongolian Music, Dance, and Oral Narrative: Performing Diverse Identities. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press.

Rhode, Deborah Mary. 2009. Mongolia’s Naadam Festival: Past and Present in the Construction of National Identity. Master’s thesis, University of Canterbury.

Thompson, Karen, and Catherine M. Matheson. 2008. “Culture, Authenticity and Sport: A Study of Event Motivations at the Ulaanbaatar Naadam Festival, Mongolia.” In Asian Tourism: Growth and Change, edited by Janet Cochrane, 233–43. Amsterdam and London: Elsevier.

Please refer to the INDEX for other articles that may be of interest.

© 2013-2026. CP in Mongolia. “Out and About 18: Naadam Beyond Sport” is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Documents linked from this page may be subject to other restrictions. Posted: 12 July 2026. Last updated: 12 July 2026.