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mares, and this proportion was maintained or even increased, as in the
170 mare and 32 gelding herds maintained in 1747.^81
Officials such as Chakhar Plain White Banner superintendant Daši
explicitly recognized the importance of mares, as well as cows, in their
milk-producing capacity. A month-long snowstorm, suggesting adzud,
soon followed by a sandstorm lasting more than a week wiped out 60 to
70 percent of horses alone in his jurisdiction in 1749 .Daši then submitted
a warning that revealed concerns focused on two critical livestock func-
tions. He alerted central authorities that“the Mongol livestock devas-
tated by the disaster has reached the condition such that no riding horses
for state service, milch cows (Ma: uniyen), or milking mares are
obtainable.”^82
Of course, neither Mongols nor their livestock lived by milk alone, but
if the Mongol trooper interviewed by Zhao Yi was any authority, the vast
majority of his people led substantially meatless existences. Probably
while accompanying the Qianlong emperor on his 1757 imperial progress
to Muran, Zhao asked a Mongol, who“could speak Chinese,”whether
or not Mongols could always eat mutton. Zhao termed both mutton and
milk“Mongol traditions.”His acquaintance replied that only the nobility
ate meat.“Poor tribals”(qiongyi) such as himself generally ate it no more
than once a year and even then had to split a single sheep between several
families. He added that people“ordinarily subsisted on the milk of horses
and cattle,”two bowls of which were steeped in tea, boiled, and con-
sumed twice a day, at morning and at night. From this account Zhao
concluded that such repasts served as the Mongols’“rice porridge”
(zhanzhou).^83 Judging from the Qianlong emperor’s angry response to
the 175 skinny milch cows that gave“very little milk”sent him from
Dariganga for consumption at Muran in 1761 , milk was certainly an
important comestible for the annual imperial hunt.^84
Zhao’s anecdote gains considerable if qualified confirmation from a
1736 Hulun Buir report that local Solon-Ewenki and Bargut troops“had
always hunted and herded, relying on the milk of sheep and cattle for
their existence.” It is impossible to generalize about the diversity of
environmental relations all across Manchuria and Mongolia. The report,
for example, also stated Dagur troops in the same area were“all depend-
ent on grain for their existence.”^85 It seems possible, nevertheless, to
affirm that dairy products were a primary, and often the primary, staple
of a pastoral lifestyle.
Milk in this respect constituted a common bond, as a shared source of
critical nutrition, between humans and young livestock. Comparable
142 Across Forest, Steppe, and Mountain
