Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 72, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1920 — LAMAS “CURSE OF MONGOLIA” [ARTICLE]

LAMAS “CURSE OF MONGOLIA”

They Live and Thrive on the Credulity of Their Neighbors, Carefully Cultivated. Mongolia is one of the moat primitive and most interesting countries in the world today, the inhabitants in many ways resembling the North American Indians. The Mongols are very fanatical and blindly devoted to 1 the Buddhist observes an exchange. Every third man is a lama, a Buddhist monk. The lamas are the curse of Mongolia, being parasites wh6 live on the religious credulity of their lay brethren. The Chinese tael (an ounce of silver) is the medium of exchange. Small squares or cubes of pressed silk are also used, but brick tea will pass current for barter tn any part of Mongolia. Tobacco is also used for trade exchange purposes. Trade is tn toe hands of the Chinese, with the exception of the Russian traders at Urga, which was formerly the residence of toe Chinese lieutenant-governor or TAmhen," as he was called. Mongols throw toe bodies of their dead outside the town, where the dogs soon make short work or them. The natives believe that the sooner the bodies are disposed of the better chance the spirit of toe departed has in reaching paradise.