What are the origins and customs of the secret horse milk festival?

Horse milk festival is the most distinctive festival in Mongolia, and horse milk is also the most common drink for Mongolians. Mongolians hold horse milk festival every year to celebrate the harvest and pray for health. On the day of Horse Milk Festival, every household will cook delicious food with horse milk and entertain guests like roast sheep.

Horse Milk Festival is a traditional festival in Inner Mongolia. Every year at the end of August in the lunar calendar, Mongolians hold a one-day horse milk festival. Horse Milk Festival is popular in Xilin Gol League in Inner Mongolia and some pastoral areas in Ordos. Horse Milk Festival represents that in this harvest season, herders wish health, happiness, auspiciousness and human and animal prosperity.

Horse Milk Festival: Every summer, Mongolian people start milking horses, and when the Mid-Autumn Festival stops milking horses, herders will hold a horse milk festival. Drinking koumiss is the main content, hence the name.

Raising five animals, milking and processing all kinds of dairy foods are important contents of Mongolian people's animal husbandry and nomadic life. Milk food is also the main food source for herders, so every year when new milk comes out, certain ceremonies and parties are held to celebrate, hoping to get more and better milk food, among which the Horse Milk Festival is ancient and typical.