The Mongolian culture has been heavily influenced by the Mongol nomadic way of life. Horses and the arts have also influenced the Mongolian culture. Mongolian music conveys a deep appreciation and connection with the country's stunning natural beauty and inspiring, vast, and often cloudless, blue sky. Hospitality was, and still is, very important in the steppes and all of Mongolia. Yurts, or gers, Mongolian circular houses, are influential as well. Followers of Genghis Khan lived in felt tents. Mongolians were also very superstitious. As far as religion goes, Mongols were highly tolerant of almost anything and everything. Genghis Khan set up a system that was supposed to ensure complete religious freedom. He was a shamanist. Shamanism is an animistic religion that sometimes involves someone reaching an altered state of consciousness to encounter and interact with the spirit world. Mongols practiced a multitude of religions. Some of these were: Christianity, Manichaeanism, Islam, shamanism, Muslim, Taoism, Tengriism, and several types of Buddhism.