Matvey Nikolaevich Khangalov was born in 1858 in the Bulagat ulus of Zakul, which was part of the Ungin administration of the Balagansky district of Irkutsk province. Today, this village is located in the Nukutskiy district of Irkutsk region. From 1866 to 1869, he studied in the primary classes of the Balagansky indigenous school, and in 1871, he entered the Irkutsk provincial gymnasium. Not completing his studies at the gymnasium, in 1873 he enrolled in a teacher's seminary and was baptized in September of the same year, receiving the name Matvey.

After graduating from the seminary in June 1876, Khangalov became a primary education teacher and began teaching at the Kudinsky indigenous parish school. This was the first graduation of folk teachers in Irkutsk province.

While studying at the seminary, he wrote a paper titled "The Ritual of Body Washing among Shamans," which was highly praised by N. N. Agapitov, a pedagogy instructor and the head of the East Siberian branch of the Russian Geographical Society. In 1881, Khangalov and Agapitov organized an expedition to study shamanism among the Buryats in the pre-Baikal, Kudinsky, and Balagansky regions. The results of the expedition were published in the "Proceedings of the Russian Geographical Society" under the title "Materials for the Study of Shamanism in Siberia. Shamanism among the Buryats of Irkutsk Province" and were awarded a small gold medal from the RGO.

In 1883, Khangalov left teaching. In 1888, upon the recommendation of G. N. Potanin and Agapitov, he was elected a full member of the RGO. He studied the material and spiritual culture, legal customs, family life, social structure, shamanism, and folklore of the Buryats, as well as researched archaeological monuments in Buryatia.

From 1889 to 1903, Khangalov published three collections of Buryat folklore prepared by G. N. Potanin.

In 1895, he was sentenced by the Irkutsk provincial court to 8 months of imprisonment due to a case from 1884.

From 1902, Khangalov worked as the head and teacher of the Bilchir parish school. In the same year, he participated in the expedition of French ethnographer Paul Labbe, with whom he studied shamanism among the Ungin Buryats. In 1903, the Ministry of Public Education and Fine Arts of France awarded him the title of laureate of the French Academy.

In 1907, with the participation of D. A. Klementz, Khangalov established connections with the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, which supported his field research and acquired collections. In 1908, with the help of the museum, he was able to work in various departments of the Balagansky district. In the same year, he participated in preparing a congress of Buryat teachers. Most of his field materials were transferred to the ethnographic department of the Russian Museum. Scientific activity did not bring income, and he tried to find work at the state wine shop in Irkutsk.

In 1913, he participated in organizing a Buryat ethnographic evening in Irkutsk and in creating a Buryat-Russian primer. In the summer of 1917, at the request of the East Siberian branch of the RGO, he conducted expeditions to study shamanism in various volosts of the Transbaikal region and Irkutsk province. While continuing to teach, he engaged in scientific work at night.

Matvey Khangalov passed away on February 17, 1918, in the ulus of Bilchir, now located in the Osinsky district of the Ust-Orda Buryat region of Irkutsk province.

His works and collections are kept in the Russian State Ethnographic Museum, in the archive of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in the Irkutsk Local History Museum, and in the Museum of the History of Buryatia.

For the 100th anniversary of his birth and the 40th anniversary of his death, the Buryat Scientific Research Institute of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences published the works of the scholar in three volumes, which were reissued for the 150th anniversary of his birth.