The Eagle Huntress

by Liz Welch

  I’d brush my teeth and wash my face before getting dressed for school. We did not wear uniforms at this school, so I would put on my pants, shirt, and a sweater before going to the dining room for breakfast. There, I sat with Saigulikh and our friends, who were all from nomadic families like ours. We would eat bread with butter and drink tea, then go to our first class at eight thirty. We took math, Mongolian, science, and history classes through one PM and then took a break for lunch. The afternoon was dedicated to sports.

  I did fine in class but really excelled in sports. Volleyball was my favorite. I also liked judo because I was so good at it. My grandfather taught me how to wrestle when I was very young, and he was so proud of me because I often beat my older male cousins in the family tournaments that he oversaw when all of us were together at the spring and summer pastures. The same was true at school. Most kids, boys or girls, were scared to wrestle me because they knew I would win.

  We would break for dinner at five and then settle into our dorm rooms—girls in one building, boys in another—doing our homework, braiding one another’s hair, or playing chess or backgammon. I loved those cozy nights gossiping with friends.

  I liked being at school but could not wait to go home on the weekends. My happy place was on my pony, riding in the steppes or helping my father take care of his eagle.

  He let me feed her and sometimes he even let me practice calling to her by dragging a rabbit skin behind me as I jogged away from her, summoning her to fly from her perch to the pelt. This was one of the ways my father worked with the bird to keep her in good shape for hunting.

  I was always thrilled when he let me help him.

  “You are good with my bird,” my dad would say. “You have a gift.”

  I don’t know what that gift was other than a deep love for eagles, so much so that when Samrakhan was called away to do his army service (every male in Mongolia has to do a year in the army when he turns eighteen), he asked me to take care of his bird, too.

  The week before my brother left, he asked if I could do this for him. I had just turned ten.

  “Feed her every few days,” he said. “Not too much, she needs time to digest.”

  He was telling me how to do all these things that I had already learned from my father, but I let him. I was just so happy that I would get to take care of her all by myself. My mind was racing about all the things I might do with her, when he snapped me back to attention.

  “She really likes it when you rub her neck,” he said, demonstrating as he explained. “Not too rough; gently but firmly rub on the top of her head down her neck.”

  I tried it myself and I felt her strong but small skull pushing into my hand beneath her downy layer of gray and brown feathers.

  “That’s right,” my brother said, smiling. Pleased.

  “I will take great care of you!” I said as she bowed her head for another rub. “I promise.”

  Eagles eat meat, so my father would cut a chunk of rabbit or goat into small pieces, which I would then skewer on the end of a long, pointy stick. We also have a special bowl carved out of wood called a saptiayahk, which makes it easy to give them water. I would feed Samrakhan’s eagle on Friday as soon as I got home and not again until I left late Sunday. My father would feed her in the middle of the week.

  I also helped my dad herd the goats and sheep, which meant spending many afternoons on my horse, riding with my dad over the ridges in search of the herds. I learned so much from my father about how to read the landscape: to follow stars that pointed in specific directions, even when faded in the daylight sky; and how turning left at the knotted tree trunk would take you to the river, which zigzags to the best watering hole, where we would likely find the cows.

  “The world is our map,” my father liked to say.

  My other chores included milking the cows, then helping my mom turn the milk into butter and cheeses, including the rock cheese I loved. My least favorite job was shoveling the cow and horse dung patties we used as fuel for our stoves.

  I liked helping my mother with laundry—hand-washing our clothes in a big corrugated tub of water with soap and then laying the clothes to dry over the stone wall behind our house. In the winter months, the sweaters and jeans would freeze into human shapes and I would have to bring them back indoors to thaw and warm up before they could be folded and put away.

  Once the school year ended, we all went home to help pack up to make the move to Olun Noor, our spring pasture. I love it there, as that is where we and our relatives meet up, five families in all. This is a happy time for my family.

  My parents have a large wooden trunk, which they fill with our ger—the wooden frame, felt, animal pelts, and canvas that complete it—as well as the beds, rugs, dishes, kitchen utensils, and stove to transport to the spring and summer pastures.

  Before my dad had his four-wheel-drive truck, he would load the trunk with all our belongings onto one of our camels.

  At one point in my life, we had three camels, and I still miss them. They are such stubborn, funny, strong creatures. And so fast! One of my favorite games is camel racing. I am really good at it: You sit in front of the hump, at the base of the camel’s neck, legs straddling each side. The key is to stay calm, always. Camels are sensitive, like horses. They are also stubborn. If they don’t want to move, they won’t budge.

  When we made the move to the spring pasture, the trunks were placed on top of the camels, and then Saigulikh, Dinka, and I would climb on top of it. We would ride that way for the two days it took to get to Olon Nuur, where we would meet my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. All our gers would be set up near one another, which meant family dinners and games every day. Like the camel races. And wrestling matches.

  My grandfather’s winter home was ten miles away from ours, so we did not get to see him too often. This was due not so much to the distance as to how hard we all worked to keep our animals well fed and safe during those bitter cold months.

  We stayed in Olon Nuur for ten to twenty days to let our animals eat before making the three-day trek into the Altai Mountains, to a beautiful place called Tekht, our summer pasture.

  Our eagles come with us every time we move, but in the summer, we don’t hunt with them. Eagle hunting is done only in the wintertime, when foxes are easiest to spot against the pure white snow and their fur is thick for protection from the cold temperatures. So, as we do with our other animals, we let our eagles fatten up, too.

  These summer months are good for our spirits, and for our animals as well. It is a time to be with family, and the animals can feast on the sweet summer grass and get fat in preparation for the tough winter months ahead.

  4

  A Rite of Passage

  I spent a lot of time watching my brother train his eagle. He got his first eagle when he was thirteen. I was five. I watched him and my father out in the front of our winter house, one of them dragging a fox pelt while the other released the eagle to get her used to flying short distances.

  When I was eight, my father finally let me ride up into the mountains with him and Samrakhan. I wanted to see how each called to their eagles out in the wild.

  I was still too young to be the scarer—the person who rides ahead on horseback and tries to scare the fox out if its den—but I loved seeing my dad gallop down a hill where he thought a fox might be, and I loved hearing his voice fill the air. I studied the look on my brother’s face as he launched his eagle into the air: It was pure joy. I could not wait to do it myself one day.

  Back then, it never even occurred to me that I wouldn’t. That some in our community would object to my becoming an eagle hunter just because I am a girl.

  By the time my brother went into the army, he was a full-fledged eagle hunter. My father had seen him through all the stages, beginning with caring for his eagle, then becoming a scarer, and finally taking him on his first winter hunt. That was when my father led him up to the Altai Mountains to catch a fox in the snow. That is what makes you a
real eagle hunter.

  Samrakhan was sad to leave his eagle behind when he left for the army. He was otherwise excited to go—he could have postponed one year, to start at nineteen, but he wanted to do his service. I witnessed not only the training but also the relationship that grew between him and his bird. Love and respect. Those are the words that come to mind.

  From the time Samrakhan brought home the eaglet that he’d caught, I knew I wanted to follow in his and our father’s footsteps. I was happy to take care of his eagle while he was gone, but I also wondered, When will I be able to get my own eagle?

  I finally asked my father, “How can I be a real eagle huntress?”

  After spending another day watching my father and his friends fly their eagles in the wild, I summoned the courage to ask this. I knew I could do it if given the chance. And I was the right age, as most boys start training at twelve or thirteen. I was twelve. I was ready.

  By then, I knew that eagle hunting was something that was passed down from father to son. Daughters were not part of the tradition. But I also knew that both my father and grandfather admired how strong I was and how calm I was around eagles. My gifts, they both told me.

  My father considered my request. I thought I noticed a sparkle in his eye. But he remained silent.

  I was patient with eagles but not with fathers. “Will you teach me?” I asked. “Or are you against me?”

  My father remained silent. I turned away from him.

  “Aisholpan!” he finally said. “You are strong!”

  I smiled, just a small one.

  “You carry my eagle and your brother’s eagle well,” he continued. “You are not afraid, which is the biggest thing.”

  My heart started to beat a bit faster.

  “But there has never been a female hunter in our family,” he said.

  The conversation was taking a hard turn.

  Just then, my mother walked in carrying a bowl with a goat leg sticking out of it.

  “Still, I will consider teaching you,” he said.

  “Teach her what?” my mother asked as she placed the bowl on the kitchen table.

  “Aisholpan wants to learn how to hunt with eagles,” my father responded.

  My mother took in what my father said, tucked her chin to her chest, and kept quiet for a moment. I could tell from her silence that something about my request was bothering her.

  “It’s one thing to feed and work with the eagle here at home,” she finally said, keeping her head down. “Or to go and watch your father and his friends hunt. But taking your own bird into the mountains to hunt is tiring—and dangerous.”

  My father was about to say yes to a dream I had had since I could remember having dreams. The idea that my mother would get in the way made me feel panicky.

  “Aisholpan is very strong,” my father countered. I was glad he spoke before I did. I had all these thoughts rushing to take shape into words.

  “She is the best horse rider in the family,” he added. “Almost as good as me.”

  He shot me a look and winked.

  That eased the tension in my throat and helped untangle the words caught in my mouth.

  “I can ride my pony for hours, herding,” I said to my mom. “And have carried baby goats, which weigh more than an eagle, for miles. You know I am strong enough.”

  My mother sighed. “This is not something I imagined for you, Aisholpan,” she said. “I worry enough when your father and brother go out on long hunts. Now I must worry about you as well?”

  “Is it because I am a girl?” I asked.

  I was confused and angered by my mother’s hesitation. She had always supported me, even during the wrestling matches against my cousins. I did not understand why she was not supporting me now.

  “Aisholpan,” my father interjected, “your mother has reason to worry. This is not an easy thing you are asking us to consider.”

  Now I was losing my father, too. This was not going as I had hoped.

  “To be a true eagle huntress, you must do more than call your eagle to a pelt,” my father said.

  “I know!” I must have shouted, because both my parents looked at me with surprise in their faces.

  I’d never shouted at them. They looked at each other, and something I couldn’t decipher passed between them.

  “You must be able to ride with your eagle in the wintertime,” my father continued, “when the snow is deep and the air so cold it freezes your horse’s breath into icicles. That is the true test of a hunter, and his eagle.”

  “What about her eagle?” I countered, feeling the anger rise in me. I accepted, finally, that the only reason they were hesitating was because I was a girl.

  “The winters are brutally cold,” my mother added. “And in the mountains, with no shelter from the wind or snow… I get worried that it will be too much for you.”

  Our winters are cold, it is true. The snow can sometimes be taller than your horse. But that did not scare me. Why did it scare her? My whole body tensed up as she spoke. I was not expecting her to be against me.

  My mother had started making dinner. It was besbarmak, which means “five-finger meal” in Kazakh, a meat-and-noodle stew we eat with our hands. It is a very special dish, one she usually made when we were expecting visitors.

  “I can do it,” I said. “Please let me try. Father said he would train—”

  “I said I would consider it,” he said. “But your mother must say it’s okay.”

  As we were talking, she bent over the kitchen table, forming the dough that she made from flour and water into a big ball in her hands and then flattening it out by rolling a smooth piece of wood over it before it would be cut into noodles for the stew. This is one of my favorite dishes. She went to place the goat leg in the pot that was simmering away on the stove. Our home quickly filled with the scent of meat broth, ready for the noodles to be boiled alongside the bits of goat that fell from the bone as it cooked. My stomach growled in response, hungry for dinner.

  My father listened to my mother and me quarrel, shook his head, and then headed out, leaving us in our standoff.

  I sat on the edge of my parents’ bed, simmering like the besbarmak. What if my father agreed with my mother? How could I convince her that I was strong enough to do it? How would I ever forgive her? I was getting so upset, my whole body began to tremble.

  “I can see that you are disappointed.” My mother’s gentle voice penetrated the thoughts swarming through my head like hornets. “And I know you have a special talent,” she continued, and my ears perked up as I noticed a shift in her tone.

  I turned to face her.

  “You say that your father is not against you?” she asked, slicing the now-thin, disk-shaped dough into long strands for the stew, not once looking up at me as she spoke.

  “He wants to teach me,” I said. “Ask him yourself.”

  At that moment, we heard the door squeak open and thump shut, followed by the stamping of my father’s big boots and the high-pitched chirps of his eagle. He emerged through the interior door with his eagle bobbing her head back and forth.

  “Has your mother softened?” he asked me with a smile.

  His eagle stopped chirping.

  “You must ask her!” I replied, and looked at him with my eyes stretched wide. I needed his support.

  “Alma!” he said as he sat down at the table. My mother was now placing the noodles in the boiling pot. Dinner would be ready soon. “Aisholpan really wants to learn to become an eagle huntress.”

  “She has made that very clear,” my mother responded, now pouring tea into his bowl.

  “Ever since she was a baby, I have been watching her talent with eagles,” he said before taking his first slurp. “She is a natural.”

  My mother went quiet again. I stood up to get my own bowl to have tea. I was suddenly thirsty.

  “If you really believe she can do this,” my mother said, finally, “then I will not be against it.”

  The relief I
felt in that moment was so great, I almost dropped my tea bowl.

  “Rakmet!” I may have shouted a million thank-yous as I placed the bowl on the table with shaky hands and got up to hug my mother to show my appreciation. When I looked up at her, my eyes were glassy with tears. I saw that hers were, too.

  “You must promise to be extra careful, Aisholpan,” she said as she hugged me back.

  I was smiling so hard by then, thinking about what this meant, that my cheeks pushed my moist eyes closed, forcing a tear to run down my face. My mother wiped it away as I said, “I promise!”

  My dad was smiling, too. He took another sip of tea and nodded at me.

  “We can start tomorrow,” he said with a wink.

  5

  Tourists

  Visitors had started coming when I was very young, but they were coming more frequently now—especially over the summer and fall months. These were not family members or neighbors. These were tourists.

  My mother cooked for them, and my father took them out on a hunt. My brother used to do this with him. Now it was my turn. My father said I could be the scarer on the next tourist expedition. That night, waiting for the tourists to come, I could barely contain my excitement.

  The first time I saw a tourist, I was five years old. He had arrived from Ölgii on horseback with a Mongolian translator who spoke Kazakh and a very funny-sounding language that I now know is English. Kazakhs are a minority in Mongolia, where the national language is Mongolian. We learn it in school, and every Kazakh is expected to know how to speak it, but the reverse is not true. Not many Mongolians speak Kazakh, so this was already strange, to have a Mongolian man we had never seen before speaking Kazakh in our home. But even more strange was that he was speaking a completely foreign language to a man who looked as funny as he sounded. He was tall and so pale, like a ghost with a mop of golden autumn grass–colored hair. He was also dressed in such odd clothes, made from a shiny, puffy material I had never seen before.