by Chi Zijian
Dashi was so angry that his eyes almost popped out of their sockets. ‘My Omolie is a Spirit Hawk used to exact revenge. It needs to conserve its energy. You can’t expect it to behave like an ordinary hunting bird.’
From that day onward, Dashi refused food. At mealtimes, he placed the hawk on his shoulder and went to Ivan’s shirangju. ‘Ivan,’ he yelled in a hoarse voice, ‘Come out and take a look! I haven’t eaten anything. I gave my portion to my Omolie!’
Ivan paid him no heed. But when Nadezhda came out and saw Dashi with his red eyeballs and bushy moustache that gave him a demonic look, she was so frightened that the blood drained from her face, and she couldn’t help but cross herself.
Dashi fasted for three days. On the fourth, the hawk suddenly flew away. ‘You’ve been good to him in vain, eh?’ Hase said mockingly. ‘He’s just an animal after all. He left just like that, didn’t he?’
Dashi maintained his calm. ‘Just wait. My Omolie will return!’
That dusk the hawk did return with a noisy flap of the wings. But it didn’t return alone; a pheasant dangled from his beak. It was a handsome cock with dark green plumage and a long, long tail. It placed the pheasant before Dashi. The old man’s tears flowed at once, for he knew his Omolie had noticed he wasn’t eating and made a kill for him.
If our urireng had previously thought Dashi’s faith in his Omolie’s ability to avenge him was wishful thinking, the sudden departure and return of the bird convinced us that it was truly a Spirit Hawk, and we stopped mocking Dashi.
That evening Dashi was surely the most contented man on the face of the earth. He sat by the hearth and plucked the pheasant’s feathers. He severed the head, wings and tail with a knife, and along with the innards he had removed, wrapped them all inside a bunch of soft branches. Then with his characteristic limp and a twist he hobbled over to a pine tree outside his shirangju and hung them there – a wind-burial ritual for the pheasant that he had never bothered to perform in the past.
When we ate pheasant, we never plucked the feathers on its head, wings and tail. Instead, we cut these parts off and hung them from the tree, feathers and all. But Dashi looked down upon people who did this, saying that only a bear or a kandahang was worthy of such ritual. When he ate pheasant sometimes he didn’t even pluck the feathers. He just removed the organs, roasted it and ate it whole.
So Dashi always ate pheasant by himself – others wouldn’t touch it – since meat that had not undergone the burial ritual was not pure.
When Dashi had finished the rite on behalf of the pheasant, he roasted the meat until it was cooked through, tore off a few strips of meat to feed his hawk, and then he ate. Perhaps because he had fasted for three days and felt somewhat distant from the act of eating, Dashi ate languidly. He ate from the moon’s rise in the east to its descent in the west.
When he finished, he rambled about the camp leaning on his cane with Omolie perched on his shoulder until he finally stopped in front of Ivan’s shirangju. He made his ululu cooing sound, a signal for Ivan to come out. Ivan stepped out of his shirangju to find Dashi grinning at him. ‘That’s the most chilling smile I’ve ever seen,’ Ivan told me later.
***
That was the winter we relocated most frequently. Squirrels aside, game was uncharacteristically rare. We saw many dead roe-deer in the valleys. Linke said they had caught the epidemic for sure.
Game were sparse, but not wolves. They probably couldn’t find anything to eat, so they often followed us in packs of four or five. We and our remaining thirty or so reindeer were the foodstuff of their dreams. At night’s onset, the howling of the wolves surrounding our camp sounded exceptionally shrill and mournful. We had to keep the bonfire outside our shirangju alive through the night. As fierce as a wolf’s eyes are, they fear the fire’s eyes.
When Dashi heard the wolves howling, he clenched his fist and gnashed his teeth noisily. He trained his hawk even more frequently using the she-wolf’s hide. Indeed, Omolie looked more vigilant than ever, full of fighting spirit, poised to exact revenge on Dashi’s behalf.
It was in the coldest time of that year that Dashi and his beloved Omolie took leave of us for ever.
Dashi reacted to any wolf howl with anger, but his hawk would just raise its head yet remained unruffled. But Hase said the night that Dashi met with his doom even the hawk was agitated, taking wing and alighting inside the shirangju as if disturbed by something. Seeing the hawk in that state, Dashi roared with laughter. ‘The time for revenge has arrived at last!’ he said, over and over.
Maria and Hase had long ago grown accustomed to Dashi’s peculiar behaviour and went to sleep without taking any notice.
Hase awoke the next morning, and seeing neither Dashi nor his hawk, assumed they’d gone over to Ivan’s. Ever since he and Ivan had squared off over Nidu the Shaman’s Spirit Power, Dashi loved to go to Ivan’s and swagger.
But he wasn’t at Ivan’s. Hase went looking around other shirangju, but Dashi was nowhere to be found. Knowing that lame Dashi couldn’t have gone far and was probably in the nearby forest with his Omolie searching for prey, Hase wasn’t too anxious.
The Malu King that transported the carvings of the Spirits and the reindeer that carried the live cinders had both survived the epidemic. For us, they were two fireballs burning bright in the middle of our dark night.
After the plague, when the reindeer finished foraging they would return in a queue, with the white Malu King at the very front and the grey fire carrier at the tail end. They were like the parents of an extended family, faithfully guarding their few surviving offspring.
That morning the reindeer returned with the Malu King at the front as usual, but when Linke came out to meet the reindeer he noticed there was something dangling from the Malu King’s mouth: a wing. Finding this odd, he took the wing in his hand, examined it closely, and his heart filled with foreboding.
Grey with hints of white spots and dark-green stripes, wasn’t this the very wing of Dashi’s Omolie?
Wing in hand, Linke rushed to find Hase. With one glance Hase realised this was ominous and ran to inform Nidu the Shaman, but he wasn’t in the camp either. Hase and Linke went to search for him, but before they’d gone far they saw him linking wooden poles between four straight pine trees. Hase collapsed on the spot, for he knew that Nidu the Shaman must be constructing Dashi’s wooden burial platform.
People who died back then all underwent wind-burial. Four very erect trees at right angles to one another were selected and wooden poles were laid horizontally on top of a branch of each tree, forming a four-sided platform. The corpse was placed on it with the head to the north and feet to the south, and then covered with branches.
Nidu the Shaman had read from the stars that Dashi would be leaving us. In the middle of the night he saw a shooting star pass over the camp, and from the chorus of wolf howls, he ascertained that the one who would be leaving was Dashi. So he arose early in the morning to select the location for Dashi’s wind-burial.
Everyone followed the reindeer’s tracks and found Dashi in a birch grove near the camp. Or more accurately, we found a battleground. Many white birch saplings had been snapped at the trunk and their branches speckled with blood; the wormwood in the snow had been trampled flat, and we could imagine how savage the struggle had been.
Sprawled sideways on the battleground were four incomplete skeletons: those of two wolves, one human and a hawk. Linke said that one of the two wolves was most certainly the cub that had escaped from Dashi’s hands years ago. It had followed Dashi’s scent, and accompanied by its own offspring, the now grown-up cub had come to avenge its long-dead mother.
Yveline and I saw Dashi at the wind-burial site, or should I say, we saw a pile of bones. The largest of them was the skull. There was also a pile of bones of unequal thicknesses and lengths with pink flesh stuck to them, like a pile of dry firewood.
Based on traces left behind, Linke and Ivan surmised that the hawk had indeed helped Dashi exact reveng
e, but they were seriously injured during their struggle against the wolves and eventually immobilised. The wolves died, but neither Dashi nor his hawk could return home. The stench of blood attracted a handful of voracious wolves. They came running and devoured Dashi and his hawk. They didn’t eat their own kind, but those two dead wolves didn’t escape being eaten either: in the wee hours of the morning, a throng of ravens and hawks made a sumptuous breakfast of them.
On their way back to camp, the reindeer saw the swathe of white bones. From the remnants of the hawk they sensed Dashi must be dead too, and so the Malu King returned with Omolie’s wing dangling from its mouth as a sign of the calamity.
Whenever it occurs to me that it’s likely Dashi and his hawk were gobbled up by wolves while still breathing, I can’t help but feel shivers run down my spine. In our lives, wolves are gusts of icy wind that assault us. But we can’t exterminate them any more than we can halt the onslaught of winter.
Nidu the Shaman buried the hawk’s skeleton with Dashi. Dashi was indeed fortunate, because he finally witnessed the annihilation of his despised enemy, and he was buried together with his beloved Omolie.
Standing before the pile of bones that was Dashi, Yveline told me that he was actually crippled in an attempt to protect our reindeer. In the summertime, wolves love to attack the fawns at the rear of the reindeer herd. Once three fawns had strayed and Dashi went to search for them. He found them trembling, cornered on a cliff by a pair of wolves, one old and one young.
Dashi didn’t have a rifle on him, just a hunting knife, so he picked up a rock and threw it, hitting the old wolf squarely on the head. Its face bloodied, it pounced on Dashi in all its rage. Dashi struggled against it bare-handed, but during the struggle the young wolf bit into Dashi’s leg and wouldn’t let go. At long last Dashi beat the old wolf to death, but the cub escaped with Dashi’s leg in its jaws.
Those three fawns were safe and sound and returned to camp with Dashi. But they returned on foot while Dashi crawled back, dragging a blood-soaked wolf-skin.
Now the hawk and Dashi were gone. The hawk’s home is in the Heavens and Dashi went with it, with no worries about their future abode.
After Dashi departed, Maria suddenly took ill. She vomited everything she ate and became so weak she couldn’t stand up. Everyone thought Maria’s days were numbered. Only Yveline said that in the future, when Maria saw fresh blood run from severed antlers, she wouldn’t cry any more. Everyone understood that Yveline thought Maria was pregnant.
But based on Maria’s symptoms, both Tamara and Nadezhda surmised that she wasn’t pregnant, she must be seriously ill. Who had seen a pregnant woman who even threw up the water she drank? Maria grew thinner by the day, and even she thought her days were numbered.
‘Hase,’ she said, ‘after I die you absolutely must promise to take another wife, an able-bodied woman capable of bearing a child!’ Hase cried. He told Maria if she left him, he’d turn into a swan goose and chase after her into the Heavens.
But Hase didn’t transform into a swan goose, for one day Maria suddenly sat upright and could drink and eat. As spring approached her belly grew big and her face full and bright. It seemed Yveline had surmised correctly. From then on Maria and Hase were always smiling.
Yveline concluded that Maria had been infertile for years because Dashi had skinned the she-wolf and kept that unlikely hide with him. Now Dashi and the wolf-skin were no more, and an air of darkness and gloom no longer occupied their shirangju, so Maria had become pregnant.
But Hase and Maria didn’t see things that way. On the contrary, they believed that it was Dashi’s soul that ensured they could have a child, because Dashi had always yearned for his own omolie. They even settled on a name for their unborn child: Dashi.
Yveline pursed her lips. ‘Anyone named “Dashi” can’t help but be ill-fated. Wasn’t one lame Dashi enough for our urireng?’
When spring came the does bore fawns, but of each ten born, eight or nine died. ‘The epidemic weakened the constitution of the reindeer,’ explained Linke. ‘The fawns born of their coupling are naturally inferior, so many will die. We must hurry to barter for a few head of strong, healthy bucks before the next mating season in late autumn. Otherwise, next spring’s fawns will be just as unlikely to brighten our spirits.’
Later that year Linke decided to go to the Shituruyiche Inengi on the banks of the Pa Béra and trade for reindeer. This festival was our traditional day of celebration for a season of bountiful hunting, and it coincided with the beginning of the rainy season.
Before I was born, people crossed the Argun to Pokrovka for the celebrations. They gathered to sing, dance and trade the goods they had obtained through hunting. Some married across clan lines, and it was there that Hase and Maria met and became engaged.
But later the celebrations were relocated to Jurgang Village on the banks of the Pa Béra. Many anda brought their horse caravans that transported rifles, ammunition and all sorts of manufactured goods, and traded with the hunting peoples during the festival. And the various urireng traded among themselves too.
Rolinsky was our trusted anda and we normally exchanged our entire catch with him. We rarely lacked for anything, so even though our clan always sent people to celebrate the Shituruyiche Inengi, our urireng rarely did. My impression is that during those years Nidu the Shaman and Kunde each went once.
Nidu the Shaman went to perform a ritual dance for a shaman who had lived on the banks of the Pa Béra and ascended the Heavens just before the festival.
Kunde went in the hopes of exchanging birch-bark buckets for four horses. He transported several dozen buckets of various shapes and sizes on reindeer, but returned with just one scrawny nag.
When Yveline made fun of him, Kunde’s jowls trembled like a skirt in the wind. ‘If only those anda weren’t there on the Pa Béra. I’d have bartered direct with the Mongols, and I could’ve got at least three horses. Those anda are all wolves!’
But that skinny horse was with us short of a year when it dropped dead.
It was a dreary day that Linke set out for the river with his catch and extra bullets to trade for a few robust bucks. Mother had a premonition of some sort, and just before Father was to depart, she gave orders to the hound that would accompany him: ‘Ilan, you must protect Linke and make sure that he comes back safe and sound with our reindeer.’ Ilan always followed Father around and understood us well. When Tamara finished speaking, he put his paws on her legs and nodded.
Having obtained the dog’s promise, Mother’s face lightened and she leaned over and petted Ilan’s forehead. Her tenderness made Ilan a bit giddy, and he barked, delighting Luni and me.
‘Put your heart at ease,’ Father said. ‘With you back here, even if my body doesn’t want to return, my heart won’t agree!’
‘Linke, your heart alone won’t do,’ Tamara protested. ‘I want your body too!’
‘My body and heart will both return!’
When the rainy season arrives, lightning often flashes over the forest, accompanied by the rumbling of thunder. Nidu the Shaman said there are two Thunder Spirits, one male and one female, who govern the weather in the mortal world. On his Spirit Robe were round pieces of iron representing the Sun Spirit and crescent-shaped ones for the Moon Spirit, and forked tree branches symbolising the Thunder Spirits. When he performed his Spirit Dance, those metallic totems of every shape and hue clanged against one another, and I reckoned it was a Thunder Spirit speaking, for the Sun and the Moon are mute.
When thunder sounded, I took it for the Heavens coughing. When the cough was slight, it was light rain that fell; when the cough was deeper, it was heavy rain that fell. When it rained lightly, it must be the Female Thunder Spirit appearing; when it rained heavily, it must be the Male Thunder Spirit appearing.
The Male Thunder Spirit’s prowess was great. At times He propelled balls of fire, sundering the big trees in the forest and leaving them pitch-black. So typically when thunder rumbled, we stayed in
our shirangju. If we were outside, we would certainly choose a flat area near a body of water and avoid big trees.
Not long after Father left the camp, the sky turned even gloomier, the thick clouds of deep autumn gathered and the air was oppressive. The birds flew low, and the breeze grew into a gale that made the forest vibrate with a hwa-hwa sound.
Mother glanced at the sky. ‘Do you think this rain is going to fall?’
I knew she was worried about Father on the road and hoped it wouldn’t rain. ‘It looks to me like this wind will blow the clouds away,’ I said sympathetically. ‘The rain won’t fall.’
Tamara seemed reassured and cheerfully went off to gather the wormwood drying in the shade outside the shirangju. When it was in season, we’d collect a lot, dry some and use it to stew meat in the winter.
Just as mother was bringing the wormwood into the shirangju, a clap of thunder suddenly roared. The forest shuddered and lit up for an instant, and then came the pitter-patter of raindrops. They began falling from the south-east, and rain from that direction often grows into a storm.
The Male Thunder Spirit probably felt the rain wasn’t heavy enough, so He cleared His throat more forcefully, and coughed up bolts of lightning that danced like golden serpents in the sky. When they disappeared, the woods reverberated – wa-wa, wa-wa. The rain was so heavy that it seemed to have lost its soul, flying and dashing in all directions. What appeared in the air was no longer a rain curtain comprised of fine braided raindrops, but a downward-surging river.
Mother listened, so frightened that her mouth remained agape. If she believed in the Virgin Mary like Nadezhda, I thought to myself, she’d certainly cross herself over and over.
When the lightning lit up our faces, Mother’s blanched face wasn’t all I could see; the terror deep within her eyes was also illuminated. It was such an extreme terror that all my life I’ve never forgotten her gaze.
Mother’s gaping mouth closed only when the rain ceased. She looked utterly fatigued, as if she had transformed into the Female Thunder Spirit during the storm, and gone and fabricated wind and rain.
