we photograph a shaman

PLATE 26. WE PHOTOGRAPH A SHAMAN. The initiation business is over, we continue our march down through the foothills to the plains below. Everything feels unnaturally vivid and queer after snuffing the powder, even a week later. On our way we spy a strange looking figure making his way through the undergrowth; Balog tells us to set down our gear and stay put while he walks over and talks to the man. Eventually after much gesticulating and animated discussion, Balog brings him over and makes the startling revelation that this man has met Peter! Westcott translates his story for us:

“I come from a valley far from here, below the turblut kunhku, the roof of the world. I lived there happily for many years in a yurt by the river - I was not a rich man, but I had a fine herd of kulags and a good field of barley. Several years ago, I am standing next to the river in the pasture with my kulags in the late afternoon, looking at the sky - it is clear, but there are unusual high clouds, tangled like the intestines of a Yak. This is a strange omen I think to myself and a shadow crosses my soul. I turn around and standing behind me, almost touching is a demon dressed in rags. He is in the shape of a ghostly white man and has many cuts and bruises like a bad turnip. I want to run but cannot, I am hypnotized. ‘Give me food and a boat,’ the devil says. I immediately fill a hide bag with meat and barley and put it in my umiak [a native boat similar to a canoe], all the time hoping he will not slaughter my kulags or curse my land. I walk back over to him and point to the umiak. The demon grins and hands me a small hide bag. A minute later he is in my boat floating down river.
“In my yurt that night I think to myself, you are happy, you have a fine herd of kulags and a good field of barley - do not look in that bag, you will find devilry in it. Take it to the river right away and throw it in. I look down at the small package I am holding. It is round and warm in my hand, like the freshly laid egg of a hen. I decide to open it now and throw it in the river tomorrow. I unwrap it and there is an eyeball staring at me! It is crying! It screams inside my head, ‘Dream what I see! Dream what I see!’ I quickly wrap it back up and hide it behind a pile of yak skins. Tomorrow I will throw the hideous eye into the river!
“The next morning I am standing with the hide bag containing the eye at the river’s edge, but I cannot throw it in - I will hear its angry screams in my head every night as it watches the days pass from the bottom of the river. The eye must go far away. I make up my mind to carve a small wooden boat for the eye, so that when I put it in the river it will be carried far away where it will forget about me and haunt someone else. But when I have done this, I still cannot put the eye in the river. Day after day, night after night, it sits in my yurt in the little boat I carved for it. The eye talks to me all the time, begging me to see the world through it. I cannot sleep, the eye is turning me into a lunatic! My kulags are hungry and my barley is dying. I leave my yurt and travel many days to see the shaman of the valley, bringing the eye with me. (continue)