tent village

PLATE 32 (continued): We are led to a yurt that serves as a temple, a nether world half lost between Buddhism and animism. A thick pungent odour, sweaty and rancid, fills the tent. Sacred cabinets, heavily padlocked, hold törmas - ritual cakes, odd doughy sculptures that, by magical means, imprison wrathful deities, demon phantasms, evil hekuras. Woe become he who dares open the door to so diabolical a sanctuary, no matter how ramshackle its appearance. The shaman starts to utter an incomprehensible invocation, “Tslöm horte umnh homnhe umnh homnhe....” presumably to protect us from the dark powers locked within, and opens the cupboard door, revealling the lumpen pastries to my unshielded Western eyes. Fortunately I have been provided with a greasy kulag bone which I am entreated to give as an offering to the biscuit spirits, thereby appeasing their greedy appetites for mischief. This I do with the solemnity that the fraught situation demands. A pile of a dozen-or-so bones, cracked and dusty, lie strewn amongst the untidy törmas. These demons evidently have a great fondness for kulag shanks. I am knocked out of my reverie by a sharp and discordant ringing sound; with great agitation, the shaman is shaking a shang, a sort of inverted miniature cymbal with a rude clapper bolted onto it. Evidently it keeps the biscuit demons from latching onto our souls. And indeed, eerie flashes of light are emitted from the shang and the energy in the tent quickens noticeably, a vibration that stings and scratches like nothing I�ve ever heard before. No doubt the demon in the biscuit cupboard is delighted; the shaman slaps the heavy iron padlock shut and the air immediately lightens. Relieved, we notice our bodies are rigid and drenched in sweat.

After dark, Balog reappears with some news. He has asked the Buryat Chieftain about Peter Hesselbach, the take-apart white devil, and where we might locate him. It turns out Peter is living with a nomadic family who are currently in the marshy country south of here, having taken their herd of kulags to their summer pastures; these kulags belong to the father of his wife. Peter has even fathered a son! I am agape, completely stunned, bewildered, astounded, and flumberducked! A wife and child! We start making plans to leave first thing in the morning, but Balog tells us that we must wait - the marsh country is huge and treacherous, and there is no way of determining exactly where the family will have set up camp. However, they will undoubtedly return for the huge market day to be held in the settlement several weeks hence; in the meantime we will be treated as guests and shown many important rituals. Well satisfied, we are moved to stand up and all shake hands on the imminent success of our expedition.