The Chukchi Bible by Yuri Rytkheu

Author:Yuri Rytkheu [Rytkheu, Yuri]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Archipelago
Published: 2011-11-08T18:15:00+00:00

They arrived in Uelen one spring night, when the first of the duck flocks were taking wing over the spit of land. Adults and children alike, armed with eplykytet – a sling made out of hide with rocks attached, used to bring down birds in flight – had lain low behind the outermost yarangas on the west side of the village, waiting for the low-flying birds. Ensnared in thin nerpa-skin ribbons, the ducks hit the earth and the sea ice, riven with spring meltholes, with muffled thuds.

Mlatangin greeted his son as though the other had left his home only yesterday. Mletkin’s grandfather Tynemlen was a touch warmer. In a quiet voice he told the young man:

“Your grandfather Kalyantagrau is waiting for you. He wants your help to go beyond the clouds.”

Mletkin’s heart missed a beat.

When you enter a gloomy chottagin from the brightly lit outdoors, your eyes need a moment to become accustomed to the half darkness. Mletkin could hear a muffled moan and raspy coughing as soon as he stepped inside.

Kalyantagrau lay in the polog, but his head, with a much-depleted mane of hair, was poking through the curtain into the chottagin. Like Mletkin’s father and other grandfather, he did not express any particular emotions at his grandson’s return. Yet his voice was thick with joy.

“I’m so glad you’ve come back,” the old man croaked. “Just in time. My life is ending. Now I can go beyond the clouds in peace. And you are going to help me.”

Kalyantagrau did not wish to die the traditional way, by being strangled with a hide thong. He said he’d rather Mletkin killed him with a spear.

When a person who is voluntarily leaving life is strangled, those who perform the ritual do not see him or her; they pull the straps wrapped around the dying person’s neck from the outside, opposite ends of the yaranga. This gave the ritual killing a certain anonymity, and was considered the traditional way. Dying by the spear was a different story. He whose blood had been spilled could count on a place in the Constellation of Sadness in the celestial regions of the Polar Star.

Preparation for this sad ritual took two days. Mletkin was consciously dragging his feet, vainly hoping that the old shaman would change his mind and decide to live a bit more, and then see what happened . . . But Kalyantagrau, once decided, always saw things through to the end. He did not hurry his grandson but asked what had been done each time he saw the young man.

Mletkin spent this time trying to escape his terrible thoughts, striving to lose himself in the repetitive, mechanical process of sharpening the spear. All the while, he muttered verses that came of their own strange accord:When a person dies the sun grows black.

When the Word dies down, Silence looms over the world.

The finished song melts into the sky.

And the melody becomes an echo.

Outer Forces! Give me strength to fulfill the ritual,

Let my spear-wielding hand not tremble

And the point plunge true into the heart.

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