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Wednesday, September 21, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Commentary...
The hour of dogs a-barkin’
By lynn Woodward
Correspondent
“It’s the hour of dogs
a-barkin’,” as Tom Russell
sings about Mexico. Seems to
be true in the countryside of
Mongolia as well. This night
though, Stinky, Guetuerma
and a nameless pup that
belongs to someone else but
is here most of the time, were
barking well past dark out-
side my ger (Mongolian for
“yurt.”).
It had been an unharmoni-
ous day for them: this after-
noon, a large aggressive male
dog hung around camp. Most
dogs here are “Mongolian
Dog” — black with brown
points; few are neutered. The
dogs strutted, snarling and
posturing; the intruder chose
a bone from a myriad of cow,
horse and sheep legs the other
dogs had brought in, and
simply lay down to gnaw for
hours.
Around dusk, a bellowing
had ensued down the hill by
the Terelj River. The black-
and-white Holstein-looking
bull lumbered up to where my
hosts were milking. Yadmaa
and Davasuren encouraged
the bull to stop harassing their
cows. So the bull stomped
through the ger camp, sling-
ing slobber. The dogs glared
back. Very skunky, he was.
Definitely looking for some-
one particular. Finally, far
up the hill an answer to his
bellows drew him in that
direction.
Every morning and night,
Davasuren drags each of the
dozen-or-so calves by an ear
into the small post-and-rail
round pen, then deftly weaves
a loop of one-inch webbing
from a corral post around the
horns of each cow to keep
them anchored for milk-
ing. On horseback, Yadmaa
pushes each udderly empty
cow on up the hill.
Each day, a young man
on horseback pushed sev-
eral hundred goats and sheep
through the “front yard,” up-
valley in the morning and
down-valley in the evening.
One day, I watched a palo-
mino stallion wander through
and chase Yadmaa’s horse.
Fences? Very few. Open
range everywhere, even in
the cities. Fences are not of
the nomad mentality.
Every evening, Yadmaa
unsaddled his horse and
lit fires in the ger’s wood-
stoves (no matches, just a
minute with a butane torch).
Davasuren would then appear
in my ger with dinner, simi-
lar to breakfast or lunch, of
mutton, potatoes, cabbage
and carrots. I thanked her,
“Bayarlalaa” (pronounced
something like “bye errtth
la”); it was the first of four
words I learned, although my
pronunciation always made
the Mongolians laugh.
My hosts knew about 40
words of English — nouns.
While gestures and smiles led
to some understanding; soon
I yearned for more communi-
cation, so I got out my copy
of Mongolian phrases. But
I didn’t want to tell them to
“turn left” or ask “where to
buy cashmere.” I wanted to
know what it was like to grow
up here. How the fall of the
Soviet Union changed their
lives. If they’d ever been lost
in a blizzard. If they’d ever
been healed by a shaman…
And I couldn’t; so I watched
and listened.
One afternoon, Davasuren
appeared with walking-fin-
gers and come-hither ges-
tures. We walked to a casually
fenced area of maybe four
acres; this fence keeps ani-
mals out, not in. Davasuren
started raking a section of cut
dry grass with a pitchfork that
Yadmaa repaired earlier that
day with a spare ger pole for a
new handle. Soon, I took over
the raking and she pulled out
her smart phone and made a
call.
Yadmaa drove into the
field with two more pitch-
forks, both with handles
made of straight branches,
bark smoothed from use. The
tractor was left running, as
it requires a roll-start. We all
raked and forked the grass
into the cart. Yadmaa gestured
that I should get up on the
cart and stomp down the hay.
I did, as they forked more hay
on. And more. I stomped and
teetered about a foot above
the cart walls and a good five
feet off the ground. Finally,
they decided no more hay
would cling to the angle of
repose, so I carefully leaped
off the cart.
They tied the load, then
Yadmaa drove the tractor half
a kilometer to their winter
camp and unloaded the hay.
Take two, and that section
was done.
Mongolians set up their
gers wherever they want;
little of the land outside of
the cities is privately owned.
Yadmaa and Davasuren don’t
move far summer to winter.
Some families move every
season, as their ancestors
did, quite a distance. They
dismantle and move the gers
in open-bed utility trucks. In
Yadmaa and Davasuren’s tidy
ger there isn’t much: a wood-
stove for heat and cooking,
kitchen shelf and utensils, a
small bed each, a dresser with
photos displayed, a small
wardrobe, a place for shoes,
an extra car battery, his bow
and arrows, her purse, a blan-
ket with a stitched image of
Chinggis Khaan on the wall, a
waist-high blue plastic barrel
photo by gana
Davasuren and Yadmaa and lynn Woodward.
of fermenting cow’s milk.
One bare light bulb hangs
from the ceiling; no running
water, but only a short walk to
an outhouse and drip-bucket
for hand-washing. Along the
ger’s outside wall are a satel-
lite dish, solar panel, water
barrels.
Later I walked up to their
winter camp. The large hay
pen was about a sixth full
and Yadmaa indicated that
it would be completely full
before winter. Several pens
form the compound, where
their horse, goats, cattle and
sheep will stay. The pens have
walled and covered sections,
with rails of tree trunks and
dirt and plants on the roof.
Cow dung has been pressed
into the cracks between the
bark-on logs to keep the wind
from blowing through.
The skull of a large canine
was on one of the pen roofs.
Later, through an interpreter,
I learned that it’s a wolf skull
and is believed to help pro-
tect the livestock. Last winter
was an especially cold one;
a cow’s tail broke off. The
coming winter is predicted to
be another hard one.
The dogs finally quit bark-
ing; I slept deeply through
only a hard frost of a summer
night and woke to be further
intrigued by a people merg-
ing the slick new stuff into an
ancient way of life.
photo by lynn woodward
guertuerma and the pup soaking up sun. Most dogs here are “Mongolian Dog,” black with brown points.
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