(Sulta is heading out to do some herding.)

The morning after we left the reindeer herders and rode out of the mountains, we woke up in a cosy ger, having enjoyed a good sleep and our first real hot shower in several days. We set out in our jeep, heading south to explore the valleys of Hovsgol Province. By lunchtime, threatening clouds rolled across the sky and it began to rain.
 
Tulga surprised us by stopping at the ger of some friends who have a big flock of sheep and goats. I’d been asking to have a goat feast, the whole process from selecting the goat to cooking and sharing the meat. Mongols consider the blood of their animals to be sacred, and I wanted to see their special way of slaughtering the animals to prevent spilling blood in the process. 
 
The family had moved camp just two days before, to a wooden house they come back to at this time every year. Besides the goats and sheep, they had a herd of horses and another of yaks and cattle. It was a family of four, with a boy about 16 and a girl, 19. The girl, Sulta, was pretty and bright, and we were impressed when she set out over the grassland on her motorcycle to move the herds during a lull in the storm. 
 
It’s considered good luck to welcome guests into your house in a rainstorm, and we weren’t the only ones visiting that day. Some cousins had come to slaughter a sheep and take the meat home. The mom served milk tea and chunks of bread and cheese to all of us, and then we went out to choose our animals. I won’t go into detail about the slaughtering, but it was quick, clean, and very humane. 
 
Every part of the animal has a use. There was just one little organ that was tossed away into the grasses.  It reminded me of that old Gary Larson “Far Side” cartoon where an old Indian chief holds up something that looks sort of like a rubbery stethoscope, and he says to the young braves, “and this is the only part of the buffalo we don’t use.” In this case, not even the cat and dogs wanted the discarded part. Pacey, who’s a doctor, said it was the gall bladder.
 
The meat was brought indoors to cook. The rain started up again, and more visitors arrived on horseback to wait out the storm. They were a father and son, very handsome in their traditional “deel” coats, and they rode a pair of gorgeous paliminos with silver-studded tack. We all sipped milk tea, which is the perfect thing for a chilly, rainy day. The cousins left in their jeep with their meat, and when the storm let up, the two horsemen rode off too. 
 
Before long, platters of steamed goat ribs were set before us, with sliced raw onion for a nice peppery contrast to the tender, rich meat. Normally, I’m not a meat eater. My husband and I gave up eating mammal meat about twenty years ago. But we’re not dogmatic. If someone invites us to their house and serves beef or pork, we eat it. We just don’t cook it at home. For this trip, I decided that if I wanted to experience Mongolian life, which is so entwined with the raising of meat animals, I would eat what Mongolians eat. 
 
When we had finished the meat, the father of the family handed around a bowl of vodka. That’s the favorite drink in northern Mongolia, where the weather’s often too cool for fermenting mare’s milk to make airag, the famous drink of the Mongols. I tried to do my part with the vodka, but I realized too late that I forgot to sprinkle a little in the four directions to honor the local spirits before drinking. I know that as a foreigner I’m forgiven, but if I were living here longer, I’d try to master more of Mongolian etiquette.
 
The clouds cleared and the sun came out, so we wrapped up our remaining goat meat. The herder and his wife discussed what price we should pay for the goat, and we all agreed on 60,000 Mongolian tugrik, or about $30 US.  We hit the road again, and by evening we pitched camp at a lovely meadow on a hill surrounded on three sides by a river where wild swans and handsome shelducks swam in pairs. 
 
For supper we had—you guessed it—goat.  And that’s what we ate for the next three days —goat with noodles, goat in dumplings, goat in pasties and with potatoes in stew. It was a lot of goat, but I’ll never forget sharing that first amazing platter of tender ribs, the freshest meat I’ve ever eaten, with the family who raised the goat, slaughtered it with respect, and cooked it for us on the stove that warmed their home. 

(Our ger for a couple of nights.)

As we traveled through northern Mongolia, we began to pick up some    basics of Mongolian etiquette. We were traveling in the countryside, so one of the first things we needed to learn was how to behave when visiting a family in their ger. A ger is what we commonly call a “yurt,” but “yurt” is a Russian word. After saying “yurt” and getting blank looks a few times, we learned to say “ger,” which rhymes with “hair.”

Our first ger visit came on a stormy afternoon in Hovsgol Province. Thunderheads marched across the valley, dropping more rain on the already drenched grassland. Tulga drove his Land Cruiser like a tank, crawling up slippery hillsides, and lurching down again, sending sheets of brown water flying when we plowed through the potholes at the bottom. 

Around lunch time we saw a ger coming up, by the river, with smoke trailing from its stovepipe. Tulga turned off the road and drove across the grass. We climbed out of the car, happy to stretch our legs. A sodden dog woofed at us half-heartedly. Tulga called out “Nokhoi khori!,” just like I had read in books. It means “Hold the dog!” You say it even if there is no dog, and the dog in this case was tied to a post. Really it’s like calling, “Hello!  Anybody home?” 

A couple of teenage boys came out the door, and then a young girl, and then a middle aged woman. After a brief conversation, the woman waved us into the ger. Hospitality is a way of life in rural Mongolia. It’s considered good luck to have strangers stop for shelter during a storm. 

As I entered the ger I reminded myself, when you step into a ger, don’t tread on the threshold. Once you’re inside, you see a small stove in the middle, and behind it against the far wall are several low chests with pictures, incense, and things arranged neatly, a sort of informal altar. Low beds are arranged around the sides, and they also serve as sofas to sit on during the day.

As a guest, you go into the ger to the left, clockwise. The owner and family sit on the right. Clockwise is the way you go in lots of places — in a ger, around an ovoo (a sacred cairn), or around a sacred tree. At the Buddhist temple in Ulaan Baatar, everyone walked around clockwise inside the main hall, and they even turned the prayer wheels clockwise. Of course this custom has nothing to do with a clock. Someone told me it’s the direction the sun’s rays shining in through the smoke hole move around on the floor of the ger as the day goes by.

There was a big pan of milk by the stove, and within minutes our hostess handed each of us a bowl of hot milk tea. You’re supposed to give and receive things with two hands, but in our eagerness to drink the tea we forgot. It was delicious and comforting on a cold, wet day. Everyone seems to keep milk tea or a big pan of milk at hand to make into tea. You just add a little water, a touch of salt, and some green tea, and let it steep. I’m not sure what kind of milk we were drinking—goat, sheep, yak, cow, or horse—but I’m guessing it was a blend in all the households we visited, except of course at the reindeer village, where it was reindeer milk. Whatever it was, it tasted great each time we had it. You often see big pans of milk turning into yogurt near the stove, too, and I think Mongolians make the best yogurt in the world, rich and creamy.

Our cook, Namuul, got busy by the stove, making lunch for everyone. Several more children arrived on a motorcycle, from a nearby ger. We all sat and stared at each other for a while, trying to make conversation through Tulga as our translator. I decided to get out some of the gifts we had brought along. I went out to the car, forgetting that as a guest I should step out the door backwards, to avoid turning my back to the altar. I don’t know whether anyone noticed or cared, because—of course—my back was turned.

I brought colored pencils and pads of paper for the kids, flashlights for the teens, and some lotion for the mom and older daughter, plus candy for everyone. The kids didn’t look too excited about the paper and pencils, so I went around to their side of the stove showed them how to fold a little box. That involved a lot of sign language and laughter, and when everyone had made a box, we decorated them with the pencils. 

A few more tips we picked up — Don’t step over anyone’s feet or legs as you move around in the ger. When you go out to the privy, cough as a signal to anyone inside it. If you’re in the privy and someone approaches, cough so they won’t barge in on you. No one pets the dogs in the countryside, but cats are for kids to play with: I’ve never seen such laid back, kid-tolerant cats. And here’s my favorite: If you step on anyone’s foot, grab their hand and shake it. In Ulaan Baatar at a shaman’s ceremony, a woman stepped on Morley’s foot, then grabbed her arm and shook it vigorously, with a big smile. It turns an embarrassing mistake into a humorous greeting.

(There’s a great list of “Do’s and Don’t’s”  at Tulga’s website, nomadictrails.com, on the “Travel Advisor” page, No. 10.) 

(In this photo Purvee ties Gambat’s boot. Photo by Haydock.)

Gambat has a long face and eyes that seem to see right through you. He’s taller than most Tsaatan men. Besides being a shaman, people look up to him as the village leader, even though  community decisions are usually made by all the older men together.

Tulga has brought tourists to watch Gambat’s rituals before, and I wanted to make sure we would see an authentic ritual for healing. So I came to him with a real problem that I need help with. I invited Pacey and Morley to have something in mind, too. 

Shamans are healers, but not just of physical afflictions. Luckily we three are healthy, but everyone has issues in his or her life that need to be resolved. And so, both Morley and I asked Gambat to help us with particular personal problems. With Tulga for our interpreter, we filled him in on the background as the day went by. Tulga has known Gambat for many years and also knew the old shaman who trained him.

We gathered at Gabat’s teepee at nightfall, because that’s when the spirits are close. His wife, Purvee, and his eldest son purified the place with juniper smoke, and as Gambat put on his shaman costume they purified it, too. Soon the whole teepee smelled of burning juniper, and we saw everything through a cloud of juniper smoke. It reminds me of the way the Native Americans use sage in the west.

Gambat’s costume is gorgeous, made of sky blue canvas with appliquéd patterns and dangling strips of cloth, bells and rattles, so it makes noise whenever he moves. His headdress is topped with tall feathers of the black eagle. He wore elaborate boots, too, but I didn’t get a good look at them. The most striking thing was the fringe hanging at the front of the headdress, which hid his face. It made him look powerful and mysterious in the semi-darkness of the teepee. I think the purpose of the fringe is to help him withdraw from the everyday world and turn his vision to a world the rest of us can’t see.

Gambat’s drum is big, almost a yard across. It’s open on one side.  He holds the open side close to his head with one hand and beats the drum with the other, so he hears the rhythm all around him.  He started with a soft beat, growing stronger, and began chanting. 

I didn’t know what to expect, but he seemed to leave us and become totally absorbed in another reality. He chanted and drummed for about three hours, stopping only briefly for sips of tea and to puff on a long home made pipe offered by his wife and son. Meanwhile, my legs and back began to ache from sitting with my knees drawn up and nothing to lean back against. For a stretch Gambat called me to kneel beside him, facing the altar at the back of the teepee. He chanted in Tuvan, so Tulga couldn’t tell us more than a little of what he was saying. 

After chanting and drumming for three hours, Gambat began to sway and stumble, but he didn’t stop his chanting. His son jumped up and spotted for him, keeping him from falling onto the stove. Finally, he collapsed to the floor. They tried to give him tea, but he struck the tea bowl to the floor. His wife and son hurried to remove his costume, and then his son and Tulga quickly pulled him outside for fresh air. We could hear him still mumbling his chant, but at last he stopped.

Purvee gave us all a cup of tea, and Gambat came back inside. He sat a long time with his tea, and then he had a specific message for each of us, with instructions for the future and words of encouragement. He said he had seen five spirits in his trance, and if we come back he would do a specific ritual for them. 

We all got to bed about 2 a.m., and in the morning Gambat wanted to know if we had had any dreams. No, we didn’t have any we could remember. He said that was a good sign, because a dream would mean there was something remaining that needs to be dealt with.

So we said goodbye to Gambat and Purvee and the Tsaatan village and headed off on our horses back to the valley. We’re still talking about Gambat’s ritual and learning more about it from Tulga. What really happened during those hours in the dark teepee? It’ll take time to tell.