The Chukchi Bible by Yuri Rytkheu Read Free Book Online Page A

person.
    Yet the thing Mlakoran was being asked to do was too heavy a price. If indeed this originated within the shamans’ heads, it was inconceivable treachery. So then, he would have to test them . . .
    Mlakoran went to Uelen, taking his daughter and a small herd of deer to feed the ill and the dying. Keleu rode ahead on his own sled.
    Never in Mlakoran’s life had he loved the spring so much! Clear skies, a sparkling sun that lent its brilliance to the slightly melting snow. A comb of blue mountains on the horizon, air as soft as melted snow, the kind you could breathe in with mouth wide open, without fear of freezing the tops
of your lungs. And the anticipation of warmth spilled all around, nature’s turn toward the season when life bursts forth. Then, even the does are heavy with young, carrying future deer inside them; even the tundra mice leave their warrens and beat trails over the softening snow. The sun is high in the sky, signaling to all that lives: hurry and live, be quick to enjoy life and the contemplation of nature returning to life, go on and delight in everything that lives, together with your friends and your dear ones! Forget quarrels, remember instead kind words and melodious songs!
    But that is all for those who remain alive, those whose living eyes are to see the new fawns, the tundra in bloom, the first of the walrus herds, and the sea free of winter ice!
    If the Order from Above were to be fulfilled, he, Mlakoran, would see none of these things. He would be resting within the symbolic ring of stones, naked, surrounded by his private possessions – his harpoon, his light sled, the wooden ladle from which he had drunk broth and water.
    Â 
    From a hilltop Uelen appeared in the distance, across a lagoon encased in ice and shimmering snow. The yarangas were strung along the shingled beach like a chain, from the foot of the mountain over Irvytgyr 7 to the ice-locked bay between the lagoon and the open sea. There was no sign of smoke over any of the dwellings, no sound of dogs barking, nor of human voices. An ominous, glittering silence filled with blinding sunlight enveloped the scene that was so dear to him, and his heart contracted in anticipation of grief. A thought fluttered in Mlakoran’s mind, exacerbating his suffering: perhaps he was seeing all this for the last time . . . Another’s eyes will gladden to the sight of the rows of yarangas appearing along the shingled beach; another’s heart
will feel the mounting joy of nearing the warm hearths of his birthplace. Mlakoran felt his heart emptying, its hot blood replaced by a deadly frost.
    Mlakoran walked up to his yaranga and entered the chottagin , the cold outer part of the yaranga. While his eyes adapted to the gloom after the blinding brightness outside, all he could hear were muffled moans from behind the fur curtain. Raising the polog he saw his older children and first wife lying beneath some deerskins. It had been a long time since a grease lamp burned here and the dwelling’s inner walls were limned in hoarfrost.
    â€œSave us!” his wife moaned from beneath the fur blankets. “You’re our only hope!”
    â€œBut did you hear what the shaman demands in exchange for saving the people of Uelen?” Mlakoran asked her.
    â€œIt’s not the shaman’s demand, it’s an Order from Above,” answered his wife.
    Â 
    The testing of the shamans began that very night in their own yaranga. Everyone had left the dwelling, save Keu and Keleu. Mlakoran entered the close polog and saw the two shamans – father and son – naked from the waist up, in the dim light.
    â€œTake it all off!” Mlakoran shouted.
    Both shamans began to unlace the plaited deer tendons that held up their fur-lined trousers, obeying the order. Keu was a pitiful sight – a skeleton of sharply jotting bones, tautly covered by dry, dark brown skin. But it was he who was the main source of danger. There