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Nomad Way

 

TAIGA LAW
By Munkhijn Amagalan
part 2

The spring passed. Then summer. In early days of autumn there was the first snow. It is easy to track game on a fresh snow, so two of us went for hunting. Once we entered thick forest, we saw traces of a big elk. We followed the tracks but our hunt led nowhere.

When we came across a tree preached by Charchaan the Shamaness, we saw a strange and unbelievable picture. First we saw a woman under a tree with a knife handle sticking out of her abdomen. Her breasts were full and the abdomen enlarged, as she was pregnant.

Then we recognized the woman to be Tetei, the daughter of old Moyun. She was still alive breathing slightly. She opened her eyes and then her soul flew away. In her hands she held a clock of black hairs. Few steps behind the tree we saw a body. It was Aldaan, dead. He was scalped and the head skin lay near.

We understood what happened. Tetei took a bloody revenge killing and scalping Aldaan as he did to her father. She could not bear the shame of bearing a child of the very man who murdered her father… She could not bear repeated humiliation from the man who disrupted her life and took her by force… Not only she killed him in revenge but his child too.

Taiga does not tolerate sins. Those who commit sin in taiga do bear the consequences. Runaway Aldaan breached this law and lost his life.

Only Tetei lost her life so pitifully..."

Two old men sat silent and sad. Only flames of an open fire flickered at night.

Taiga Law : part 1 | part 2 | Who are the Tsaatan - Forest People?

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