Leaving Mother Lake (12 page)

That summer there was a lot to keep my mother busy, and us as well. She had decided that we would walk around Lake Lugu in honor of the mountain goddess, as we had always done until the Red Guards had upset everything. We would go to Yongning to sing and light sagebrush for Gamu Mountain, and we would also go to Qiansuo to visit her family. We had to leave things well organized for Dujema, who would take care of our chickens and pigs. We also had to pack food for ourselves and for anyone who cared to join us for a picnic, and we had to prepare the customary gifts of salted pork, tea bricks, cloth, and tobacco. Finally, we had to wash and mend our clothes because we should look our best during the festival, and also to show off to Aunt Yufang and Second Aunt and all the people of Qiansuo. And for this occasion, my mother took out her white skirt and wrapped her turban around her head.

And so my mother’s skirt swished to and fro as she shouted orders left and right. Meanwhile, my little brothers ran around in circles and got in everybody’s way, Ache went off to fetch some water and disappeared with his friends, and my big sister Zhema, who seemed to know what to do next, poured rice into sacks, sliced up the pork and boiled the eggs, and counted bamboo boxes. And I felt jealous — because Zhema was so grown-up, and she was so capable, and my mother was going to so much trouble on account of her dress, tying one colorful sash around her pretty waist and then another, adding a string of glass beads to her headdress, and a ribbon here and a flower there — while I was still a child and my hair was too short, and I had to content myself with a clean version of the linen tunic I wore every day. But I held my tongue and tried to make myself useful.

I was in the vegetable garden cutting up cilantro when Ama called out to me:

“Namu! Come over here. There’re some people to see you.”

“Who is it?” I asked incredulously because I was still a child and I had a visitor.

“It’s a Yi man and his daughter,” Ama answered. And she pulled the garden gate closed behind me and hurried me along.

He looked much better than the first time I had seen him, with his lips bleeding and his eyes dying, but I recognized him immediately. So he had come back, I thought in amazement. And this time he had come with his daughter, and two horses loaded with big bags of potatoes, wild mushrooms, and wheat flour. In another sack he had three wild hens. And now he was speaking with my mother in Yi, and I could not understand anything, but I heard my mother say my name a few times, and she was smiling and looking very happy.

As for his daughter, her name was Añumo. She seemed a little older than me. She was very proud but also very shy. No girl in our village, except for Tsilidema and her unfortunate Gu family, was this shy, but then when she smiled, she had a pretty dimple in her right cheek, and when she curtsied, she did so in the most graceful manner. As for me, I felt very proud at being curtsied to, as I knew that all this politeness and all the gifts had come to us on account of my generosity. But I was a long way from guessing what was coming next. Not even in the horsemen’s stories had I heard of such a thing as the Yi man requested, when he explained with grave dignity that he wanted me to become his daughter’s blood sister. Now, I surely did not understand what he meant for us to do, and I cannot say today that I would have done things differently if I had understood, but I do know that I was enjoying myself so much at the center of attention that I accepted his offer without even raising a question.

The man asked my mother for a bowl and some water and salt. When she came back, he grabbed one of his hens and drew his knife and cut its throat, and as the poor animal flapped and twitched, he poured her blood into the bowl. After that he stirred in the water and the salt, and he told Añumo to drink and then to hand the bowl over to me.

I had never put anything in my mouth that had been killed and was not cooked, and I took the bowl with as much reluctance as was possible under the circumstances — because I knew that it was much too late to say no, unless I never wanted to show my face again to anyone in the world. The smell almost made me puke, and I held off for a moment. In the end I closed my eyes and held my breath, and I drank the chicken blood. Añumo and I became sisters.

My Ama took the bowl from my hand, and while Zhema took the hen away to pluck and ready for lunch, she invited the Yi man to follow her into the house to drink some tea. I stayed outside with Añumo, wiping my lips with my hands, and my hands on my shirt, and then my tongue on my lips, and then my lips on my sleeve. But as the briny taste faded, I began to feel rather special at having a Yi sister. She looked somewhat different from us Moso. She had black hair like we had, but large brown eyes and slightly darker skin, long eyelashes and a straight and narrow nose, and beautiful white teeth. I touched her eyelashes over and over. We held hands and smiled at each other. Ama brought us some sweet dumplings filled with raw sugar. Añumo took a bite and her face lit up. She loved the sugar, so I emptied the inside of my dumpling and gave it to her. I loved my mountain sister.

At lunchtime Ama served us chicken stew and my brothers and I ate with our mouths wide open as we listened to her speaking with the Yi man in his language. Actually, we could not believe our ears, and so much so that we began to laugh uncontrollably — until Ama took us aside and explained in a stern voice that many words in Moso and Yi sounded the same and had completely different meanings.
“Kasha nosha opa nozha”
meant “Please don’t be shy, and eat all you can!” and not “Please, you may eat my ass.”

When the Yi were about to leave, my mother packed some slices of salted pork and some rice and bricks of tea, and she gave my mountain sister a scarf and said: “This is a present from Namu.” We accompanied them to the last house in the village with all the regard owed to honored guests. I held Añumo’s hand and swung on her arm and I wished I could have spoken to her but I did not dare. I did not want to offend anyone by speaking the wrong Yi words. I also wished Añumo could have stayed with us forever, or at least that she could have come with us to Yongning for the mountain festival, but my mother said that Añumo had to go back to her own home and live with her own family, and that she was not that sort of real sister.

WE LEFT QIANSUO EARLY IN THE MORNING
. We loaded our little horses and began our walk along the shore of Mother Lake. When the sun was high up in the sky, we hiked on Gamu Mountain amid the spruces and rhododendron and peonies. We came to a nice picnic area, where we met up with other families already engaged in the celebrations. There we lit piles of sagebrush, and the women took off their turbans and the men removed their felt hats, and we all kowtowed to the mother goddess.

The full name of our mountain goddess is Segge Gamu — the White Lioness — and in fact, from Yongning plain she does look just like a crouching lion, with her front paws resting on the lakeshore. From the lake you see her face, broad and square, and if you lower your eyes, you see her placid reflection mirrored in the water. From the top of Gamu’s head, you can see all of the Yongning plain and all the other mountains, and immediately below, the lake, bluer than the sky, and the little islands covered in spruce and pine trees. Somewhere on the mountainside lies a great treasure of gold and precious jewels that was buried many centuries ago by one of our feudal lords, but no one has ever found it, and probably no one ever will. Then, right at the crest of Gamu, there is the entrance to a huge cave where women come in the hope of conceiving children. This cave is the womb of the goddess — because Gamu is not only a lioness, she is also a woman and the mother of the Moso people.

Every summer, on the twenty-fifth day of the seventh lunar month, our Gamu must go to Lhasa to play games with the gods of Tibet, and the ancient mountain festival, with all the dancing and singing and praying and drinking, was meant to encourage her to win. For Gamu is wrathful as well as loving, and if she were to lose, there would be terrible weather and the crops would fail, the animals and the people would become sick, and they would have no offspring. Thankfully, Gamu is very intelligent and she almost always wins, even without the festival. And naturally, she is also very beautiful and has many lovers, as well as a special companion whose name is Azhapula, who is the mountain god of Qiansuo. Oh, but poor Azhapula! Life with beautiful Gamu can be so difficult that he cannot always control his temper. For example, when he caught her making love with Cezhe, a young man she had only just met, he became so furious that he castrated him. Even today you can see there is a spike missing at the top of Mount Cezhe.

Sometimes, when Azhapula has had enough, he threatens to leave Gamu and to go look for a new woman, but then she pleads with him and tells him that she loves him, and he always stays. That was how, a long, long time ago, they had a terrible fight and Azhapula, crazy with jealousy, jumped on his horse and galloped away. As could be expected, Gamu could not bear it and she ran after him to stop him. When she caught up to his horse, she reached for his vest, just managing to grasp it, and then she held Azhapula back. The god and the goddess tugged and pulled all through the night until the sun rose on the horizon, when, under the light of heaven, they were turned into mountains. They are still here today, and Gamu still holds on to Azhapula’s vest across the deep ravine that separates them, to remind the Moso that men must always return to their mothers’ houses at the first light of dawn and that our mother goddess and her lover Azhapula should not have made such a scandal.

MY MOTHER WAS READYING HER SELF
for a third kowtow when she caught sight of Zhema and stopped in amazement. My big sister was bowing from her waist, with her hands joined together in front of her mouth. “Where have you learned to kowtow like the Han Chinese?” Ama asked, and she told my sister to bow properly, with her forehead all the way to the ground and her hands joined together first on her brow, then touching her mouth, and then her heart. Afterward we all had to kowtow again, three times, and in the correct fashion. Then Ama joined in the singing:

Gamu, we have been busy for a year,

Today is a very special day and we have come to thank you,

I have brought some small dishes and wine.

I know these are not enough to show my appreciation,

But these are given in all sincerity.

Thank you, Gamu, for your protection.

My family and our village had a peaceful year.

Thank you, Gamu, for the good weather,

We had a very good harvest.

Everyone is healthy.

Thank you, Gamu, for the year starting,

Please protect my family,

Please protect the people of our village.

This is my first daughter, Zhema.

She has come to kowtow to you.

And here is my daughter Namu

And my sons Ache, Howei, and Homi,

And my last-born, Jiama.

They have all come to kowtow to you.

And again we kowtowed and we prayed, and kowtowed one last time before we spread our blankets around the camp-fire and sat to eat our picnic lunch with the other families.

In the afternoon we continued our walk to Yongning town under the gaze of the lion goddess crouching impassively above us, square and imposing, dreaming of her lovers and of the times when thousands of villagers gathered at her feet to worship her. Or perhaps that was what my Ama was doing — dreaming of the days before the Red Guards had broken everything up.

In those days the people would have gathered on the side of the mountain for a whole week of dancing, singing, and praying. As far as the eye could see, the Yongning plain would have been covered with tents — yellow, black, white, and blue — some of them painted with beautiful flower designs. And amid the spiraling smoke of smoldering sagebrush, amid drunken men, and women bright as flowers, hundreds of lamas in brilliant yellow would have performed the ceremonies for the goddess. Their faces glowing, showing that nothing in the world could be better, they would have chanted sutras in deep vibrating voices and blown their long brass trumpets into the heavens.

In those days, when my mother was still young and much of her life awaited her, the people really knew how to have fun and how to honor their gods. Arm in arm, the women sang to each other about how bad the men were, and the men sang back and teased the women, and the women replied, and their songs grew ever more witty and ever more daring. Every night the people danced in big circles around the bonfires. They danced the hoeing and threshing dances, or the weaving dance, where men and women touched knees and made turns, which was my Ama’s favorite. And when they did not dance or sing, they went to the hot springs to find lovers. The women washed each other’s backs, and the men sat in the health-giving water, drinking wine, until one of them announced that his cup was empty and the woman who liked the gleam in his eyes got up and fetched him some more. Then, as she poured the wine for him, he told her under which tree and under which cluster of stars she would find him later in the night. She, of course, would say nothing, but soon afterward she would leave the water, and he would follow her.

BY THE TIME WE ARRIVED
in Yongning town, the sky had grown dark and rain was pouring so hard that the streets looked like mountain streams and we had to hitch our skirts and trousers above our knees to wade through the brown water flooding the road. When at last we found our relatives, we bid a hurried good night to the other families and gladly settled around the fire to dry up and gossip and enjoy ourselves for the rest of the evening.

The next morning, as is usual in this season, the weather was hot and sunny again, and I followed Zhema and my cousins into town. There was so much excitement in the air, and the market street was bustling with people, almost all Moso in festival dress but also Yi men in gray turbans and black felt capes, Yi women in large black hats and multicolored skirts, and Tibetan horsemen in embroidered caps, their long knives hitched conspicuously to their waists. My sister and cousins strolled up and down the street, and I followed behind them as they casually avoided the puddles and the pigs and chickens who were going about their own business, delighting in the grubs coming out of the ground and the refuse from the market stalls.