The Chukchi Bible by Yuri Rytkheu Page A

the requisite smoothness and hardness, and then turned for home. Walking out from underneath the Great Crag’s shadows, he began to climb. This was the place where the shore became tundra, carpeted with dying yellowing grass, the lone place on the beach where vegetation was abundant: it was here, according to legend, that the ancient Sanctuary had once stood, where sacrifices had taken place and the skulls of killed whales and walrus were kept. The bones sank ever deeper into the blood-soaked shingle until the mass became earth. Eventually the ancient site fell out of use and the ritual ground was moved far to the west of the beach, after the fiery rock came down from the sky, the same that now lay half-buried in the shingle.

    The vast rock shone wetly in the autumn twilight and the morning haze, like the back of a huge Greenland whale, the kind that the people of Uelen called lygireu , a “true whale.”
    The wind from the sea sliced right through Kalyach, creeping underneath his ukkenchin and sweeping over his limbs and torso. The tribe of winds was very mixed; each of the northeasterly keral’gin , for example, was a thing of hidden cunning. It would creep up imperceptibly, beginning as a tender breeze, caressing, whispering sweet words, gently smoothing the sea and the snows with a wide, cool hand; then, gradually gaining strength, it would swell with power, implacable malice, and bitter frost. Even in the warmest time of year, at the height of summer, a keral’gin could bring a snowstorm or a bone-piercing frost. The amnon – a southerly wind that came from the tundra hills behind the lagoon – would swoop down all at once, with no warning, sweeping away anything and everything that wasn’t secured fast. It could pluck entire yarangas up into the air, though they were weighed down with large rocks, and could carry boats off to sea even though they were securely strapped to their tall supports. It usually came in summer, and was liable to barrel in even in clear, sunny weather. Uelen had barely any wind from the east, and if any came – the enmynyrgin – it was not strong. Another of Uelen’s chief winds, the northerly nike’yen , was especially capricious. It could be quiet or tender, long lasting or transient, nasty and powerful. This wind blew especially furious toward autumn, when it pushed the ice-floe fields from beyond the horizon fast up to Uelen’s beach.
    Kalyach had a distinct way of talking to each of the winds, different sacred words and different ways of conducting sacrifices. Keral’gin was fond of long plaints, deep conversations, and the curdled, congealed blood of sea animals. Nike’yen preferred dried walrus meat, and there had better be
white maggots squirming on the frost-blackened offering. The southerly wind was given chopped deer meat, perhaps because it came from the vast tundra pastures. The easterly wind was usually satisfied with a pinch of pickled greens.
    The immensity that surrounded man, so empty at first glance, teemed with an assembly of beings, spirits and unknown powers that, though invisible to the naked eye, had to be recognized and placated. Man’s place in this world was a specific one, predetermined by Enantomgyn. If man did not clash with the Higher Powers, and lived in accord and friendship with them, no harm would come to him. Most human misfortunes came from knowing or unknowing clashes with these others. It was Kalyach’s job to protect his clansmen and return to their rightful positions those who had left their predestined place in life.
    The wind parted the cloud cover and, for a moment, a troubled sun lit up the wet hide roofs of the yarangas, the boat keels, the people struggling to walk against the wind.
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    Kalyach entered his chottagin and took off his wet ukkenchin. To the left of the entrance, a smoky fire slowly stirred to life. Some walrus meat was being warmed in a stone ladle, filling the room