Visiting the Tsaatan

Location:
Mongolia

mongolia, horseback, winter

By Fraser Kitchell

Darkhad Depression, MONGOLIA, October 2005

Rolling over a snowy mountain pass, already a two day van ride from the nearest town with electricity, we began to wonder why we had earlier felt the need to push so far into the wilderness. After meeting on a street corner for no more than one minute, our hastily assembled international crew (Jon and Siggi from Iceland, Jonny from England, my American brother and I) had decided we were compatible enough to hire a van together for 21 days and drive over the emptiness that is Mongolia. Our goal was to get as far away from civilization as we could, and to do that we would lean heavily on the services of van, horse, and guide.

What we had foolishly lacked in supplies and experience, we had made up for with overwhelming exuberance. Damn if we had never rode horses! Damn if we were visiting a place that was strongly discouraged! Damn if winter was coming! Our crew had sustained full energy for two weeks already, taking on challenge after challenge. And yet here we found ourselves, staring out the window of a struggling, Soviet, Cold War van as she headed into the teeth of a blizzard, wrapping tighter around us the dells we had bought when our meager supply of clothing had indeed proved too meager. Silent, each man cursed his earlier fortitude. The time when this venture had seemed like an excellent idea seemed to jeer at us from the past.

The Tsaatan people, or Reindeer herders as they are sometimes referred to, live primarily in the large Darkhad Depression in remote Northern Mongolia, just under the border of Siberian Russia. The people are the still-wandering nomads left over from who knows when, subsisting almost entirely on herds of reindeer for their meat, furs, horns and milk. Living in teepees, they move with the seasons over an area of immense size, following the cold weather so that their all-important herds may survive on their primary food source, a ground covering white lichen. Improbably, this fragile balance of man, animal and plant has persisted through the ages, outlasting centuries of Mongol hordes, conquering Chinese emperors, and imperialist Russian Czars, always finding enough open space to disappear in, protected by the very lifestyle they lead. It was these nomads that we had chosen to visit.

Ending our van ride in the wood shackle settlement of Tsaaganor, we had hired three young guides and 10 horses, enough to carry ourselves and our food into the wilderness for up to a week. Also loaded into the saddle bags were bullets, flour, sugar and other essentials that we could gift to the Tsaatan to help them make it through the winter. As we packed these items of such basic utility, it became imminently clear that we were pushing off into a frontier of civilization, where even the most taken for granted goods were impossible to procure. On horseback at last, we headed out of town with renewed excitement, confident once again that this experience would be worth the trouble.

It took us until late afternoon of the second day on horseback to find a Tsaatan tribe, spotted by the smoke rising up from their teepees, the fires that were to last all winter already burning. It had been a hellishly cold two days, the second more so because it was spent riding into a bitter wind, but seeing the small pack of teepees nestled in a wide valley brought energy back to our bodies, and we perked up in the saddle. Although the people were in their teepees, in between we could see the figures of reindeer, head down in the bush, and we could just hear the din of howling dogs as they paced throughout camp, perhaps having spotted us already. An hour later, freshly arrived, we followed Bayan Dalai into his teepee, pulled back the canvas door once we had entered, and sat around the fire for our first cups of reindeer milk tea.

Over the next couple days we lived among the tribe, asking questions through our guide, visiting the various teepees to present gifts, playing with children and following some teenagers as they pursued an overnight reindeer hunt. We saw a shaman practice her trade, ate rabbit, reindeer and squirrel meat, and reflected heavily on the pursuits of our western lives, so complex and lonely. While we were clearly outsiders, we all felt welcome in the village, and even felt that we would be happy living with these people for an extended period of time. They lived at what felt like a natural pace, perhaps so comfortable because it was the pace we had lived at for many years before we began to plow our fields and build our cities. It was a sad day when we left the village, with heartfelt goodbyes and promises to return someday. Oftentimes, far removed from this trip, I find myself wondering how Bayan Dalai and his family are dealing with the winter weather, and if the bears and wolves are a problem for them once again, and if they have enough food this year. And I wonder if the Tsaatan can weather our thrusts of civilization one more time.