sometimes they left the corpse clothed so they could forego the felt. Then they loaded the corpse onto a cart on which a long board had been laid across the shafts and made secure. In the predawn hours, two senior male members of the family, each holding one end of the board, drove the cart to the sky-burial site, where they whipped their horses into a gallop. Inevitably, the deceased bounced out of the cart, and that was the spot where the soul would return to Tengger. The two relatives dismounted and, if the corpse was naked, unrolled the felt and lay the deceased out on the grass, facing the sky, exactly the way he (or she) came into the world, naked and innocent. At that moment, the deceased belonged to the wolves, and to the gods. Whether or not the soul of the deceased would enter Tengger depended on the virtues, or their lack, of the life lived. Generally speaking, that would be known within three days. If, by then, nothing but bones was left of the corpse, the soul of the deceased had entered Tengger. But if the deceased remained more or less whole, the family was thrown into a panic. There were, however, many wolves on the Olonbulag, and Chen had never heard of a single person whose soul had not entered Tengger.
He had known of Tibetan sky burials, but not until arriving on the grassland had he discovered that it was also a Mongol practice, with wolves replacing eagles as the burial agents. Since all herdsmen of the Olonbulag would one day wind up in the bellies of wolves via the sky burial, they had, for millennia, been at peace with the idea of death.
Chen’s sense of dread was overcome by his curiosity. After learning the precise locations of the burial sites from the proprietor of wagons who delivered production materials, he secretly went out twice to observe burials. Each time, unfortunately, the sites were covered by snow and he missed what he’d hoped to see. But then one day, as winter was about to give way to spring, he spotted the tracks of horses and cart ruts in the snow leading in the direction of one of the burial sites. He followed the tracks until he came upon the corpse of an old man who had died a natural death and had, it seemed, been there a short time. The snow was disturbed by fresh animal and human tracks in addition to the wheel ruts; not even the powdery snow had been blown away. The old man lay there looking peaceful and innocent, supine, his body blanketed by a thin layer of powder, a look of devotion on his smooth, seemingly veiled face.
The anxiety and the dread Chen had experienced on the way over were gradually supplanted by a sense of the sacred. The dead man exhibited no sign of someone meeting death, but of someone attending a feast in Tengger, a second baptism, a rebirth. At that moment, Chen shared the reverence in which the grassland Mongol people held the wolf totem. At the end of a life, the body was served up as an unadorned sacrificial offering, providing a clean and absolute liberation; now Chen understood the deep reverence of the Mongols for Tengger, the wolves, and the souls they entrusted to them. He had no heart to loiter at that sacred place, fearful of agitating the soul of the deceased and of desecrating the sacred beliefs of the grassland people; so, with a respectful bow to the old man, he led his horse away from the burial site.
Three days later, the family of the deceased had nothing to worry about, which greatly relieved Chen Zhen. The family, following local custom, had gone to verify the burial and must have seen the traces of an outsider among the tracks of men and horses; but none came to Chen Zhen with accusations. That would not have been so had the soul not gone up to Tengger. Chen, realizing that his curiosity and interests had begun to clash with his hosts’ totems and taboos, took care to concentrate on tending his sheep and working hard, even as he sought to move closer to the mysterious people about whom he was so curious and whom he so deeply
He had known of Tibetan sky burials, but not until arriving on the grassland had he discovered that it was also a Mongol practice, with wolves replacing eagles as the burial agents. Since all herdsmen of the Olonbulag would one day wind up in the bellies of wolves via the sky burial, they had, for millennia, been at peace with the idea of death.
Chen’s sense of dread was overcome by his curiosity. After learning the precise locations of the burial sites from the proprietor of wagons who delivered production materials, he secretly went out twice to observe burials. Each time, unfortunately, the sites were covered by snow and he missed what he’d hoped to see. But then one day, as winter was about to give way to spring, he spotted the tracks of horses and cart ruts in the snow leading in the direction of one of the burial sites. He followed the tracks until he came upon the corpse of an old man who had died a natural death and had, it seemed, been there a short time. The snow was disturbed by fresh animal and human tracks in addition to the wheel ruts; not even the powdery snow had been blown away. The old man lay there looking peaceful and innocent, supine, his body blanketed by a thin layer of powder, a look of devotion on his smooth, seemingly veiled face.
The anxiety and the dread Chen had experienced on the way over were gradually supplanted by a sense of the sacred. The dead man exhibited no sign of someone meeting death, but of someone attending a feast in Tengger, a second baptism, a rebirth. At that moment, Chen shared the reverence in which the grassland Mongol people held the wolf totem. At the end of a life, the body was served up as an unadorned sacrificial offering, providing a clean and absolute liberation; now Chen understood the deep reverence of the Mongols for Tengger, the wolves, and the souls they entrusted to them. He had no heart to loiter at that sacred place, fearful of agitating the soul of the deceased and of desecrating the sacred beliefs of the grassland people; so, with a respectful bow to the old man, he led his horse away from the burial site.
Three days later, the family of the deceased had nothing to worry about, which greatly relieved Chen Zhen. The family, following local custom, had gone to verify the burial and must have seen the traces of an outsider among the tracks of men and horses; but none came to Chen Zhen with accusations. That would not have been so had the soul not gone up to Tengger. Chen, realizing that his curiosity and interests had begun to clash with his hosts’ totems and taboos, took care to concentrate on tending his sheep and working hard, even as he sought to move closer to the mysterious people about whom he was so curious and whom he so deeply
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