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Morning. The colorless faded sun appeared on the edge of the earth behind a strip of still green talniks. The horizon slowly tinged with pink, encouraging shades. A gray sky with sparse clouds foreshadowed good weather without rain. Pink stripes, a multitude of the thinnest long fingers of Sorni Nye – the Sun, divided the mighty river into two halves. The water has already become lighter from the south side of the Ob, but from the north the rays of Sorni Nye fingers have not yet illuminated the deep waters of the Ob river, sacred for all Khanty, darkened during the night. The mighty As flows, powerfully carrying its boundless waters to the north. And on top is the beauty of the swaying Ob wave on the river and the peace around.
A man and a woman from yesterday's village were returning from fishing early in the morning. They landed on the shore where a barge had stood the day before. The man pulled out a light kaldan boat, picked up a full bag of fish, and carried it to the people sitting and lying on the ground. This was the law of hospitality of the small Khanty people – not to leave guests that descended to your land hungry.
«Where are you going?» a fair-haired guard blocked the way to the old man. «What do you want?»
A small fisherman was smiling friendly, carefully and affectionately looking at the guard. Pointing at the bag, he explained in broken Russian:
«Fish. Eat!» Pointing to people and fish, the elderly Khanty tried to explain his arrival. The guards, looking at the bag with a fresh catch, began to talk:
«I'm really hungry. Maybe we should take it?»
«But why did they bring the fish? With what intent? Maybe they want to report on us?»
«They are always naive, meet everyone, treat them to tea!»
«Let's take the fish. I'm sick of these canned foods!»
«Let's give kulaks the remains. They should eat something hot. It's been a month without hot water!» Without further ado, the fair-haired guard pulled out a bag of fish from the old man, apparently their leader, and dumped the contents onto the grass. Fish, still alive, especially pike, moved their gills heavily without life-giving moisture. Returning the empty bag, he quickly pushed the old man to the shore:
«Get out of here, old man! You have nothing to do here. Or you will be taken to jail on a barge!»
No longer burdened with luggage, the man calmly, pleased that the guests would be full, walked to the boat without any fuss. Not knowing the Russian language, he could not understand that he was threatened. He had to put the networks in order, so there was no time for this talkative man in uniform. The could talk next time over a cup of tea.
Rowan and bird cherry trees with small, beaded northern fruits decorated the colorful autumn forest along the coast. The cheerful colors of a foreign land did not please, but soothed the souls of the guests. On the shore, the women who had left the barge the day before rattled with boilers and teapots. Some became bolder, and went along the sandy stretch to the Ob to collect water.
They stuffed teapots with lingonberry leaves, and collected rowen bursting at the edge of the forest like flames. The children stretched their hands to the branches of cherry bird berries. Finally, a fragrant life-giving drink would boil and the forces would return to people again. The pregnant Tatar, bent over, hugging the unborn child with her whole thin body, remained lying on the wide rosemary tubercle, dotted with the burgundy lingonberries she had taken overnight. The earth warmed her, attracting and hugging. She couldn't get up in the morning, although on a cold barge she tried to be on her feet all the way. Iron sucked heat from her body to the last drop, and only her heart and her baby, who sometimes pushed inside, reminded her that she was still alive.
Soon, the women not only boiled tea, but also made soup from the fish given by old people who were still standing on the shore, straightening nets for new fishing. The guards put large pieces of boiled fish in aluminum bowls, and sent it to their mouth with pleasure. The soup went to the kulaks. They had hot food for the first time in many days. Having counted all the people, women handed everyone a piece of boiled pike. One of the women came up to the Tatar and brought her a mug full of soup:
«Drink soup, eat fish, girl. Eat yourself and feed the baby, so that the baby is born strong.»
The young woman took a mug with a hot soup, made a sip and gratefully looked into the kind eyes of her fellow traveler. Many times during cold September nights on a barge, when the girl seemed that her breath would stop from the Ob cold night fog, this thin woman hugged her and warmed her stiff fingers with her breath to help her fight for life and for her child.
But before the pregnant woman started eating, her contractions began. After some time, the fading yellow leaves of the birch under the woman in labor startled as they heard the last breath of a dying woman. A little later, they heard a weak squeak of a newborn. Confused women stood near the young girl who had faded away at the beginning of her motherhood. Someone automatically took a cooled kettle, and began to wash the child. The orphaned baby was wrapped in rags left after the dead mother.
«What shall we do with the baby?» Exclaimed the woman who helped to give birth. «It'll die!»
«She couldn't even put it on her chest. She gave her last strength to give birth to this child. What shall we do with a baby in a deep forest, without breast milk?»
The confused guards jumped from the grass, shrugging their shoulders in bewilderment.
«Give the child to kulaks, and let them mess around. If it dies, so be it. We have nothing to do with this! This child is not on our lists» said the senior guard.
«After all, it was born alive. You can't bury it with his mother. It will suffer without milk,» said the second, dark-haired young guy, looking at the woman who had passed away in labor. Pulled out of the warm maternal house, he still could not get used to his new life. He saw many deaths along the long road, the grief of the settlers, and he was almost used to it. The endless tragedy raging across the earth touched the kind guard to the very heart, but he couldn't help anyone – he had no right to do so.
«Right. Why do we care?» their chief replied angrily.
«It's unaccounted. Maybe they won't ask about it. Let's give the baby to the old people that brought the fish,» one of the subordinates said quietly, as if convincing. They did not talk for a while. The chief was in a hopeless situation: he couldn't kill the child, and he was not devoid of human feelings. He had his own children waiting for him at home. He was tired of guarding innocent people who, overwhelmed by the grief in the loss of their home, did not even resist, as they were afraid to incur greater trouble. Soon a disgruntled shout was heard.
«Hey, Khanty people! Where are you? Still here?» they called the old people.
Husband and wife stood at the boat, bewildered. From the side of the river which had seen a lot as it quickly carried its waters, they looked at the unfolding tragedy.
«Hey, old man! Go ashore. Bring your wife here!»
With their eyes full of tears, women gave the newborn baby to the approaching fishermen. The little lump, wrapped in rags, was silent.
«Take it. It might survive. If no, who would ask?»
«Now go away! Yes, faster!» With a sigh of relief, the dark-haired guy hastily nudged the old men who did not understand anything – away from the place of the tragedy. The woman, lifting the hem of the upper dress, silently wrapped the newborn. Not knowing Russian, but realizing that the baby didn't have a place there and was their child now, she quickly walked to the boat, just in case the angry boss changed his mind and took it back. Her husband hurried to follow her.
Later, sitting in a sack, Anshem Iki asked his wife:
«Who is it, a girl or a boy?»
«I don't know! It's small, a newborn.»
Then, glancing up to heaven, she finally smiled, rejoicing at the unexpected gift, feeling a surge of motherhood from the small warm lump, like in her youth. She kissed the baby:
«Heia! Great Turam! What have we done so well that the goddess Kaltashch gave us a baby?»
«Who knows the deeds of the gods?»
«Heia!» Levne sighed bitterly. «You row faster. Hurry up! The child will freeze. It didn't have time to be put to his mother's breast!»
«We'll be there soon!» Anshem iki hastily rowed towards the stream, lifting oars with colored ocher lobes. «They gave us the child. What are we going to do with a hungry baby?»
«I'll go to Khutline now. Maybe she still has some milk?»
«What a grief she has. Any mother can lose her milk after things like yesterday.»
«Then it will appear. Not only is she in trouble, this baby also has grief- it is left without its mother. Her husband is alive. He's been taken for a while, but he will be back. And this orphan was born on damp earth. We are its closest people now!»
Anshem iki quickly went through the oars. In his little boat he carried the fate of someone else's baby, who had just breathed the autumn air on the land of his ancestors, in spite of the mighty, high-water river Ob. Native, lanthan, Khulan As, who had been prayed by his ancestors for centuries and brought a bloody sacrifice in the spring before the ice drift for feeding them, giving life, did not always favor people. The price for the survival of an entire nation was enormous: more than one victim in a year was taken by the river.
The boat landed, and the woman rushed to the neighbor's house, shouting to her husband on the run:
«Heat the water. Get granddaughter's cradle from the crib!»
Levne was already aging, but was still fast. She did not know how to think with her feet, like many of her slow neighbors. She walked as if someone was rushing her. Nature awarded her not only a quick gait, a sharp mind, but also a sympathetic heart. She gave birth to eleven daughters and only one son. All daughters were well-married, and the last one stayed with her. Her son was not lucky. During the birth his wife was taken by the Underground God, and only little Tatya pleased all the family members who loved this growing, cheerful little girl.
She hastily approached the house of the young shaman. There wasn't a single thin stream of smoke since yesterday.
Levne cleared her throat loudly, notifying that she wanted to enter as a guest, and threw back the entrance canopy of the dwelling. In the female place, she saw the mistress swaying lifelessly from side to side, while her rich, sonorous braids made plaintive sounds. Sometimes the woman began to howl. Children sat on deer skin beds silently, with their eyes full of tears. Hungry since yesterday, they stared at their mother. Levne went up to Khutline, crouching on one knee, stroking the destitute neighbor left without a husband, and showed her the child:
«They gave us a newborn child, from people abandoned yesterday on the shore. The exiles. The young Tatar gave birth and left for another world right away. It needs milk. Feed it, dear.»
«My milk is gone,» Khutline howled.
«That's fine. Put the orphan to your chest, and the goddess Kaltashch will help. Milk will appear. For some reason, the Mother of Heavenly Child gave us other blood, maybe we can grow it? You must help me with breast milk. Its hands and legs will get stronger, and it will run. And your daughter is also silent from hunger. Feed her too».
«I can't. I have no strength!» The hostess said, leaning her head back from the overwhelming grief, without tears, with dry sore eyes, slowly swaying.
«Take it, take it, and I'll put things in order here.»
Levne handed the baby into woman's hands, rose from her knee, went to the fire and fanned it with dry birch bark and slivers. She hung the kettle over the fire, and looked out of the house, carefully glancing toward the river. A fisherman approached the shore.
«Son, run to the boats,» she turned to the eldest son of Khutline, «it seems like Uncle Yuhur came from fishing. Tell him Aunt Levne is asking for some fish,» and hung a boiler with water over the fire. Khutline stared blankly at the strange child. Then, realizing what was required of her, she tried to feed the newborn.
«Looks like milk has appeared!» She soon said.
«Have our gods ever left an orphan?»
Khutline's son returned to the house, with a large whitefish hooked in his fingers. Silently glancing at his mother, he laid the fish on the mat. Following him, Yuhur came in and dumped his catch from the bag at the entrance to the same grassy mat.
«It's fresh. I caught it this morning, so you can make a narkhul. The whitefish rises to spawn, it's full of roe. I should go. My family has already woken up and kindled a fire in the hearth. I can see smoke rising from my house.»
«They're waiting with hot tea. You've got a good soulmate, khilyem!»
They heard the hostess weeping in the house.
«So now everyone is going to help me?» Cried Khutline.
«That's fine. We used to support the destitute since ancient times. If the husband returns, he will feed his children himself, but for now we will live like that,» answered Levne, taking up the neighbor's catch.
The little Khutline's daughter started crying. Levne went to the children. The boys carefully shook the crib with his little sister by the rope. She untied the cradle with a crying child from the perch and handed it over to her mother.
«Don't you cry. Feed your daughter, she's hungry since yesterday. Think of your little kids, this is what the goddess Kaltashch Anki bequeathed. Only empty-headed cuckoos sing for the whole forest, forgetting about their children. Spirits will quickly punish you for weakness. Remember the ancient covenants of our gods. Yesterday you rejoiced at every baby, but today you mourn a living husband, you keep the kids in a cold nest. Not good at all!»
Khutline, who got thinner in one night, mechanically took her daughter from the neighbor's insistent hands.
Recently, when she was proposed and brought to the village, no one could pass by indifferently. Young girls looked enviously at the beautiful bride, even the guys were ready to look under several layers of obscure scarves. From this day on, her face was covered from all adult male relatives in the village. Khutline was brought from a neighboring village, on the other side of the Ob. She went ashore near the village, covering her face with three wedding scarves, surrounded by matchmakers and many women, pretty like a fine large Ob nelma, which every year only gets filled with juice. The happy bride herself even tried to peek out from under silk shawls and take a look at the villagers. She wanted to see people living in a new place. The curious girl even managed to see her future husband: from the wood house, where she was hidden after the matchmakers had arrived in the village. She immediately fell in love with a stranger whom she saw among the guests, although she could not even guess who he was. According to custom, matchmakers come without a groom, but that time the groom turned out to be wayward.
Now her face was blackened, and her beauty was gone. From time to time, silent tears oozed out of her eyes, as if from a dried-up autumn little river. It seemed that her back was stooped and could no longer straighten from grief.
Laying the newborn on the bed, Levne began to hastily clean the fresh fish. Her hands flickered so quickly that the silver sparkles of the scales scattered in all directions. She was in a hurry. A new sense of motherhood had already firmly settled in her heart, and she felt an acute desire to hold a new man who already belonged to her.
«You need to drink some soup, as you have to feed two now. I'll come to you once a day, and you'll feed the baby with your breast milk. I don't want to bother you. We'll feed you with the soup. We've got fish. The almighty Kaltashch Anki will help us bring the baby up!» the woman said with firm hope, looking up at the chimney through which she could see the gray autumn sky. «We'll live!»
The soup was ready in the boiler. Levne quickly moved the low dining table closer to the children's beds. She laid out pieces of fish in a wooden huvan, poured fish soup into the bowls, called for the boys to eat, and helped the hostess sit down at the table.
«Be sure to eat and feed the children. And I'll go wash the baby, it's already waking up. Full and warm – what else a baby needs. Grandfather and granddaughter are waiting at home. He'll be glad with a new person.»
Again wrapping the child in the hem of the upper dress, gently pressing it to her chest, Levne silently slipped out of the house, tightly covering the entrance canopy behind her.
At home, surrounded by her three-year-old granddaughter, son and husband, Levne unfolded the child and exclaimed:
«It's a girl! Khatanevie!»
«So fast and pretty. Her arms and legs are dancing, karkam evi!» her husband exclaimed.
Levne took a wooden trough and prepared sacred water – added ashes of otter fur, mixed it with ush, a birch mushroom – so that no evil spirit touched the baby. Then they noisily bathed the newborn. Their little granddaughter was there, poking at the newborn.
«Hey! What a daughter we have. She can be a friend to our granddaughter! Now I'll prepare the Khanty cradle and lay her down. She'll swing on the cradle rope of my children,» Levne wiped the baby, and laid her in a birch bark cradle. An ancient capercaillie ornament scraped up on the head of the cradle provoked a healthy sleep for the baby.
«Sleep soundly, and the capercaillie will guard your dreams. Grow fast, and may the happiness of my children be yours.»
Grandfather already tied oblong wooden cradle rings to the ceiling beams, sighing, pleased with the new family member, and exclaimed once more:
«What a child the Mother Goddess gave us!» He shook his head in admiration.
«Go to the Russians again tomorrow,» the hostess asked. «They will now live in the village, down there, near the filling litter, they make the dugouts. Give the woman that was helping in birth this knife,» Levne took out a household knife with a wooden handle from a sheath decorated with fanciful ornaments, «let Pukan anki be a midwife for our girl. And give this cross to the second woman who helped her, ask her to be a godmother – Pern anki,» she took out an old dark cross drawn with inscriptions from her patterned tuchan. Once upon a time, her mother gave this knife before she died, and her mother got this cross from Levne's grandmother.
The days when strangers began to come to the Khanty lands and forced the people to accept the faith of others had been long gone. The cross was attached to this faith. They have a legend why the Khanty adopted Christianity. «They say that there are three gods living in heaven: the Russian God, Tatar Allah and the Khanty Turam. They visit each other. They sit at the same table, drink tea, treat themselves. Together they think how to help people on earth. One day Turam came to visit Allah. They ate a large cauldron of mare meat, drank tea, spoke, finally Turam began to gather home. How to let a guest go without a gift? Allah decided to give him a horse. Turam thought: „What shall I do with this horse? How will I feed it? There is only moss in the tundra“. But he couldn't refuse a gift in order not to offend his friend. He tied the beautiful white animal to his reindeer sledges and drove home. Next time, Allah and the Russian God were visiting Turam. They stayed, ate frozen fish and deer meat, drank tea, and then were going home. Turam also made presents to his guests. He decided to become relatives with Allah, and gave his younger sister to him as a wife. He decided to give the Russian God a little land. Turam had a lot of it, and he did not have time to go round his lands on the fastest-legged deer in a year. The next time, Turam went to visit the Russian God together with Allah. They drank braga, ate delicious food, spoke and then started to gather home. The Russian God took out a small cross from the sacred corner and gave it to Allah. The Tatar God was offended. He turned around and, without saying goodbye to his friends, he left. Russian God turned to Turam, thinking, and said: „My friend, accept the most expensive present I have in my house!“
Turam thought: „Why do I need his holy cross?“ He thought back and forth, drank more than one cup of tea, and then remembered: „They say that dark forces are afraid of his cross. I gave the land to the Russian God, and lots of evil spirits crawled out from the swamps, haunting the outskirts. I won't put his cross on my neck: I'll put it in a sacred chest, and if I need it, I'll scare every creature. „He accepted the gift of the Russian God and rode home on the swift deer. He's still here. He worships his idols, his holy land, water, every blade of grass, bows to a tree, and scares the evil spirits with his cross“.
That's how the Khanty live. They don't forget to bow to their gods and keep the cross».
«I'll ask Khutline,» Levne said thoughtfully, «to be the mother of Altam anki, who was carrying our girl». She needs to be in public, and her heart will quickly melt. And her husband will return someday.
She took the cradle and hung it on the patterned wooden rings that her husband tied to the ceiling beams. Anshem iki shook a capercaillie goiter toy to attract child's attention before it fell asleep.
«Kaltashch Anki is looking at us. A newborn should have five mothers. The first mother will be the goddess herself. The mother goddess will be offended if we don't dedicate the child to her – the baby will often get sick,» Levne, the main mother, muttered joyfully.
«Great Nye gave us joy – a daughter. Everything must be done according to customs. Let her grow and enjoy life.»
They cradled the child, and the girl immediately fell asleep in a warm Khanty cradle under joyful conversations.
The next day, Anshem Iki found two women who were making a dugout on the settling hill. Pulling out a female knife with a wooden handle from his bosom, he tried to put it in the thin fingers of the one that was taking birth. Seeing the knife in the hands of Anshem Iki, she shied away. Grabbing a frightened woman by the wrist, he forcibly put the gift in her hands:
«Be the midwife for my daughter, Pukan anki.»
The new midwife, puzzled, examined the knife with a simple handle nested in a birch bark scabbard. Decorated with branchy ornaments that spoke of something unknown, the birch bark warmed her palm with the yellow sun. Then Anshem Iki pulled out a dark cross from his bosom. He turned to the woman which was now the friend of his daughter Pukan anki, and caught the hand of a beautiful woman. Trying to escape from strong male hands, she screeched with fear. He put a sacred cross in her palm:
«And you, my daughter, be Pern anki – the godmother.»
Then he turned calmly and went towards his village. Women did not understand a thing, they stood and looked after him. Then the godmother raised her hand to throw out the cross. Then she stopped, and started hiding it feverishly.
«Why did he bring this? What shall I do? After all, they will put me in jail if they see the cross. Maybe I shall bury it in the ground?» Her heart tightened in fear.
The midwife also examined her knife, then said:
«He probably brought us presents for the girl. You can't throw it away, but you need to hide it. Wait, I have a good piece of birch bark here. Let's wrap it up right there, in a conspicuous place, near the dugout, and bury. We'll find it when good times come.
„Will good times come?“ The godmother sighed bitterly.
„Don't you worry, girl! Be sure they'll come, don't even think about anything bad. Soon everything will be fine and we'll be taken home.“
