"The reindeer are gone." Liu Xia had heard the sound and greeted the door, and said to her returning son Hugo and the us who came with him. The Golden Retriever happily pounced on Hugo, who had just gotten out of the car, and Liu Xia held my hand in welcome, and kept saying "The reindeer are gone, I can't catch them", "If I come back earlier, I can see the reindeer".
Autumn is the season of reindeer mating, and even the Reindeer people (a branch of the Evenk tribe), who have raised reindeer all their lives, cannot keep the reindeer who are bent on finding mates. The forest under the clouds is only the sound of hunting winds, and Liu Xia's mother and son live in hunters' spots deep in the Daxing'an Mountains, thinking about the whereabouts of the reindeer, the upcoming winter, and the choice of whether to go down the mountain.
<h3>Hunter Point</h3>
Hugo took his bike out of the trunk and put it away outside the house. If he hadn't met us, he would have had to ride an hour and a half from the town of Aaron Hill back to hunter's point.
There is only one main street in Aaron Hill, and the low brick houses are spread out along the street, and the back is still a simple dry toilet. There is only one train passing through the town every day, with Mangui to the north and the Gen river to the south. A newly paved cement road stretches out from Mount Aaron to Mangui, marking a hole between Liu Xia's house and the deer pen. From time to time, when autumn cars run along the road to the depths of the forest, the hounds will bark and chase them out until these strange vehicles and outsiders disappear into the range of the hunter's point.
Liu Xia was worried about her deer, and Hugo decided to take us to the deer pen to look for it. Days of continuous rain had made the leafy land of the Daxing'an Mountains wet, and hounds were jumping in the golden grass, but there was no sign of a deer for it to follow. Hugo did not look disappointed, he pointed to the gong hanging on the fence and said confidently, when the sun rises early tomorrow morning, he will ring the gong, and the deer will run towards us, "You can shoot the scene of summoning reindeer from thousands of troops and horses to rush over, like the king of the north." ”
Deep in the Daxing'an Mountains, in the early morning Hugo rang the gong and called for reindeer. (Ji Han/Photo)
It's indeed like the North in Game of Thrones, desolate, desolate, with long, isolated winters. The Evenks migrated from Lake Baikal to the Erguna River valley in the 17th century, hunters chased the forest's prey such as stick chickens, babes, bears, and reindeer carrying their luggage and faith across the river to the right bank. After the Treaty of Nebuchu designated the Erguna River as the boundary river between China and Russia, the Deer Evenk became a tribe in northern China, hunting, raising deer, and migrating with the seasons until the wheels of modern civilization rolled into the Daxing'an Mountains in the 20th century. In 1957, the safarid Evenk settled in the border village of Qiqian, and in 1965 moved to Mangui. In 1973, Aoluguya Township was established on the banks of the Rapids River north of Mangui, where people who were at a loss in the conflict between modernity and tradition wandered through the forests and towns in timber trucks, their broken hearts soaked in alcohol.
In Hugo's childhood memories, the Ao Xiang people who returned to Manchuria were united and drunk and unconscious. Liu Xia, an alcoholic mother, struggled to care for her young children, and Hugo often wandered alone on the streets at night before being sent to school in Wuxi by a public welfare organization. In 2003, all the ecological migrants of Lu Evenk to the newly built Aoluguya Township in Genhe, closer to the city and farther away from the forest. But the reindeer could not settle, could not keep in captivity, and a small number of people who did not want to go down the mountain stayed at the hunters' point on the mountain – but the shotguns had been confiscated and no one was really hunters.
There is a deer park scenic spot in Ao Township in Genhe, where reindeer are transported by vehicles for tourists to take pictures and feed. (Ji Han/Photo)
<h3>The last deer keeper</h3>
Maria So, the oldest of the tribe, refused to go down the hill, and she was dubbed "the last chief" by the media. The novel "The Right Bank of the Erguna River" by the writer Chi Zijian is based on this old man who does not speak Chinese and spends his life with reindeer in the forest. The book also writes about the story of the Liu Xia family. Liu Xia's grandmother, Yu La, was the last shaman to make Lu Evenk, and when she left Qiqian, she buried the sacred robe under the tree, and the shaman's miracle never appeared again. The female painter Elena in the novel is based on Liu Xia's sister Liu Ba, who, like the ending in the book, sleeps in the cold river after getting drunk.
Today, Liu Xia is the last deer keeper in the family.
Hugo pulled out his mobile phone and sang a rap with the music swaying in the woods, and at the end he was a little embarrassed: "A little wrong shot, strange." "The song was recorded by him in Chengdu, and there is no evenk rapper in China, and he wants to be the first." But after returning to the hunter's spot in Aaron Mountain last year, he didn't write any more songs, and he felt that there was a lack of rap atmosphere here, so he still had to go to Chengdu.
Liu Xia hopes that her son will stay in the mountains and raise deer with her. Her mother, Barajyi, died, her brother Vega lived in Genhe City after marriage, and her fourth husband, Lao Zhai, was like her, and drowned in the loop. She dreamed of Lao Zhai almost every day, and the hazy shadow blamed her for why she was allowed to dissect the body, "He doesn't want to be cut, I know, but I can't."
Liu Xia's mother's and son's residence at the hunter's point - Ji Yuzi (Ji Han/Photo)
Liu Xia was always helpless. Her mother decided on her four marriages, choosing a husband for her and driving her husband away, and she couldn't do anything; Hugo's father died very early, Hugo was taken away to Wuxi, and she couldn't help it; her mother's dry son, Hanmin's grandson, raised deer with her and stole her deer. But Hugo hid the wine, and she always had a way to find it.
Director Gu Tao made three documentaries about making Lu Evenk, and in "Hugo's Vacation", he brought the young Hugo back to Liu Xia, who had been away for a long time. She happily hugged her son, which was the happiest and most awake moment of all the images. But the son could not let her quit drinking, and the mother and son had been fighting wits and courage for the sake of wine. Hugo hid the wine in various places in the forest and the Loop, and supplied it to his mother in limited quantities; Liu Xia also hid the wine and secretly brought it to drink while her son was working.
Hearing that we were going to go back to Man after leaving the Hunter's Point, Liu Xia asked if she could take her with her. Hugo hurried to block, he had too much experience: once Liu Xia went to a place where she could buy wine, she would often get drunk every day and fall on the street without knowing it. But Liu Xia stubbornly wanted to go down the mountain, stubbornly repeating that she had acquaintances in Mangui and did not need Hugo's care. Hugo gently comforted his mother and promised to accompany her back to Ao Township on the Root River, at least it was a familiar place.
"To survive, you can only drink." Liu Xia had been drinking for more than thirty years, and so had her brother Wei Jia. Alcohol gave the illusion that Evenk's best-known poet and painter, his ancestors, had him leave the world where the tradition was no longer there, and he committed suicide by cutting his stomach. Vega did not die, and she had to get drunk if she wanted to live.
Liu Xia not only had to live, but also had to raise deer, and she had to drink.
<h3>A house where you can't see the stars</h3>
"I don't want to sleep in a house where I can't see the stars," said the old man evenk in "The Right Bank of the Erguna River," who insists on living in the forest. This tepee is made of birch trees and animal skins, and fireworks rise from the middle and soar towards the vast sea of stars.
But now there is no one to live in. The Ao Township of Genhe was specially designed by Nordic architects, beautiful log cabins are neatly lined up, many people have opened homestays and specialty shops, deer antlers, deer antler products, deerskin clothes are hung up in a variety of dazzling, and the pickles are only for tourists to visit. Liu Xia's hunters also lived in the ground with fire in the Way of the Han People, and the roof was a piece of wood, and the starry sky could not be seen.
In Aoluguya Township in Genhe, the plucking of luozi is only used to show the Evenk tradition. (Ji Han/Photo)
Night in the forest came early, and as soon as we had fried the dishes, Hugo had to light candles. There was a problem with the solar battery, and there was no electricity in the house. Liu Xia didn't care too much, she had just learned to dial the phone from her mobile phone, but at hunter points where there was no signal, it didn't matter anymore. Only Hugo hated the boredom of life, and like all the young people who grew up in the city, he liked basketball, music, and the Internet. This year, he tried to be a short video blogger at Station B, and every time he went down the mountain, he took the opportunity to send a video of the life of a hunter's point: splitting the orange, carrying water, playing with deer...
We ate simple sautéed cabbage and steamed buns in candlelight. Hugo went to the forest and took two cans of beer hidden during the day to Liu Xia, she drank quickly, said a sip, and the jar quickly bottomed out. When Liu Xia was slightly drunk, Hugo liked to tease her, saying that she was wearing green sweater pants like a "Hulk" and saying that he wanted to find her a black African daughter-in-law.
"Negroes can do it," Liu Xia's wrinkles bloomed like a flower, "I just want you to marry a daughter-in-law quickly, any country can do it." ”
Hugo didn't want to look for evenk's girl. He emphasizes that his mother is a pure-blood Evenk and that he is only half Evenk; evenk culture is fading and turning into a cold collection of museums, but what he likes is the fresh and lively big city life. Director Gu Tao arranged for him to go to Beijing to study documentaries, but he couldn't stand the company and was not free to make him want to escape. He worked everywhere, as a waiter at a ramen shop and a cashier at a supermarket. He had a girlfriend in Chengdu and a group of friends who sang rap, but eventually he returned to Aaron Mountain.
It was already dark at 7 p.m. Hugo had to prepare the teaks that had been burned in the night before going to bed, and I lit him with my phone and sawed wood and chopped wood outside the house with a chain saw and axe. The surrounding forest is shrouded in silence and darkness, and you can't hear the sound of deer bells like running water, and you can't see the stars behind the gray and dark clouds.
Hugo carried the wood processed in the woods toward the house. (Ji Han/Photo)
Hugo met an Indigenous girl from North America online whose ethnic traditions were similar to those of Evenk, who lived in forests and raised reindeer. We also tell him stories of indigenous peoples we met on our journeys, surprised him by the Nordic Sami who herded reindeer by helicopter, and the Tennas of North America faced the same life and spiritual dilemma as the Evenks, and also used alcohol to water the hearts torn apart between modernity and tradition.
Hugo wanted to take his mother abroad to see the tribes. In the flickering candlelight, he imitated the words of his uncle Wei Jia in the documentary "Gandahan": "When a nation loses its culture, it is equivalent to losing everything, and losing everything is facing extinction." ”
"If the police of the more civilized world shoot at me, then, shoot."
At night, only candles can be lit to light, and Liu Xia drinks wine and eats dinner in the candlelight. (Ji Han/Photo)
<h3>Reindeer in the wind</h3>
"Whoosh..." Hugo rang the deer's gong and called out in the forest, and the hounds also looked up and roared. Liu Xia sat on a tree stump next to her and waited, and finally cleared after days of rain, hugo woke up in the morning and felt that she heard the sound of deer running in the wind. Liu Xia also heard it, but the deer pen was empty, and no matter how Hugo shouted, how the hounds searched, there was no trace of the deer.
After a few calls, Hugo's confidence was half gone. Liu Xia seemed to know better, "It's in this piece, it just won't come back." ”
At 5 o'clock in the morning this day, Liu Xia quietly called me up, "The tradition of Evenk is that girls must get up first, and young men can sleep a little longer." "I know Liu Xia got up early. A few times during the night I heard the sound of her getting up and adding a fir, so that the fire could burn all the time and the house warmed up all night. I also heard her going out and in the door, and the sound of beer cans being pulled open.
The house was very simple, with walls on three sides, and the other side was sealed with plastic sheeting, which was transparent during the day and was now blinded. Liu Xia handed over a piece of plaster for me to help her stick to her waist. After years of living in the bitter cold forest, Liu Xia's waist and legs are not very good, but her two bent legs are still very sharp on the potholed mountain road.
We couldn't wait for the deer, so we had to go back to the house first. The hunters, who have no running water and no electricity, have a lot of work to do every day, have to go to the river loop to fetch water, and chop more firs to prepare for the coming winter. On the way back, Hugo was talking about his job, and turned his head to find his mother missing. He hurried back to look for it, and it turned out that Liu Xia had stopped the car picking pine cones while crossing the cement road to inquire about the reindeer's whereabouts. In Ao Township, Genhe, we had seen reindeer pulled by carts and tied to trees for tourists to feed and take pictures, and Liu Xia wanted us to see her deer, which had beautiful branche-like horns, free in the forest, and were very close to her.
Something went wrong with the chain saws, and Hugo decided to go to Aaron Hill to find someone to repair it. As soon as he left, Liu Xia took me to the shed behind the house where the clutter was stacked. She uncovered a corner of the shed, which hid a case of beer. Liu Xia took out two cans and told me very seriously, "Don't tell Hugo, this is our secret." I lied to him that the wine was hidden in the Loop and asked him to find it. ”
The sky was blue, and the long-lost sunlight poured into the house. Liu Xia loves the sun and wants to name her son "XiWen" (evenk for the sun), but Barajyi decided on the name Hugo. "My mother has culture, she is the only Evenk who has published a book", Liu Xia could not oppose her mother's decision in her life. Barajyi's influence was great, and when I walked Ao Xiang with her book "Ribbons on reindeer antlers", everyone was willing to take the initiative to tell me the story of Evenk.
Before parting, Liu Xia put on the traditional costume of Evenk and took a photo with her son, after which we took the mother and son down the mountain, and they planned to take a train to The Root River. (Ji Han/Photo)
The bird flew into the house in search of food and jumped lively. Liu Xia said that she knew this bird, it came to accompany her every day, and she also left some food for it every day. Liu Xia reminisces about the past in the chirping of alcohol and birds, her brother, mother, husband, and the hunter boy who fell in love when she was young... Suddenly she put down the beer can: "Listen, what is this sound?" Liu Xia looked at me with a look that seemed to pass through me and look into the distance.
I was stunned, and in the silence there was only the strong wind blowing the plastic sheet.
Liu Xia laughed, "Your ears are not good, my deer is running in the forest." ”
Li Jin