With a bleak beginning, Chi Zijian led me into the right bank of the Erguna River where that distant, mysterious, clear spring flows and reindeer chase. "I am an old acquaintance of rain and snow, and I am ninety years old. The rain and snow look old to me, and I look old to them." I know that the book is as weathered with age as this bleak beginning.
The border between China and Russia, the western foot of the Daxinganling Mountains, the northern end of the Hulunbeier Grassland, the right bank of the Ergunar River, inhabited by a group of Ewenki people who migrated from the shores of Lake Baikal hundreds of years ago. They live in Xilanzhu, believe in shaman, and reindeer as a friend, living by moss, relocation of non-essential items stored in the never locked by the old treasure, passers-by have the need to go to use.
So, read the "right bank of the Erguna River", I actually read what?
? What exactly is that unquenchable fire?
The whole book shows the details of Ewenki people's life from the perspective of "I".
Time pressed the pause button in the primitive forest. They set up bonfires under the moonlight, danced and sang songs by the bonfire. They bathed by the river and looked up at the moonlight in the forest. They listened to the deer bells like running water and spent the night with the stars. They hunted and ate gray rats, drank reindeer milk, and traded animal hides for flour and bullets from beyond the mountains. Their emotions are simple, unsophisticated yet sincere, and their children are born one by one among the mountains, with the mountains, rivers, wind and snow as their best teachers.
However, they gained in nature, but also lost in nature. They are in awe of nature and have sincere respect for all living things, but they also suffer twice as much under the trials and tribulations of nature, such as cold, beasts, and pestilence.
Link is killed by a lightning strike, Darcy dies in the mouth of his arch-enemy, the wolf, Raghida freezes alive, and Varoga is lifted from the sky by a black bear. ...... The men's retirements all come to a screeching halt. And the women? The women all slowly withered away as the days and months went by. Damara was in a trance, Liusha would cry on the full moon, and "I", "I" met and sent away many people in my life. Some of those who were sent away were buried in the earth, some chose wind burial, and some were left on the sunny hillside.
And those who stayed will treasure a buckskin pocket of things: a small round mirror given to Lena by Rolinsky, a vase sent by Vagaro, a piece of buckskin used by Link to polish his gun, a birchbark sheath used by Raghida to mount a hunting knife, a butterfly handkerchief sent by Evelyn, a fur painting left behind by Eleanor ...... "Whenever I opened the buckskin pocket, the objects inside came to shake hands with me like old friends I hadn't seen for a long time."
When the Ewenki move, they always take the fire with them. Damara married the fire is passed down from generation to generation. What do you think this unquenchable fire is? It is to illuminate the darkness and dispel the cold, but it is also their tenacious vitality in the face of fate ah. "This fire I keep is as old as I am. Whether it encounters a gale, a snowstorm or a rainstorm, I have guarded it and never let it go out. This fire is my beating heart."
? The great sadness of the shaman
The Ewenki people believe in the god Maru and revere the shaman. Shaman is the symbol of the ancient nation, is mysterious and distant. After reading The Right Bank of the Erguna River, I saw her greatness.
It is said that everyone comes to the world has its responsibilities and obligations. For shamans, they are endowed with extraordinary powers to drive away diseases and disasters, but this power always comes at a price. Neho's tragedy began when she became a shaman. She knew every time that one of her children would die if she saved someone else, but she put on her shaman's clothes and did it every time. If you had a premonition of a sad ending, would you be able to accept it with courage and openness?
Under the heavy yoke of the shaman, four of Neha's six children died. Every time I read this, the fearlessness, courage, and sense of purpose that Neha displays makes me feel emotional and in awe. Her life has been a combination of great love and great pain, calling the shots but being powerless to do anything about it.
?
The Ewenki people have survived wars and epidemics, but they have been defeated by the changes of the times. With the social development and construction needs, Daxinganling ushered in the axe and saw of logging. Timber was taken away by truckloads, moss became scarce, and it became more and more difficult for reindeer to forage for food. The younger generation yearned for a more convenient life outside the mountains. One by one, they moved down the mountain, receiving education and medical treatment, and heading for prosperity beyond the mountains.
"In the past, when we relocated, we always brought fire with us. Dagiana and the others went down the mountain this time, but they left the fire here. It is cold and dark without fire and I am so sad and worried for them."
Worldly honors, however, did not bring happiness to too many natives. In the city, they fight, they get drunk, they miss the past, but the Daxinganling has become their hometown, and they have become "marginalized" in the modern world.
Elena is the first college student of Ewenke tribe. She was annoyed when she saw too many cars and horses in the city, and felt lonely when she returned to the grassland. She spent two years to paint Nihao pray for rain paintings, paintings of Ewenki national customs, paintings completed, she threw herself into the lake.
In the city, they are full of sorrow and loneliness. Chi Zijian mentioned in "Trek" a pair of aboriginal couples who had a big fight at the Sydney train station, they did not have a piece of luggage, the woman was empty-handed, and the man was carrying a dirty plastic bag with a little bit of food in it. He doesn't duck or resist, letting the woman vent. When she was tired of crying, time and again passed the plastic bag with food, said to her, eat a little. Read here, my heart is always a piece of frustration. It seems that the city's lights and greenery have brought them no small conflict ah.
"I have never believed that a bright world, a happy world, can be learned from books, but Varoga says that it is those with knowledge who have the eyes to see the light of this world. But I think the light is in the rock paintings by the river, in the trees that go from tree to tree, in the dewdrops of the flowers, in the horns of the reindeer, and if such light is not light, what is?" This was one of the passages in the book that really struck me, and I excerpted it in my notebook. I thought of a loved one recently who was torn between whether her child should go to kindergarten in the city or stay in her rural home. I also thought of the "double cuts" that have rocked the education sector in the past two years. The first thing I'd like to say is that I'm not sure what kind of education I'd like to have, but I think I'd like to have a little bit more of the same.
We used to get lost when there were no roads, and then we got lost when there were more roads, because we didn't know where to go.
"Outside the electricity flashed and the rain steamed. After the downpour, a cool and clear day is sure to come. May its refreshing breath dispel the weariness in my heart." Read this to the end of The Right Bank of the Ergun River.
And at that moment, the afternoon in Shanghai coincided with a thunderstorm, and the room was instantly darkened. I put down my book and walked barefoot from the bed to the window. I reached out and touched the rare summer coolness, and was scared by the lightning and hurried to close the window. Later, when I was writing this book note, I saw that a colleague had photographed a rainbow after the rain, which was hanging colorfully in the air in Shanghai.