Visiting the Tuva people in a hidden village by Kanas Lake

In the distant Burqin County of Xinjiang, in the Kanas Lake area deep in the Altai Mountains, there are about two thousand Tuva people living. The Tuwa people are the "Wulianghai" people recorded in the "Xinjiang Map" in the late Qing Dynasty. They have made a living by herding and hunting for generations. They live in deep mountains and dense forests and follow the traditional way of life. Some scholars believe that they are the descendants of the soldiers left behind by Genghis Khan during his Western Expeditions; others believe that the ancestors of the Tuva people migrated from Siberia five hundred years ago and are related to the Tuva people of the Tuva War in Russia today. Belong to the same ethnic group.

The angular Tuwa Village

Tuwa Village is sandwiched between two mountains. The narrow valley can accommodate more than 80 households. Because the mountain is not high, the valley appears open and the village appears peaceful. Behind the village is a hillside, and at the top of the hillside are snow peaks. It's summer, and the snow-capped peaks are obscured by the lush green woods, but as long as you take a look at the snow on the top of the mountain, you will know that this is a village under the snow-capped mountains.

In the sunset, the Swiss-style cabins with spiers in the Tuva village reflect a warm golden light. The pine trees next to the hut are scattered in twos and threes, all tall and straight. There are also birch trees growing in the village, scattered one by one among the pine trees. Because of the snow-white branches, they are very conspicuous. Together with the vigorous crown, they look like big umbrellas. The climate of Altai is similar to that of Russia. Behind the village of Tuva is the Friendship Peak on the Sino-Russian border. The Siberian wind blows from the Friendship Peak. As the terrain lowers and warms suddenly, this dense mountain forest is created. .

Tuva Village is a long village. Because the wooden huts are square and square, the village looks angular. The path in the village extends and branches into the pine forest surrounding the village. Once entering the pine forest, there is no trace. Looking around, the surrounding mountains look like a pair of big hands, protecting this village in the palm of their hands. This is a sleepy, forgotten village.

There were people riding horses in the village, running fast on the road. The village is not big, and it would have been easy to get from one house to another. However, perhaps due to the habit of riding horses for a long time, they still held their chests high, shrugged their shoulders, and drove the horses very fast. Horses probably also like to run like this, jumping up from the door of a house and galloping towards another house like an arrow. Because the journey is too short, it often only flashes briefly and then stops again. People get off their horses and enter the house without coming out for a long time, leaving the horses outside, lowering their heads to eat grass on the ground.

The blue tie taken to the grave

There have always been different opinions about the history of the Tuva people. Some people say that they are the descendants of the soldiers left over from Genghis Khan's western expedition. They still retain the silver seal of "Zhasak, Ulianghai Left Banner" issued by the Republic of China government in 1918. Tuva people mostly wear Mongolian robes and long boots; they live in wooden houses made of pine wood with pointed sloping roofs. They mainly eat dairy products, beef, mutton and pasta, and often drink milk tea and milk wine. In the annual "Aobao Festival", Tuva people hold horse racing, archery, wrestling and other competitive activities. They believe in shamanism and Lamaism, and hold religious sacrificial rituals such as mountain, sky, lake, tree, fire, and Aobao rituals every year.

Tuva people have other opinions about their history. Solenger, who came from Tuva Village and later served as deputy director of the Education Bureau in Habahe County, said this: When Genghis Khan conquered Europe and Asia, the army poured down from Mongolia like a tide, making Europe exclaim: God The black whip appeared. When he returned, his eldest son, the Tuva people, sent them to garrison at Lake Malhan. When passing by the current Tuva village, I saw that the area has beautiful mountains and clear waters, fertile land, and a large lake (Kanas Lake) with milk-like water flowing there. So I left some Tuva people to garrison and granted them "Science and Technology". "Crown Cork" (meaning blue tie). From then on, this part of the Tuva people wore blue ties and patrolled here. In Genghis Khan's army, those who wore ties were second only to those who wore helmets. More than a hundred years later, the Mongol Empire fell like the setting sun. The descendants of the Great Khan returned to the Western Regions from the Central Plains and divided their territories. This part of the Tuva people was forgotten. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, they took off their blue ties from their necks, put away their soldier uniforms, and became ordinary people.

It is said that blue ties can still be found in the village. I went through all the trouble to find what people call Baljiang's house and explained my purpose. Baljiang, who knew Chinese, said nothing and took me out the door. After crossing a hill and climbing up a hillside, we came to a row of mazars (graves). Barjan led us to a maza, pointed with his hand, and said, this belongs to my grandfather, and he is sleeping inside with his blue tie on his head. After careful questioning, I found out that Baljiang's grandfather had always kept the blue tie passed down from his ancestors. This blue tie is actually a symbol of ancestral martial arts. Barjan's grandfather taught his son Jiakda all that kind of kung fu, but he didn't learn it. The old father was very angry, thinking that people who couldn't become heroes couldn't be allowed to get honors, so he announced that Blue Tie would never go there again. It was passed down, taken away after his death, and handed over to his ancestors in heaven.

Build the fence first and then the door

There are 127 fences in Tuva Village.

It took me more than an hour to count this while sitting on the hillside opposite the village. There is a fence in front of every Tuva house, with the gate in the middle of the fence; there is also a fence behind the house, mostly used to enclose cattle and sheep pens. There is also a fence outside the fence behind the house to surround the vegetable plot.

Most people have three fences that are enough, but some people have several fences, distributed horizontally and vertically in front of and behind the house, as if there are many things that need to be enclosed. There are seven fences in Serjiang's house, four for domestic use and two for small shops. In order to separate the home from the small shops, another one was erected in the middle. Tuva people attach great importance to fences. No matter where they settle down, they must build fences. There is a family on the hillside behind Tuva Village. They are far away from the village and rarely interact with people in the village. I thought there was no need for a fence in their house. However, when I climbed up the hillside and took a look, I saw four neat fences in front of and behind the house, showing no signs of slacking off.

Fences are actually not difficult to repair. Behind the village is a pine forest. The pine trees grow straight and straight, which are good materials for making fences. Tuva people select wood from the mountains, pull it to the door, tie the connections one by one, and just snap it up. Normally, it takes two to three months to build a house, but the fence can be completed in two or three days.

After the fence is repaired, let’s repair the gate. Tuva people generally have two types of gates. One is a movable gate, which can be pushed when people come in and out. The other is a horizontal bar gate, with three or four thin pieces of wood pinned to the joints of the fence. When you want to go out, , remove these pieces of wood. This kind of cross-bar door is extremely simple, but it has a very high status. Unlike the movable door, which can be entered with just one push. When you walk outside the fence of this kind of door, you must first shout to the owner and report your identity. Just give your name and explain your purpose, and the host will come out and open the door for you. No one can do anything without permission. I think this kind of door must be some ancient tradition of the Tuva people, containing their dignity and strict survival rules.

The fence behind the house is usually very long and streamlined. People were going to the mountains to collect firewood. They went out along the fence behind the house and came back along that road at night. As time went by, there was a road next to each fence. Every family took the road under their own fence and never easily walked to other people's fences. Even the cattle and sheep recognize their own fences. They leave early and come back late. When they reach the entrance of the village, they spontaneously disperse and return along their own fences. In Tuva Village, people and livestock adhere to the principle of equality in many matters.

Everything you do is related to the two.

In Tuva Village, if you enter a house at random, the owner will treat you warmly. As soon as you sit down, yogurt, milk wine, milk tea, milk pimples, butter, oil cakes, oil sieves, etc. are served. You can choose whatever food you want, but you must drink milk tea. The host will pour the tea for you, and you can add the appropriate amount of butter and milk skin according to your own taste. The butter will melt quickly when put into tea, and a few golden oil flowers will float up. The butter will soon be soaked in the tea, floating softly on the surface of the tea. Take a sip and suck the milk into your mouth. As soon as you chew it, a wonderful sour taste will come out. When most people drink milk tea, they taste the first bowl while drinking it. When they finish drinking it before they know it, the host waiting next to them will immediately give them a second bowl.

You vaguely felt something from people's serious expressions, so you had to drink the second bowl. After drinking it, people will tell you that you must drink two bowls of milk tea in a Tuva home because you walked in on two legs. After drinking two bowls of milk tea, you walk out on two legs, which brings good luck and peace.

Many things in Tuva Village are related to "two".

The Tuva people were fighting. The two of them were bruised and swollen, and even died. The bystanders just watched without any reaction. In the end, one of them will knock the other to the ground, and he will not stop until he can no longer get up. Someone once didn't understand the rules of Tuva fighting and went up to start a fight. As a result, the two people immediately stopped fighting and came to beat him together. It turns out that when two Tuva people fight, they are fighting for the hero. If you try to pull them away, they will think that you look down on them both, so they will beat you together.

Tuva men probably ride two horses in their lifetime. When he was 20 years old, his family got him a horse, and he rode it back and forth in the Altai mountains. The age of 20 is a symbol of a man. If you have your own horse, you must do what a man should do. At the age of 40, when the first horse has been ridden, a man starts to ride the second horse in his life and rides it until he is old. From the age of 20 to 40, a man rides the first horse in his life and has to do many things. He first went to find a girl to be his wife. A young man in Tuva can only pursue two girls. If the first one fails, he can pursue the second one. The second one must succeed, otherwise he may become a bachelor. People will say to those who have chased two girls but don’t have a wife yet: No matter how skinny a goat is, it will become strong after walking over two mountain peaks; no matter how unambitious an eagle is, it will reach the blue sky after flying over two mountain peaks. No matter how stupid a person is, if he can't do something the first time, he will be able to do it the second time. So far, there are only two young men in Tuva Village who have not caught up with the girl. Now, one of them is 38 years old and the other is 46 years old. They are singles. The older people in the village said that everything we Tuva people do has something to do with the two. Genghis Khan probably didn't like these two people, so he sent the first one here, and after a few years, he sent the second one here. . But don't worry, everyone, these two people have taken over the second one, and there will be no more bachelors in the village in the future.

Drink wine happily for a lifetime

I had heard that Tuva people are particularly good at drinking, but I was surprised when I suddenly encountered them. A young man came out of the mountains on horseback. As if he couldn't hold back his eagerness, he galloped to a small store, tied the horse, entered the store and shouted to the owner to get some wine.

The shopkeeper handed him a bottle of wine, and he handed him a banknote. While the shopkeeper was giving him change, he drank the whole bottle. The shopkeeper saw this and asked him if he wanted more. He raised a finger, and the shopkeeper brought him another bottle and gave him new change. He held up the wine and drank while walking out. When he got to the horse, he finished the drink again. So he turned back, bought another bottle, drank it and got on his horse to leave. The horse ran faster and faster, his body swayed from side to side, but he just couldn't fall off. After walking far away, I saw him raising his hand, and the white wine bottle drew a beautiful arc and fell into the grass.

Most people in the village drink calmly and calmly. When celebrating a festival or encountering something happy, they slaughter a sheep, buy one or two boxes of wine, and invite three or five friends to sit at home and drink. There are many etiquettes at this time. The host fills a bowl, drinks it himself, and then serves it to the guests one by one. At the end of the round, the host drank another bowl and offered another toast. The average Han Chinese can barely finish the first bowl, but they cannot drink the second bowl no matter what. The bowls used for drinking in the village are very large, and one pound of wine can usually only be poured into three bowls. For those who are not good at drinking, after drinking the second bowl of wine, both the person and the bowl will fall to the ground. For the Tuva people, this is just a warm-up, the toasting and drinking battles have not yet begun! After the host toasted three bowls of wine, he handed the bottle to a friend among the guests. He immediately caught it, toasted it in a circle, and passed it to another person. At the end of the day, a box of wine is often not enough. The owner will yell, and his wife or children will go out and bring in another box. Finally, everyone got drunk and rode back on their horses. The family members knew that the people who went out must be drunk, so they waited with the lights on and the door open. When they heard the braying of horses outside the fence, they knew that the drunk people were back.

“There are 7 months of winter and 5 months of summer in a year.” This is a saying that Tuva people often say. In winter, heavy snow isolates the village from the outside world, and wine becomes a dependence in life. Someone once made statistics and found that people in Tuva village drank 45 tons of wine in one year. Based on the population, a person drinks an average of two and a half bottles a day.

As time passed, the wine bottles behind each house formed a wall, which shone brightly when the sun shone.

There are people in the village who just drink and do nothing all day long. After drinking up their own money, they go to drink other people's wine. Slowly the whole village was drunk. Some people drink so badly that their hands and feet shake constantly no matter what they do. At this point, people can no longer leave alcohol and can only use alcohol to anesthetize the body that has been damaged by alcohol.

Of course, more people still drink wine happily for a lifetime. Duolin's father was a good drinker when he was young. When he was old, he could still drink two or three bottles of wine. When hunting, he would bring a bottle of wine with him. When the prey appeared, he would open the bottle cap and drink while taking aim. Taking advantage of the drunkenness, he actually made perfect shots and hit the target with all his shots. Once, he was forced into a cave by two wolves. He had run out of bullets and accidentally dropped the gun into the valley. He was anxious, took out the wine bottle from his waist, and prepared to shoot the wolves. A wolf climbed up a rotten log extending diagonally into the cave and slowly approached him. He hid his body, and when the wolf approached, he suddenly jumped out and smashed a bottle at the wolf's waist. He has been a hunter all his life and knows that a wolf's waist is as thin and brittle as a hemp stalk and will break with a slight blow. The wolf was hit by him, screamed, fell to the bottom of the valley, and smashed into pieces on a pile of rocks. However, another wolf suddenly rushed toward him, and he felt a black shadow flash before his eyes, and his left arm felt a heartbreaking pain. The wolf had already put its claws on his waist and bit his left arm. He was afraid that the wolf would spring up and bite his neck, so he hurriedly pressed the wolf's head with his right hand. The wolf bit his left arm and wouldn't let go no matter how hard he pressed it. In a hurry, he opened the bottle cap, put the mouth of the bottle into the wolf's mouth, and poured wine into it. The wolf howled, his body softened, and he fell to the ground. It probably choked on the wine and rolled on the spot, finally throwing the bottle out. He walked over and took a look and smiled. Wolves are different from people. When drunk, they shake all over. Seeing that the wolf's fur was good, he waved his hand again, broke its waist with a bottle, tied it with a thick vine, and pulled it home. Now, he spreads the wolf skin under him every night, turning it into an extremely warm mattress.

■Link to Tuva abroad

Tuva is an ancient place name in the hinterland of Asia. It generally covers nearly 200,000 square kilometers of the upper reaches of the Yenisey River in the southern tip of Siberia. area. The history of Tuva can be traced back to the 3rd to 6th centuries BC. From the 13th to the 18th century AD, Tuva was under Mongolian control. In the 23rd year of Qianlong's reign (1758), after the Qing army defeated the Mongolian army of the Junggar tribe, Tuva came under the rule of the Manchu Qing Dynasty and was called "Tangnu Wulianghai" with forty-eight assistants (the assistants were the basic units of the Eight Banners system).

In the third year of Tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty (1864), China and Russia signed the "Tacheng Treaty" (i.e., the "Sino-Russian Treaty on the Demarcation of the Northwest Boundary"), and Tsarist Russia cut off ten villages in the northwest of Tangnu Ulianghai territory.

After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, Wulianghai became a "protectorate" of Tsarist Russia in 1914. After the Russian October Revolution, the Russian Civil War spread to Tuva. The Chinese army took the opportunity to regain the 36 territories in the central and eastern parts of the Uliang Sea, but was quickly defeated by the Soviet Red Army. After that, the 9 territories in the eastern part of the Uliang Sea decided to surrender to Outer Mongolia, and the central area In 1921, the "Tangnu-Tuva People's Republic of China" was established and was protected by the Soviet Union. It ended its independence in 1944 and joined the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Tuva became a republic within the Russian Federation in 1992.

The total number of Tuva people is about 200,000, and about 30,000 people are distributed in Mongolia.