We'd decided to go to Repkong, or Tongren as I suppose it should be now, now we're finally over denying that China is there for good. Liam wanted to see some 'impressive Tibetan art' as he put it, and I'd read that Tongren was sort of a centre for that kind of thing. It wasn't in the prettiest area of Amdo, but I figured the art would make up for it. Liam had been telling me about the Lurol Festival too, which marked a peace treaty or some such. I think it was his way of trying to connect me with larger things. He always said I should consider theology more in my everyday life. I'd said that Buddhism wasn't technically a religion. But any way, I should avoid that argument. It was a hefty trek though, which instantly put me off. I'd carved a pleasing little rut in Lhasa, and the thought of travelling several hundred miles north west and disrupting the daily ritual of wandering amongst prostrates and incense clouds and drinking near the Barkhor concerned me. At the same time, Liam wanted to see at least some kind of festival during our time in Tibet. I spoke to the man who ran a tea shop we frequented about possible places to go, and he explained how difficult it would be for the two of us to be involved directly in any festival, as we were clearly outsiders. We would be welcome to watch in a few places, but not many. I told Liam, and despite what was essentially a warning, he was ecstatic. The festival he'd recommended was one neither of us had heard of, and have found it impossible to research subsequently. It was the Mountain Cult Ritual Festival in a place called Sharkhoy. It was due to take place on the 15th day of the 6th lunar month, which put it a day before the festival we'd initially hoped to visit. The tea man was kind enough to recommend a friend of his with a four wheel drive who would take us to Sharkhoy and bring us back after a few days when the feasting and celebration had subsided and the herdsmen had returned to their work. He asked for a very small amount of money in return, but we paid him more than this.
The journey there was a rough one, as many of the roads were badly finished and the Chinese government were more focused on the completion of their great rail line linking Lhasa with China proper. We picked up several other people on our way, and helped attach their baskets to the roof rack of the Jeep. The villages we pushed on through were a peculiar mix, reflecting I think the increasingly random nature of the country as a whole. There were women clutching hats to their faces to avoid the dust kicked up by farmers on tractors. This was offset by the modern looking coaches full of American tourists that churned up the main thoroughfares. At one of the villages we passed through, Liam pointed out the group of monks standing by the road side watching us. I wound down the window as we approached. The tallest of the group was on a mobile phone. We were both shocked, even more so when he yelled 'kla klo!' at us as the bus kicked pebbles and dust into the folds of his orange robes. As we got closer to Sharkhoy, the houses became fewer, the brilliant white of the stone wash houses more mottled and greying. 'People don't often come this far', the driver said. Our companions, of which the numbers varied, spoke to us in broken Mandarin which Liam struggled to translate. They offered us disgusting butter tea kept in tattered Thermos flasks, we offered them Chomp bars.
By the time we reached Sharkhoy, several days had passed...I forget how many...and the Jeep contained only the three of us. The driver took us to what we assumed was a friends yurt but turned out to in fact be his mothers. He was tight lipped about the final destination during the course of the journey, and calmly introduced us to his extended family as if he'd been regaling us with tales of their exploits on the way from the capital. We ate and drank with them and talked long in to the night. The driver had gone to Lhasa for work when he was in his teens and returned only periodically. His family were always glad to see him return. I avoided pointing out the similarities of this situation to Liam. The village, they told us, was temporary and would be dismantled after the festival when the families went back to their herding and sheparding on the surrounding mountains and pastures. The driver told us that no matter how far they travel with the yak, they all return to the same spot each year, like migrating birds. The following morning at breakfast the men left to prepare the arrows they would need for the ritual, and we sat with some of the village women, and their children. They were piecing together new prayer flags from old ones. 'The rlung – rta are the key to the ritual', Liam said, having himself pieced together the picture from fragments. 'They are Wind Horses'. One of the teenage boys, Tsephun, had learned some English from a doctor who had stayed with them the previous year and taught us a few useless phrases in Tibetan. btsoή doή meant abyss, and μnyid-du gro-ba meant to fall asleep. Pye-ma-leb meant butterfly. I doubted they'd come in handy. I took the opportunity to show him a photograph of some graffiti I had seen in Lhasa. A white wall, cut through with red paint – é-ma séms-can snyiήre-rjé. The curl of the symbols seemed sad and longing. Tsephun said that it was appropriate that I'd felt that way, as he'd translated it as 'Alas, the poor people'...or rather Liam had done so from Tsephun's description and the badly connected letters.
The festival itself, or what we saw of it and had explained afterwards, was dazzling and surprising. It makes me upset thinking that this sort of devotion and belief is on a permanent wane, when it used to be so vital to remote communities. The men had gone to one of the few high altitude pine forests on the plateau and pulled out and stripped long branches that they fashioned in to five or six metre arrows; the end of the branches were brought to a point with a sharp knife or flint. They then collected their horses and brought them to rest just outside the settlement, ready to set off for the foot of the mountain that towered over them when dawn came. The driver, who as a relative outsider himself refused to take part, agreed to drive us to their temporary 'base camp' but we were allowed to proceed no further than the lower slopes. We slept in the Jeep overnight, so as not to disturb the men, and awoke next morning to find they had set off up the mountain on horseback. We watched through two pairs of binoculars as one by one the men and horses climbed the craggy and broken eastern slope of the mountain. When the horses started to become unsure and stumble on the loose rock and scree, the men climbed down and left the animals to make their way down the mountain. None of them fell to my relief, and they all gathered in front of the Jeep to wait for their riders. The men appeared to reach a cairn three quarters of the way up. I could see huge black birds circling to the north where the clouds were gathering and assumed from this that the site was perhaps normally used for sky burials. At the cairn, a fire was lit, and smoke rose up into the air. Then the men took the 'Wind Horses' from their satchels and scattered them into sky. When each satchel was empty, the men arched their heads back and began to scream. It was a moving sight for me; I kept expecting their voices to be carried down to us, but they were not. We sat down on the grass amongst the horses.
On the journey back the driver told us that we were the first foreigners to see the ritual, even though we had only seen it through magnified glass. I felt privileged and humbled. Liam said it made him both happy and melancholy. I asked the driver (via Liam) what the men were shouting. He told us that when they finish the ritual, they have to beseech the Mountain God for help. In the past it was to smite an enemy, but since the Chinese had settled, this seemed not to work. Back at the settlement, we feasted and drank and sang bewitching songs. The men and women were clearly happy to be reunited, even if the separation had only lasted a day or so. The atmosphere was heady, smoke filled and like nothing else I have experienced. Tsephun gave me two gifts before we left. The first was a folded square of white material. Printing on each side are two elongated black horses, that are at once both elegant and primitive. Alongside that, another piece of paper with some script on it, which is one of the few things I have memorized in my life, a token gesture perhaps, but one I still consider significant:
'brag dang rlung po bsdebs nas rgod po’i sgro la gzan byung gyo can rdzu bag can gyis nga la gzan pa byas byung'
It is, and always will be, beautiful to me. It means 'The poet has been withered by false friends and liars and longs for the old country'
