Frightened, Silken Tassel pulled the reins and galloped off.
"At dawn tomorrow I will come to you!" the shaman called after her.
The girl came home, entered the tent and said: "Old Teldekpei will be here tomorrow at dawn."
The stars had not yet melted in the sky, the people in the camp had not yet set the milk out to ferment, the meat in the kettles had not yet been cooked, and the fine white rugs were not yet spread upon the ground when there was a loud clattering of hooves.
The oldest of the elders came out to welcome the mighty shaman Teldekpei.
He sat atop a shaggy horse with a back as wide as a mountain yak's. Silently, looking at no one, he dismounted, and, greeting no one, he went into the tent. The old men brought in after him the eighty-pound robe in which he worked his magic and put it down on the white rug. They hung his tambourine upon a wooden peg and made a fire of fragrant juniper twigs under it.
All day, from dawn to sunset, the shaman sat without lifting his eyelids, without moving, without uttering a word.
Late at night Teldekpei stood up and pulled his red shaman's hat down to his eyebrows. Two owl feathers stood up in his hat like ears; red strips of cloth fluttered behind it like two wings. Large glass beads fell upon his face like hail. Groaning, he lifted from the rug his eighty-pound robe and put his hands into the stiff, hard sleeves. Along the sides of the robe hung frogs and snakes woven of magic grasses. Feathers of woodpeckers were stuck into its back. |
