The Reindeer People and a Shaman

I woke up to a very strange sound this morning. No one really owns the land so this guy was welcome to eat here as much as anyone else. However, because the camp was making money commercially off this land they do have to pay a type of rent or lease to the government.

I headed down to the lake to watch the sunrise.





The cows were taking their morning bath, apparently they don't get hot water either.

We would be traveling across the lake today as the skies cleared.



A few years ago I heard about one of the last true nomadic cultures, the Reindeer People or Tsaatan. People whose daily life revolves around and depends on the reindeer. They live in harmony with their environment, the way we should all be living. However, their lifestyle and culture is being lost to time as the younger ones are getting caught up in cell phones and social media. Instead of living in the moment in this amazing landscape they are looking to the future and heading to the city. It's hard to blame them as I would have done the same thing at that age. There are only 44 families left and all but two have migrated up to the mountains for the winter, so I was very lucky that today I would get to visit with them. It was kind of like searching for the mountain gorillas in Uganda in that we didn't really know where they were. After walking for a bit we came across this fella and it felt like we were on the right path.



And when we came across this fella we knew we were on the right path.

And off in the distance was their current home.



Mongolians are pretty friendly, when they see you they invite you in.

And just my luck, they offered me some milk tea, this time made with reindeer milk. I do have to say it tasted slightly better then the cow version of this drink. I looked around to see if they had my preferred version of "tea". I was out of luck and couldn't wait to see how the bathroom back at camp would handle this.

We visited for a while communicating through my guide. It turns out I was very lucky in that they too would be heading to the mountains for the winter, leaving tomorrow. So if I was a day later I would have missed them. That's worth choking down another cup of milk tea.



They too had a smoker, eh heater I mean.

They even had a phone, although this version did not have any apps.

When they leave tomorrow they said they would only be taking the tarp and leaving the logs to their home in case someone else came along. Why can't the rest of the world think like this? Even though these people seem to live in a more rustic lifestyle they are actually quite a bit more civilized then us.



Good to know that they were keeping up their dental hygiene.

And if you were wondering how they charged that cell phone.



We think of their life as a difficult one, who would want to live like this with all of today's modern conveniences? But that's western thinking, they look at us and think we are crazy. Those modern conveniences are killing us, we are no longer living in the moment, we are just robots repeating the same thing again and again. Why would you want all that noise in the city? Why would you waste all that time in traffic? Why would you stress over money to buy that big screen TV? They have everything they need and they are living in the now. The more stuff you have the more you have to worry about. They are definitely on to something. We then headed out to see some of their reindeer who were largely napping.















They said because I drank the milk tea I could pet them without getting bitten. Sounded logical to me.



It was such an amazing experience to share our cultures with each other and I'm so fortunate to have had so many experiences like this. But it was time to say goodbye as we had to get back across the lake.



We boarded the boat using their dock which I'm sure was up to code.

We had lunch that consisted of some kind of boiled meat and then visited a local shaman. Shamanism is big in Mongolia and considered the oldest and father of all other religions. With shamanism focusing on spirits or energy and nature as a form of truth and healing. In Mongolia most shaman are women, which is different from other areas in the world. This is mostly because when a man gets sick he is considered to be the provider so they nurse him back to health. However, when a women gets sick she is often tossed aside as they do not consider her providing value. Over the years many of these women fought off their illness, many times with a high fever which also brought along hallucinations. It was a kind of spiritual awakening that lead them into shamanism and the reason that today most shaman are women. I made a joke that they should change the name to shawoman. Turns out in Mongolia they do have different terms to identify a male shaman verses a female shaman.

As many of you know I'm very interested in spiritualism having worked with a shaman in a number of ceremonies involving Ayahuasca, San Pedro, Cacao, and Cannabis, but those are other blogs. I really enjoyed talking with her through my guide and understanding her role within the community as well as her role in the universe. Her plant medicine of choice was tobacco, a spirit I have some knowledge of.

After our visit there was still some daylight left so we headed up the mountain into the Siberian forest with a little help from Toyota. And when it could go no further we started walking.

The views were breathtaking even though the weather was not.

One the other side of the mountain is Russia. Faded switchbacks tell of past conflicts.

We started to head back to the truck after seeing the viewpoint.



Along the way I felt a small lightly used path and wanted to check it out. My guide was not too keen on the idea but my driver was, so we started walking. After 10 minutes we came across a shaman's sacred place. It was a little Blair Witch like being out here in the middle of nowhere but I wanted to further investigate.

This was an amazing find and I took my time, asking the spirits if I could approach and enter.





I thanked the spirits as we needed to head back due to the skies opening up with rain. But my driver saw how cool I thought this was and how interested I was it in. We went back and had some boiled meat for dinner. I limited myself to one beer so I would not have to use the "facilities" in the middle of the night again. My driver then said he had something he wanted to show me tomorrow. He did not know anything about it. He just knew where it was. I headed back to my Ger, banged my head on the doorway, and then started my smoker/heater, wondering what tomorrow might bring.