Leaving Mother Lake (14 page)

While the men butchered the pigs, the women cooked and fermented wine. Every day, in every courtyard, a spread of the most fragrant dishes was served on long tables covered with pine needles. This was a time to show off. A really capable woman can fill a bowl of rice with a single ladle scoop, and a woman’s reputation may go a long way beyond the village. My mother had earned herself a reputation for making the best blood sausage in the village, and she always kept it for my big sister. In the evening she boiled the sausage, and when it had cooled down, she put it in Zhema’s bamboo box for her to take to the fields the next day.

Thinking back as far as I can remember, I am quite sure that I always coveted a piece of the blood sausage, and yet I never dared ask Ama. Then one year, when I was home from the mountain, something terrible happened to Zhema’s sausage.

Every evening, as I watched the blood sausage disappear under the lid of Zhema’s lunch box, I drooled. And every morning I gawked at Zhema selfishly sauntering down the village street with the sausage in her lunch box. After a few days, all I could think of was that sausage.So one night, when everybody was asleep, I crept out of bed, stole the sausage from the lunch box, and replaced it with a piece of my own poop I had spent the afternoon drying in the sun and fashioning into the correct shape. The next day I shared the blood sausage with my little brother Howei. We sat at the bottom of the stairs, right under Zhema’s bedroom, and nothing ever tasted so good. My big sister came home from the fields around noon, screaming and crying, and when Ama found out what I had done, she laughed and laughed, and that evening she made sure to give me a piece of sausage. And Zhema screamed again and said that she would never, ever eat blood sausage again. But she did.

THIS YEAR IT DID NOT MATTER TO ME
who got to eat the blood sausage. Because this year was the year of my Skirt Ceremony.

As soon as the pig slaughtering was over, my Ama and my sister set out to clean the house and prepare the customary foods and drinks. At a Skirt and Trousers Ceremony, three types of drinks must be served: butter tea, rice wine, and our own Sulima wine, which we brew from corn, millet, and honey. Every guest must be served these drinks in small bowls placed on a tray covered with pine needles and popcorn. This was a lot of work, and toward the end of the week, our neighbor Dujema also came to help, to ferment the wine and make rice cakes.

Now, I had wished for this moment for so long, I should have been very happy. Certainly it was comfortable to sit around our fireplace and to eat my mother’s cooking instead of my uncle’s. It was so exciting to think that soon I would be one of the grown women and that I would be dishing out food to my brothers and my little sister. But I felt strangely out of place.

Since my last visit, everything and everyone had changed a little. Some old person had died, some baby had been born. A baby had learned to walk and talk. Of course, every year when I came home, something had changed. But in all the time I had spent with Uncle in the mountain, I had come home only for a few days each year — never long enough to give in to the daily routine of village life. And now that I was home for good, now that every morning I tied my workbasket on my back and followed my mother and sister to the fields, now — when I looked at my mother’s shadow dancing on our log walls as she went between the fireplaces busying herself for my coming-of-age ceremony — I found myself missing the walls of Uncle’s tent.

One late afternoon, when I was hanging about with some village girls, trying to find something of interest to say, one of them asked: “Will you go back to the mountains after your ceremony?”

“I’m not going back anymore,” I answered. But I under- stood that they had grown used to my living away, that they were used to my not being one of them.

They were right. I was not one of them. I had not grown up as they had with their mothers and aunts and sisters; I had not grown up playing with girls. I had grown up with my silent uncle in a world of hairy yaks and vapory dew, and in remote mysterious lands that lay beyond our mountains and where blue-eyed people lived.

In the week preceding my ceremony, Ama washed my hair every day and she rubbed yak butter into it to make it shine. Traditionally Moso women lengthen their hair with extensions fashioned from the hair of a yak’s tail and silk threads, and also colored ribbons. The hair and the extensions should be very long, so that the whole thing falls way below the buttocks. But because my uncle had kept my hair so short on account of the lice, my Ama could not attach the extensions, and Dujema suggested that they make me a wig. Besides taking care of my hair, my mother examined my hands and my face and ears. “Don’t forget to rub butter into your skin after you bathe,” she told me several times a day, whenever she finished with a chore and she happened to look in my direction, for my skin was very brown and rough from spending too much time in the high mountain air. One afternoon, when my brothers were out of the house and I was left alone with my mother, she taught me the way a woman should sit to show that she had self-respect and how a woman should walk to show herself off. And no doubt, on the day of my ceremony, my mother wanted to show me off — but all this admonishing and prodding and inspecting made me think of Uncle when he took care of the yaks and the horses.

Uncle arrived from the mountain on New Year’s Eve. My brother Ache helped him put up the prayer flags over the roof and over the gates of the house and in the yard. When the flags were up, Ama called Uncle to help her haul a large sack of corn from the storeroom to the foot of the Mother Column. Then, together with Ache, they pulled the sewn-up pig down from the bench and pushed it along the floor to rest level with the corn sack. And when I saw the pig and the sack of corn on the floor all set for the next day’s events, I could hardly contain my excitement.

That evening, the last evening of my childhood, my mother said: “Make sure you get a good night’s sleep, you’ll need all your energy tomorrow. You’re going to do a lot of kowtowing!” And as I curled up next to my little sister, Jiama, I thought with trepidation that this was my last night in the storeroom, that tomorrow I would be sleeping in my own room, with my own bed, my own fireplace, and my own door, which I would open to whomever I pleased.

Zhema woke me before cockcrow. “Namu, you must get up now, you have to be ready at sunrise.” I opened my eyes immediately. I did not mind that I had not slept enough or that I must leave the warmth of the little bed where Jiama was still sound asleep, her little hands joined under her chin.

In the main room, Ama was putting the finishing touches on some trays, and Uncle, who was quietly sipping from a bowl of butter tea, invited me to sit next to him and have a quick drink. But my mother told me to come out into the courtyard, where she took off her headdress and kowtowed three times toward the sunlight, pink and orange and yet barely visible on the jagged horizon. Then I too kowtowed to the rising sun. The ceremony had begun. I had only just stood up when the lamas walked into our courtyard, followed by our neighbors bearing gifts for me and offerings for the fire god. We kowtowed to the lamas, and Ama invited everyone inside the house, where the holy men took their place on the kang around the fireplace, and the guests sat at the lower hearth. Uncle lit incense sticks and sagebrush and added wood to the fire, and the lamas began chanting in a low drone interrupted every now and then by the blowing of the shell conch.

“Good fortune!
Cheche zheke!
” the guests said as they stepped through the door.
“Amisei, amisei!
Thank you, thank you!” my mother answered, as she handed each person a tray with the three bowls of wine and tea and directed them to take a seat near the hearth. Perhaps sixty or seventy people came — all of them our neighbors, all of them dressed up in the Moso traditional costume, the women in long skirts and pretty, colorful shirts lined with gold thread, and the men in Tibetan dress.

When my mother’s friend Cilatsuo came in, everybody was already seated and happily sipping wine and tea. Cilatsuo handed me a scarf. I was a little surprised, because everyone else had placed their gifts in a big basket for me to open later. Still, I thanked her, and she smiled and walked off to chat with the rest of the party. Once she was out of earshot, my Ama told me that she had asked Cilatsuo to help me change into my adult clothes.

This came as a shock to me. “Why her? Why not you?” I asked. Everyone I knew, including my own sister Zhema, had her mother officiating at her ceremony.

But my mother replied, “Sometimes it’s better if a friend helps you change.”

“But why?”

Ama looked into my eyes and said firmly, “She was also born in a horse year, so there’s no problem. She has a perfect face, and very good fortune. She will be better for you.”

I looked at my mother’s face and I could not see anything wrong with it. Her face had been good enough for my sister’s ceremony, why wasn’t it enough for me? Why was she giving me away now that I was about to be reborn?

But her mouth was tight and her eyes determined, and there was no moving her. I was confused and hurt but also at a loss for what to say, and with all these people around, it was not the place or time to have an argument. Cilatsuo would help me change into my adult clothes and I would get some of her good fortune.

When Cilatsuo came back to stand by my side, I kowtowed to her, and she took me by the hand and walked me toward the Mother Column, where I waited by the side of the pig and the corn and a bundle of brand-new clothes neatly piled on the kang.

Meanwhile, my Ama handed Zhema a tray heaped with sunflower seeds, pears, and walnuts to pass around, and she took another for herself. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes shining, Ama smiled and joked with everyone. Five lamas, and so much food and so many guests! My mother was truly showing off. And as I looked at her gliding among the guests, so proud, so happy, wanting to give away all the food we had in the house, my heart ached from all the sacrifices and the hard work that had gone into this ceremony, an event my mother meant to be remembered by all the villagers and that was not only about her pride but was also my very own special day. My heart beat a little faster, and at last I felt the heat of joy rising in my cheeks.

When she had taken care of the guests, Ama put away her tray. She called the dog into the house, making him stay next to me. She told the story of how, a long time ago, the Dog had exchanged his own life of sixty years for the people’s thirteen years, and she thanked our dog and gave him human food. Uncle lit more sagebrush and the room filled with smoke. And when the lamas had finished praying for our dog, they began to pray for me to have long life, wealth, and many children, and they blew the conch to call the gods so that they would descend from heaven and witness my ceremony.

This was the moment for Cilatsuo to take my hand and help me step up and place one foot on the pig and the other on the sack of corn. Now I was ready to give up my old life.

Cilatsuo took off my blue linen shirt and I stood naked as I had been at my birth, in front of all our neighbors and my own relatives, in the golden glow of the fires and the thick scented haze of sagebrush smoke. I felt so beautiful and so perfect, and I thought of the heavenly goddess who, at the beginning of time, had descended to the shore of our lake on a beam of moonlight, where she had mothered our Moso race.

Dujema called out: “Do you believe that this crying baby turned out so beautiful? Your mother is so fortunate not to have given you away!”

Everyone laughed and cheered and offered more comments, including old Guso, who said: “Latso, your family has the most beautiful daughters. I am old, but it’s good to see that the younger generation is so blessed.” And he began to sing, in a broken voice, of the beauty of Moso women and the strength of Moso men.

When the cheering and the laughing had quieted, Cilatsuo threw my old shirt into the fire and my mother chanted:

Before Buddha we are burning these old clothes,

We are burning Namu’s old fate.

Today Namu is reborn.

Please protect her that she may be healthy,

And that she may prosper, and that she may have many children and grandchildren.

As she finished her chanting, Ama reached out for the new set of clothes she had prepared for me. First she handed Cilatsuo a pink shirt bordered with black-and-gold trim. Then, as Cilatsuo helped me get my arms into the sleeves and she closed the buttons, Ama took the white skirt, all bundled up like a sausage, and shook it. It opened in one swoop like a summer cloud, and everyone went,
“Oooooh!”

All the while, as she was dressing me, Cilatsuo commented, “Look at those eyes, they are like stars in the sky. Look at this face, it is round as the moon. Look at her breasts, they are like ripe peaches.” And she spoke of my waist, my buttocks, my thighs, while I felt at the same time embarrassed and proud. She wrapped a multicolored belt around my waist and attached a silver chain on my shirt, just above the belt, to signify that perhaps one day I would run the household. If I ever became Dabu, the key of the granary would hang from the chain. Then she placed the wig with all the silk threads and hair extensions on my head.

Everyone was stunned. They said, “Oh! She’s so pretty!” The transformation was complete. I was a woman, I was brand-new, and I was beautiful.

My mother was glowing. She was looking at me from head to toe, as though she could not believe her own eyes. She was not saying anything. She was not moving. Meeting my eyes, she shivered slightly, startled as though suddenly waking from a dream, and for a moment she looked confused. Then she slid her jade bracelet from her wrist with great difficulty because it had been there forever, and she kissed it, touched her forehead with it, and put it on my left wrist. “Namu, you will have good fortune,” she said, her eyes filling with tears, her hands trembling. I said nothing, but I loved her with all my heart. The bracelet had been her grandmother’s, and my Ama had worn it ever since her own skirt ceremony.