Apr 6, 2023·edited Apr 6, 2023Liked by Thomas Pluck
When you travel across the steppes of Kazakhstan, you see necropolises of yurts, but the yurts are rebar frames with no felt canvas over them, the ghost of yurt, if you will. There are tombstones in these places, too, usually with a stylized ceramic portrait of the deceased on it, which is sad when it is a young person who passed. They are striking places. The only time I had horse meat was when a Kyrgyz colleague of mine attended a ceremony for her uncle, who was an elder, at the 40-day mark after he died. The extended family slaughtered a horse, ate some, and made a white sausage out of the rest, some of which was given to me in honor of the old fellow I had never met. The meat was quite good.
Thanks for the mention, Tommy! I'm happy you're taking a shot at the outside challenge too. I just came in from a quick 30 minutes out to the main road and back; it's still hovering around freezing here and the weather has been awful. But we do what we must!
As for the interment of the dead, here's a story from my part of the world: one of the many big conflicts the Blackfeet had with white people coming up the Missouri river in steamboats was all the cottonwood trees that were cut to fuel their progress upriver (my great great grandfather Mose La Tray was a woodhawk involved in that labor). The Blackfeet interred their dead in the cottonwoods and the bodies would decompose and fall down into the soil, so the trees were quite literally seen as their ancestors. They didn't like their ancestors being chopped up and burned just so more white people could have an easier trip into the interior to steal everything. Justifiable mayhem ensued.
When you travel across the steppes of Kazakhstan, you see necropolises of yurts, but the yurts are rebar frames with no felt canvas over them, the ghost of yurt, if you will. There are tombstones in these places, too, usually with a stylized ceramic portrait of the deceased on it, which is sad when it is a young person who passed. They are striking places. The only time I had horse meat was when a Kyrgyz colleague of mine attended a ceremony for her uncle, who was an elder, at the 40-day mark after he died. The extended family slaughtered a horse, ate some, and made a white sausage out of the rest, some of which was given to me in honor of the old fellow I had never met. The meat was quite good.
Fascinating! That must have been something to experience.
Did you make it Pere LaChaise in Paris?
No, I spent a short time in Paris and chose the Catacombs over many things!
Very good
Thanks for the mention, Tommy! I'm happy you're taking a shot at the outside challenge too. I just came in from a quick 30 minutes out to the main road and back; it's still hovering around freezing here and the weather has been awful. But we do what we must!
As for the interment of the dead, here's a story from my part of the world: one of the many big conflicts the Blackfeet had with white people coming up the Missouri river in steamboats was all the cottonwood trees that were cut to fuel their progress upriver (my great great grandfather Mose La Tray was a woodhawk involved in that labor). The Blackfeet interred their dead in the cottonwoods and the bodies would decompose and fall down into the soil, so the trees were quite literally seen as their ancestors. They didn't like their ancestors being chopped up and burned just so more white people could have an easier trip into the interior to steal everything. Justifiable mayhem ensued.
That's fascinating. Thanks for sharing that.
I didn't know that. Not all monuments are dead stone... some are living wood.