Killed the Mongolian way
N 48°55'401'' E 103°39'459''
Day: 29
Sunrise:
06:07 am
Sunset:
8:09 pm
Total kilometers:
452
Soil condition:
Meadow
Temperature – Day (maximum):
20 °C
Temperature – day (minimum):
17 °C
Temperature – Night:
10 °C
Latitude:
48°55’401”
Longitude:
103°39’459”
Maximum height:
1379 m above sea level
It pours down like a bucket early on. I retire to the small yurt to write. Bilgee comes in the morning with the goat. Today is apparently the better day to buy goats. When it stops raining I step out of the yurt and just happen to see Bilgee putting the goat on his back to kill it Mongolian style. As the sharpened knife penetrates the breastbone, the goat opens its eyes. Little Orgio holds the goat’s mouth shut and laughs. Bilgee’s hand now penetrates the approximately ten-centimeter-long cut inside the goat. The goat snorts loudly through Orgios’ closed mouth. Bilgee’s fingers glide past the goat’s heart and tear out the main nerve of the back wheel. At least that’s how I understood it from Ulzii’s translation. The goat makes a few more groaning gasps until its eyes become glassy and lifeless. Then she is dead. The whole thing happens relatively quickly and, according to the Mongols, is a very quick death. After the animal has breathed its last, Bilgee drags it into the heated yurt to dismember it. Tanja is cooking oatmeal for our breakfast just half a meter away as Bilgee squeezes out the goat’s intestines. A sour smell fills the air and mixes with the vapors of the oatmeal. Rarely in our lives have we experienced such a bizarre situation while the event is the most normal thing in the world for those present.
Around noon, Bilgee completely dismembered the goat and cut the meat into strips. The strips of meat are immediately hung on a string in the yurt roof. There they can dry in the warm air of the oven and are thus preserved. Baatar prepares a gruesome soup from the offal, which is a real delicacy for those present. Tomorrow there will be goat’s head, which Mann tells us is also something special.
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