Tepee visits and looks in the past

Till now everybody was visiting us in our ger, now it is time to visit families in their tepees. Because we do not want to come with empty hands Tanja puts for every tent and their inhabitants a little bit together what for them hopefully from use or to the joy is. “Have you packed the ropes?”, she asks. “Yes I have”, I answer the door of our ger closing. We follow the narrow snowy path towards the tepee of 54-year-old Darimaa and her husband Ovogdorj. Like decency and custom requires we become apparent with loud steps and a call before we enter the tepee. The both laugh at us as we step in the low entrance. .“Take a seat”, says Darimaa on the sleeping place left of the metal stove interpreting. We sit down on the boards which are 10 centimeter about the ground. A cover and a boar’s fur which serve as a mattress lie on it. Darimaa passes a bowl with bread and pours out salty tea for us. Darimaa and Ovogdorj sit towards us on a bed also made from coarse boards close about the ground established. While we rudimentary communicate Ovogdorj lays wood in the stove. The floor is laid out with coarse wooden boards by his slits and columns the forest ground is seen. In the middle of the wooden floor is a recess, large enough for a metal stove which stands on crude stones and delivers heat. On the left and to the right of the entrance hacked wood is settled. Mostly this stock is prepared for the evening, next morning or bad weather. During Ovogdorj is teaching Tanja the knot the reindeers are bound with, I let my looks circle curiously. In my present travel life I have visited many indigenes people. Up to now, however, I have never seen a wigwam from inside. About 20 wooden poles are tripod-like respected three meters high and carry a green, coarse tent square. Still few years ago the Tuwa used as tent material fur, material and maybe also bark. The point from which the tent poles stand out is open and the tent square is sometimes turned down, so that it forms a sort of chimney where the metal stove flue is pulled through. Years ago when there were not the cheap metal stoves yet, the smoke departed in the centre of the tent by the always being open hole of the crossed wooden poles. A few old CD discs hang on the tent poles. “Why do you hang CD’s there?”, I am surprised. “Thereby we get a better receipt with our mobile phones”, answers Darimaa. The progress also does not stop at a tepee in the taiga, because nearly each of the Tuwa owns a mobile phone since some time. Also I recognize a radio which beside the bed on a wooden peg sits. The devices are loaded with solar panels put in front of the tepee. As we go Tanja passes Darimaa soap and I give Ovogdorj a piece of rope with which he can bind his reindeers. “Bairlalaa. Irj irj baigaara”, (“Thank you, come whenever you want”) they say friendly laughing.

Sainaa, the daughter of the both, lives with her husband Hadaa and their only a few month born baby Undramaa next door in tepee four, we also visit the young family. Proudly they show us their small daughter. She sleeps on a cradle carved of wood. “Why have you fastened the boar’s tooth to it?”, it interests Tanja. “This helps our child to a quiet sleep and good dreams”, explains Hadaa. In comparison to the just visited tepee the tent square walls are covered with painted materials. However, therefore the naturalness is absent but it looks rather comfortable. Also here we give a few little things. Sainaa gets a bottle Baby – oil for her Baby and Hadaa gets a rope for the reindeers. After spending a nice time we are requested to visit again as we say good-bye. Also Buyantogtoh, the sister of the Schmanen Gamba, welcomes us friendly. When we enter her tepee she is working on a piece of fur, she declares it is for shoes. As usual we get tea and this time even a few dry biscuits offered. Buyantogtoh lives alone in her simple and very well-arranged tepee. In contrast to the other tents she has spread on the wood ground boards a big piece of patched up leather and therefore has created a sort of carpet. The shaman Saintsetseg who visits us several times daily with her daughter Monkoo lives in tepee seven. As we enter it is a little chaotic. Saintsetseg is occupied with melting snow.

Basically it looks in every tent of the Tuwa, already because of the same way of construction, very similarly. One tepee is better arranged than the others. Some more romantically or easier furnished. In Saintsetsegs tepee many material flags, little leather bags and painted chains hang, in addition, in the tent linkage. It shows that she is a shaman or differently expressed a religious specialist. She owns the ability to get in touch with the spirits.

Beside the tepees there are the dog nests. Small huts established of wood look with some imagination like resemblances of a tepee. Here live the dogs of the Tuwa. The dogs are of elementary importance for the hunt. Sometimes they are allowed also in the tepee to warm themselves for a short time by the fire of the stove.“Look the little ones”, Tanja says taking one of the puppies on her arm. She hugs and cuddles it. Then she puts the puppy again down and it wobbles in its dog nest

On the way back we walk along the different wood hides on which the Tuwa keep their meat, stocks and other possessions away from wolves and dogs. The sun has already set. The moon stands quite high smoke rises from the tops of the tepees. The snow crunches under our feet. With every step for us is consciously to have found one of the last paradises of the humanity. But to us of course is clear that this statement is limited to the optical perception. The existence of every person living here would fill a thick book. It would be a book where also dramas and tragedies roles play.