Eat Sheep.... And be merry!

Well, I just was at my first Tuvan sheep cutting, and it was great. Somehow, in the space of six or so hours my Tuvan family and I went from the stockyard to all sitting around the cabin with full stomachs. For the sake of making this a complete record of my Tuvan life and times I'll elaborate.

I had a big day today because earlier in the day I took Namdolmaa's daughter out for a day on the town to make up for missing her birthday party. We went to a tropical fish display at the local museum (they had real piranhas!) and then to "Kofe-Mahn," THE place to go in Kyzyl to see and be seen. It's a little coffee shop that looks like it belongs in Moscow instead of Kyzyl and serves kind of decadent sweet and hot things... It was a good time, although I think the most fun of all was on the way home when we took the wrong bus and ended up wandereding through the market. I do a lot of walking around town with this kid (she's 10 years old) and people sometimes look shocked to see young white woman (they assume I'm Russian, Belorussian, or Ukrainian, and never guess that I'm an American) palling around with a Tuvan kiddo like any other auntie.

We got back home and suddenly were invited by Namdolmaa to go hear a monk read a holy book (the Buddhist New Years, Shagaa, is fast approaching--Feb 14 is the day). For a moment I pondered relaxing at the apartment with a nice book (the rest of the family just took off again for the village, so it is finally quiet for the first time since I've been home) but then shrugged my shoulders and went off to learn more about Buddhism in Tuva.

Our ambition to hear the monks and pray, however, was thwarted when we arrived at the theatre only to find it was packed to the gills and people were thronging at the doors just to get a place in the aisles. Lamas have no problem packing a house in Kyzyl! After many quick conferences with Namdolmaa's mother and aunt, who had joined us there, and visits to the nick-knack stands selling religious tokens to help us be healthy/wealthy/wise/beautiful, we decided that joining the throng was ultimately not going to be a satisfying experience, and all piled into the car and drove out to the stockyards.

The stockyards were tended by some really tough, gnarly looking Tuvans. Our grandmother took control of the situation and quickly started haggling for a meaty-looking sheep (I have no eye for sheepflesh, but I'm assuming she did). About a minute and a half later, a ram was lifted over the fence, its feet were bound, and it was put in the back of the station wagon. We pulled out of the driveway and sped off towards the Eastern region of Kyzyl, where we pulled up at a little log cabin and unloaded our future dinner...

There was some preparing; boiling water, cleaning vessels, and some drinking of salty, milky Tuvan tea. I wasn't permitted to watch the actual death of the sheep; it was only the men and the sheep who were involved in the death process.

I should mention here that I witnessed the sheep killing process once before in a village in Buryatia, so I have seen how the men make a slit in the sheep's chest, stick their hand into the cavity and pinch the values on its heart, giving the sheep an artificial heart attack. I remember the last time witnessing this moment as being kind of affecting, so I wasn't exactly disappointed not to have to watch the last agony filled moments of this sheep. Although the Tuvans say its strictly forbidden to have any feelings of regret for the sheep; part of respecting the lifecycle of man and animal is also respecting one's place in it.

Once the sheep had kicked its last kicks, the skinning began. The hide became the platform for the dismantling of the meat. The whole idea of the heart-pinching method is that not a single drop of blood hits the earth. Somebody here once told me that the tradition began with Chinghis Khan, but I'm not sure if that's factual... whatever the case, everything was done very tidily, which was one of my most consistent observations throughout the process. We washed and rewashed all the organs many times in continually fresh pots of hot and cold water, and the ladies of the family were very systematic about where to put what. In general, I was impressed; it all seemed to me pretty darn hygienic. And, not to sound all Pocohantas-cliche or anything, but we used every single part of the sheep. All the weird organs I was washing, several hours later I was eating in some creative traditional form or another. Tendons, hide, head, hooves, everything was put to some use.

I would also, in a somewhat Pocohantas-esqe tradition like to mention how severely this use of meat contrasts with the American model; and how somehow it is a little ridiculous that I have eaten meat my whole life, but only once (twice if you count not really watching today) watched my meat die. ?? Doesn't make much sense really. What are we so afraid of? This meat ceremony was a really cool thing. I would have liked to do this growing up...

Probably the most significant challenge we faced in dismantling this sheep and making every single bit of it ready for eating was dealing with the sheep's digestive tract, hence there was a lot of rinsing half-digested feed out of intestines. Since I was the new comer in the family, I was given the task of cleaning the sheep's second stomach, which had about a million folds in it. I must have spent 45 minutes scrubbing that thing! It was super interesting to participate in this rapid-fire, utilitarian dissection of a sheep, so different from what I remember from our cat dissections in high school biology class (for one thing, there was less formaldehyde). I saw a lot of guts, a lot of sheep poop. The blood stayed in the carcass, until we ladled it into a pot, making sure to drain all the blood from the head while doing so. There was also a lot of team spirit among all the relatives. We had about four generations there, all working hard on the sheep (about 17 people in all). Nobody complained or refused to work (except the really small kids who watched TV). The grandmother/matriarch (Namdolmaa's mother) was in command of the whole thing, telling people to go here, go there, pick up this, rinse off that. In short, it was an impressive display of herder-people efficiency. We saved the bulk of the meat for later (as a bride gift, Namdolmaa's brother is getting married soon) and set the organs in a huge pot on the wood/brick traditional Russian stove to boil. Then the older women made a whole selection of interesting sausages from the leftover intestines, stomach(es) and blood. Han, blood sausage, is the most delicate of all the delicacies, and I got to watch how that was made, which was really neat. Even the way the ladies sealed the ends of the sausages was ingenious; they had a sharp stick and some sheep fat, and twisted it all together!

Finally came the eating (it was 9:30pm by that time), but there was a formalized system to how we ate the sheep as well! First a bowl of broth was brought to the eldest and most respected man of the house, then to the other men. I was pleasantly surprised not to get any guest treatment, but they all call me sister and I guess that means they treat me like one too. I ate in line after/with Namdolmaa, since I'm her "young, blond" sister. But before anyone ate, they brought the first meat to the top man; he got the chest meat of the ram. He would have gotten the fatty part on the rump as well, but that was being saved as a gift for Namdolmaa's brother's bride's parents. Finally, a platter of assorted sheep parts was delivered to each family unit, and I began to try all the different "things" we had created. Heart, lung, liver, kidney, stomach lining, second stomach lining, neck, (the top man decided to share a taste of the chest with me), blood sausage, intestine sausage, etc. There's probably something I'm forgetting, but I can't remember much more.

Then we drank the broth and had some bread. All in all, it was a very satisfying meal, all the more so because of the good company. I knew pretty much all of the family members there, and they are pretty comfortable/accepting towards me, to the point that ask me for weight loss advice (it is a well known fact that I take step aerobics classes, and everyone is always curious about this). Once we got home, I heard through Namdolmaa that the family was pleased with my sheep gutting skills, so hopefully I will get invited to more of these things in the future.

Ok, I'm going to call it a night because I have to wake up in five and a half hours and I still need to take a shower and wash the sheep off me before class tomorrow (although everyone says you smell like sheep guts for a week after you eat a sheep no matter what). All the best, guys!

Love,
Riley