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Gossip, starting like a small fire, got bigger and bigger. One occasion
especially helped this evil rumor. On a holiday, years before, the
people of the valley had gathered to eat and drink and dance. As
always, the shamanist was present--a man believed to have power to
communicate with the good and evil spirits who were part of an ancient
faith. And as always he ate and drank with the gayest of the company.
The shamanist had long been jealous of Turgen because of his influence
over the Yakuts. For one thing, Turgen was a sober man and kept his
wits at all times, which the shamanist did not do. As the shamanist was
dependent upon voluntary contributions for his living, he could not
tolerate the thought of yielding any authority to another.
On this day the party went on hour after hour, until the shamanist from
an excess of food, drink, and excitement fell down unconscious. To the
superstitious Yakuts, who revered him greatly, he was in a trance and
they waited eagerly to hear what he would report about his conversation
with the spirits when he awoke.
A woman named Stepa went to him and wailed:
“Arise, O Shamanist, and open our eyes, ignorant people that we are.
Tell us our future and what we have to fear.”
In a short while the shamanist rose, looked about him with wild eyes,
seized his tambourine and struck it several times.
“I saw,” he muttered, “I saw a dark cloud swim across the sky to
Turgen’s yurta. I looked. I looked, and in it was the figure of a
devil. A real devil, with horns and a tail like a cow’s. I spoke,
putting a spell upon him, and he changed into a wild ram. I made the
spell stronger, and he vanished in the exact spot where Turgen lives. O
my friends! Beware of the devil in the ram’s hide!”
With that, the shamanist fell to the ground again exhausted.
Amazed, the Yakuts said to one another, “He has seen the devil! Let us
be thankful that the devil passed us by and went instead after the soul
of Turgen.”
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But here the woman Stepa, who wanted to be in the shamanist’s good
graces, interrupted. “Beware the devil!” she screamed. “He can come
to you too. You say that Turgen is a Christian--but has anyone seen him
pray when the priest visited us? No. Believe me, the devil is looking
to have such people for a friend. Beware of Turgen! Avoid him!”
The Yakuts were more impressed by the shamanist’s vision than by
Stepa’s words. Still they listened and remembered. When, not long
afterwards, the shamanist had another vision in which Turgen was
associating with the devil, the simple started to believe. They did not
condemn Turgen, nor would they harm him. “If he has bound himself to
the devil,” they said, “that is his affair. We’ll just stay away from
him.”
They did so, and time passed. People might even have forgotten the
story of Turgen’s sorcery had not a simple, foolish man named Nikita
come running to the village one day to report in great excitement that
he had seen Turgen sitting on the bench beneath his larch tree while a
mountain ram strolled nearby.
“With my own eyes I saw it,” he declared. “A wild ram in company with a
man.”
Everyone knew Nikita for a careless talker who embroidered truth with
a lively imagination, but the Yakuts were a superstitious people and
like many others were easily convinced by loud shouting. “Think of it,”
they said, shaking their heads dolefully, “a wild ram has become tame.
Such a thing has never been heard of before. This really smells of the
devil’s work.”
For these men had hunted the mountain rams all their lives and they
knew that no wild creature in the world was so fearful of human beings.
Hunting them was hazardous sport because the rams lived in the most
remote crags. Many a hunter had fallen and been crippled for life
trying to search them out. There was a saying that anyone who killed a
ram was certain to meet misfortune, but this was one of those popular
beliefs not to be examined too carefully for truth.
Of course, the Yakuts might have gone to Turgen and questioned him, but
they didn’t. “Is it reasonable to ask a sorcerer why he takes the devil
for friend?” they asked. “Better stay out of harm’s way lest the evil
spirits reach out and take the inquisitive ones also into their net.”
So it was that the people of the valley no longer visited Turgen, or he
them.