doing business in the tiger’s domain; it is a form of tribute, and it has
ancient precedents.
Ivan Dunkai understood this: he knew that dog killing is in a tiger’s
nature, and he also knew that, in time, he would be compensated. Udeghe
and Nanai hunters in particular made efforts to propitiate the tiger, first
and foremost by staying out of his way, but also by leaving him a cut of
the spoils. On occasion, these favors would be returned. Local people,
Russian and native alike, told stories of how tigers would leave meat for
“Uncle Vanya”—sometimes an entire carcass. An occurrence like this
might easily be ascribed to chance by an outsider, or simply dismissed as
a folktale, but when seen from a traditional tayozhnik’s point of view it is
only logical because, in his way, he has done the same for the tiger. For
Dunkai, such an arrangement made perfect sense; after all, he was a
person for whom skis literally grew on trees and could be summoned
forth at will. When the creatures around you are keeping you alive, it
necessarily changes the relationship; survival—both physical and psychic
—demands it. “The tiger will help me,” Dunkai once said, “because I’ve
asked him.”
There is, in a healthy forest, an almost tidal ebb and flow of resources
and reciprocation. As with the unintended etiquette of winter trail
breaking, this passive sharing of food is an integral part of coexistence in
the wild. In this sense, the hunting “culture” of predators and scavengers
bears a strong resemblance to Karl Marx’s communist ideal: “From each
according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Thus, what the
bulldozer is to communal trail breaking, the tiger is to the food chain:
among animals in the taiga, there is no more efficient or bountiful
provider. By regularly bringing down large prey like elk, moose, boar,
and deer, the tiger feeds countless smaller animals, birds, and insects, not
to mention the soil. Every such event sends another pulse of lifeblood
through the body of the forest. These random but rhythmic infusions
nourish humans, too, and not just wolfish hunter-biologists like Dmitri
Pikunov. Udeghe and Nanai hunters occasionally scavenge from tiger
kills, and so do their Russian neighbors.
ron
(Ron)
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