Alan Goa instructed her sons then, and said to them: “Ye all are my
children, ye are all sons of mine. If ye stand apart like those five
broken arrows it will be very easy to break you, but if ye keep one
mind and one spirit no man on earth will be able to injure you, ye will
be like those five arrows in the bundle.”
Alan Goa died soon after this talk with her children. Four of the
brothers took what belonged to all five of them, counting the youngest
a weakling and simple they gave him no property whatever. He, seeing
that they would not treat him with justice, said in his own mind: “I
will go from this place, I will leave them.” Then mounting a sorry roan
horse with galled back and mangy tail he left his four brothers and
rode away up the Onon to live at some new spot in freedom. When he
reached Baljunala he built a small yurta, or hut at the place which
seemed best to him and lived in it. One day he saw a falcon swoop down
on a woodcock and seize it there near his yurta; he plucked hairs from
the mangy tail of his horse, made a snare, caught the falcon, and
trained it. When the wolves drove wild beasts toward the yurta in
hunting he killed them with arrows, or took for himself and the falcon
what the wolves left uneaten. Thus he lived the first winter. When
spring came the falcon caught ducks and geese in great numbers.
Beyond the ridge of Mount Duilyan, which was there near his yurta,
flowed the Tungeli, and at the river lived a new people. Boduanchar,
who went to hunt daily with his falcon, discovered this people and
drank in their yurtas, mare’s milk which they gave him. They knew not
whence he had come, and he asked not who they were, though they met
every day with good feeling.
At last Boduanchar’s eldest brother, Hatagi, set out to find him if
possible and reached the Tungeli, where he saw the new people with whom
Boduanchar was in friendship.
“Have ye seen a young man with a mangy tailed horse?” asked he. “On the
horse’s back are white spots which are marks of old gall sores.” “We
have seen the young man with that horse—he has also a falcon. He comes
here each day to drink mare’s milk, but we know not the place of his
yurta. Whenever wind blows from the northwest it drives hither as many
duck and goose feathers as there are flakes in a snowstorm. He must
live with his falcon northwest of us. But wait here a while and thou
wilt see him.” Soon they saw the young man coming. Boduanchar became
reconciled and went home with Hatagi.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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