Five. Earth Taming

That week I saw my first kill. I had woken early and, after struggling to dress in my tsarer, which required inordinate patience for one so inexperienced, emerged from our tent into the morning mist. The scene outside was new. While we were in Labrang the tribe had moved to their summer location and I was sorry to have missed that most nomadic experience: the dismantling of the tent; the slow procession of yak and sheep herds down the valley to fresh grass. But there would be another move with the onset of winter and I would not miss that.

The tents were now spread out in a circle in the vast Yellow river valley on the flat grassland. They were bordered by the rocky mountains of their spring and winter site to the north and the green-blue mountains of Ngoo Ra, the Silver Horn range, to the south. Eastwards and westwards the valley extended to the horizon and on for ever into a horizon that was blank apart from one other encampment, visible a few miles to the west. Our new home was more exposed than it had been at the former site. Fresh winds swept the corridor from west to east on good days, and from the east, bringing chilled air and rain, on bad.

Beyond the main tent two horsemen were skulking through a sheep herd. Tsedo and Gorbo were barefoot and wrapped in tsarers, their breath clouding upward with the warm air from the horses' snorting nostrils. They carried lassoes casually at their sides and ambled with deceptive nonchalance among the ignorant sheep. At a glance, I knew their intent. The animals shifted lazily in a dumb crowd from left to right, then scuffled, bleating, and parted ranks as a rope arced overhead and swung wasted between them. One stood stunned for a moment, unsure which way to turn, then the two horses closed in and it bolted, isolated, as they cantered after it past our tent and towards the stream. Deranged with fear it crashed down the bank into the water, pursued by Gorbo, who lassoed it around one horn, dismounted his horse and wrestled it out of the water to open ground. I felt an overwhelming sadness as I watched the animal struggling and whispered, ' Ommani padme hum,' They hadn't noticed me – killing was a man's domain and it was forbidden for Tibetan women to slaughter livestock. Although they helped in the preparation of the meat, they were not permitted even to watch the death. Still, I felt a morbid curiosity and wanted to witness it. I had never seen an animal killed before and somehow felt that I should. I took advantage of my sheltered position next to the white tent and spied. Tsedo was shouting at his younger brother, and it seemed as if things hadn't gone to plan. From what I could gather this was Gorbo's first catch and Tsedo was chiding him for leading the sheep to the water, causing it undue stress. He dismounted, straddled the animal's neck and dragged it nearer the family tent. There, he bound the sheep's muzzle with the rope, smothered its nostrils with his hands and held on tight as the animal bucked and writhed, gagging and retching, for what seemed an eternity, until at last it resigned itself and, with one final shiver, relaxed in his grip and fell limp. Gorbo stood over them spinning the korlo, and praying as Tsedo began skinning.

I slipped back inside the tent, feeling like a voyeur, but there was so much to learn and I was tired of being a hypocrite. I had only ever known pretty packaged food that bore no resemblance to the animal it had come from. Choice cuts, Cellophane wrapping, best-before dates in a clinical setting. When Tsedup first went into a supermarket in England he remarked that, once you had bypassed the fresh-bread odour pumping from the entrance vents, the food did not smell. He preferred to seek out markets, where buying food was a sensory experience. He could imagine eating it. Here, however devastating the experience, I could understand where my food had come from. I could take responsibility for eating it and give thanks for the animal's spirit, for killing is a necessity of life in Tibet. Meat forms the main component of the nomads' diet, but their Buddhist faith means that they hold a deep respect for all living things and regret their brutal task.

As I hid, Amnye appeared from the family tent and came to a small mound on the grass not five yards from me. He knelt over it and poured on to it smouldering ashes he had collected from the hearth in the tent. He held a cloth sack containing tsampa and a gold cup. I watched as he simultaneously sprinkled the tsampa and water from the cup on to the mound, which smoked in soft grey clouds, while chanting in a rhythmic murmur. He didn't look up and I stood peering patiently through the crack in the tent until he had finished. It was his daily practice to make offerings to the deities, as did the head of each family in the tribe. They were not prayers he uttered but a constant stream of mesmeric monologue: he was addressing the family deities, asking for protection for his family, the land, his animals. I waited quietly as the smoke merged with the mist, watching Shermo Donker and Sirmo finishing milking the last row of yaks and the children scurrying back and forth from the tent with wooden pails of milk.

I was soon to discover the true value of the nomads' ancient rituals, for it was the fifteenth day of the sixth month in the lunar calendar and an auspicious day. Today the men would abandon the grassland to make their annual offering to the holy mountain, Amnye Kula. They would join the rest of the tribes in the Lhardey Nyima, Sun Valley, area of Machu, on the north side of the Yellow river. I was to stay behind with the other women.

I woke Tsedup and told him about the kill I had just witnessed and he repeated the prayer ' Om mani padme hum.' I asked him if he had ever killed a sheep and he said no, but as a child he had helped his father skin three hundred after an epidemic that destroyed their herd. The shock of my experience waned as the realisation of the true hardships of life here reached a new clarity. Suddenly there was so much I didn't know about the closest person to me in my life. More and more I was to realise that he had seen suffering in a way I could never before have understood. I kissed him, then went to wash in the stream.

Inside, the main tent was a bloody commotion of slicing and mashing. Tsedo and several other men from the tribe were busy butchering the freshly killed sheep for the trip. I was ushered to my usual honorary position close to the fire and picked my way carefully past the splayed carcass on the floor, taking care not to step over anyone. To do so is considered bad manners in nomad society and would be to show disrespect for the person, animal, food or book that had been straddled. I had made that mistake many years ago in India when I had been playing with Tsedup's friend's baby and had jumped over her. Tsedup had been quick to berate me and I had been hurt by his vehemence. I had not intended to offend but had been ignorant of the social code. I never did it again. It is also polite to pass behind someone, not in front, but this morning, with such limited space, that rule was waived and I sidled through the mass of bodies.

Annay prepared tea and bread for me, while Shermo Donker stirred the boiling pot of meat, bone and the head of the poor sheep, as it bobbed, black-eyed, to the surface. The men were all sitting cross-legged on the ground, their arms stained red, chopping the meat and offal into mince and stuffing the intestines to make long sausages. They muttered prayers for the spirit of the dead animal as they worked and Annay spun the prayer wheel, chanting, 'Om mani padme hum,' over and over, as the steam from the pot coiled up through the shaft in the tent roof. It is forbidden to fry meat as the smoke generated would pass into the sky and offend the mountain spirits so all meat is boiled.