Story 149: Fire God Festival of the Ewenki Nationality

Fire God Festival of the Ewenki Nationality

Author: Anonymous

In the past, every Solon herdsman, whether rich or poor, would come to worship the God of Fire on December 23. There is a legend about this custom.

I don’t know what year it was, but there was a poor hunter in the mountains. One day, he went into the forest to hunt, but he didn’t catch any wild animals after running all day. He climbed several mountains in a row, and was sleepy and tired. He really wanted to catch a yellow sheep before dusk so that he could keep it for dinner at night. However, his wish did not come true. When the sun was setting, the hunter was walking forward, and suddenly saw a spotted grass snake, which slid into a large stone cave.

The hunter suddenly smelled a fragrance, and licked the bluestone where the snake had crawled with his tongue, and found a sweet taste that he had never tasted before. So the hunter walked into the large stone cave and saw many snakes coiled in the cave. That night, the hunter stayed in the cave for a long time.

After a few days, maybe years, the hunter finally came out of the cave. When he got to the entrance of the cave, he saw that the handle of the gun he had left at the entrance had rotted away, and the barrel was covered with rust. He looked around and saw no one, but somehow he heard many people chatting, talking and laughing. When he listened carefully, he found that they were not speaking the language of the mortal world, but he could understand it.

They were all immortals, who had killed many wild animals and were celebrating their success with toasts. The hunter tried hard to recall when he had climbed the mountain, when he had entered the cave, and what he had done in the cave, but he could not remember anything. He was very surprised. He had just entered the cave, but why did it seem like thousands or hundreds of years had passed?

The hunter left the cave and walked forward alone, groping for his own way, regardless of east, west, south, or north. He looked at the trees around him, which were densely packed, the mountain path was wider than usual, and there were flocks of birds flying in the sky. He thought, everything has changed. After walking for a while, the hunter saw two yurts on the hill. It seemed that there was a car parked in front of one house, belonging to a wealthy family, and the other house had only a tattered saddle at the door. The hunter looked at his own clothes and felt that they were also quite shabby, so he went into the yurt of the poor family.

After entering the house, the hunter asked the owner: “Are you a Sauron?”

The host was a poor herdsman. He replied, “Yes.” Then he took out milk tea to treat the hunter. Just as the hunter was about to drink, he heard someone on the roof of the yurt talking to the host, “Poor brother, don’t you have even a saddle horse? I think this is a blessing. Look, the sheep I raise fill the wooden fence, but I don’t own any of them.”

The hunter was very surprised and looked at the people in the yurt. He pretended not to hear anything and drank his tea. Then the people in the yurt spoke again: “We have endured this for generations, but now we can no longer keep silent. We must kill the greedy master tonight.”

After listening for a while, the hunter finally realized that the voice was coming from the mouth of the fire god. The poor herdsman could not understand a word. After the fire god finished speaking, he flew away from the roof of the yurt. At that time, the herdsmen on the grassland did not know how to use fire. The hunter asked the owner of the yurt and stayed there that night. The next day, a storm arose on the grassland, almost blowing the yurt away.

The hunter went outside and saw that the poor herdsmen drove their livestock to avoid the storm and gathered behind the yurt, which was warm and sheltered from the wind. But the rich family’s yurt and livestock had been blown away long ago. They were scattered everywhere. The hunter saw that it must be the fire god’s holy spirit that descended on the grassland, so he told the herdsmen about it. But the herdsmen were skeptical.

Later, the grassland grew lush and plump grass and the poor herdsmen raised their own livestock. From then on, the Solon people began to worship the fire god. Before eating and drinking, they would first worship the fire god, and set December 23rd of each year as the “Fire God Festival.”

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