October 24 - The Night Stalker

The Borjigin tribe of Mongolia were animists. They believed every living thing--plants, animals, rocks, soil--had a spirit. And so their daily lives were filled with miniature rituals and ceremonies intended to maintain harmony with the spirits that surrounded them.
For instance, each fall when the Borjigin harvested their crops, they believed that the severed stalks of the crops still had a life of their own. And as Borjigin legend had it, if they were not calmed, the stalks--angry at having been hacked down in the harvest--would join together and form themselves into a creature called the Night Stalker: a twisting, rustling, amorphous creature bent on taking revenge on the Borjigin tribe for having ripped it out of the earth.
And so every midnight during harvest season the male head of the Tomorbaatar family, the most revered family in the tribe, left his yurt, walked alone to the fields, and sang the Harvest Lullaby to lull the field to sleep. The deep, guttural Tuvan throat singing of the Tomorbaatar was jarring, otherworldly, and haunting.
And soothing to the stalks. It always pacified the field and kept it from awakening and forming itself into the Night Stalker.
It had been that way for generations with the eldest Tomorbaatar male passing the tradition on to his son--until one late spring when Gansukh, the son of Chulunbold Tomorbaatar, died of what probably would have been diagnosed as pneumonia had the people of the Borjigin tribe known what that was. Instead, they knew only that the man who was set to take over the singing of the Harvest Lullaby had died.
By that time in his life, Chulunbold himself was too old to sing the Lullaby; his voice lacked the power. Moreover, he had no brothers, nephews, or grandsons. He was the last surviving male of the Tomorbaatar family.
But he did have a daughter, Altan, and she was engaged to marry a young farmer named Munookhoi Negui.
That summer was marked by arguments, often contentious, about who would take over the singing of the Harvest Lullaby. The tribe's elders were conflicted. It had always been a Tomorbaatar male who did the singing, but for the coming harvest, that wasn't an option. Some felt Altan should carry on the Tomorbaatar tradition. Others felt her fiance should have the job. Still others thought the responsibility should be passed on to another family.
Ultimately, Chulunbold exerted his will on the council and got them to accept his daughter for the role. Some within the council felt it was hubris on Chulunbold's part, but he truly believed his daughter was up to the task. They spent the rest of the summer and early fall trying to get her voice into shape.
It wasn't easy. Her voice was simply too high. They encouraged her to smoke a pipe, drink the urine of male yaks, and gargle with moonshine. They coached her, tutored her, trained her night and day. All of which helped, but they feared that it might not be enough. Munookhoi begged Altan to let him sing the Lullaby instead, but she insisted that she be the singer. It was her duty.
And so the first night of the harvest came. Altan left the family yurt at midnight and walked to the fields alone. The night was still and moonless. Although she couldn't see them, she could feel the presence of the tribe's yaks sleeping nearby.
Everyone else was safe inside their yurts. There was no light coming from any of them, but she knew everyone was awake, ready for anything.
She arrived at the fields, and cleared her throat. Then she swallowed dryly and began singing.
It wasn't nearly deep enough.
Instead of pacifying the bare stalks in the field, it awakened them.
Hearing movement in the fields, she sang harder, more urgently hoping it might calm them, but it had the opposite effect. The stalks stirred and began twisting together into limbs. Then the limbs began twisting together into bigger limbs, and the limbs began forming into a torso that connected them all, and the giant spider-like creature began moving toward Altan.
Terrified, Altan faltered for a moment, and then collected her nerve and continued, as she felt the Night Stalker creeping toward her.
She told herself she wouldn't run. The tribe had trusted her. Her father had spoken up for her. She would die before she let them down. She struggled to sing deeper, but her voice was as low as it could get.
At last the Night Stalker was in front of her. She closed her eyes and continued to sing, wincing, expecting to get torn down at any moment. She heard rustling, sensed movement.
This was it.
But nothing happened.
She finished the song and opened her eyes, and the Night Stalker was gone. In its place was a small pile of wheat.
The next morning, most of the tribe didn't believe her account of what had happened, even when she showed them the wheat that the Night Stalker had left at her feet. Munookhoi in particular kept asking her to describe the Night Stalker: How big was it? What did it look like? How fast was it? In the entire history of the Borjigin tribe, no one had ever actually seen the Night Stalker, and he--like the others--was curious.
She answered his questions as best as she could, but it was difficult. She had been so scared that she had kept her eyes closed throughout most of the episode.
Despite her fear, that night she went out again at midnight. And she sang the Harvest Lullaby again, just as she had the night before, and the results were the same: The Night Stalker materialized, approached her, left a slightly larger pile of wheat at her feet, and then disappeared into the night.
And so it went every night for the rest of the week, with the mass of wheat growing each night.
Nobody knew what to make of it. Was the wheat an offering? A warning? What did it mean?
On the final night of the harvest, Munookhoi snuck out of his family's yurt and trailed her furtively to the fields.
The night started out the same as all the others had before it. Altan began singing, and the Night Stalker slowly formed itself and approached her.
Munookhoi watched from behind as it left its biggest pile of wheat yet in front of Altan. He trembled as he saw it standing mere feet from his fiance.
When it turned around and began returning to the field, Munookhoi ran at it with his scythe and hacked it pieces.
It was all over before Altan had a chance to say or do anything.
Afterwards, they both stood staring wordlessly at the pile of stalks, stems, and vegetation. Despite the coldness of the night, Munookhoi's face dripped with sweat. At last, they returned to their respective yurts and pretended to sleep.
The next morning they didn't tell anyone about what Munookhoi had done, and the tribe began focusing on making preparations for winter. The Night Stalker was all but forgotten and everyone went about their lives.
The following spring, the fields were barren. Almost nothing grew. Come fall, there was nothing to harvest.
It was worse the following year.
And worse yet the year after that.
By then, most of the Borjigin clan had abandoned the village and the surrounding fields, leaving most of their possessions behind and carrying only what they needed.
The next year, when the now married Altan and Munookhoi felt their son was old enough to keep up, they too left the village and joined the rest of the now nomadic Borjigin clan as they wandered Mongolia tending their yaks. Although they were never anywhere long enough to raise and harvest crops, they still trained their son as a throat singer. The Night Stalker might have been gone, but they felt the tradition needed to survive.