From the Northern Road, Concerning an Old Mammoth

We passed through a herding camp this afternoon where one of the oldest mammoths had died during the night. I am told she had belonged to the same extended Aesir family for nearly two centuries, though “belonged” is probably the wrong word. The relationship seemed less like ownership than a very long-standing agreement which no one remembered making.

The animal had apparently ceased eating two days before and simply lay down near the edge of the winter enclosure. By morning she was dead. No one appeared surprised, several of the older herders having expected it for weeks, which did not make them less affected by it.

What struck me most was the silence. Aesir funeral practices for their own dead can be elaborate and noisy, but there was no ceremony in the formal sense. People came individually or in small groups, touched the animal’s hide, spoke a few words, and left. Children who had climbed over her when they were small brought handfuls of dried grass and placed them near her mouth, though everyone present understood perfectly well that she could not eat it.

One of the herders, an old man named Harek, sat beside her for most of the afternoon. He told me that when he was a boy she had once pulled him from a snowbank after he became separated from the herd during a storm. I asked whether he believed she remembered doing so, and he said, “Of course.” I nearly asked how he could know. I am pleased to report that I occasionally possess enough sense not to finish a question.

By evening, preparations had begun to butcher the carcass. This would horrify many southerners, who confuse grief with wastefulness. The hide would be preserved, the ivory worked, and the meat distributed, with several bones retained by the family. Harek told me there was no contradiction in mourning an animal and making use of what remained of it, and on reflection I cannot think why there should be.