The Snow Leopard

by Peter Matthiessen

Beyond a bridge over the Danga stream is a steep slippery ascent; soon the worst of the climb is past. A pine forest drifts by in breaths of mist, and on the mountain face just opposite, seen through shifting clouds, ribbons of water turn from white brown as they gather up soil in the fall to the roaring rivers. On a corner of the trail is a weird shrine where horns of many slaughtered goats are piled in a kind of altar, with red ribbons tied to the branches of the trees. At this time of year, people pay homage to Durga, a dread demoness of ancient origin, who emerged again in the first centuries A.D. as the black Kali, the dreadful female aspect of Lord Shiva and embodiment of all horrors of the mortal mind. A bird note and the water rush command the stillness. Even in rain, this landscape is hallucinatory—gorges and waterfalls, the pines and clouds that come and go, fire-coloured dwellings painted with odd flowers and bizarre designs, the cloud-mirrors of the rice paddies in steps down the steep mountainside, a flock of vermilion minivets, blown through a wind-tossed tumult of bamboo. We walk on in mud and gloom and cold. At the mountain village called Sibang, to the beat of tom-toms, a buffalo is slowly killed for Durga Puja and its fresh blood drunk, while children stand in a circle in the rain. These mountain children have the big bellies of malnutrition, and though they seem no less content than the children of the valleys, they are quiet, and do not sing out to us; ...