For thousands of years, hunters in Western Mongolia have been hunting fox, wolf and marmot with the help of the majestic golden eagle. An ancient tradition of skill and craftsmanship. Writer Marco Barneveld and photographer Frits Meyst visited the Golden Eagle Festival in Bajan-Ölgii and travelled into the Altai Mountains with these hunters. “Can the fox escape?”

Narila Minev, the wife of guide Ardaq Altayli, crosses the grass steppe towards the slowly babbling brook. She fills her bucket with water and returns to her ger, the traditional round tent people call home around here. The stove buzzes, the furnace gives off a deep orange glow. Narila takes a few slices of dried yak manure and throws the poo in the fire. The heat is comfortable. The walls of the ger are decorated with colourfully embroidered carpets. Against the fabric, we find dozens of fresh cheeses left to dry next to a kettle filled with fresh yak yoghurt. Narila pours fresh milk in the chai tea and offers me the bowl with both hands.  “Marchamat,” she says. Here you go in Kazakh. It’s a slow morning, like all mornings on the vast steppes of Western Mongolia.

The life of the ethnic Kazakhs living on these plateaus, as they have been living for hundreds of years, is firmly connected to the cattle that they surround themselves with. Horse, goat, sheep, yak and even camels supply everything necessary. Butter, yoghurt, meat, milk and leather. But also yak pats as fuel for the stoves and building huts and sheds. An animal-based diet is what these outdoorspeople, hardened by all types of weather, rely on. Fruits and vegetables don’t grow around here. The soil is too hard, too poor, the climate too cold, too dry, the wind too fierce, too rough. The meagrely equipped stores do sell some greens and a rare apple, but those come from the fertile soils in neighbouring China, the border being just fifty kilometres away.  “The borders of Kazakhstan and Russia aren’t far either,” says guide Ardaq.

These inhospitable plains were the birth ground of the Mongol Horde, bringing death and destruction in search of land, food and happiness. Led by Genghis Khan, seen by the Mongolians as the father of the nation, these warriors on horseback expanded the Mongol Empire to the second largest world empire ever. Only the British Empire was bigger. The Mongolians called themselves ruler of what is now Hungary and Poland. It must have felt like an earthquake when the droves set out to battle with their hundreds of thousands of hardy horses.

GOLDEN EAGLE FESTIVAL
Now too, the ground thuds with the sound of the hooves. A drove of horses and riders thunders towards me at high speed. The blue sky vanishes behind the fine dust. The first two riders are yanking a decapitated goat between them like madmen, a puppet stuck between the powers of the muscles of horse and man. I find myself in the middle of this violence, some other travellers as well, but I feel completely invisible. If I don’t watch myself, they walk straight through me, horse and rider alike. That makes it extra unique to stand in de middle of this. This is their party, so much is clear. And I get to watch. Feigned manoeuvres of the small, thick-set horses try to mislead the other riders. A fur hat flies through the air, determined shouting from fanatical, hoarse throats. A fist hits a chest, and as a consequence, a young rider in the front takes hold of the goat. But that very punch triggers rage from the crowd, who run after the riders in anger, protesting at the top of their lungs. A rock flies through the air, missing the rider with the goat by a matter of millimetres. A man, standing on the roof of a dented Russian-made jeep, request everybody remains calm through a tinny sounding megaphone. Nobody seems to listen.

FREEFALL
Our eagle definitely isn’t clumsy like the original ski jumper, but there is a commonality. Birds of prey hunt downwards. That’s the reason golden eagle hunters look for high vantage points to hunt. An eagle can spot its prey from 1,5 kilometres away. Those eyes are the eagle’s strongest sense. The leather cap decorated with silver that the eagle wears on his head is the key to its tameness. As long as he wears the cap, he can’t see anything and sits still. Up until the owner takes it off, and the bird detects a prey. Then, the eagle launches itself in free fall, down on the prey. When the animal doesn’t break its neck from the impact of the bird dropping on it like a stone, the eagle pierces the eyes of the unfortunate animal with its sharp claws. Not that the golden eagle returns to the hunter by nature. On the contrary.

“You have to catch them when they’re young,” explains Erbol. “As a boy, I used to go up the mountains to climb to the nests. It can be dangerous if the mother attacks you. When you catch an eagle, you start a long process of taming it and making it return. I do that by rewarding the bird with meat when he bites in a piece of fur. And to practice with dead rabbits. But it can happen that, after very long training, you take an eagle hunting for the first time and it takes to the skies immediately, never to be seen again.” Erbol laughs. “It really is an art.” Personally, I feel kind of sad for the golden eagle. That mighty animal hooded and tied. But who am I? I wasn’t born on these hard steppes, wasn’t brought up with these traditions. My opinion is a grain of sand in this endless sandpit.

CIRCLE OF LIFE
We actually came too early in the season. In winter, when a thick blanket of snow covers the hard ground and a freezing wind blows over the icy plain, the hunting season for the hunter and his eagle starts. Rabbits, marmots, ground squirrels and foxes have an extra thick and with that an extra beautiful fur in winter. Especially the corsac fox, seeing as there are only very few wolves left, is a much-wanted prey with its gorgeous tail and beautiful colours.

And then, all at once, one appears. On top of the moraine, a red corsac fox looks over the ridge to see what is trudging through the valley. Because the fox too is curiously looking for prey. The eagle cannot hunt upwards, but Erbol’s dog can. Like a jack-in-a-box, the dog shoots upwards. My heart skips a beat. A mixture of excitement and pity for the fox runs through me. The dog starts the chase. Can the fox escape? Luckily for the fox, he is just a tad quicker. But a little later, we see no less than four eagles high above us taking turns in diving down. Would they have seen the same fox? We cannot see the outcome, but nature is brutal here. A hard circle of life, in which mankind plays a small part as well. Kill or be killed goes for everyone in the food chain around here. Except for humans.