is becoming a habit.
"no-one sings those anymore. people are doing the dances again but not many of the young people can do them， i’m teaching the dances to some of them."
i ask him for a demonstration. without hesitation， he instantly gets to his feet and proceeds to dance and sing. his voice is low and rich， he’s got a good voice. i’m sure he’s qiang even if the police in charge of the population register insist that he isn’t. they think anyone claiming to be tibetan or qiang is trying to evade birth restrictions and have more children.
he sings song after song. he says he’s a fun-loving person， i believe him. when he finished up as village head， he went back to being one of the mountain people， an old mountain man who likes good fun， unfortunately he is past the age for romance.
he also knows incantations， the kind hunters use when they go into the mountains. they are called mountain black-magic or hexes and he has no qualms about using them. he really believes they can drive wild animals into pits or get them to step into snares. they aren’t used only on animals， they’re also used against other humans beings for revenge. a victim of mountain black-magic won’t be able to find his way out of the mountains. they are like the "demon walls" i heard about as a child: when someone has been travelling for some time at night in the mountains， a wall， a cliff or a deep river appears right in front of him， so that he can’t go any further. if the spell isn’t broken the person’s feet don’t move forward and even if he keeps walking， he stays exactly where he started off. only at daybreak does he discover that he has been going around in circles. that’s not so bad， the worst is when a person is led into a blind-alley: that means death.
he intones strings of incantations. it’s not slow and relaxed like when he is singing， but just nan-nan-na-na to a quick beat. i can’t understand it at all but i can feel the mystical pull o
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