Blessed Aphrodisiac, Murderous Curse

Image Gallery Thomas Kelly / www.thomaslkellyphotos.com

As twilight falls across the snowy peaks of western Nepal, just over a steep ridge from the iconic Annapurna trekking trail, a herder scans the shadows with binoculars, searching for a lost yak. From a perch high above the tiny, cliff-clinging village of Nar, he spots a stealthy movement in a desolate meadow just below the snowline.

He sharpens the image. It’s a young man, a stranger. Just behind him is another. Eventually five more creep into view, most still boys in their late teens, led by a man in his mid-30s. The herder knows immediately who they are and why they are there.

This ragged band of men is from the Gorkha tribe, the historical adversaries of the Manang people of Nar, and they’ve come 60 rugged miles to plunder the village’s treasury—its fields of yarsagumba, a tiny, wrinkled fungus that is, by weight, the most valuable tonic in traditional Chinese medicine.

It’s been prized for centuries as a potent aphrodisiac and an elixir of youth, which tradition holds will prolong virility throughout a long life. On a good day, a yarsagumba picker can bag 400 pieces, which he can sell for as much as $1,000—double the average annual income in Nepal.

His lost yak forgotten, the herder quickly clambers down the scrubby hillside to spread the alarm. The village elders convene a hasty meeting to organize a posse to repel the interlopers. Mukhya, the communal law of the Himalayas, requires that one adult male from each of Nar’s 63 households join the posse. During the night, the men prepare an ambush, surrounding the poachers’ isolated position. As the mild June night wanes, the group’s fury at the violation builds: They will do whatever it takes to protect their communal wealth.

At dawn, a force of the fittest Manang youths storms the Gorkha camp, attacking with sticks and farm tools. The enraged Manangi beat two of the Gorkha to death and throw the bodies into an icy crevasse. They round up the other five and herd them down the mountain, where the main force from Nar is waiting.

There, the angry mob beats the poachers and rips the life from them, hacking at their limbs and bashing their heads with rocks. Every member of the group, including boys as young as 12, is required to strike a blow, so the guilt will be collective.

Then they cut the five corpses into small pieces, wrap them in plastic, and throw them into a glacial torrent that carries them away. Their bloody work done, hands spattered with gore and splinters of bone, the 65 men and boys of the village sit in a mountaintop conclave and swear a solemn oath never to tell anyone what happened, not even their wives.

It takes just a month for the murderers’ pact to unravel and their secret to come out, as blood secrets always do.