Camels

A female camel is pregnant for 11 months. Sometimes female camels reject their calves. In order to make them accept their calves young Kalmyk women play on the dombra instrument and sing a song for the camel: ‘She female, she female, take your calf’. After some time, female camels weep and accept their calves.

This video features a camel race held at the hippodrome in Elista in May 2016. The race includes four camels.

Dmitriy relays a story about how his ancestors stole camels from another clan.

I heard this story from my grandmother. In the past, representatives of our clan stole at night a whole herd of camels from the neighboring clan of Baga-Chonos. The same night they slaughtered the camels, shared the meat among themselves and hid all the remains. The next morning when the pursuers came to our village, ours were sitting as if nothing had happened. The camel foot prints only reached the territory of the Orgakin people and disappeared, thus implicating them in the theft. In the olden days if you could not prove your innocence you had to pay theft fines. The Orgakin people knew who were the real thieves but could not prove anything. They had to pay the fines. Since then there is a misunderstanding between us and the Orgakin people.

Leonid talks about how people bred camels and sheep in the past. This is his story.

Herders did not look after camels, they grazed by themselves. Camels grazed away from a week to fifteen days. I never heard about camels being stolen. Camels are smart animals. One day I was driving around and stopped at a Chechen farm where they were about to slaughter a camel. The camel had tears in its eyes. I asked them not to kill it.

When I was small, we had many sheep in our village. When our sheep mixed with other people’s sheep, we did not worry, because people did not steal sheep from each other. People in our village were all related to each other. Most of my relatives have left the village, although they come back to bow to the ancestral land.

Leonid talks about the Kalmyk species of camel. According to him, the Kalmyk camel differs from other camels in terms of its large size. A male camel may weigh a ton and a female up to 800 kilograms. The female is pregnant for 12 months.

Camel wool is used to produce belts that are good for rheumatism. Camel meat is also believed to have dietary properties. Its hump weighs 10 kilograms and its fat can be used in food. Camel’s milk is also good for cancer. A female camel gives one to two liters of milk. In the past, camel’s milk was used to make kumis (a fermented drink).

Camels rarely fall sick and are easy to keep. They eat grass and prickly vegetation. Camels have a good memory and always return home. In the past, Kalmyks used them as transportation animals. During the Napoleonic War the Kalmyk soldiers rode on these animals.

Sometimes a mother camel becomes upset and rejects her calf. In order to make her accept her offspring, nomads sing her songs, after which she accept her calf. Kalmyks have songs and sayings about camels.

In the past, the Kalmyks ate beef and horse meat. The poor ate camel meat. People who ate camel meat had pimples on their faces. The camel’s pelt and humps were used to make vessels. The intestines were cleaned, stretched and dried. It was used to make strings for dombra instruments.

Sometimes female camels reject their calves. Female camels are jealous and squeamish animals. If a child touched a calf, its mother could reject it. In order to help the calf young Kalmyk women go to the female camel and sing a song with the dombra: ‘When the crane leads its chick in the autumn, whom will you lead then?’ On listening to such a song, female camels indeed weep and accept their calves.

Valeriy says that there are only 5,000 camels left that can be described as of Kalmyk breed. The majority of them are in Astrakhan oblast’.

Ulyumdzhi Mandzhiev adds that camels are not very well studied either. In the past, camel’s urine was used to treat skin inflammations, burns and cuts. When on heat, camels could be aggressive and chase people to death. A camel’s pregnancy is the longest among all livestock. It lasts for 13 months. By contrast, that of horses lasts for 11 months, cows - 9 months, and sheep – 5 and a half months.