Myths and legends of Kyrgyzstan

Mastodon

Monster
Remains of a pre-historic giant, who lived many millions of years ago, have been found in Talas.

� A huge mastodon was grazing in the meadow, lazily driving away persistent flies with its burdock like ears. The emerald looking grass was especially juicy on that day and the monster skillfully cut it with its trunk.
It grew hotter and the mastodon descended to the river to drink water and hunt tasty larvae, which are always numerous under wet snags. The half blind giant did not know that four hungry hunters, armed with stone axes and darts were carefully watching him from behind the bushes. Probably the shaggy troglodytes pitied the animal, but in their settlement their hungry kids and wives were waiting for some food, preferably meat.
When the mastodon was deep in the river and helpless in the water the senior hunter signaled the beginning of the attack�
In the morning, when the well-fed humanoids were sleeping around the fire, the one on duty took the bones of the mastodon and threw them into a ravine.
Since that time the sun has risen above that place many millions of times till a Kyzyl-Adyr villager from the Kara-Buura rayon came across the bones. Mikhail Tur went fishing, but having put aside his rods he immediately started digging out the bones. The old archaeologist was sure that he had found something very interesting. Some time later he extracted from the ground several large bones resembling the horn of an unknown creature and some fragments of its skeleton.
To whom did the enigmatic remains belong? Even after the most careful study the archaeologist could not answer the question. He informed the National Academy in Bishkek about his findings.
This happened three years ago and only recently have our scientists came to the conclusion that the bones found in Talas belonged to a mastodon!
The last mastodons died out about 10,000 years ago. Probably our predecessors hunting mastodons facilitated it.
Mikhail Tur became the owner of the almost metre long tusk and several teeth of the animal. He is sure that the whole skeleton of the beast is in the ground there. One should only wait for a fall in water level in the Talas River to continue the research. Complete skeletons of mastodons in the world are not numerous, whilst several parts are often found. The find by Mikhail Tur is unique.
Scientists could not determine the age of the animal as nobody does hydrocarbon analysis in the Republic. There are no crypto-zoology specialists in the Republic either.
Mikhail Tur is more than eighty years old. No matter how enthusiastic he could be, he cannot dig the ground on his own.

Erlan SATYBEKOV.
Berdibek SULTAMURATOV.
Photo by Berdibek SULTAMURATOV
VB-26.09.2003

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