Over 2,400 years ago, before Aristotle wrote that a tyrant rises to power by first demonstrating that he is a man of the people, before the French learned how to make wine from the Italians, before the first socks were knitted to prevent sandal chafing, before Homer had an odyssey and Pythagoras had a theory, river men in China were regularly ferrying people and goods across the wild Yellow River on inflatable, sheepskin rafts. In modern China, with its bridges and dams and water reclamation projects, this tradition still exists among a handful of rafters still practicing the age-old ballad of curing sheepskins to float on water, and from May to October in Lanzhou, you can hire them to take you back in time. On a lazy, swollen, sun kissed August day, I did just that. Today, it’s a tourist game and most are made of thirteen sheepskins, enough to carry passengers safely even in the event that one or two skins deflate along the way. Yet records exist describing rafts made up of over six hundred sheepskins ferrying armies and their supplies across, or a whole village’s worth of summer produce back in the days when raft men were king. These days it’s a dying art, such as a harpsichord tuner (Dick, you know I love you, man) or a whaling ship harpooner or perhaps even an InfoTech integrity adviser. Making sheepskins float is not easy. You have to know that in November the sheep are fat and their skins are thicker. You have to contend with the rotten meat smell of curing the skins. You have to be patient when shearing; one nick will render it useless, like a pinhole in a balloon. You will then have to repeatedly massage rapeseed oil into the hide to season it and make it water-repellant. And then dry it in the spring. In summer, when it turns yellow, it will be ready to attach to a raft. The hides can only be blown up by mouth, as the moisture in breath helps the skins to last longer. A well-cured skin will last up to four years. They have to be dried each day and every month moisturized with a preparation of salt water and linseed oil. Each year, a rafter must prepare up to fifty skins to carry him through the busy season. Summer on the Yellow River is alive with bow-bouncing speedboats hired by tourists. At night, the larger riverboats come out, lit up like small carnivals. I was after a slower form of travel and sought out the rafts. Living history, decidedly low-tech. After trying to haggle with a vendor who viewed me as a walking wallet, I walked on and entered the waterwheel park, where I found a peaceful assortment of sheepskin rafts tethered to the riverbank. I found a raft man who would take me across for a reasonable price, and I could pay the whole fare myself, or wait a few minutes for other passengers who would split the fare. Thinking that other passengers would make the craft more stable as well as more pleasant, I waited. Soon, two passengers appeared, teenage boys with their parents, and we shook hands, took pictures, waved away the caution of their parents, and shoved off. Immediately, the river embraced us. The craft was more in the water than on the water, and we were swept away like a log, bobbing in the current, the raft man’s oar keeping us steady, floating so freely, so noiselessly, relentlessly being pulled toward a far away ocean. The magic of water is that it is clear, yet crazily reflects back everything it sees and everything it carries. It speaks a clear language whether it is the sound of a bow cutting upstream or a hard pounding rain. It’s crazy to leap, crazy to dance, crazy to swirl back in on itself, creating moving mosaics of mountain ranges, ridged waves appearing and disappearing, stripes on a hyena’s back, glacial valleys, expanding and collapsing liquid galaxies, all for one, one for all, here, there, and everywhere all at once. We were a sheepskin star caught in the river’s momentum, jubilant, the original prehistoric joyride, lit up and going. The city rose up on both sides like a canyon. We were all silent, strangled by wonder. One anonymous tourist described it this way, “Gone with the wind on the water toward everywhere.” Even though the Yellow River is dammed upstream, it is wave-tossed and turbulent. Our ancient ferry hit a wild spot in the current and we swirled with it, got wet, broke out in laughter. Above, yellow cable cars climbed into the sky, a mosque loomed to our left, the river sounded as if it were enthusiastically applauding. I wondered what the ride was like when the river was undammed and this was the only way to cross it. Though the sheepskins are buoyant, and would easily bounce off rocks and shoals, there is little to prevent you from tumbling off, into the sweeping water. Back then no one knew how to swim. In my mind, I heard them. Beneath the surface, lost souls swim like fishes. Our raft man was as hard as knotty pine. His face looked as ancient as the history of sheepskins on this river. The White Pagoda, built in 1271, crowning its fossil hill, testifies to how long people have been crossing the river in this way. Time is a river and the river is time, and water will sometimes sweep away the illusion, leaving you for a moment suspended in liquid time, on a sturdy raft, in the middle of it all . . .
1 Comment
Mary
9/17/2014 07:26:29 am
EE I always learn so much from your posts. What a process the sheepskin raft is...so fascinating like a floating sheepskin star. Your story starts with a calm river than the real waves show up at the end how did you ever stay on the raft without falling? So rough but exciting just a special river miracle. Glad you had fun and thanks for sharing..
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