If you yourself are bad, don’t expect good from others...
Nivkh Maldo Khoinga lived on the Amur. The man was rich. He had twenty dog teams. Ten angazas - poor people - kept fish in the river for him. Ten slaves - Manchus - looked after his household, made ropes from the wool, and made nets from nettles. Ten Nikan slave girls embroidered carpets for Solodo, sewed robes, cooked food, and picked berries. Ten barns stored his goods.
Malt was greedy! He had a lot of good things, but he wanted more and more. Greed is like a river: the further, the wider. Solodo walks around, looking around, what else could he get his hands on? He moves his things from place to place, sorts them out - admires them, rejoices.
Solodo had a son - Alyumka. The guy cannot be said to be handsome: all his beauty was in his father’s wealth. The guy cannot be said to be smart: his whole mind was in his father’s goodness. But Solodo said: It’s okay that Alyumka lacks something, but the barns are full, he’ll survive somehow!
The time has come for Alyumka to get married. The mother wove a ring from dog hair with nettles to put on the bride’s hand. They started looking for a bride for Alyumka. A good ransom has been prepared. And Alyumka is proud that the ransom is rich, he puts on airs... All the brides are not good for him! Here's one they showed him.
“Her eyes,” says Alyumka, “are ugly!”
People tell him:
- Why are you offending a girl? It's your eyes looking in different directions. That's why you can't see the bride.
Malt waves his hand at people.
“My son is rich,” he says; – he doesn’t need beauty! And his eyes look in different directions - that’s good! He looks at the house with one eye and at the river with the other, to see if the sheds are working well...
Alyumka said about the other bride that her arms were short.
People tell him:
- Why are you offending a girl? Look at yourself: you yourself have one arm shorter than the other!
Again Solodo stands up for his son:
– It doesn’t matter that Alyumka’s hands are not the same: he collects small money with a small hand, and big ones with a large one. No money will pass through Alyumka’s hands!
And Alyumka didn’t like the third girl.
- She's lame! - speaks.
- Why are you offending a girl? Your legs are like wheels, a dog can run between them.
Malt strokes his son:
– Why does Alyumka need straight legs? He shouldn’t go to the taiga - you’ll bring him an animal. He shouldn’t go to the river - the workers will catch fish. My son has master’s legs: curled up to make it more comfortable to sit, talk with Nikan merchants...
They walk around and look at the brides. They also showed them another girl. Alyumka snorts, pouting his lips.
- She's a fool! - speaks.
People looked at Solodo and Alyumka. They remained silent so as not to offend their father.
Another girl was shown to Alyumka.
Here the guy's tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.
The girl's skin is like the bark of a young birch tree. Knee length braid. Hair black as night, soft and shiny. The girl has a beautiful face. He bows his head to the side and walks around smiling. Teeth are like snow on Sobolevka.
Somehow opening her mouth, Alyumka says:
- You need to think! Maybe I'll give this girl my hand.
But then Solodo frowned.
- What kind of bride is this! - speaks. - For her dowry they give only bones. Only a rich bride will enter my house!
There was no bride for Alyumka among the Nivkhs.
He heard that people also live in heaven, cheerful people live: they pour water on the ground, throw snow on the ground. Heavenly women are beautiful and playful. Sometimes they lower fishing rods with golden hooks to the ground to catch ordinary people.
Alyumka thinks: I’m not taking an ordinary bride for myself. I will take a heavenly woman as my wife! He walks around the village, looking up. He doesn't look at his feet. I hurt myself all over while falling.
One day a rainbow hung over the village.
Alyumka was delighted.
- Hey! - speaks. - Apparently, a fishing rod was lowered from the sky! I'll climb a tree! I’ll grab the hook, pull it, and drag the heavenly woman from heaven to earth!
He quickly climbed a hundred-year-old pine tree: it’s good to climb with crooked legs. Alyumka reached the top, sat astride the last branch, and looked at where the golden hook was dangling. And his eyes look in different directions: he sees one knot on both sides. He took the branch he was sitting on for a sky hook. How he will pull with all his might! The twig broke...
Alyumka flew to the ground. He got hit so hard that he lost all his senses and sparks started flying out of his eyes.
- Hey! - speaks. – I didn’t hold on to the hook well!
The father sees that Alyumka will completely disappear if he falls off such a hook again, and he came up with an idea: to go with his son to the Nikan kingdom for a bride. Nikan brides supposedly give a large dowry.
Beyond the distant hills the berries are sweeter!
Solodo gathered in San-Sin. He brought with him one hundred sables, one hundred otters, one hundred squirrels, one hundred ferrets, one hundred black-brown foxes, ten seals and ten bears. No one in the Hoing family has ever given such a ransom for a girl before! The Nivkhs shake their heads.
And Solodo says:
“For such a ransom we will take the Tsar’s daughter Alyumka!”
Alyumka is happy. Of course! Not a single Nivkh married the king’s daughter!..
Let's go to Hoinga for the bride.
We went up the Amur River. We reached the place where the blue water of the Amur meets the yellow water of the Sungari. We turned to the Sungari and reached the kingdom of Nikan.
We drove for a long time. Many people were seen. And the Nikan people came out to the shore, looked at Solodo and their son, pointed with their fingers, as if they were examining a curiosity. Alyumka swims and asks her father: Will it be soon? Soon only a flea is jumping... Solodo and his son suffered a lot while they got to the place.
Here they were greeted as honored guests. Why did you come? - they ask. The amban himself - the boss - came out to see Solodo. An interpreter - a translator - was assigned to the Nivkhs.
Solodo says to his son:
– Did you see how they greet you? For the rich, relatives are everywhere!
Father and son visited for several days. Alyumka walks through the streets, staring. The houses are tall. The roofs almost reach the sky. On the roofs there are stone dragons, their mouths open, their red tongues hanging out. There are a lot of people on the streets. The noise is like being in a seal rookery. They sell, buy, exchange.
Amban Maldo treats him with sea worms, nightingales' tongues, swallow's nests, cape, such as are probably baked in the sky. Choking from greed: you need to eat more while they give it.
The Amban tells him:
– We will show you the best brides!
- Here, here! - Malt answers. - Give us the best ones! For such a ransom we want the Tsar's daughter! That’s why we went! He took the amban to show the brides. He took me to a big house. There is a large room in that house. There are a hundred windows in that room. There are a hundred different colored glasses in those windows. In that room there are brides standing in a row, so many that Solodo’s eyes widened. And Alyumka thinks there are twice as many of them: he sees each bride separately with each eye. There are brides, behind each there is a slave, behind each there is a mountain of dowry piled up.
Malt looks at the slaves: which one is stronger. And Alyumka goggles at the brides. Only who can figure them out which is better: all their faces are under the veil.
Alyumka says to the Amban:
“I wish I could at least look one in the face!”
“You can’t,” says the Amban, “look at the king’s daughters—just look at them and you’ll go blind!”
- All good! - Solodo whispers to his son, shaking all over with greed. - See what a dowry!
The Nivkhs had already reached the end of the row and suddenly looked: two slaves were standing behind one bride. Solodo almost jumped for joy. Hisses in his son's ear:
- Choose this one! Apparently, of the royal daughters, the most royal!..
They gave Hoing their ransom and received the bride. The Amban gave them a whole two-masted longboat for the bride: silks, tea, rice, flour for the whole year. Slaves carry the bride in their arms. Our lady, they say, doesn’t walk with her feet. Her legs are so small that they can’t hold her on the ground!
Malt doesn’t take his eyes off the bride’s outfit. She’s wearing a robe woven with golden dragons, and on her head is a hat with bells, birds, flowers: it’s like that – you can’t tell where her head fits under it. Silver rings rattle on my hands. In her hands is a fan made of bamboo sticks and rice paper, painted in gold. As soon as his bride Alyumki turns him around, she will all disappear behind him! Alyumka wanted to look at his betrothed’s face, but the bride wouldn’t let him take off the veil.
Malt consoles him:
- Be patient, Alyumka, until you get home!
Let's go home Hoinga.
We drove and drove along the Sungari, and already began to approach the Amur...
Here they were attacked by robbers - Honghuzes. The beards are painted red. Spears twice as long. Their swords are two palms wide. Like crows on carrion, they swooped down on the longboat on their black sampan with forty oars!
Everyone was plundered by the Honghuzi from Solodo. He barely begged to let them live. The entire longboat was cleared by robbers. And Alyumka’s bride sits in her rich outfit - no. will move. The Khunkhuz approached the neyhunhuz, surrounded them, lifted the blanket, and how they would rush in all directions! They immediately got off the longboat. They boarded their black sampan with a yellow sail - and there was no trace of them!
“Apparently, they were almost blinded by the beauty of the Tsar’s daughter!” - Solodo says to his son.
It's better to go downstream than to tell. Solodo and his son swam quickly. They float, rejoicing that even though the Honghuzes didn’t take the bride, they didn’t dare touch her.
They returned to their native camp.
Although no dowry was brought, the Nikan beauty was brought into Alyumka’s house. Guests ran into the house to see Alyumka’s bride. Alyumka opened the blanket. The Nivkhs looked - and who went where! Solodo was the last to crawl out of the house on his hands and knees.
Alyumka was surprised: where did the Nivkhs run away? I began to look at my wife. I looked at it for three days.
He contrived to cover one eye with his palm so as not to interfere, and he looked - his wife was good enough to be his grandmother!
Alyumka left the house. I sat and smoked. He hears the whole village laughing at him: he took the king’s daughter as his wife!
-Where have you gone, my husband? - the Nikan girl shouts to him.
- I'll go for a walk! - says Alyumka. “Your beauty made my eyes hurt.”
Alyumka sat down and drove away.
Where he went – who knows! Solodo sent twenty dog sleds. in different directions - to look for his son. Not found.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru