Zurgan Lidzhieva, About a Maple Bowl

Abstract

Zurgan bemoans the loss of a maple bowl that belonged to her paternal grandmother. This is her story: Many years ago, when we had just returned from Siberia, we had a bowl made from the maple tree. What a shiny thing it was! You did not even need to wash it. I just drank tea, ate soup from it, and then wiped it with a cloth. It would shine with three different colors: red, brown and yellow. A maple bowl is useful everywhere. For example, when a person dies, his/her bowl is filled with candies and biscuits, and then given to the paternal relatives (of the diseased). Such bowls pass on from one generation to the next. Back in those days we did not have electric ovens. At home we used coal. My nephew Kostya put the bowl in the oven and burnt it! We only discovered it when smoke came from the oven. The bowl belonged to our paternal grandmother. She gave it to her eldest son, who in his turn passed it on to his son, who is my brother. My brother gave the bowl to his son who burnt it in the oven.