My encounters with the pikas
Ya zhuo
Ever since I was a child, I have already been dealing with pikas.
When I was a child, I was all the time catching pikas.I was an expert in this aspect, whoever wanted to catch pikas could ask for my advice & experience.
Pikas normally live in very deep caves. The caves are connected with at
least another cave. Pikas are destined to live on the grasslands and the grasslands are destined to have the pikas. Did the Creator have an accidental nap so as to put the pikas on the plateau? Otherwise, how can the pikas have such miserable lives?!
Ever since I was a child, I had been hard on the pikas
When I was a child, after I had driven the cows & sheep uphill to graze, I would be searching for pikas caves after caves. Based on my ‘wit’, I had invented many ways to catch pikas. After many cruel experiments, I had concluded with 3 most effective ways. The first: with one person putting his hands into the cave & another person blowing air into the other cave. The air will then drive the pika into the hands of the first person---he then closes his hands when he feels the softness, then he will get the pika.Second, put water into the caves: as the pikas have to flee from being drowned, they will then come out & be yours -- this is a very easy way. Third, use stones as tongs (as what the ancient hunters used to do). When the pikas come out from the caves, they’ll then be caught by the tongs. This method is very expedient but it’ll badly hurt the pikas (They’ll usually be pressed severely).
I remembered that when I was 8, I had caught many pikas using these 3 methods. According to my mother, in the years of hunger, many people caught the pikas for food. The pikas had made great contributions towards the survival of many people. But for me, I only caught them for fun &, with cruel ways. I remember that I could catch as many as 20 to 30 pikas a day, though less than the number got by using poisons, the amount was still considerable. At that time I was proud of my record & was envied by my peers. I could not let my family know about my ‘games’.Thus I would only play the ‘games’ on the vast, boundless grassland & this was a secret between my peers & me.
If I’ve to find a reason for my cruelty, I could only say that I lived in an unreasoning era.
The environment modes the person.
I can be called the epitome of the era? In a population of Buddhists, it is a tragedy to have such an ‘abnormal’ me. I treated the pikas these ways: either took them as pack animals, made them go around all day with tons of burdens, and in the end, much of them would die of fatigue. Or I’d hold two pikas in my hands & let them bit each other until they’re bleeding badly & died.This gave me much amusement and fully reflected the cruelty in my personality.Apart from amusing in it, I had not any sense of mercy.Or I would peel off their skins, properly process the skins with herdsmen’s methods & then made the skins into splendidly dressed dolls.I had good skills, if I still have the skill, I can make them as souvenirs for the tourists and I may make a big fortune from that.
And now, remembering what I had done to the pikas, I can hardly face these holly words: environmental protection.
There is no boundary to human’s cruelty, some will recklessly kill for 'just ''a thin piece of paper'; some kill for a moment’s pleasure.Despite how the killings are disguised by whatever splendid names: ‘development’, ‘mainstream’, ‘civilization’, the actions can only be spilt of.
I then was still a ‘compassionate’ person among the other cruel persons
I remember I had a playmate in the nomadic years, she was also fond of catching pikas. She would only put a thread through the pikas’ noses & took them as ‘na nuo’(pack animals rode by herdsmen) to go around the whole day. When it’s time to drive the cows & sheep back to the folds, she would mercilessly crushed the pikas’ hands & legs with stones & then put the them back to the caves with very merciful look.I don’t know if the pikas could survive afterwards, maybe they would claw with the bad karma of their previous lives.
If there is some truth in cause & effects, my playmate & I should get some punishments.
Of course, if someone was crueler than I was, he should be living with his ”bad karma of previous lives” for the rest of his life.But I have to thank my playmate, because after I saw how she treated the pikas, I stopped catching them. Though I had been cruel to the pikas, I stopped then. Who hasn’t erred? (this absolutely is the worst excuse).
As science progresses, it is said that the scientists are now working on some drugs that will kill pikas without harming other beings (including human).It is also said that some scientists are trying to make the pills for the pikas.Dr. Charlotte had written that pikas have a crucial role to play in the food chain. Humans are doing this & that on the pikas & it is not yet known whether those are blessings or curses to them.
I could only pray for them.
After reading the essay "The story of pika Zeren", I continue my story with the pikas.
I don’t know what I can & what I should do for them.
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