Chingiz Aytmatov and “Asrga tatigulik kun”

In the first part of the excerpt, Kazangap dies at Boronli station on the Sary-Ozek steppe. His friend Edigey wants to bury the dead man, as he wished, at the ancestors’ cemetery Ona Bayit, about sixty versts there and back. His son Sobitjon, who arrived by freight train, does not want to go far and proposes burying him by the railway and leaving quickly; Edigey is angered and restrains himself. Edilboy rebukes Sobitjon, who gives way, and the people approve Edigey’s way. The second part gives the legend of Ona Bayit: the jungjangs turned captive young men into mankurts by a cruel method that took away their memory; a mankurt forgot himself, his name and his parents and obeyed only his master. Nayman ona, whose son died in battle with his body not found, hears from merchants about a young mankurt shepherd and goes to look for him on her she-camel Oqmoya, and finds her son. She calls him Jo‘lomon and tries to remind him of his father Do‘nanboy, but he does not recognise her. After the jungjangs frighten him about his mother, the mankurt fires an arrow and she dies; by the legend, her white scarf turned into a bird that calls “Your father’s name is Do‘nanboy!”