No joking with reindeer people

Apparently the Sharmanistic reindeer people don't have a sense of humour. So my conversation with the old lady caused some consternation with our guides.

We were in the old lady's tee pee (yes like the American indian style) and we asked about her children, grandchildren etc, what it was like to live way up north, wow 70 cm of snow is quite deep. Oh you eat the reindeer and drink their milk...tried some milk, it was ok. Blah blah usual tourist stuff. Remember all this is being translated by our guide.

Anyways, I had a photo of her son that I had taken on my previous visit to the reindeer family. The old lady wanted to see it and then chastised me for not having been in the teep pee before...weird. So she says he is the ugly one, he is not married. As we were about the leave the tee pee she says to me, will you marry my son. Of course, I said, I'll be back in 3 weeks, and she stuck out her hand which I duly shook. We had a big laugh and we left.

Then my guide spoke to me, she was white faced and looking worried. She said she was afraid for me because this was a very powerful sharmanistic woman and she would do magic on me to make me stay. She said it was not a joke to her and she told me I am not allowed to go back there on my next trip. Then the other guide started on me, same story. Now they really have me worried.

Turns out that this woman can actually speak English, she was just pretending she couldn't, because another pax came late and had a tour with the lady in fluent English! Then the driver tells me that the husband we saw was magiced (is that a word?) into marrying her, despite the fact that they were both already married. The 2nd guide calls her family to see what protection she can give me, and comes back to tell me how worried she is!

Great - so now I am banned from going there, which is good, I have been twice anyway, so will spend the time in camp reading!