The Deer God and the Reindeer Nomads: A Song of Coexistence

In the beating heart of the forest, where silence is sacred and every leaf tells a story, walks the deer god. He is not just a mythical creature, but the embodiment of an eternal principle: life and death as two sides of the same breath. Hayao Miyazaki , with Princess Mononoke , has given us a vision that is not only poetic, but profoundly philosophical: nature is not to be conquered, but understood. It is not an object, but a subject. It is not a resource, but a relationship.

In northern Mongolia, the Tsaatan have always known this. They live with the reindeer, not alongside them. Reindeer are not animals to be herded, but spirits to be honored. The taiga is not a place to be crossed, but a mother to be listened to. Every daily gesture—lighting a fire, milking, moving—is part of a ritual that recognizes interdependence. Like the deer god, the Tsaatan also embody balance: they do not dominate, but dance with nature.

Two worlds, one truth

In the film, the deer god walks on flowers that bloom and wither as he passes. He is beauty and terror, creation and dissolution. When he is killed, the forest dies. When he is freed, life flourishes again. He is a warning: whoever tries to control nature destroys it. Whoever serves it renews it. Likewise, the Tsaatan do not build cities, do not dig mines, do not impose borders. They live in tents that move, in rhythms that follow the seasons. Their culture is oral, passed down like the wind among the birch trees. Every child who listens to a story around the fire receives ancient knowledge, not written but engraved in their hearts.

And us? Where are we in this narrative?

We've built skyscrapers, digital networks, global economies. But we've forgotten the language of trees, the breathing of the earth, the silence that precedes the snow. We've broken the cycle, deluding ourselves that we can recreate it with algorithms and concrete. Yet, the deer god still watches us. Not with anger, but with expectation.

The message is clear, ancient, urgent: survival is not conquest, but coexistence.

We must learn again. From the nomads, from traditional peoples, from myths that are not fables but maps of the soul. We must listen to the deer god within us, the one who reminds us that every life is sacred, every death is part of the cycle, every gesture can be harmony. Because ultimately, as the Tsaatan ,

"The land does not belong to us. We belong to the land."