Kazakh nomads play polo with headless sheep on their summer pasture in Zhaosu.[Photo provided to China Daily]

We followed death to the pasture.

This sacrificial lamb was slain to honor us.

We came late. The decapitation arrived before we did.

We'd returned from chasing newborn livestock with an 8-year-old ethnic Kazakh nomad beneath snowcapped mountains to see his grandfather, Huan Sezdehan, sawing the hide from a beheaded sheep, dangling by its back legs.

Its unblinking face gazed at us from the ground, next to a vat frothing with blood - byproducts of halal butchering.

Huan Sezdehan's grandson Nurhanat Yergayit was stabbing the air with a disembodied hoof.

This is a feast in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region's Kazakh communities.

The boy later charred skewered chunks of sheep over the family's portable stove. Most of the mutton was fried outside and served on a sheet on the floor.

Nomads don't lug tables around. Understandably. Doing so would defy logistics' logic.

We ate it with our hands, according to local custom.

Afterward, we scrubbed off the grease.

I'd committed a faux pas the previous day, when I rinsed my fingers before dining on horse intestines and noodles we ate without utensils in another nomadic home.

I'm still not sure if I cursed myself, or my hosts. Or both.

My host poured water from a kettle over my hands before eating.

I believed this to be more hygienic than ritualistic.

But he poured again. And then once more.

I was later told the custom is to cleanse three times.

After he'd indicated he'd finished, I flicked my fingers dry.

Apparently, that represents whipping away good fortune.