But when I spoke I heard no language, no sounds of words. Instead I heard from my mouth a tiresome roar. The soldiers must not have heard me, as I was very far away. I shouted again—“Ani-yun’ wiya!”—and this time not a roar or even a growl but a weary moan. Nobody seemed to hear me. I became frightened of myself, and for a moment I wondered if I had changed form or identity. As I examined myself, I saw I wore a buckskin, and I could not feel my skin. Clearly, I was a spirit of some sort. A spirit able to move, see, and speak. When I walked, my footsteps made no sound, though I felt the earth beneath my feet. I stomped my foot on the rocks and grass and heard nothing. I tried to adjust to the elements, breathing deep. I did not hunger or thirst, but I could not recognize my surroundings. I cried out in Cherokee like a wounded dog and heard my voice trail off.
Again I was faced with the question of my identity. It seemed I could not think clearly.
Where was I?
And what was the reason for my spirit awakening?
I did not recognize my hands or my legs or my feet, though I saw myself as a strong, fierce presence. The air sharpened the sting in my eyes and I knelt down and felt the ground for dirt, which I rubbed together in my hands to create heat. I placed my palms on both eyes, and when I opened them this time I saw that I was on my own land, near the spot of my burial. Then I saw the spirits of those who had died before me, warriors, hundreds of them. I saw their sleek figures and raven-black hair and a thick, swirling dust building behind them. They wielded black and red clubs, the colors of courage and blood. They were watching me from a distance—for what reason I do not know. And I could hear them calling out:
Ayanuli Hanigi! Ayanuli Hanigi!
Walk fast! Walk fast!
In the distance I saw fires aroused from smoldering coals. I saw Dragging Canoe and his father, Chief Attakullakulla, holding their clubs. I saw the Wolf Clan warrior Five Killer and his wolf, Black Fire. I began to walk to them, but before I could reach them, a great wind came up and they transformed themselves into a flock of blackbirds and flew away. So it was that I was left alone in the night near a stream reflecting the quivering moonlight. I approached the water and leaned over to look at my reflection—my immaculate reflection! The image peering back at me in the water was not the face I had during my life, but some hazy figure whose eyes I could not see.
I stood and looked to the sky, where I saw two twinkling lights in the darkness. The question of what my purpose was for returning to earth loomed in my head and I heard the howling of a wolf across the stream and saw that the wolf appeared to be in pain, lying on its side. I found I could walk through the stream in shallow water, though I felt no bottom to it. I crossed the water to the wolf, which howled again in pain, and I could see that the skin on the wolf’s neck had been ripped off, exposing blood and bone. I knelt down to the wolf and placed my hand on the wound, which made the wolf stop howling. Then the wolf spoke:
“There is a great sadness coming on the people and this land,” he said. “Your people will be forced to leave, to move west, and many will suffer and die.”
I did not speak to the wolf, but he knew I did not trust him.
He said: “If you want a sign that I speak the truth, you must first throw me into the water.”
“For what purpose?” I said.
“Throw me into the water and it shall be known,” the wolf said.
So I did as instructed, lifting the wolf and placing him in the shallow water, where he let out a high-pitched scream, and I was afraid I’d hurt the wolf, but he told me: “Look now at my neck.” And as I did so, I saw that the wound had healed. Then I stood back and the wolf came out of the water and shook his body dry.
“For this I will protect your family,” he said. “For this, because you are a spirit, you should know that you can transform yourself into a creature for eternity. Now go to your family in the mountains.”
The wolf started to walk off, and I shouted to him: “Wolf, how do I change my form?”
He turned his head and looked back at me: “Believe you have wings and you fly. Believe you are an animal and you roar. Believe you are dead in the mud and you sleep with the worms in the mud.”
You should understand some humans are tricksters disguised as animals. Many of these tricksters are coyotes, foxes, sometimes birds. But I believed the wolf! Looking into the distance, I recognized the mountains and followed the trail leading to them. I never tired. I walked and walked. Along the way, I stopped and washed my hair in a stream. My reflection was too dark to see, even in moonlight. The water rippled. I cupped water in my hands and drank as I had done in my life. Despite the winter, the water running down my chest and back didn’t feel cold. I stood and began following the trail. As I walked I never grew fatigued—I felt as though I could walk all night. I could lift the heavy rocks around me and build barricades, shelters. The more I walked, the more my strength grew beyond anything I’d felt.
In the ground I saw wagon ruts. I saw footsteps, handprints, all leading toward the mountain, and I knew the soldiers were looking for those hiding in the caves in the mountain. I leaned down and smoothed them out with my hands. It was urgent I erase any tracks they could find. I knelt down and smoothed the dirt. I kept smoothing it and, strangely, my back was not in pain as it had once been during my lifetime. I got down on my hands and kissed the land, our land. They wouldn’t steal it from us. They wouldn’t, I was certain. This must’ve been my purpose in awakening, to keep them from pushing us out.
I remained kneeling in the dirt, crawling like a wounded dog, smoothing out the footprints and wagon ruts. My back and body remained strong. Time was unknown to me, and I kept crawling and smoothing dirt for what must’ve been hours without pain or fatigue. After a while I stood and saw that the sun was on the horizon and realized I had been crawling all night. I was near the mountain now, and my body felt better than it ever had, so I began to run. I ran toward the mountain as fast as I could run, and the wind in my hair felt like hands, as if I were being guided. I was not out of breath when I reached the mountain. I was still not tired, not even breathing heavy, and in the morning’s dim sunlight I could now see my skin was gray, ghostly.
In the cave my daughter was sleeping, covered with blankets. I stood and watched her for a long time. I did not wake her. Soon I moved quietly toward her and knelt down. I reached out and touched her hair lightly with my hand. I was happy I could feel her hair in my fingers. I touched her back gently, then her forehead. She stirred in her sleep from my touch and, quite suddenly with her eyes still closed, swatted at my hand. I should tell you, Sonja, her hand passed right through mine! This was very disheartening for me because I knew I could touch and feel but people weren’t able to touch or feel me. Perhaps this is the way of the spirits when we roam about the earth to see our families. I can tell you that it was sad, at least in that moment, but I was happy to feel my daughter’s hair and see her. Then I stood and saw my wife across the cave, stripping corn. The beautiful woman, her hair hanging down her body, facing away from me. I moved silently so I could see her face. I wanted to embrace her, but I knew she could feel me and it would disturb her forever, so I remained at a distance. I was very quiet. My feet made no sound as I sat and watched her. I thought of when we grew corn and squash, sunflowers and pumpkins, when we dressed deerskins together, when we walked at night together to be alone. Then I began to silently weep. I lay down beside my daughter and wept—for her, for my wife, for our people hiding in the mountain. I wept for the people who were beaten. I wept for the people who were already in wagons and walking west. I wept for all who were suffering and dying. I wept for my son.
I spent all day at the mountain, following them and watching them. My wife began to weep, telling our daughter about my wife’s parents going west. They were too old and would not return to us, and I saw my daughter’s eyes grow sad as she lowered her head. Then they went out to gather sticks with some of the others, and the men went into the woods to hunt. I stayed and watched
my daughter play and all the while felt at ease knowing they were safe, at least for the time being, as the soldiers were gathering the others to migrate. I began to understand too my purpose for returning, and that this purpose had to do with justice for our people. I sat in a darkened cave and meditated the rest of the sunlight on this, and when I came out I could see the orange sun on the horizon to the west. I moved across the mountain to my wife and daughter, who were sitting with others by a small fire, eating. I heard laughter from children, the most pleasing sound.
After bidding a silent goodbye to my wife and daughter, I left the mountain and headed back to the wagons. In the morning light I ran along the trail and felt as though I were gliding with my arms spread like wings. Time—whatever time I experienced—seemed to move slowly during this run, and I had a strange and intense vision of people walking wearily through the snow. On and on they trudged, hunched forward in the wind. I saw a storm coming from the west. I saw people falling to their knees, dying in the rain. I saw the guards with their rifles and the scowls on their faces, and I felt the misery sweep over everyone like a cold wind. I saw the terror and brutality and heard the crying of infants and children. I saw the guards with their beards whom I would soon see face-to-face, this I knew as a spirit, the men whose presence would send me spiraling into the night in a fit of anger, the ones I vowed revenge on, the ones who slept with their ugly mouths open and their white bellies uncovered, their jugs empty, their bodies drunk and freckled and light haired and stinking with sweat and evil.
I saw too the manifestations of others like me—the roaring bear in the woods; the soulful, howling coyote; the eagle circling in the endless sky—and I knew I was not alone. A curiosity came over me when I saw these things, and for a moment I felt my anger lift away in the silence of the night. I was calmed by the sounds and visions of the night as I moved forward. I thought of what I taught my children: harmony, peace. Anger is like flooding water, building and building to destruction. What do I do next? Do I wander like a free spirit or do I seek justice? I stood in silence, looking to the yonder sky as Dragging Canoe had taught me as a child.
ETERNAL SKY SPIRIT
I have heard that lost silence. You have not heard it because you have not been dead.
—Tenskwatana, Shawnee (1775–1836)
There is no death, only a change of worlds.
—Chief Seattle, 1854
The question as to whether I should confront the soldiers and kill the ones who executed my son and me occurred to me over and over as I neared the stockade. But I was never a violent man and could not see myself as a violent spirit. Still, I found myself walking to the stockade where the wagons were being loaded by guards. I moved quietly, knowing they would not see me, or so I thought, but when I found myself hissing the closer I got to them, I knew they could hear me, knew my sound was threatening or at least fearful because one of the guards responded to me.
“Listen to that,” one guard said to the other.
“I don’t see anything,” the other said, looking in my direction.
“But did you hear it?”
The second guard never responded. I wasn’t sure if he was frightened or annoyed, but he walked away from the wagon and left the first guard alone. It was at this point I decided to move in closer and see whether he noticed me. He took a drink of a jug and wiped his face with a rag. For a moment he looked around to see whether anyone was watching him. Though I wanted to attack him, I knew it was not the right time; still, I moved in his direction out of the darkness until he turned and looked at me. I saw his face and knew he saw me, though he did not look frightened. I wondered if he thought I was one of our people coming to talk to him.
“Your plan is to harm us,” I said to him. I heard my own voice this time, not a growl.
He stared at me, confused. He took a step to the side and gripped his rag as if trying to gather what he wanted to say.
“Say that again?” he said.
“I said your plan is to hurt us,” I told him again, taking another step forward.
Vengeance is a word not to be used lightly. Vengeance is not death. It is not evil. It is not to be taken for granted or ignored. Vengeance, mixed with anger and fury, can be more harmful than good. You should understand everything about vengeance and its importance for justice, for order and harmony. This is the way we believe, the way our ancestors believed. This is our way.
The soldier shook his head, confused. It was clear he didn’t understand what I was saying even though I could clearly hear my voice. As if by some curse, I felt compelled to attack and tear into his body with my hands and teeth and kill him instantly. I felt a burst of rage at the sight of him looking back at me, yet I did nothing. I did nothing because I thought of my wife, my daughter, and my son. The soldier couldn’t touch me, just as my daughter was unable to touch me even though I could feel her. I was safe because I had no body, no flesh, only spirit. My plan, therefore, changed as this guard looked at me through narrow eyes, and I could tell the longer he looked at me, the more afraid he became.
“Do you understand what you’re doing to these people?” I asked him. “Do you see what’s happening? Look around you, soldier.”
He stepped back and spoke the name of his god. He now looked terrified as I moved closer. He saw my spirit as an anger manifested into human form. He saw my fury.
I made a noise, a moan, but he turned and fled. I knew I had frightened him, and this satisfied me. It excited me as much as the thought of killing him. The night filled with the smell of meat cooking and I thought of the many times I snared and skinned rabbits for stew, though I did not hunger, even with the strong smell. I remembered chopping wood near this place in the middle of winter when my wife was nursing my daughter. I thought of our triumphs and struggles, the pain we endured throughout cold winters. My mind filled with angry, evil thoughts about the migration, and again I considered the question What was my reason for becoming a spirit? To kill or seek justice? Or to protect you, all of you, for years to come?
My beloved: I yearned for vengeance for my son, my family, our people—and yet I turned into an ageless hawk, strong and adept, and flew westward into the night sky.
In the Great Hall of Bones
Eleni Sikelianos
The face like a magnet draws to itself
animal parts
rabbit paw
veal gut
pig light
to the eye & the skin & the tongue & the teeth
to echo the chaos of mouth
more crumpled mammal than
daylight
As when moons have moons
your kisser a satellite
to talk (a kind of traffic) attracting
words
which hover at the lip trying
to describe or define
the first plants
last elephant or
what resides deep
in the heart, daughter
if you ask
Where do hearts come from?
I’ll say
your ticker too is daughter
to a turtle’s who got it
off bacteria
and in turn
in the Great Hall of Bones tell me
a gibbon’s skull
doesn’t look like yours
I mistake your foot
for a flipper
your tongue for an ascidian
sea squirt
Whose newborn skull is that
some other you put in the window?
Human, chimp, orangutan, gorilla?
The you splits in two, pluralizing
toward a we, and we have no trouble
displaying stuffed bonobos and gibbons
but draw the line at sapiens. Should your mirror
self wish to compare
a flamingo’s liver to a toucan’s, a ray’s, or a buzzard’s
a fox’s stomach
to an ox’s bladder
elephant to a gazelle�
�s esophagus
you’ve put them all here
in jars lining the walls with light
pouring through just
as it pours through the skeletons once the flesh
is removed. The rib rings what’s right
in us while the eye
rings what’s wrong. What’s wrong? In tongues, you have
seals, panthers, black bears, hyenas
lions, anteaters, peccaries, llamas
coatis, and the black-and-white ruffed lemur of Madagascar, for starters
each in its glass flask
floating in yellow elixir. What ancient
witch’s chamber is this that houses, superstitious, a
giraffe’s rumpled papilles du palais, a palace
where taste no longer takes place?
You were sure a giraffe never used such a thing to talk
You said, Stay silent as a giraffe
but I once pitched my tent in savanna grass and woke
into a sea of giraffe—Did I hear their low, muttering heart-night moans
like hearing a tenderized earthquake from underground at dawn?
This is your inner oracle speaking
(soundtrack: a bear’s deep hibernation breathing):
and in the night you hear the bear
beget the bear, the fox be-
get the fox all
the social animals drink at the brook
Bird: is it a toy?
It shows us the limits
of what we can know or say
In the realm of blind pouches
(called cecum) you’ve collected
an eagle’s, pheasant’s, alpaca’s, guanaco’s
and you ascertain that a chimp’s looks like a big mandrake root that will scream
when yanked from earth
We won’t speak about what you’ve gathered in pancreases, lungs, gills
but among the many hearts along the northwest wall I see
a harbor porpoise
crocodile
tortoise
python
I am looking at these skeletons thinking about myself—the thin
reflection in the glass where over
A Cabinet of Curiosity Page 4