by Joan Grant
“Why didn’t you tell Raki? He has been trying to find out about babies because he knows it will be important to us, but no one will tell him anything.”
“I didn’t tell him because I knew he was happier not believing in demons. I know they are real; because the squaw never came back to the tepees.”
“What happened to her? What happened to the baby?”
“I think, though I am not sure, that one of the other women took the baby…there was a new one and no other squaw had been away to the Birth Tepee.”
“The mother died?”
“Yes, the demons killed her. I killed her, because I saw them both before the baby was seven days old. That’s why I knew the demons were angry when they threw me out of the tree, and why I couldn’t believe that Raki was going to cure me. I didn’t know then that Raki was so strong and wonderful.”
I heard Gorgi whistle and knew that it was time for me to go back. I told Rokeena that I would meet her again as soon as I could arrange it, and that until then she had better say “I don’t believe in demons” forty times every night before she went to sleep.
Raki, having to be with people like Rokeena! I was more sorry for him than I had ever been…my Raki, having to live with squaws who were so stupid! It was good to be Piyanah who was training to be a Brave, and knew that only fools and squaws believed in demons. I paused with my hand on the rough bark of a spruce, to thank the tree spirit for his protection.
Since Raki had been upheld by the Chief over letting Rokeena leave the tepee and be taken into the sunlight, and none of Nona’s warnings of disaster had come true, the Old Women tried to avoid open conflict with him. Instead, they contented themselves with telling even more terrifying stories to the girls who were weak enough to listen, and we knew that if they had been in charge of the cooking-pots our tribe would have been made from skeletons.
Raki had found women’s work easy, though if a single thread of a blanket he wove was crooked or the wrong colour, an Old Woman would pounce on the defect like a toad snapping at a fly; and they examined his moccasins in search of a misplaced bead that would make the pattern different from the second of the pair, with the eagerness of dogs rootling for fleas. The fact that Raki never burnt the food was a particular disappointment to them, and they began to believe that all men are born with the skill of women as well as their own, but are too proud to make use of it. It amused us that they never realized we had learned to prepare food, with many mistakes, in our little valley, and that Mother had taught us to embroider moccasins and set the threads straight on the loom.
They must eventually have decided that Raki had demons at his command who were stronger than their own, for they even pretended not to know that the girls who wanted to join our tribe sometimes left the tepees at dawn and did not return until sunset. Dorrok must have known that Gorgi and our other friends often joined the girls to help Raki teach them the things which would make them worthy of tribal brotherhood; but we were never sure whether he had consulted Na-ka-chek about it, or decided on his own responsibility that we should be allowed to carry out our plans without interference.
At first the boys were surprised that girls found it difficult to use a bow, but I explained to them that I had only been able to do it even when I first joined them because Raki and I had always done the same things. Gradually the girls became skilled with arrows, and about half of them showed real ability with a fish-spear. In some ways they had curiously strong bellies; one of them, called Cheka, who was only thirteen and very shy, gralloched a stag, and instead of being sick, as I expected, she let the guts run through her fingers as though she were admiring a new forehead-band. In a short time they all became good trackers, for this had always been a tradition with them…no doubt if I had had to look forward to being taken into the woods by a stranger I should have taken even more interest in learning the cunning necessary to a quarry!
Some of the boys did not like it when I said that they must learn women’s tasks, but they agreed to try when I told them that in our tribe no kind of work would be considered inferior to any other. Gorgi found that he enjoyed making moccasins, and Tekeeni fringed quite a creditable tunic…though he admitted that he only did it to please me. I remembered Gorgi saying, “May the Great Hunters be thanked that Piyanah cannot make a law by which men and women both have to bring forth children,” and that led to a discussion as to what our laws would be.
“No man need take a squaw,” I said. “But if he does, he has got to accept her as an equal and let her share his life; and he must also share in the trouble of looking after any children they may have.”
“Can he have more than one squaw?” asked Tekeeni, and one of the girls said quickly, “Can a squaw have more than one man?”
“No,” said Raki firmly, “they can’t. Duck pair only once, and we have always been told that Great Duck is one of the wisest of the Lords of the Animals.”
“A stag has several hinds,” objected Tekeeni.
“That’s why stags fight each other,” I said. “I think Raki is right. We ought to start with the same number of men and women, so that they can all have a chance of pairing if they feel like it.”
Then Kekki said, “When women are allowed to share the hunting, who is going to stay behind to look after the children…or will that be done by Naked Foreheads?”
“There will be no Naked Foreheads,” I said. “At least, if any of them want to come with us, they are going to be given a fair chance like everyone else.”
“But someone has got to do the scavenging.”
“I know: that someone might be you, or Gorgi, or whoever can best be spared from something needing more skill.”
“But you said we could all choose what we most wanted to do,” said one of the girls, “and no one enjoys cleaning cooking-pots or scraping hides.”
At this, Cheka said, “I like cleaning fish and things,” and then she dived into embarrassed silence because everyone turned to look at her in amazement. She was the girl I had seen gralloch the stag, so I decided to arrange for her to have plenty of the same strange amusement…the sight of her fingering the steaming guts was still a distasteful memory.
“But who is going to do the scavenging?” repeated Kekki, who was always apt to ask the same question several times until he was quite satisfied with the answer.
“We have arranged that,” said Raki, who until then had left most of the talking to me. “Every moon we shall meet in council, to decide who has been the most, and the least, useful to the tribe during the previous moon. The ten who were most useful can do exactly as they like during the next moon, and the ten who have done the least for the rest of us can act as Naked Foreheads during the same period.”
Gorgi then asked, “What happens if the first ten all want to sit by the river and do nothing?”
“It depends on what kind of ‘nothing’. If they seemed just to be sitting, but at the same time were thinking, they might find an idea that was more valuable to the tribe than ten stags. If this proves to be so, they can go on thinking as long as they like. It is the amount of help they have given by which they will be judged…if the help is small, they can do scavenging, so that the tribe can be grateful to them because the encampment doesn’t smell of rotting fish, or all the other smells that need burying.”
“Who will do the choosing?” said Gorgi.
“Piyanah and I will always be in the council, as the Chief, and with us shall sit four others, two men and two women…selected because they have the most feathers.”
“Oh, are we going to have feathers too?” said Rokeena, gazing at Raki with awe as she always did.
“Yes, but our feathers are going to be real. The white feathers will be the most honoured, for they can be won only for an idea, or a memory of the Before People, or something time does not spoil, which can be used to hold the bridge over the Canyon even in a thousand years. Yellow feathers can be for ideas too, but ideas which affect things we can touch: such as a better way of buildin
g canoes, or making pottery, or curing pelts; and they can be earned for discovering a new use for a plant, either as a food or for its value as a salve; or how to make a broken bone mend more quickly. Green feathers show that you have talked with a spirit and heard a message from the Great Hunters: it doesn’t matter whether it’s a tree spirit, or a water spirit, or just a friend who happens to be dead. You also get a green feather for killing a demon, either by teaching someone not to believe in them, so that they shrivel up and vanish in disgust, or else by finding them when they are disguised as rattle-snakes and squashing their heads with stones…a white stone is the best for this, but a stick will do if you haven’t got anything else.”
I looked at Rokeena to be sure she was listening…she was, and I reminded myself to ask her whether she had talked herself out of believing in demons yet. Then Raki went on:
“Brown feathers will still mean a proven skill in something which adds to the protection and well-being of the tribe, and Half-brothers will also wear brown feathers, for it is quite as important to make a cooking-pot as to fill it with meat. The women, or men, who do the cooking can earn a brown feather too, if their special skill has increased the pleasure and health of those they feed. We shall still have scarlet feathers, which can only be won by some special act of courage; but in our tribe they will have to be gained in doing something of real value, not just as a proof that the wearer has risked death for no reason. You could win our Scarlet by rescuing someone, from a grizzly or from drowning in the rapids. If I had been the Chief I should have given a scarlet feather to Dorrok when he climbed down a precipice to rescue a fawn which had fallen down on to a ledge. It was starving to death, while its mother stood watching and wouldn’t leave even when she heard Dorrok coming. He never told anyone, and seemed to think that he was a traitor to the tribe because he had risked becoming crippled, and useless as a Brave, for something that didn’t matter. But it did matter to Dorrok, for I saw his face when the hind was licking her fawn and when he watched it trotting after her into the woods…and yet he thought he should be ashamed of weakness. And it matters to us, for I hope that Dorrok will come with us when we go to our own place of the corn-growing, to find the peace of the Feathers of Truth.”
Salt of Oanger
If salt had been found in our territory there would have been no need for us to barter with another tribe. I think my father regretted even so small a dependence on strangers as was caused by the need to send, every year at midsummer, two Brown Feathers, and six Naked Foreheads who carried the salt-jars, to the Place of Barter, a month’s journey to the South. Beaver pelts, moccasins embroidered with beads, and tunics of fringed doeskin were used by us as exchange. In my grandfather’s time we had sent bows and tomahawks, but Na-ka-chek said, “The wise man does not give weapons into the hands of a stranger, nor display a strength which may be taken for a challenge.”
There was always a feast on the night the salt arrived, and even Naked Foreheads and children were allowed a handful of it, which they could eat like honeycomb instead of tasting it only from the common cooking-pot. It always surprised me that so much salt was given in exchange for things like moccasins, which could have no real value while there were hunters to kill deer and squaws to cure hides and do beadwork. There were stories of lakes of salt where it was plentiful as snow in winter; and a legend that in the Land of the Great Hunters salt was used to spread the paths of the encampments…but this even Raki and I found difficult to believe.
The day after the Feast of Salt in our sixteenth year Na-kachek sent for me, and I found Raki already with him in the Great Tepee.
“I have news for you both,” he said, “which is not yet for the rest of the tribe. This year Dorrok has brought more than salt to savour our food; he has brought news of danger to increase our taste for courage. When I spoke to you with the dark smoke to remind you of your responsibilities, you thought I lied about the possibility of danger from the Black Feathers, even though I showed you a forehead-thong from one of their warriors. For three years they have been slowly migrating westwards; and, knowing this, the Elders have counselled me that it would be wise for us to seek new hunting-grounds. This advice I should have accepted had I not pledged my oath to your mother that on the day that you two put on the Double Headdress I shall stand with you at the Pool of the Before People to tell her that I have fulfilled my word.”
“The Black Feathers will not respect our boundaries?” asked Raki.
“During the memory of the grandfathers they have not sent a spokesman to the Gathering of the Tribes, which, as you know, takes place every seven years. It was because they lived so far to the East that many people had begun to think them only a legend. Dorrok heard at the Place of Barter that the Tribe of the Beaver, who are few in number and remarkable only for the quality of their pottery, have—disappeared.”
“How can a tribe disappear?” I said. “They may have migrated and not yet sent word of their new place of the corn-growing.”
“A tribe which migrates does not burn down its tepees, nor are human skeletons found under the brambles which have encroached on the planted fields: if they had died of a pestilence there would have been some who escaped to ask for help. The Beaver were massacred…by the Black Feathers, for any other tribe would have allowed the threatened Chief to send a spokesman to his neighbours, declaring the purpose of battle and asking that his women and children should be given shelter if his own men could no longer provide for them. It may be that this raid against the Beaver resulted in many of the enemy being killed and that they have learned to respect other men’s corn; or it may be that this conquest will satisfy them for several years, and that if they cross the pass into the valley it will be to find it free land from which we have already gone to the West.
“The threat of constant danger is too rich a meat save for those whose bellies are strong: so this news is to be kept from women, children, Naked Foreheads, and boys under fourteen, until such time as it is essential for them to know it. There will always be a Brown Feather watching the pass, and another four days down-river, though I think they will not come that way, for the falls make it impassable to canoes. Piyanah will continue to train with the boys over sixteen, for with them she will go into battle—unless she wishes to forget the promise of the Feathers.”
“Of course Raki and I will fight together,” I said. “We wanted to do that even when we were only eleven.”
“Raki’s part will not be so easy as yours, Piyanah. The best time to learn the colour of people’s hearts is when they are afraid. When we are threatened, the squaws will forget the small preoccupations in which they conceal their thoughts; and it may be that if there is a leader amongst them, a leader whom they accept as one of themselves, they may discover qualities which will give them a greater recognition of their equality than they could ever learn in blind obedience. Raki will take them into the woods, not like a herd of goats in hiding, but as free women who must use their wisdom and strength to protect their children. I shall not even send Naked Foreheads with them. Those whom Raki has taught to use bow or sling will help him to provide their food; they will kindle their own fires, and this will do much to break the rod of superstition which the Old Women still wield. Raki has told me that there are already thirty girls near your own age who wish to join your tribe and that they have sworn to take husbands of their choosing and never to bear children to a man whose name they may not speak. The Black Feathers may come, and to many of us they will bring death; but to the rest they may help to bring freedom, from an enemy older even than the People of the Carrion Crow—the Lord of Separation.”
I knew it had never occurred to Raki that he might have to stay with the squaws if the tribe were threatened, but we did not argue with Na-ka-chek, for we had both accepted that we must obey his laws if we were ever to be free to make laws of our own. Only one request did Raki make before we left the Great Tepee.
“From what I have already learned of women, I know that those who are st
rong in spirit can eat danger and keep a quiet belly better than a man. They are used to suspense, from having to watch the slow approach of pain which cannot be avoided…it is women, not men, who bear the children. Only those who wish to come with Piyanah and me do I wish to test with this news. If I am able to discuss my plans with them I shall be doing no more than give them the sense of shared responsibility which Piyanah will have from Dorrok and the Scarlet Feathers. Have I your permission?”
“It has been said that to tell a secret to a squaw, and to be surprised when the mocking-birds shout it in your ear, is as foolish as to leave a fire untended in a plain of dry grass and to be surprised when the wind rages with smoke.”
“I am a woman and you trust the secret to me,” I said indignantly. “Would you not have trusted it to my mother? How is Raki to teach the others to be free if you still repeat sayings without wisdom?”
To my surprise, instead of being angry he laughed, a harsh laugh like the creaking of a tree which has grown too old. “That was well spoken, my daughter, and I accept a just rebuke. You have played your part so well that Na-ka-chek had forgotten that you were not also his son.”
Neither Raki nor I really believed in danger from the Black Feathers, for Father had used them to deceive us before.
“I expect Dorrok heard some story at the Place of Barter,” I said, “and Father wants to believe it because it will make us all work harder. Do your women believe it?”
“Yes,” said Raki, “they do. It makes everything much more interesting. I discussed it with Rokeena before telling the others, and she agreed that it was only right they should know and that they must swear not to discuss it except among themselves; so I told each of them separately and explained with whom they shared responsibility.” He laughed. “The others were furious!”
“But why, if they don’t know anything about it?”
“Because they know there is a secret, and they keep on trying to find out what it is. Nona thinks it’s something to do with demons, and I’ve heard it whispered that Dorrok brought back beads as well as salt and that I’m giving them to my friends to wear during the Choosing. They can’t understand why our people want to learn how to carve and use bows and catch fish. They are very angry about it, for they say that if the hunters discover that women can collect food as well as prepare it, the squaw’s life will be harder than ever. They jeer at us, and say that at least our foolishness will never be inherited, for no man will take us into the woods.”