"There are trout and all sorts of wild game," Jack added. "They have a really nifty recipe for roasted raccoon. Wait until you taste it!"
"Swell," Ed managed to respond without puking as he sought to quickly change the subject. "Tell us about clans," he requested. "We keep hearing about clans."
"The clans are matrilineal organizations that cut across tribe boundaries," said Jack. "The Mohawk have wolf, bear, and turtle clans, usually with woman clan leaders. Other Haudenosaunee Confederation tribes have those clans and several others. All the members of a clan are considered to be of one family, and members of the same sub-clan are considered to be such close family members that they are forbidden to marry each other."
"That leads to some very healthy gene mixing between clans." noted Doc, with a wink.
"What does Haudenosaunee mean?" Ed asked.
"Haudenosaunee means 'people who build a longhouse' Jack explained; that is what the Iroquois call themselves. The term 'Iroquois' is actually a somewhat derogatory Algonquian term that means bark-eater, referring perhaps to porcupines, but they don't very much mind being called Iroquois. The longhouse concept is central to the Iroquois Confederacy. A traditional longhouse has a door at each end. The Confederacy regards itself to be one big happy family that lives in one big metaphorical longhouse with a door in the west and a door in the east. The Mohawk tribes are the keepers of the eastern door of the Iroquois Confederacy."
Ed shook his head in wonder. He was familiar with the history and traditions of dozens of different European nations, but knew almost nothing of the Native American peoples that inhabited his own country.
"And what does matrilineal mean?" Mary asked.
"Families are defined by the linage of the mother," said Jack. "The marriage of a bear clan man and turtle clan woman results in a turtle clan family that will live with the turtle clan and produce turtle clan children. Clan mothers provide leadership and frankly they do most of the work and make most decisions. In the old days that used to free the men for warfare. The women tend to choose men as chiefs and sometimes as clan leaders but at the end of the day they hold most political power."
"The men no longer engage in warfare, but instead of war parties many of them go off-Reservation to school or to iron worker jobs," added Doc. "But gender boundaries are disappearing. Nowadays many men help around the Reservation doing chores that were traditionally woman's work, including farming. Likewise women are becoming more involved in what men traditionally do. Many of the women are becoming educated now, and English is universally used in the Tribe as their second language."
"And how do they keep them down on them farm once they have seen New York City?" Mary asked.
"Like most Iroquois, they have very strong tribal and clan loyalties," said Doc. "Most Mohawk iron workers still retain homes in the Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River regions of Canada."
"And not just for tax purposes," Jack added. "The Tribe that lives here is strongly united around performing a secret mission that they have pursued for millennia."
"Millennia?" Ed responded. "You guys keep claiming that this tribe has been here for thousands of years. I thought that Native Americans tended to be somewhat nomadic. Hell, any group of humans, Native American or not, will move around a bit every few generations to find better hunting grounds or whatever."
"Not the Tribe that lives here," said Jack. "They were established here before early Egyptian, Sumerian, or East-Asian societies arose. My carbon dated artifacts indicate that they have been here at Giants' Rest for well over ten thousand years. Not even encroachment by other tribes or by the Europeans has budged them out of this valley."
"That sounds like a very long time," Mary commented.
"Much longer than there have been Mohawks or an Iroquois Confederacy," said Jack. "The Tribe joined the Mohawks a few hundred years ago and adapted much of their way of life, but they are distinct from the other Mohawk tribes. To be sure there has been some exchange of genes between this tribe and others, but that has been minimal."
"My genetic testing has confirmed that," said Doc. "Even with other Mohawk tribes there hasn't been much exchange of spouses."
"But all of this is astounding!" Ed said. "Why haven't I heard about this in the news or history journals or reality TV shows?"
Jack and Doc exchanged nervous glances.
"This relates to even bigger secrets, doesn't it?" guessed Mary. "It has to do with a Tribe mission involving Giants' Rest Mountain and the reason why this tribe has guarded it for thousands of years."
"AND THE REASON WHY YOU ARE HERE," confirmed a voice in Ed's head. He turned in his chair to find Tsino:wen standing behind him, grinning. Mouse had snuck up on the token white folks as quiet as a mouse.
"Great A'no:wara Ronkwe will see Ed Rumsfeld now," she announced with a small squeaky voice that nevertheless wielded great power and resonated telepathically in Ed's head.
****
CHAPTER V
Turtle Man
"Wow!" Ed had to say, when he stepped out of the longhouse with Mouse and had his first full-daylight view of the town/village of Giants' Rest. More than a dozen longhouses stretched before him, each of them several times larger than the one that he stayed in. They were all nearly the same size in terms of cross-section; they only differed in length. Some appeared to be as long as a football field.
"Each longhouse is home to over a hundred people of common clan," Tsino:wen explained. "Your smaller longhouse is where visitors to the Tribe stay, along with a rotating troupe of housekeepers, fire tenders, and cooks that treat you like royalty."
Many of the longhouses had large sheets of thick plastic tied over them, Ed noted. A few of them even sported solar panels, satellite dishes, and television antennas. Modern technology was indeed being adopted by the Tribe!
"I hear voices including singing and some flute music, but don't hear any TVs," Ed remarked, as they passed near some of the longhouses that featured rooftop TV antennas.
"When we discovered radios and TVs and so forth, we also discovered headphones," Mouse explained. "We are a musical people, but prefer to make public only our own traditional music, such as the flutes and singing that you hear."
"You have laws that restrict the noise of TVs?"
"Not laws, Ed Rumsfeld. Respect for others. Why would someone subject others to such sounds when they can be restricted? Besides, it is daytime and most people are working now. This is our busiest time of year."
Indeed nearby a great cultivated field stretched for hundreds of acres, where hundreds of tribes-people labored, picking the last of the fall crops and moving them to longhouses for processing and storage. Distant shouts and conversation could be heard, but song could also be heard coming from the fields, mostly in the form of rhythmic, wordless chanting. Among the many workers several horse-drawn carts could be seen, piled high with squash, pumpkins, and corn stocks.
"Horse use spread rapidly throughout the continent when introduced by the Spanish," Tsino:wen noted. "Carts came later, after the horses as is proper. We have adopted such white-man ways to support the multitude that we have become. The horses and their wheeled carts are useful but the horses eat much and need to be sheltered in the winter. As you white men say, there is no free lunch. We also adopt white man wisdom when it can be detected among the unending cascade of blather and foolishness."
"It's hard to believe that you can grow most of your own food without use of modern machines," Ed remarked.
"It can be done because most of our people work in the fields, when we are favored with good weather. Even the children help with plantings and harvests; school will not resume until after the snows come. However the growing seasons are becoming shorter now, and the winters are becoming longer and colder. This may have been our last corn crop, and we are starting to use faster growing varieties of squash and other foods. Expect to eat a lot of zucchini."
The two of them walked on, passing more longhouses and more fields. Women and children, al
ong with lesser numbers of men, were everywhere, patching longhouse roofs, harvesting crops, and carrying fire-wood. The people tended towards a healthy looking thin to stocky build, he noticed, without obesity. It was cold, no more than thirty-five degrees, and these people were preparing for the far colder weather that would be coming very soon.
There were also a few dogs and cats wondering about, but they looked suspiciously like coyotes and bobcats. "THEY EAT THE VERMIN," explained Mouse. "OR AT LEAST THE VERMIN WE DO NOT EAT OURSELVES."
"Yours is a very hard-working people, Mouse," Ed remarked, "Including the children."
"By necessity. The climate change of the white man comes, and perhaps brings with it our doom, but with extra hard work we survive for now. The future is far less certain."
The longhouses and agricultural fields with busy workers gave out to forest and silence, but Mouse led Ed still further and ever upward, following a well-worn foot-path that wound ever closer to the towering granite mound that was Giants' Rest Mountain. Its peak glistened brightly in the morning sun. Too brightly!
"Is that snow on the Mountain?" Ed asked. "In early October? Isn't it too early for snow?"
Mouse laughed. "We think so too, Ed Rumsfeld. This last year the Mountain snows did not fully melt until the end of September, and snowfall resumed only a week later. We fear that in this coming year and those that follow the snow will persist on the Mountain without fully thawing, perhaps with very unfortunate consequences."
The path they followed steepened and wound about great trees and boulders. The Mountain loomed ever closer; they were clearly in its foothills now. "Is that a redwood tree?" Ed asked, as they passed by a huge tree with dark reddish-tinged bark that had a ten-foot in diameter trunk and stretched majestically hundreds of feet into the air. Other trees with darker trunks were nearby that seemed to be equally as huge.
"Yes, Douglas Fir and Coast Redwoods, you white men call these trees. They are extinct in most of the world, but our tribe nurtures them and ensures that they encircle the Mountain, to help keep evil spirits from escaping into the world. Besides, they are far too large to be used for their bark or for longhouse frames."
"Rodger that," Ed responded. Evil spirits? Ed didn't believe in spirits, evil or otherwise.
They passed several great piles of dried wood, obviously gathered there by the Tribe. They seemed to be assembled in the form of barriers that circled the Mountain. Why such a great quantity of firewood was kept here and not closer to the longhouses was puzzling to Ed, but Mouse offered no explanation.
Some of the boulders that they passed were close in size to houses, and seemed very out of place. One of the largest boulders was inexplicably surrounded by huge piles of dried wood and mounds of what appeared to be charcoal. This boulder sat more upright than the others, and was very oddly shaped. Sunlight and shadow made strange patterns on its surface, and Ed paused to stare at it.
"According to your Uncle the great rocks were placed here by glaciers," Mouse explained, in response to his thoughts about the boulders. "That is undoubtedly true for most of them."
"JACK WOULD KNOW," he replied silently.
"That great boulder indeed has unusual shape," said Mouse. "Our legends say that there is a great stone giant frozen within it. Doesn't the top part appear to resemble a great misshapen head and shoulders?"
"Vaguely," said Ed. He also noticed that most of the boulder's shape was hidden by the great piles of wood. Could there also be giant arms, torso, and legs? "I can see how such legends arose. Why is all the firewood here?"
"Our children sleep better knowing that ready-to-burn firewood and charcoal surrounds this sleeping giant."
Ed would have inquired more about the strange boulder but Mouse was already continuing along the pathway. Soon they climbed a long stairway that was hewn into solid granite and warn smooth by the press of countless moccasin-clad feet. At its top was a broad bowl shaped clearing covered with ankle to knee-high green grass.
"This is a glacier carved amphitheater called a cirque, according to your Uncle Jack," said Mouse. "We are grateful to Jack for the science knowledge that he brings to us. Our Tribe's legends speak of glaciers but Jack has told us much that our people have since forgotten."
On the far edge of the natural amphitheater a longhouse of singular aspect rose with its back against the Mountain. It was shaped like a 'V' with a huge head-like dome at its center and two conventional looking longhouses that stretched out to either side of it along the amphitheater rim like gigantic arms held wide. Several well-armed guards stood outside the dome.
"We call this the Great Lodge. Here the Tribe leaders may gather under one roof and have the great honor to confer with A'no:wara Ronkwe."
"I too will be honored to speak with him," Ed said.
"I warn you Ed Rumsfeld: do not seek to tire or deceive him. He is very old and weary."
"Certainly," Ed assured her. "What does he want to know from me?"
"TRUTH," she said simply.
The well-worn path they followed cut down and then up, straight across the grassy field of the saucer-shaped amphitheater and directly to the dome itself. As they approached the entrance to the dome a dozen women came out to greet them. Most appeared to be nearly as old as Mouse herself, and wore what Ed assumed was traditional tribal clothing. They walked stiffly and were not smiling, and Ed sensed their antagonism. Most of them averted their eyes from his, and those that did meet his gaze wore stern expressions indeed. They stopped in front of Ed and Mouse, blocking their path forward. The woman in the lead was nearly the mirror image of Mouse but was probably only in her early fifties, and she was openly scowling. "Tanon'onhkani:se'" she demanded of Ed.
"He is the Kenra:ken Ronkwe called to the Great Lodge by A'no:wara Ronkwe," Mouse answered, her tone equally stern and commanding. "Tiohrhen:sa sata:ti."
Ed translated from Mouse's thoughts that he had been introduced as the white man called here by Turtle Man, and that the Mouse demanded that further speech be accomplished using English. That suited Ed, as except for Mouse he couldn't read the thoughts of these women, and therefore couldn't translate their words into English.
"As you wish, Old Mother," the woman retorted.
"My daughter Singing Moon forgets both her manners and her place," Mouse said. "My sisters, this man is Ed Rumsfeld, nephew by marriage to Jack O'Brien."
"The Elder Council of Mothers is not pleased with this man's intrusion," Singing Moon replied.
"The Leader of the Elder Council of Mothers is not pleased with the behavior of her eldest daughter," Mouse replied. "As you well know, this man is here at our invitation."
"We seek only to protect the Tribe, Old Mother."
"As do I," Mouse replied. "Have I not always done so?" She turned her sharp gaze towards the other women, meeting the gaze of each of them one-by-one. "Does anyone here dispute that?"
"No, Old Mother," they replied in unison.
"Very well," pronounced Mouse. "If Turtle Man and I wish it, this man will stay in the visitor's lodge to help us, and in time he will meet also with you to seek your wisdom. If he does not meet with the Great One's approval and with mine he will be banished from our Tribe this very day. Further, if at any time in the future he is judged to be in conflict with the Tribe, he will be banished or worse."
Ed wondered what 'or worse' meant. Probably nothing good!
"Yes, Old Mother," the women replied in unison, with the exception of Singing Moon, who remained defiantly silent. They all stepped to each side of the path and studied Ed critically as he and Mouse walked past them and towards the Dome doorway. The armed guards had disappeared, Ed noticed. Apparently they wisely wanted no part of the terse female confrontation that had just occurred.
Wide double doors constructed of sticks and bark swung open as Ed and Mouse approached, pushed open by a pair of small boys each perhaps ten years old. Framed in the door opening stood a strikingly beautiful young women of roughly twenty years. She looked like a much yo
unger and more cheerful version of Mouse and Singing Moon, but had larger, wider eyes.
"MORNING GREETINGS, GRANDMOTHER," the young woman thought powerfully, as she smiled pleasantly at Ed.
"GREETINGS, TALKING OWL," replied Mouse in kind. "This is Ed Rumsfeld, Granddaughter. We come heeding the call of the Great One. How does he fare this day?"
"He has again had troubled dreams, Grandmother, but he awaits you both. Please try to ease his spirit, Grandmother."
Mouse motioned Ed to follow her, while Talking Owl stepped outside. "Dreams are taken very seriously in our culture, Ed Rumsfeld," Mouse quietly explained, as they walked through a small foyer that featured several wooden stools and benches and pushed their way through a smaller inner door. "Especially the dreams of Great Turtle Man."
They stepped into a room that was both huge and ornate by any standards. More than a hundred feet across and forty foot high in the middle, the domed structure could have easily accommodated the entire long-lodge where Ed and Mary currently stayed. Instead of drying food and tobacco, hundreds of colorful art objects hung from the rafters: belts and long-bows and dyed animal skins, baskets and shirts, axes, spears, and wood carvings. On the walls great woven tapestries hung, depicting peaceful scenes of farming, hunting, and fishing, as well as battle scenes of great carnage as Tribe warriors fought other tribes and creatures both familiar and monstrously unfamiliar. Ed wasn't sure, but some of the animals appeared to be wooly mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, and other species extinct for thousands of years. Many artifacts appeared to relate to ages long past, and some items seemed to be somewhat faded and worn by time. At the center of the great dome a huge stone fireplace housed a crackling wood fire.
Hundreds of colorful hand-woven rugs covered most of the floor. Mouse squatted to untie and remove her moccasins and display surprisingly colorful cotton socks, and Ed followed her example, embarrassed that his warn old grey work-socks featured several holes in them at toes and heels.
Ice Giants Wake! Page 5