The music keeps on—the musicians are mostly adolescents, Obsidian people, they don’t dance the Moon yet, but they play it!—and when the moon’s getting higher the women begin to sing. They sing abahi, or just he-eh, or trill very high like night-crickets. That’s when the men start getting excited. Some of them come out naked to start with, but when the women start that trilling, pretty soon the men are all dancing naked, and they’ve all got erections, too. And they start taking hold of the woman they’re dancing with, instead of just facing her. They take your hands, or your shoulders. If more than one man is dancing with you, they begin to press against you from behind, and brush up against you, and maybe one has one of your hands and another the other. And then they begin to unfasten your clothes. If you don’t want your clothes to get danced on all night, you don’t wear much to begin with, because by the time it comes off it’ll lie where it falls, most likely.
So then some couple begins having sex, usually standing up, and they and the people near them set up the coyote singing. It’s called that because it sounds a little like coyotes, I guess, but it’s more like a kind of music made out of the noises human people make making love. The musicians coyote-sing and keep drumming, keeping up the dance beat. Some people dance all night. Others have sex, and dance again, and have sex again with somebody else, and dance again; or make love to somebody once and go home; or however they like. A woman isn’t supposed to go home so long as a man is with her or waiting for her, but actually, if you’ve had enough, or don’t like the man, you can always get away—it’s night, and there’s so many people. There are stories about men staying at a woman, forcing her to keep having sex, usually in revenge because she had teased them, but I never knew anything like that to happen; those are romantic tales, men tell them. What isn’t allowed is to go away together, to have sex anywhere that night but outside, in the common place, where the others are. If some man tried to follow a woman home, she’d set up a yell and the others would find out. But it doesn’t happen. After all, it is a dance danced together.
The first Moon I danced, that was the best one. Before it I was a little frightened. It was a warm, windy night, the rains were over, the crickets were already singing, the moonlight looked like white water in pools on the grass. Oh, that was a good Moon! But sometimes it’s raining. They put up the big awning on poles over the common place, and people come out and dance, but making love isn’t so good—it’s wet and cold and you can’t see who’s there alongside you, in the dark. The way I like it is when you can just see them in the moonlight, so you know who they are, and yet they aren’t who they are on any other night, because they are under the Moon. But when it’s cloudy, it’s like having sex with strangers, among strangers. Some people may like that, but I don’t. I like the Moon when the moon shines.
Anybody who wants to can dance the Moon every night or any night while it wanes—nine nights. The first night, the Full Moon, is usually the big dance, but if it’s raining then and then clears up, one of the Following Nights might have more people dancing. And men often go to another town to dance, on the Following Nights. If you go out to dance on one of those nights you’re likely to find yourself with a man you don’t know. You have to find out what House he lives in, of course, but if that’s all right, then you’d do wrong to refuse him. If you come out to dance the Moon you don’t choose and refuse.
On those Following Nights the music doesn’t come down from the heyimas till late twilight, and usually the musicians go off to bed sometime not too late. Men decide all those things. Men of the Obsidian are in charge of the wakwa; they see that it’s performed appropriately and without trouble. People getting drunk are usually the only trouble. It seems like there’s always some old hunter who can’t keep his penis up, so he drinks wine for lust, but then he can’t get it up at all, so he drinks more and gets crazy, and the men in charge of the wakwa have to dip him in the reservoir or shut him into an empty barn till he quiets down. There used to be a woman here in Sinshan, Marigold of the Serpentine, who always drank at the Moon, and didn’t stay put like you’re supposed to; if there wasn’t a man with her, she’d go get one. I suppose every boy in Sinshan who was too shy to go to the woman he really wanted, got sucked into that old whirlpool at one Moon or another. But it wasn’t any harm to him, and Marigold certainly had a good time! At the Wine, she used to go around saying, “I drink all through the Moon, why can’t I fuck all through the Wine?” And I expect she pretty well did, too. She was old when she stopped dancing the Moon—seventy or more. And she died soon after.
Anyway, however much or little dancing has gone on during the nine nights of the Moon, on the tenth night the reversal is reversed. It begins the dark of the moon. The women begin gathering on the common place, and the musicians come there when the sun is down behind the ridge. The women sing the Dark of the Moon songs, walking up to the Hinge and to the Obsidian heyimas.
The men are waiting for them there in the dancing place. They wear beautiful clothes that night, mostly black, black shirt and trousers, with a white vest embroidered in black, or a black vest embroidered with silver—some of those Moon Dance vests are ten lifetimes old, they say The men are all bareheaded and barefoot. Some of them draw a wide band of charcoal right across their face, from the upper lip to the lower eyelids and from ear to ear. They look magnificent. They stand in a gyring line facing the women, and when the women stop singing the men begin. They sing very deep, the way they did before the Moon. It’s all matrix words, only reversing that matrix word “meyan” makes “na yem,” river shore, so those songs are called Shores of the River. The men stand singing and the musicians drum. The women stand in their line and listen. They are silent and don’t dance.
When the Shores of the River have been sung, the women go down into the Obsidian heyimas, to the Blood Lodge, one after another, and wash their hands and eyes at the Moon Basin, and then go on home. The men stay in the dancing place and have a drum-singing, if they want; or they go down and bathe in Sinshan Creek; then they come home. The Moon has been danced.
There are some things done during the Moon that aren’t part of the sacredness, they’re just customs. In Sinshan, if a man wants a woman to dance with him that night, he comes in the daytime and gives her a sei flower. We had to laugh once in my household when a quite old man in Up the Hill House gave my mother a whole bunch of sei, twenty or thirty of them. She said, “How could I not dance with a man like that!” Down in Madidinou, where I lived when I was married, they don’t give flowers that way, but they go swimming together in the River, in the afternoon.
DARK OF THE MOON SONGS
Sung by women on the last night of the Moon Dance.
The black ewe leads,
her lamb follows.
The sky closes.
Hey heya hey,
Obsidian House,
its door is shut.
First House Woman
suckles the lamb
in the dark fold.
Hey heya hey,
Moon’s House door
is black, is black!
Bloodclot, bloodclot,
black lump of blood,
black sacred lump,
I bleed you out.
Shining, shining,
whiteness shining,
shining whiteness,
white shining moon!
I give consent,
this blood consents,
this blood is black.
It bleeds itself.
I bleed this blood,
this clot, this lump,
this light, this life,
shining, shining.
More about the Moon Dance
A WOMAN IN CHUMO
Men love women best before they’ve had sex together, f think, and women love men best after. So men aren’t at home in marriage the way women are, as a rule. So the Moon turns the rule around. Men are at home, that month. There’s no marriage, that month.
When I wasn’t married, I liked dancing the
Moon, but when I was married I was always glad when it was over. I’d come out to sing the Dark of the Moon songs on the tenth night and see my husband in the men’s line, wearing Obsidian black, looking fierce and handsome, and I’d be glad he was coming back into the house that night. He never seemed to be sorry to come, either; but he never said anything about it. He had his modesty. You know how men are.
A MAN IN KASTOHA-NA
Women make Moon veils, very fine and long and full. When they come out onto the common place they have those veils over their heads and wrapped around them and floating out behind them, and they keep part of the veil over their face if they like, so you can’t tell who they are. They are white and full in the twilight and the moonlight, like reflections of the moon.
They always wear those Moon veils here; I didn’t know the other towns don’t dance the Moon with veils. You can lie on the veil while you’re fucking and pull it over you if you like. They wash them out in the morning. All through the Moon all the washlines have white veils blowing on them—haven’t you seen that?
Sometimes the women keep their face hidden, they really want you not to know who they are; that’s good, that’s right, the way it should be. You have to take care and notice, though, because she’ll give you a sign, while you’re dancing together, if she and you are of the same House, you know. Then you go off to another woman.
A YOUNG MAN IN CHUKULMAS
Oh, yes, the girls here wear veils, and the older women too, so you can’t tell them apart, they’re all just women. Only when you get very close, you do know them.
The girls who haven’t danced the Moon before, they hide in their households. You have to go in. You sing outside awhile and call to them to come out, but they don’t come out. So you have to go in. You sing,
“Meyan, hey, meyan,
I am coming in!”
They hide, they’re waiting inside there, with the veil on. You take their hand and they come out with you to the common place. They always hide their face.
[In response to a question:] I don’t think anybody has sex for the first time at the Moon—I don’t know anybody who did. You come inland before it, that year, before you dance it the first time. That would be embarrassing, to make love the first time with all the others around. The older men are always showing off how great they are anyhow.
The Moon is very difficult when you’re in love. You and a girl are in love and maybe you and she came inland together, you know, and then comes the Moon. Are you going to dance it? You can’t stay with one person at the Moon. Maybe her feelings will be hurt when you go off with other women. But maybe she wants to dance it, and you don’t want her to. A lot of love-matches get broken apart, around the Moon. I don’t know about marriages.
POEMS
THIRD SECTION
Sinshan
A SIXTH HOUSE SONG
From the Madrone Lodge of Sinshan.
Coming down, going down
from the Grass to the Moon.
This house is falling,
its walls keep coming down
into creeks running downward,
into roots going downward.
From the Grass to the Moon
running down, hanging down.
The willow by the well rises falling,
the fallen apricot on Sinshan Knoll
lifts one branch in flower.
This house is built of falling.
A MEDITATION ON QUAIL FEATHER HOUSE
By Fox’s Gift of the Blue Clay of Sinshan
How long has it been here,
the house of my household,
Quail Feather of Sinshan?
I go down to Ounmalin.
The house stays where it is.
I go up-Valley to the Mountain
and come back to the house.
I come and go, it stays.
I go in and out, it’s both.
The mortar dries, the boards split,
the roof starts letting in the rain.
People rebuild the house.
It stays. People get born in it.
They die in it. It stays.
Maybe there was a fire.
They rebuilt it.
It keeps on staying here,
this house, Quail Feather,
the name of a house.
the shadow of a house.
THREE SHORT POEMS
Given to the Obsidian heyimas of Sinshan by Mooncarder.
IN FIRST HOLLOW
A great whicker of air,
the flicker’s wingbeats.
The hawk of Sinshan cries
like a dream going away.
A NINTH HOUSE DAY
Between my eyes and the sun
windless clearness.
A buzzard moves
high up in this house
of the still air.
On the rock wall
a lizard does not move.
There is no roof.
THE VALLEY OAK
(FOURS)
No one has built
so beautiful
a house as this
great heyimas
deep-towering.
THE CRYING HAWK AT SINSHAN
By Ire of Sinshan. The meter is “klemchem.”
What have you taken
in your hard hands?
What are you breaking
in your hooked lips?
Your eye is golden.
You feed your child
with my children.
Hawk, what do you hold?
You fly crying,
crying, crying,
over the fields
all day, grieving
over the hills.
Hawk, what have you killed?
FIVES IN THE SECOND HOUSE
From the Blue Clay heyimas in Sinshan.
I know where she stepped,
that one with stick legs,
incense-cedar legs,
in the wet grasses.
I know where she lay,
pressing down the grass.
The wet dirt got warm
under her softness,
round belly, bent legs.
I know where her ears
stuck up thoughtfully
out of the grasstops
like two wet brown leaves.
I do not know, yet,
what she was thinking
while she looked at me.
TO GAHHEYA
By Stone Telling of the Blue Clay of Sinshan.
Old stone, hold my soul.
When I am not in this place
face the sunrise for me.
Grow warm slowly.
When I am not alive any more
face the sunrise for me.
Grow warm slowly.
this is my hand on you, warm.
This is my breath on you, warm.
This is my heart in you, warm.
This is my soul in you, warm.
You will be here a long time
facing the sunrise
with the warmth in you.
When you roll down,
when you break apart,
when the earth changes,
when the rockness of you ends,
we will be shining,
we will be dancing shining,
we will be warmth shining.
ON SECOND HILL
By Ire of Sinshan.
Whenever I come to this place
always somebody
always somebody
has been walking here,
has walked here before me.
The trails in the grass are thin and crooked,
hard to follow, leading
to the sacred of this place.
The flicker knocks the oak
five times, four times.
Who came here
before me, before sunrise?
Before the flicker?
Whose paths?
Their feet are narrow and divided,
their legs s
lender.
They walk
in a sacred manner.
THE PRIESTS OF THIS RELIGION
From an oral performance by Giver Ire’s daughter of Sinshan.
The English title is an invention of the Editor.
The Poet called it goutun onkama, a morning-twilight song.
The male of the great horned owl
in a voice like blowing into a hollow jar
sings the five-note heya
in the twilight of morning
in a sacred manner:
hoo, hoo-oo, hoo, hoo.
The small frog whom he is hunting
in the creek-bottom among shadows
sings the four-note heya
in a fearless and contented voice:
kaa-rigk, kaa-rigk.
THE TRAMPLED SPRING
From an oral performance by Giver Ire’s daughter of the Blue Clay of Sinshan.
Just over the hill
from the heyimas
from the heyimas
just over the hill from the heyimas
of Sinshan
of Sinshan
just over the hill
is the trampled spring.
Who dances, who dances?
Who dances there?
They dance, they dance there,
so that’s where, that’s where,
that’s where the dancing is.
Stamping and dancing,
trampling and dancing.
Always Coming Home Page 28