Always Coming Home

by Ursula K. Le Guin

  Indoors, a baby wore a napkin or diaper; outdoors in the dry season, nothing. Little children wore clothing only for protection from the sun or the cold, or as ornament; what they wore was sketchy, usually cut down from somebody else’s clothes or old bed-linen or what have you.

  As they got older, in their “clearwater” and “sprouting” years, children generally put on some kind of modesty bit, a kilt or skirt, and they began to long for the kind of clothing adolescents wore; but if they put it on too soon they would be ridiculed by their agemates and scolded by their household and heyimas.

  Having reached puberty, the young adolescent was given a ceremony in the heyimas and a party at home, and a whole set of new clothes of a particular kind. The boys wore a heavy kilt to the knee, of white buckskin or white cotton or dark wool, and a white cotton shirt (cut like a kurta; sometimes collared and cuffed). In cold weather they might wear stockings and sandals, and in rough country, leather shoes. The girls wore a similar kilt or a gathered skirt, below the knee and above the ankle, of undyed cream, grey, or dark wool, an overblouse or shirt of white cotton, and stockings, sandals, or shoes like the boys. Both boys and girls might wear a fitted vest. Coats and shawls and knitted sweaters for cold weather were of no prescribed style, but they were never dyed. No dye color was used in any of these clothes for people “living on the Coast.” They were made with care and of good material, often by their wearer, anxious to have everything about them exactly right. The lack of color gave them an austere elegance; young people living on the Coast stood out in any Valley crowd.

  After they took a sexual partner—“came Inland”—young women and men often went on wearing the kilts and shirts of their time on the Coast, but they dyed them or wore colors with them.

  As for the “native costume” of the Valley, it is rather hard to describe, because it varied so much according to time, place, and wearer. There were definitely styles, fashions; in wall paintings one could see figures dressed in clothes of a quite different cut than any being currently worn. For both women and men, shirts, full-cut overshirts, belted and unbelted shifts, kilts, and rather loose trousers were among the options; women sometimes added the gathered skirt. Underclothes were worn for warmth. Adults did not usually go naked in town, except men at the time of the Moon Dance, but everybody swam naked in the holding tanks, and in the household and at the summerhouse older people often went about without clothes. Coats for cold weather were made of sheepskin with the fleece, and of canvas; but people working outdoors in the rain often undressed rather than dressed for it, their theory being, “Skin dries quick.”

  The dancing clothes, costumes worn for the wakwa, were of course of conservative style and often of great beauty. The characteristic ceremonial garment was the sleeveless vest. Going down into the heyimas for singing or socialising or teaching or anything else, people generally put on a short, unbuttoned vest of fine make and finely decorated, kept for this purpose both by individuals and in the heyimas; and the men who danced the Moon, and both male and female dancers of the Summer, Wine, and Grass, wore magnificently ornate vests, some of them many generations old.

  The principal materials of clothing were wool, cotton, linen, and leather.

  Wool was entirely from Valley sheep. The most prized wool came from the Chúmo flocks and was spun in Chúmo and Telína-na.

  Cotton was raised in patches in the Valley, but most of it came from the southern shores of the Inland Sea. Wine was sent down annually on the Train to the port at Sed to be shipped in exchange for the cotton sent up from the south (see “Trouble with the Cotton People”).

  Flax was grown in the Valley, and more extensively north of the Mountain, in the Clear Lake region. It was bartered for with wine, olives, olive oil, lemons, and glassware, carried over the Mountain on the Train or by wagon and pack teams using the Line as a road.

  Leather was made locally, using hides of cows, horses, sheep, goats, deer, rabbits, moles, himpí, and other small animals. Birdskins were tanned for ceremonial wear, and feather robes and vests were made as great gifts to the heyimas. Leatherworking was a very highly developed technology, and leathers of great variety were available for clothing, shoes, and other uses.

  Raw fibers were mostly treated and prepared at the town workshop or manufactory under the direction of the Cloth Art. An individual might take a shearing from the family sheep or a quantity of homegrown flax or cotton to the workshop to clean, card, and dye; or a group might share the labor; or the individual or group might give the fleece or the bale to the Cloth Art to prepare. Much spinning was done on the powered machines at the workshop, and bulk weaving and broadloom was done on the big power looms by Cloth Art professionals, but most fine or ceremonial stuffs were homespun on wheels or with the drop spindle and woven at home. Wool was the great ceremonial material; it made the beautiful rugs of Chúmo and Chúkúlmas, and was knitted at home by men and women for stockings, shawls, and so on. Linsey-woolsey mixture was a favorite material for skirts, kilts, and trousers. Cotton and linen were also mixed for summer fabrics, both woven and knitted. The most prized material for everyday wear was cotton, and the technology was exquisitely refined; cotton fabrics ranged from massive canvases through soft heavy knits to gossamer voiles so fine they “let the moonlight through.”

  The Tanning Art looked after butchering, as well as the leather technologies of curing, tanning, and making harness, shoes, furnishings, clothing, etc., and the Cloth Art managed the preparation of raw fibers, including cleaning, carding, dyeing, and spinning, the technologies of fabric manufacture including weaving and powered knitting, and the production of some items—stockings, sheets, blankets, rugs—that were made in quantity and stockpiled. Important elements of the economy of each town and the Valley as a whole, the two Arts worked closely together. The tannery was always outside town, along with the slaughterhouse, but finished leather was brought in to the Cloth Art workshops to be made into shoes and clothing. Tanners and Clothiers were as a rule solid, prosperous, respectable people, who lived in the same house for generations, and considered themselves with complacency as pillars of the community.

  Embroidery

  What They Ate

  There is no word in Kesh for famine.

  Hunting-and-gathering is supposed to be a mode of subsistence incompatible with farming; when people learn to herd and farm they stop hunting and gathering, as a rule. The Kesh disobeyed the rule.

  Their hunting was of very little real importance to their food supply; most of it was done, and most game was eaten, by children. (It may be asked how important hunting has ever been as a principal source of human food, except where there are no other sources of protein readily available; the intense symbolic value of hunting, especially to men, has disguised its practical triviality, so that “Man the Hunter” romantically dominates the scene, while the women who actually provide and prepare the food he lives on are not discussed.) As to us, hunting to the Kesh was a mixture of sport, religion, self-discipline, and self-indulgence. Gathering, however, was a major source of food. They gathered wild produce—acorns, greens, roots, herbs, berries, and many kinds of seeds, some requiring great patience to collect and process, and did so not at whim but methodically, going yearly in due season to the family’s trees, the town’s seed-meadows or cattail-beds. The question Why? might fairly, I think, be countered by the question Why not? The natural food supply was very rich, and they liked the taste and quality; and since large families, a large private food-supply, and a competitive attitude were all socially disapproved, there was no need or motivation to give up gathering for heavy farming. The essential factor is probably population size and growth, whether considered as cause or as effect. The city—the “opposite” of the farm—does not occur unless or until the land is heavily used for farming. Population explosions of any species depend upon excess food; the furrow ends in the street. The Kesh lived half in town and half in the wilderness. They had no streets, and their farms were, by our standards, gardens.<
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  These were not particularly neat gardens, since a great many different people worked in them, with animal rather than machine assistants, or as assistants to animals rather than machines, and the patches and plots (except for the great vineyards of the Valley floor) were small and various. Indeed what they planted and prepared as food was various—surprisingly so for a people many of whose cultural styles were limited, resistant to borrowing, and “pure.” For example, corn (maize) was the nearest thing to a staple grain they had, but they also gathered acorns, raised wheat, barley, and oats, and traded for rice. Rice and barley were mostly hulled and boiled whole; the other grains were variously prepared as groats, meal, or flour, and boiled, baked leavened, baked unleavened, and so on—giving a great variety of grain dishes, porridges, and breads.

  In sum, the Kesh took or found or raised or grew food wherever convenient, and cooked and ate it with interest, respect, and pleasure. They were not a thin people. Small-boned, they tended towards the round rather than the angular, the easy rather than the lean.

  Food is not something that lends itself to discussion in the abstract; it seems more sensible to give some recipes.

  LÍRIV METADÍ, OR VALLEY SUCCOTASH

  Wash about two cups of small red beans (the Valley metadí is very like the Mexican frijole), and cook till done (a couple of hours) with half an onion, three or four garlic cloves, and a bay leaf.

  Simmer about a cup and a half of parched corn until thoroughly cooked, and drain (or in season use fresh corn cut off the cob, uncooked).

  Simmer a handful of dried black mushrooms for half an hour or so, and keep them in their cooking broth.

  When all these ingredients are done combine them, along with:

  the juice and pulp of a lemon, or some preserved tamarind pulp

  an onion chopped and fried in oil with some finely chopped garlic and a spoonful of cumin seeds

  a large, mild green chile of the chile verde type, or a small, hot green chile (but not bell pepper), seeded and chopped fine

  three or four tomatoes peeled and chopped coarsely

  add, as seasoning, oregano, winter savory, and more lemon to taste

  add dried red chile if you want it hot

  To thicken the sauce, one dried tomato-paste ball was added; our equivalent would be two or three tablespoons of thick tomato paste. (If fresh tomatoes are not in season, double or triple the quantity of tomato paste.)

  All this simmers for about an hour.

  Serve with chopped raw onion to garnish, and a sour sauce or chutney made of green tomatoes or tomatillos, flavored with fresh or dry coriander leaf.

  This dish, “too heavy for rice,” was accompanied by cornbreads, either of the hoe-cake or the tortilla type.

  HOTUKO, “OLD HEN,” A RICE AND CHICKEN DINNER

  Simmer a big, old, tough chicken with bay leaf, rosemary, and some wine until done. (Since most of us cannot get big, old, tough chickens, simmer a little, young, tough one.) Cool, and take the meat off the bones.

  Save enough of the stock to cook the rice in; cook the rest down if it is thin, and then simmer in it, for five to fifteen minutes, until just barely done, some or any of the following:

  a handful of blanched whole almonds

  sliced celery, carrots, radishes, yellow or green squash, onions, etc.

  a few leaves of spinach, Chinese cabbage, or other greens

  whole mushrooms, fresh or dried

  Add the chicken meat cut up, some chopped parsley, chopped fresh coriander or dry coriander leaf, and chopped green onions; season with cumin seed, coriander seed, a little ground red pepper, and salt or lemon. Let it sit all day or overnight for the flavors to “get used to one another.”

  Reheat gently and serve with rice cooked in the stock.

  Serve any or all of the following as accompaniments:

  chopped hardboiled eggs

  toasted tarweed or chia seeds

  chopped coriander leaves

  green onions

  green tomato or tomatillo sauce or sour pickle

  hot red pepper chutney or pickle

  currant jelly

  dried currants or chopped raisins

  These would be arranged in little dishes around the main dish.

  Most of the rice that came to the Valley was from the peoples of the River of the Marshes, and was short-grained, cooking up rather sticky. They prized and would trade their best wines for the rarer, long-grained, very fine-flavored “sasí” rice grown farther south and east of the Inland Sea.

  PRAGASÍV FAS—SUMMER SOUP

  A hot-weather aftermath to a lamb feast.

  Cook up in a piece of butter about egg-yolk size, about half that much cornstarch (corn flour), and one egg yolk, stirring gently to make a thickening paste or roux. Cool this and stir in about a cup of yogurt and about two cups of cold lamb broth (made from the bones, cleared of all fat). Flavor to taste with lemon juice and/or dry white wine. Serve topped with chopped mint leaves.

  (For a hot soup, add cooked barley while heating gently, and use parsley or chervil instead of mint.)

  DÚR M DREVÍ, “RED AND GREEN,”

  A VEGETABLE DINNER

  Peel one large or several small eggplants and slice “about as thick as my finger is.” Sprinkle the slices with lemon juice and coarse salt, and let them sit while you prepare the rest for cooking:

  slice a couple of fair-sized zucchini squash (unpeeled) the same way, and also sprinkle with lemon juice

  a handful of parsley, the stems cut off

  a couple of garlic cloves, chopped fine

  a double handful of mushrooms—any delicate kind-fresh

  Make a sauce of two cloves of garlic thoroughly mashed in a mortar or press, about two tablespoons of good olive oil, and a dash of ground red pepper, all stirred into two cups of yogurt until smooth and creamy.

  Fry the zucchini fast and hot in light oil in an iron pan until the edges brown; pile it on one end of a platter. Using less oil, fry the eggplant very fast and hot till it turns vivid red-brown. Pile it on the other end of the platter. Stir-fry the mushrooms, garlic, and parsley gently and quickly just till the parsley wilts, and pile it in the center of the platter. Serve at once, along with potatoes boiled in their jackets. The yogurt sauce accompanies both the vegetables and the potatoes, poured over them or used as a dip.

  Sliced tomatoes and black olives go well with this dish.

  HWOVWON, “OAK-EGGS”

  Acorn meal compares interestingly with corn meal and wheat flour. Before cooking, corn and wheat average 1 to 2 percent fat, 10 percent protein, and 75 percent carbohydrate. Acorn meal averages 21 percent fat, 5 percent protein, and 60 percent carbohydrate. Acorn meal was of course a staple food of the original human inhabitants of the area, though its use was abandoned by later people from cultures in which acorns were fed only to swine.

  The Kesh planted oaks in and around their towns, and tended “gathering trees” in the woods and fields. The area was very rich in both species and numbers of oaks, and in a normal year there were vastly more acorns available than the human population could use. The Kesh favored the acorns from the Valley Oak and Tanoak. Gathering and processing were a communal activity under the supervision of the Serpentine, though of course a family that wanted an extra supply could provide it for themselves. After sorting and hulling, the acorns were ground, the millers using special stones, “acorn stones.” Excess oil was saved for numerous uses. The meal, coarse or fine, was leached by submersion in cold or hot waters for a few hours up to several days, depending on the tannic acid content and the flavor desired. The meal or flour was usually parched or toasted before storage or just before use, to “sweeten” and bring up the nutty flavor.

  Acorn meal soup, thick and variously flavored, was a daily winter food in many households. They called it doumfas, brown soup; it was often an infant’s first food other than breast milk. Coarser meal was boiled to make a porridge or batter, which was eaten like polenta or rice, or baked a
s a heavy, dry, rich bread. Acorn flour was combined with honey and toasted seeds and wheat flour and baked as sweet cakes and wafers. Being oily, the flavor of acorn meal deteriorated in storage, and generally what was left after half a year or so was shared out to animals.

  TÍS: HONEY

  The Kesh were fond of sweets, and there were sugar-beet fields below Ounmalin; but they found the cultivation and processing of that crop arduous, and most of their sweetening came from honey. Like game animals, bees were considered to be visitors from the Sky Houses who consented to come into the Houses of the Earth, and indeed to live in the small houses provided for them there. Most bee-keepers were of the Red Adobe, and that House looked after the preparation, storage, and distribution of the honey. “Bee-towns,” sets of hives, were numerous throughout the planting side of each human township. The hives were of wood, and the beekeepers used removable wooden frames for the honeycombs, so that combs could be removed without destroying the hive or even dismaying the bees. Enough honey was made in the Upper Valley towns that it was used in trade with peoples to the north and east who were, apparently, less methodical in their bee-husbandry.

  FATFAT—“CLOWN-CLOWN,” A DESSERT

  Clean about a quart of green gooseberries, red currants, or red huckleberries, with elder, madrone, or manzanita berries ad lib—any tart ripe berry—and stew gently. Stir up with honey to taste. Flavor with lemon rind or chopped kumquat if desired. Cool.

  Scald one to two pints very heavy cream and beat until cooled and thickened. Mix with the fruit.

  The scalded cream has a rich texture very different from our fluffy whipped cream; but you have to start with a heavier cream than we are likely to have available.

  LÚTE: AMOLE

  People in Chúmo stewed amole (or soaproot—Chlorogalum pomeridianum) with a little honey and ate it as a delicacy. People in the other eight towns used it as shampoo. The Kesh version of De gustibus non disputandum is, “He washes his hair with her dinner.”