A Rainbow in Paradise

by Susan Aylworth

  The pit was more than three feet deep and almost five feet across when they completed it sometime later. Eden looked at their accomplishment with pride, stretching muscles that seemed to have enjoyed their morning workout, although she had no question they'd be complaining by evening. Albert, in an important though lesser role as the honored girl's father, brought a carpenter's level for the bottom of the pit, and then he and Ella fussed with a shovel and hoe until he pronounced the pit was kehasdon (Logan translated the word as "straight") and the workers left the firepit.

  There followed a period of frenzied activity while some guests harnessed a team of horses to a wagon and went after a load of firewood and others left in a pickup truck with several large barrels, heading to the nearby pump station for water.

  “Will you be okay if I leave you here for a little while?'' Logan asked.

  "Sure," Eden answered, despite a sense of unease. "But can I go with you?"

  "You might prefer not to," he answered. "It's time to butcher the sheep I bought for today."

  Eden blanched. "Thanks for the warning. I'll stay here, thanks."

  "Okay, I won't be long." She waved good-bye as he drove away in his pickup with several other men.

  Eden watched with the other women while Ella Redhorse used a match to light the tinder in the base of the firepit and added cedar bark for fragrance. Then she went with the other women into the hogan to change into their finest clothes for the ceremonies to come. Warned by Logan, she had brought with her a floral skirt and clean white blouse, hardly the equivalent of the stunning satins and velvets the Navajo women wore, but more formal than her jeans and plaid shirt. Glad she'd come prepared, she dressed in a sense of companionship with the native women, one or two of whom spoke pleasantly in English, easing away her sense of "otherness."

  Some time passed in general preparation before the group sat down to eat breakfast. By then, having been awake for seven hours already, Eden was hungry enough to eat even the lamb and hot herb tea Esther passed to her.

  Logan sat next to her, patting her knee. "Good?" he asked.

  She nodded, her mouth full. "Mmm," then swallowed. "It's very good. Or maybe I'm just hungry."

  "I expect everyone is about now."

  "Logan?" They looked up as Esther joined them, acknowledging Eden with a nod. "We're going to need some raisins for the 'alkaan," she said, and Eden realized she was using English for her sake. "Why don't you take some of the boys with you and make a run up to the trading post?"

  "Okay," he answered. "Eden, want to go to the store?"

  Esther laid her hand gently on Eden's shoulder. "Maybe your friend would like to stay here for the mixing of the batter. It's about to begin."

  Logan looked to Eden. "You might like to see that," he said, "but it's up to you."

  Esther smiled. "You will be welcome if you wish to stay," she said.

  "I think I'd like to see how you mix the batter," Eden answered, and followed Esther as Logan left again.

  She was glad she had, for as it turned out, the mixing of the alkaan batter was a spectacle of its own. First Ella spread a clean, white sheet on the floor of the hogan in the west. Then she brought out three large bags of corn meal and emptied them onto the sheet. It was a massive amount of meal, even more impressive when a woman near Eden whispered to her that Celia had ground all this corn herself since the beginning of her kinaalda. What's more, she had ground it using an ancient stone mano and metate. Eden thought Celia's back must ache even more than her own was beginning to.

  Next Ella took a bundle from her medicine chest and knelt beside the meal, facing south and rubbing powder on the mano. Rosa, Esther's sister and Celia's aunt, told Eden the powder represented "mirage," or spirit power. Finally Ella added corn pollen from a jar, then handed the mano to Celia and ordered her to mix the corn meal from the east, south, west and north. When Celia had done so, Ella told her to work the meal with her hands.

  When the mixing was finished, Celia began the ritual of carefully cleaning the mano. This began a cleansing ceremony that also included all the jewelry, new and old, belonging to the kinaalda. As Celia began to remove and clean each piece of silver-and-turquoise she wore, Eden drew from the backpack the gift she had purchased for Celia. She whispered to Rosa, "Should I give this to her now?" and Rosa, clearly impressed, nodded. Eden went forward with the heavy silver bracelet in her hands. She presented it to Celia with the words, "A gift for the kinaalda." Celia took the proffered bracelet with a gracious nod and showed it to the other guests, who all oohed and nodded in appreciation. Even Ella Redhorse gave Eden a more accepting look, and Eden was glad she had thought to make the gift.

  It was early afternoon when the men returned from the trading post, and Logan helped some of the older boys carry in a large pot of water that had been set to boil while the group ate breakfast. Some of the guests helped Ella place five large pans near the door of the hogan. On top of three of them were bundles of clean sticks.

  "Those are called 'adi'sts," Logan murmured as he joined Eden among the watchers. In the quiet of the crowd, no one noticed when he grasped her hand and squeezed it intimately. "They are short lengths of greasewood that have been cleaned and stripped of their bark and tied with damp strips of cloth. Celia will use them as stirring sticks."

  Ella brought a pan of boiling water and set it in front of the sheet which held the mixed corn meal. Celia took some of the meal and dropped it in the boiling water, using both hands, then began stirring the mixture with the 'adi'stsiin. Another woman brought a second pan of water and Celia began to mix meal into that one as well, then Esther brought in a pan of rich-looking, yellow-brown liquid which Logan identified as white sugar syrup, and a little of this was added to each pan of batter. Then more pans of boiling water were brought in and soon six women were mixing.

  More guests arrived, and there was some confusion while the new arrivals and some of the earlier guests took turns eating lunch, more fresh lamb and a few simple vegetable dishes. Eden noted that some women continued the mixing the whole time, replacing one another at the mixing pans. Only Celia and her grandmother-mentor, her “ideal woman'' never left the mixing. Soon Ella declared the batter mixed and the women began working the now-cooled batter with freshly scrubbed fingers, working out any lumps they might find, while Albert Redhorse cleaned the firepit.

  Rosa entered with a kettle of water in which bundles of cornhusks were soaking. "Those husks were saved from last year's corn crop," Logan whispered as Rosa and Esther began the process of straightening cornhusks. Then Ella declared the batter finished and the women left the stirring, allowing the batter to "ferment."

  It was then that the women began making ceremonial crosses of the cornhusks. Eden found the process fascinating. Each cross was made of four husks, laid out with the tip of one parallel to the wide end of the other. These were crossed by two others and the intersecting sections were stitched. A second cross was made in the same way.

  Much of the day had passed and the shadows were already lengthening when Ella knelt at the north end of the firepit and began preparing it for the 'alkaan. It was a complicated process involving cleaning out the fire, cleansing the pit and lining it first with paper, then with one of the cornhusk crosses—presented, Logan told Eden, in a "blessing manner"—and finally lining the whole pit with cornhusks.

  Eden worked with the other women as they cooperated to carry eleven large pans full of batter to the pit where Frank Manypersons led the men in carefully pouring the batter onto the prepared husks. As the batter overflowed the space created for it, the women added cornhusk, lining the side of the pit until finally the pouring was complete. Then everyone joined in the ritual of adding the raisins onto the corn cake. Finally Ella took the remaining bit of ground meal from her ceremonial basket and blessed the batter. Then the women helped her cover the finished 'alkaan with another layer of cornhusks, finishing it off with the blessing cross.

  Over the 'alkaan and the cornhusk layer, the watch
ers layered on more paper, then fresh, moist earth and a layer of live coals, topping it all with chips of wood, which immediately burst into flame. With the 'alkaan now safely cooking, Celia began her evening run, followed by a small crowd of the little children, and a boy from the remaining children was selected to walk to the opposite side of the wash to bring back a four-inch piece of cut "soapweed," or yucca root and some rocks.

  Celia and the boy returned at about the same time. A late supper was served and the men filled the 'alkaan pit with the dirt that remained piled around it. It was well after dark when the men built a bonfire, which Logan told her would be kept burning throughout the night.

  "They're getting ready to put the ceremonial blanket over the door of the hogan," he said. "This is the Biji, or special night, so once the singing begins, no one will be allowed to leave. Are you ready to go in?"

  "Yes," she said, adding, "Logan, thank you for bringing me."

  "Are you really enjoying this?" he asked.

  She nodded. "More than I imagined. There's so much warmth here, so much sense of community. And everyone has been so kind. Even your grandmother."

  "I know. She surprised me, too. But I think you really impressed her when you climbed into the pit and started helping."

  "It seemed like the thing to do." Eden warned at his approval.

  "You certainly impressed me," he said, and the look in his eyes was enigmatic. "Come. Let's go inside for the singing." He took her hand and led her into his grandmother's hogan.

  Chapter Nine

  Logan sat beside Eden in the crowded hogan, filled with awe. She was singing—in Navajo! She had been singing most of the night. He knew she did not recognize the words she sang, yet she had paid close attention and had learned the syllables of repeating refrains in the various Blessingway songs. Sometimes she whispered quietly to him, asking for translations of the words and ideas, and he did his best in rendering them. Now Eden was participating as fully as most of the Dineh women.

  The "special" or Biji night had not really started until the other singers arrived. Then, with the arrival of Freddie Nez and Johnny Bitsilly, the women had served a light meal of mutton, fry bread, and coffee while others brought in small items they would need for the night's ceremonies.

  Throughout that long first round of singing, Eden had stayed brightly alert and wide awake beside him, drinking in the details of the eons-old ceremony that surged around them in a combination of modern mirth and ancient solemnity. His mind quelled with awe as he watched her first mouthing and then singing the sacred words, and his heart swelled with tenderness toward her when the pouch of blessed corn pollen was passed "in a sacred manner," and Eden reverently passed it on, as though she deemed herself unworthy to partake.

  Clearly, he had underestimated this belagaana.

  It had been both a surprise and a delight to him to watch her yesterday as she grabbed a shovel and joined his grandmother in preparing the 'alkaan pit, and it had been even more satisfying to watch his grandmother's changing attitude.

  So occupied in her role as "ideal woman" that she had barely looked up when they first came in, Ella Redhorse had turned toward Eden minutes later with a look so full of suspicion and abject disdain that Logan had been grateful Eden's head was turned. Later, when Eden had begun to dig the pit, Ella had jerked around in sharp surprise, and it had amazed Logan that she had said nothing, but had accepted Eden's help. Still later, when it had come time for the first cleansing of the jewelry and Eden had presented Celia with her beautiful and thoughtful gift, Ella had looked toward Eden with grudging respect and approval. Later, as they finished the first round of singing, his grandmother had watched them together, quietly assessing. He wondered what she saw when she looked at them now.

  With Frank Manypersons' declaration, "K'ad ni" ("It is finished"), Celia had risen and quietly left the hogan, ending the first round of singing so that others were free to rise and move about, or even leave the hogan if they wished. Eden had gone out with the other women. When she had returned a short while later, she was chatting amiably with Esther and her sister, Rosa. That had astonished him almost as much as her digging, and it pleased him more than he could say. He was delighted that she was earning the respect of his family, but their respect had forced him to reassess his own.

  What did you expect? he asked himself warily, and he was ashamed for he feared he knew the answer.

  He knew his grandmother had been wrong about her. Eden was not like other belagaanas who laughed behind their hands at his people. Yet, as he watched his grandmother preparing the soapweed for Celia's final cleansing, he knew he had not really expected much better than his grandmother had. He had not invited Eden to the kinaalda because, in his heart of hearts, he had feared she would be like some he had known who outwardly professed respect for his traditions, then in the same breath spoke of "quaint native ways" or used "primitive" and "civilized" to contrast the customs of his people with their own. Thank goodness for the wisdom of his fourteen-year-old sister who had seen more than he had.

  Logan turned his attention to Celia and his heart swelled with pride in the little sister he hardly knew. She was completing the final cleansing ceremony that would make her a fit wife for a man of the People. In an older generation, Celia's marriage would likely have been arranged by the time she reached this point, and he suddenly felt grateful that some of the traditions of his people had changed. It was a blessing that Celia would have time to grow before she took on all the responsibilities of womanhood.

  He and Eden joined in for the Yikai yischii yisin, “The Song of the Birth of Dawn," while Celia carefully washed her hands and face and his grandmother rinsed Celia's freshly scrubbed hair with clear water and squeezed it dry, preparing her for the final dawn run.

  Thank you, Celia, Logan acknowledged quietly. Had it not been for your charity, I would never have known Eden as I do now. He failed to wonder if that was a good thing, or just another way of breaking his heart.

  A few of the smaller children, who had fallen asleep during the night's singing, were awakened to run with Celia as she raced into the gathering dawn. While she was gone, some of the women removed the sudsy water and prepared for the day. Ella Redhorse took a place near a small basket and began shaving bits of a piece of white clay into it, preparing for the dleesh, or white clay painting. Logan and Eden joined a group of watchers who went to the firepit to uncover the 'alkaan.

  As the guests stood about commenting on the readiness and consistency of the huge corn cake, someone mentioned that the pollen needed to be readied for the next pollen blessing, which would take place when Celia returned.

  "Will it be all right if I take the pollen, too?" Eden asked Logan. An expectant hush fell over the group as Logan turned to Frank Manypersons for the answer. The singer paused, appearing to consider and then gave a single, solemn nod, as the group responded with murmurs of general approval.

  "Come," Logan told her. "Let's step aside so I can show you how to take the pollen in a sacred manner."

  "I've been watching," Eden answered. "I think I can do it."

  "Show me," he said, and she did, pantomiming the motions. Again Logan felt his chest fill with pride—and sadness. This woman was so much of what he had looked for, had longed for, yet she could not bridge the past to the future as he had promised his generations. He still had to let her go, only now he knew it would be like amputating a part of himself to send this lovely woman away.

  "Yes, you have it right," he whispered, barely containing the emotion in his voice. Oh, Eden, my paradise, you have so much of it right.

  The watchers called out that the runners were returning and the guests reassembled in the hogan for more singing and the final pollen blessing. Logan could not remember a blessing that had held such meaning for him. His hands shook slightly as he held the pouch for Eden. He remembered his grandmother once telling him that any ceremony meant more when you conducted it for one whom you loved. And I love her, he acknowledged, if only
to himself, as he watched her take the pollen in a sacred manner and pass it on to bless the next of the guests.

  When the singing and blessing were concluded, the watchers all filed outside to the firepit where the corn cake was swept off with a broom of greasewood twigs, then cut by Celia and her mother and grandmother according to a prescribed pattern, a long strip being taken off the eastern side and cut into portions, then distributed among the crowd. Most of the 'alkaan was left to cool while the group ate a meal of fry bread, corn mush, and the small pieces of 'alkaan the kinaalda had served them.

  During this meal was the only time the old habit of segregating the men and women during feasting was observed, and he felt sadness at their separation when Eden left him to eat with the other women, yet he did not worry about casting the belagaana among strangers. Already Rosa and Esther were treating Eden as if she were one of them. He shook his head again in amazement, stunned all over again by how much she seemed like one of the People, almost as if she had been born to his traditions as much as he had.

  The meal ended and people began to gather in the hogan. "What now?" Eden asked as she joined him. He had expected wariness, or, after their near-sleepless night, at least weariness, but Eden still looked as fresh as she had the morning before. Her hair draped about her face with an easy, natural swing and her eyes were bright and untouched from their hours of watching vigil. She had never looked lovelier.

  Tenderness welled as he took her hand. "It's time for the painting," he answered.

  "Ah, the dleesh."

  "How did you know that?" he asked. He thought of the way she had spoken to the snake at White House and wondered again if this woman had some supernatural power.

  "Rosa told me," she answered sensibly, and settled beside him.

  Instantly he felt foolish, but even more so when he could not quite banish the sensation that there was something of the otherworld about Eden.