Spirit Quest

by Jennifer Frick-Ruppert

  With my stomach full and my obligation to the head table completed, I was free to join Ascopo and wander around the village. We found Keetrauk contentedly resting on the ground, leaning back against the wall of the wigwam along with his brother Tetszo. Both were from the fish clan and had fish names; not surprisingly, they were good fishermen and leaders of this expedition. Keetrauk was named for the catfish, Tetszo for mullet. With everyone relaxed and full of food, now was the time for a suggestion.

  “How are those great big pashockshin caught?” I asked the two men, winking at Ascopo.

  “Oh, now that is fun,” Keetrauk said. “We spear them from the canoe.”

  Tetszo added, “But a fish as big as the one eaten tonight can’t be hoisted up on a spear as we do with the small ones. With one of those monsters, you have to jump out of the canoe and lift the big fish in with your arms. It takes a lot of shoving and grunting to get the beast into the canoe. Got to watch those teeth, too. They are sharp!”

  “Do you remember the first time we took Chaham night fishing for pashockshin?” Keetrauk asked.

  “I will never forget it. That is when we knew he was going to be a great fisherman like us. He is still young, but he is already accomplished, and since he is named for the shad fish, his prowess will only grow,” Tetszo added proudly. “It was his first trip as one of the spearmen in the canoe. As we glided over a shoal, he said that he saw a giant pashockshin buried in the sand. I asked why he didn’t strike it, and didn’t believe him when he said it was too big to lift into the canoe. I even laughed when he said that our canoe had passed near its tail, but its head was too far away to strike. ‘Chaham,’ I said to him, ‘it can’t be that big!’ But he said, ‘Yes, sir, it is. Please back the canoe so that I can hit its head.’ I chuckled, but maneuvered as he indicated, and when he struck with the spear, there was never so much thrashing and splashing and water flipping up everywhere! Chaham and the other spearman jumped overboard into the water and together they lifted and shoved the biggest pashockshin I have ever seen into that canoe. I don’t mind admitting that I was astounded.”

  “Yeah, and next time Chaham said he saw a big fish, you believed him,” Keetrauk added.

  “You bet I did,” Tetszo agreed.

  “But the chigwusso are usually caught in the weirs with the mesickek, aren’t they?” Ascopo asked the two men.

  “Yes, Ascopo,” Tetszo answered. “To learn how to build and set a weir is an art. To build one correctly and fish it successfully requires knowledge and skill that you can only gain by practice. Because it has been so long since we visited our weirs at the coast, it is likely they have degraded, so we will no doubt start your training with repair work.”

  “But I thought women fished the weirs in the streams that empty onto the Chowan,” I said.

  “Everyone needs to know the fishing weir, Skyco. You are correct that women often set the weirs in the small, freshwater creeks, but we men set a different version of the weirs in the sound where the bigger fish run. There, we build our fence of strong stakes and weave a larger and stronger basket, or pen, out of rope and saplings. Our weir must be strong enough to hold a fish as large as a man, and we must be strong enough to manage them! It is nearly time for the striped bass, the mesickek, to start their yearly movements, coming in the inlets and making their way up to the rivers where they spawn. Those are the fish we are going after this time. They are as big as men, silver with dark stripes. Their meat dries well and we will take it back to the village to eat until our crops are ripe. The spring is the season of mesickek.”

  Tetszo paused and glanced up at the trees, then looked around at Ascopo and me, careful to get our attention.

  “Notice, boys, that the wind has dropped. In the absence of wind and choppy waves, we will cross the sound rapidly and without the danger of overturning the canoes. We have two days of heavy paddling ahead of us. Tomorrow night we will stop at the halfway point, the village of Ricahokene, and the next night we will be at our fishing camp. Once there, you will night fish for pashockshin, and the next day you will be setting the weir to fish for mesickek.”

  Ascopo nearly leapt up in delight.

  “Night fishing!” he cried excitedly. “I can hardly wait!”

  Manchauemec said, “You boys had better find something to occupy your time. You’ll drive yourselves insane with waiting unless you focus on some other project.”

  “Let’s go check Metackwem’s palisade, then. If we built one of them around our village, I could get interested in carving!” Ascopo said.

  “I know what you mean. The palisade is impressive, but you know that we will never build it because when we host the other villages of the tribe, the huge increase of visitors swells the size of our village,” I replied. “We couldn’t build a palisade large enough to hold them all.”

  “We could still have a palisade and just have the temporary wigwams set up outside it,” he argued.

  “Well, let’s see how it is built. Maybe you can make the suggestion to Menatonon when we get back,” I suggested.

  “Or maybe I will just wait until there is a new chief,” he smirked.

  Because Metackwem was located close to enemy Mangoak territory, the villagers built a palisade, or wall of posts, around their village to protect it. To build the wall, they had cut down trees and removed all their branches, which was a major undertaking. They set these posts side-by-side, with the base of each post buried in the ground and the top sharpened to a point. Each post was about three times as tall as a man. There were two openings into the palisade, one to the east and one to the west, and to enter the village, a single person could just fit through the narrow chute. At night, all the villagers retreated inside the ring of trees that they had essentially planted around their village. The palisade made a sturdy wall of defense should the tribe be attacked by enemy warriors. Only the wigwams and central fire were inside the wall, which kept the size of the palisade manageable. The crop fields and the dancing circle were outside it.

  Ascopo pointed out that we could build a palisade around our own village and still accommodate additional people during celebrations because the temporary wigwams were set up near the crop fields, which would be outside the palisade, rather than inside the protected center of the village. One aspect of the palisade bothered me.

  “Ascopo, don’t you find it surprising that Metackwem’s palisade has gaps between the posts that are large enough for an enemy’s arrow to penetrate? Seems like the village is unnecessarily vulnerable.”

  Ascopo looked doubtful and replied, “Perhaps, but the enemy warrior would need to be close to the palisade in order to shoot through it and would have to cross the open fields. There are guards stationed at each opening, and they would certainly see enemies coming before they were close enough to shoot.”

  “What if, instead of a palisade, we envisioned it as a weir? Did you hear Tetszo describe how they wove rope and saplings between the sticks of the weir and made the whole fish trap strong enough to hold a big fish the size of a man? What if we did that here and made the palisade impenetrable?”

  Ascopo thought for a moment and smiled at me. “That is a good idea, Skyco, something that a chief might think of as a way to protect his tribe. I like how you put together a village palisade and a fish weir, because they don’t seem alike at all, yet what you propose might just work! It is a good improvement to the basic structure they have here.”

  As I fell asleep that night, I felt rather proud of myself. The extra time in Metackwem was not wasted after all; it had given me some ideas.

  The next morning, we departed early and almost immediately gained the sound. It looked immense, with the water stretching away from us in all directions. I could still see land on each side of us, but straight ahead was only an endless expanse of water. We encountered a few small waves in the sound that splashed against the sides of the canoe, but the water’s surface was
mostly flat, unlike the previous day when the choppy waves were large enough to endanger the canoes.

  In addition to two canoes from Chowanook, two more canoes from Metackwem joined us to reduce the immediate demand on their village’s spring food supply. In the spring, food supplies are always lowest, for the winter uses up much of the preserved crop food and the new crops have yet to produce. The villagers had meat and fish available, but without the added pressure from two canoes of hungry men, the food would last longer. Each canoe held about fifteen men plus fishing gear, which was much of the adult male population from the village. The elders and boys, as well as any man whose wife was pregnant or had recently given birth, stayed behind with the women to continue to provide game animals to eat. In each canoe, ten men usually paddled while five rested and they changed places as the paddlers tired. In this fashion, we kept moving the entire day.

  I paddled for a while, learning to coordinate my stroke with the others so that our paddles dipped in the water at the same time. Since I was shorter, my strokes were also shorter, and I had to pay attention to keep in time. To help us keep rhythm, we often chanted a song that had an accented beat, “Hey-um-HUH!, Hey-um-HUH!” We dipped in our paddles and pulled with each forceful “HUH!” We kept along the northern edge of the sound, traveling in Weapemeoc territory, but where a river opened up or a bay formed along the shore, we cut across the mouth to shorten our trip.

  We carried water, dried berries, and dried strips of smoked deer meat in the canoe, eating and drinking as we needed, but that created a problem. We were paddling all day with no stops, and I had to pee. Putting it off as long as possible in the hopes that someone else would have to go first, I waited until I could no longer stand it. I leaned over to Ascopo, seated next to me and whispered, “Ascopo, do you know how we are supposed to pee?” His face turned bright red and he just shook his head, not looking me in the eye, so I leaned back toward Chaham, who was seated close by, and whispered, “Chaham, I have to pee. How do I do it?”

  Chaham laughed aloud and Manchauemec yelled from behind me, “Hey Skyco, notice all this water rushing by? Hear that sound of the water flowing? Drips of water everywhere?”

  The other men started to snigger.

  “Water sure is clear. Not a yellow streak anywhere!” Chaham said, “Just ignore them. They made bets on how long you could last. You have to stand up and pee over the side. But don’t fall out, don’t let the pee get in the canoe, and whatever you do, pee downwind so that you don’t hit someone else with it.”

  It was a lot to remember, especially when I felt like I was about to burst. I moved back so that I would be downwind of the paddlers. Balancing was tricky in a round-bottomed canoe, but I managed to wedge one foot under a basket loaded with gear so that I felt a little more secure. Lifting up my loincloth, I relaxed and the pee shot out into the water, foaming up because it hit with such force.

  “This canoe is floating higher now!” Tetszo shouted.

  “Oh, I think the water in the sound has risen, brother. That is what is happening back here.” The other men chuckled and I felt my face redden, but I could do nothing else until I was finished, and that seemed to take a long time. As soon as I sat down, however, each of the other men also had to take breaks to empty their bladders, and I felt somewhat vindicated while also embarrassed. They had been waiting on me to do it first. Even Ascopo seemed to know the joke.

  Before dusk, we could see the smoke from the village fire of Ricahokene, near the midway point along the sound. When I dipped my hand in the water and scooped up a handful to drink, it was too bitter and salty for me to swallow, and I spat it out. Ascopo saw me and tried it too, with the same result.

  Along the shoreline near the village grew a huge bank of oysters. We pulled our canoes to shore, and Chaham took both Ascopo and me with him to explore the bank. He carried a big basket and gave us each a stone tomahawk that had been flaked to make a sharp edge. There were narrow paths or channels that had been cut through the bank by prior parties of fishermen from the village, and we walked carefully along the sandy paths and knocked loose clumps of the oysters. Despite the well-worn paths, there were sharp shells scattered about and we all donned moccasins to protect our feet. We quickly filled the basket and carried it with us to the village.

  Diplomacy was a little tricky because the villagers of Ricahokene didn’t expect us. It would be easy to mistake four canoes loaded with men for a war party, and the last thing we wanted was such a misunderstanding. Now we’d see if Roncommock’s training was effective and if I really knew what I was doing. I was nervous.

  My canoe coasted slowly forward to the landing place while the other three floated back beyond the range of arrows. Men of the village had gathered on shore and they held strung bows, although they had not yet nocked in arrows. I stood up and moved slowly forward to the front of the canoe, so that the onlookers could see that I was just a boy not painted in war paint. No one in our canoe held bows, but I could see Tetszo’s hand tighten nervously on the paddle as I made myself an easy target should something get out of hand.

  I called out, “Village of Ricahokene, ruled by Ribuckon, son of Marangahockes, I come to you in peace from the Village of Chowanook. Menatonon, son of Sacquenummener, sends his regards through his heir Skyco and asks that you house us tonight. We bring oysters to the evening meal.”

  On hearing my address, the men along the bank visibly relaxed and lowered their bows. A youthful man, wearing a copper gorget that marked him as the chief, replied, “I am Ribuckon and we welcome you, Skyco. You speak well.”

  Our canoes pulled ashore and we climbed out, glad to stretch our legs after a long day of sitting in the canoe. While I went ashore a little anxiously to meet Ribuckon, the other men unloaded the oysters and other gear. Ascopo stayed with them and helped to refill the macócqwer that held our drinking water.

  I turned my attention to Ribuckon. His tattoos were extensive. Many of the men in my village were tattooed around their arms and legs, and all men are marked with the symbol of their home village on the left, back shoulder, at the conclusion of their husquenaugh. Ribuckon, however, sported extensive tattooing on his chest and stomach in addition to the tattoos that encircled his calves and upper arms. A complex coil descended from his shoulders down his chest, mimicking a necklace of wampum, and dark outlines encircled both nipples and belly button. He also wore a V-shaped mark on his forehead between his eyebrows. In total, he looked intimidating, which was the point.

  I took a deep breath, and he began to talk. He was very curious about the Mangoaks and was glad to hear that we had made a successful raid on one of their villages to avenge an attack sustained by one of the Chowanoac villages. It was important to keep a balance among the raids. We killed only the number that they had killed. While I was listening to Ribuckon, answering additional questions that did not require much thought, I suddenly wondered how war could have ever started, or how it would ever end, if we killed just the number they had killed of us, but presumably they were killing just the number that we had killed of them earlier. It was confusing, and something I would have to ask Roncommock when we returned.

  By then Ribuckon had asked all his questions and it was my turn to question him. Menatonon had specifically instructed me to ask about the Roanoacs, a tribe to the south of the sound. They were Algonquin, but both the Chowanoacs and the Weapemeocs had allied themselves together to fight the Roanoacs in the past. Ribuckon had no further news about them. They had not ventured to the north side of the sound into Weapemeoc territory, and the few contacts with them on the sandy banks did not result in bloodshed. We still held an uneasy truce.

  I liked Ribuckon and felt that our alliance would remain strong. We would support each other when I became chief. After our conversation, we walked over to the central fire, where the women of the village were already preparing the evening meal.

  Ironically, the villagers had also collected oy
sters for the evening meal, undoubtedly because they were so abundant and so near the village. They were also delicious, especially after roasting over the fire. In Chowanook, we held an oyster roast once or twice a year when the fishermen returned from the fishing expeditions, but there were always other items to eat in addition. Tonight we only ate oysters, and it took piles of them to feed us all. Ascopo and I really outdid ourselves, eating as many as the grown men. We left a huge stack of discarded oyster shells at the village’s midden and I slept like a contented bear that night.

  After another full day of paddling, we reached our fishing camp, which was located on a point of land at the eastern edge of Weapemeoc territory. Near the end of our journey, we seemed to be farthest out in the sound, more distant from the northern shore than ever before, and I grew a little anxious. I glanced over at Ascopo and thought his face revealed his discomfort too, but neither of us spoke. Soon, however, we sighted the point of land that was our destination and began to approach it. I grew more confident that we would actually reach it before the winds piped up, and when I looked over again at Ascopo, he smiled reassuringly at me.

  While Ascopo helped the other men pull up the canoes and unload gear, Tetszo took me aside.

  “One of the other important tasks for any fishing expedition is to bring back the spring leaves of the yaupon holly, with which the shamans make the black drink. The trees surround this fishing camp and we harvest their branches every year on a spring fishing expedition. Go get Ascopo and I will show you the trees while the others build up the fire.”

  I ran back to where Ascopo was unloading. “Come on! Tetszo has something to show us!” Indeed, just a few steps from where he waited, he pointed to a shrubby tree with pale bark. The trees weren’t much taller than a man and their trunks were slender and contorted. Their small leaves, borne on short, twisted branches, were about the size and shape of the last joint of my index finger. Some of the trees had bright red berries.