Talking Leaves

by Joseph Bruchac

  “What are these?” I ask.

  “Two squirrels,” Yugi replies after studying them for a while. “Ah, so that would mean someone named Two Squirrels.”

  “Yes. And who would this be?” I ask as I draw a nail.

  “Yugi,” he says, smiling for the first time as he does so. “Nail. That would be me.”

  “So,” I say, “you see how pictures can speak. And that was my father’s first idea. He would make a picture for every word. Then people could just look at those pictures and read the message.”

  Yugi strokes his chin. “That makes sense,” he says. “But how many pictures would you have to draw?”

  “Too many,” I say. “My father tried to do just that. It took him years. He is very stubborn.”

  Yugi chuckles. “I know someone else like that.”

  I am not sure what he means, but I press on, pleased that his confusion has turned to amusement.

  “That was what he was doing all those years in his little cabin, drawing pictures of our Tsalagi words. He did that until his neighbors became frightened—just like now—thinking he was doing sorcery. That was when they burned his cabin and all of the word pictures he had drawn.”

  “Ah,” Yugi says, rubbing his hands together. He’s still in agreement with me, but even this brief mention of witchcraft and the way our people respond to it is making him nervous.

  “But then my father got another idea. He saw how the Aniyonega used little signs to make their words.”

  I pause, then sing, “A, B, C, D . . .”

  Yugi nods. After all, he too has been taking those lessons in English at the missionary’s cabin. Except he has continued and gone further than me.

  “E, F, G,” he sings back to me. “The alphabet.”

  “That is right,” I say. “But instead of using letters to spell words, my father got another idea. His idea was to use alphabet letters and new designs he invented to stand for Tsalagi sounds.”

  “Sounds?” Yugi says. There is confusion on his face again. But I am no longer worried. He has come this far with me. He is not going to turn and run away.

  “Look at this,” I say.

  I have not yet mastered all of the signs for my father’s way of writing, but I know enough of them now to be able to do what needs to be done next.

  I use the charcoal to draw the sign for Yu. .

  “,” I say.

  Then I draw the next syllable. “.” Gi.

  “Aha!” Yugi says. “My name?”

  “Yes!”

  I draw three more of my father’s designs below the two that have spoken my friend’s name. “And here is how we write the name of our people. Tsalagi.”

  Yugi studies the symbols. A look has come over his face. It is like that of someone seeing the full light of dawn for the first time. His two hands let go of each other. He reaches out one finger to touch the signs for his own name. Then he touches the signs written in charcoal below it.

  “ . . . ?” he reads aloud. Then “ . . . . . . ?”

  He looks up at me. “Is it that easy?”

  “Yes,” I say. “It is that easy to read our language once you learn those symbols.”

  My friend has grasped some of what I have just shown him. But I can sense that he is not yet convinced of its importance—aside from the fact that he no longer worries that my father’s work is witchcraft. However, I can understand why he has not yet realized what my father’s creation means. It was not easy for me to realize just how vital having our own talking leaves could be.

  “Do you remember what the missionary has often told us? How reading and writing is a useful thing?” I ask.

  “It is,” Yugi agrees. “You can send messages far away, keep records of important things so that they will be remembered. Reading and writing can be used to bring people together. Our missionary has even told us that the reason the English and the Americans became so powerful is because they have reading and writing.”

  “Could being able to read and write help our people then?”

  “Of course,” Yugi says. “That is why my parents have encouraged me to go to the missionary’s school. My father has said that if we Tsalagi are able to read and write we may gain power like the white men.” He pauses. “But why would we need to read and write in Tsalagi? Things can already be written in English.”

  “How many of our people can speak English as well as a white person?” I ask him.

  “Very few,” he says, shaking his head. “It is a hard language to learn. It does not make sense the way Tsa-lagi does.”

  “Do most of our people want to learn English?”

  Yugi shakes his head again. “Most of our people do not trust writing in the English language. They say it is just used to deceive us. When we make agreements with the white men and they write them down, the things they write are seldom what we agreed to.”

  “But if our people could use our own language in our own way, read and write in Tsalagi, might they want to learn then?”

  Yugi strokes his chin. “Uh-huh,” he says. “They might. They might, indeed!”

  He slaps his hands together so suddenly that it startles me. “Yes,” he says. “Yes!”

  If the light I saw in his eyes before was like the first rays of dawn, what is shining from his face now is as bright as noon on a cloudless summer day!

  Yugi takes me by the arm. “My friend,” he says. “I am sorry I doubted you. How can I help?”

  CHAPTER 20

  Learning

  The sun is in my heart now. My friend no longer doubts me and may even be my ally. I have won one small victory. I am smiling as I watch him walk away. He turns once to touch his chest and then waves at me.

  Yes.

  But this has been only the first battle I have to fight. I know that what comes next will not be easy. The next thing I have to do is convince my mother.

  The white men do not understand just how important women are among the Tsalagi. In their world, women seem to have little power. Their main jobs are to take care of the homes and raise the children. They make none of the important decisions and they seem to own nothing—not even themselves.

  It is very different among our people. One of our oldest stories tells of First Man and First Woman.

  They lived together happily. But then one day, First Man did something that upset First Woman.

  “You have hurt my feelings. I will live with you no longer,” First Woman said. Then she turned her face to the east and walked away.

  First Man was immediately sorry. But he could not stop her. He followed her to apologize, but he could not catch up to her. So he looked around for help. He looked up to the sky to Une’lahun’ne, the Sun, who is the oldest and wisest of all the women.

  “Great One,” First Man said to the Sun, “help me.”

  Sun saw that First Man truly was sorry and so she decided to help him. She shone down on the earth in front of First Woman to make huckleberries grow in her path. But First Woman did not stop. The Sun made blackberries grow and serviceberries, but First Woman just kept walking. It was not until Sun made strawberries, which spread across the ground in front of her, that First Woman paused. Those berries smelled sweet and each was the shape of a heart. As soon as First Woman tasted them, she remembered her husband and she could go no farther. She turned her face back to the west. She began to gather some of those berries to share with him.

  So it was that First Man was finally able to catch up to her.

  “I am sorry,” he said.

  “Have some of these,” First Woman replied.

  So it is that ever since then the first berries to ripen every year are the strawberries. And when we pick them, they remind us of the importance of being kind to one another . . . and of the strength of women.

  Among our people, it is the women who are the heads of o
ur households. They are the owners of the house. Every child belongs to his or her mother’s clan. When a man marries, he goes to live in his wife’s house among the people of her clan. If her husband does not behave properly, a woman can end their marriage. Then her husband must leave her house and go home to his mother. That is why my father had to leave when his marriage to my mother was ended.

  In so many ways, our women have always been at the head of our people. None of our leaders could ever take office without the approval of the women. It is true that some things have changed since the coming of the Aniyonega. The Beloved Woman no longer sits in council next to the chief, but the power of our women is still great.

  So, now that Yugi has gone back to his mother’s house, it is to my own mother that I must go. As I walk along I am putting together my words, gathering them one by one. By the time my mother’s cabin comes in sight, I am certain of what I have to say. But as soon as I walk through the door and my mother looks at me—in that way of hers which suggests that she is reading my mind—I cannot remember even one of the fine words I have been stringing together like the shells in a necklace.

  “Ah,” I say, “ah . . .”

  My mother turns her head sideways to study me. I feel ever more uncertain. Then she smiles. “Sit, my son. You look hungry.”

  I had not realized it, but like almost everything my mother says, her words are true. As soon as I sit down at her table, my mouth is watering and my spoon is in my hand. I eat the corn bread and the rabbit stew that she places in front of me as if I was starving. Food is such a great gift from the Creator that when one eats, that food is all that one should think about. And so it is with me. Eating my mother’s good food is the only thing in my thoughts until I pick up the last golden crumb from my plate and run my finger along the edge of the bowl for the last drop of stew.

  But now that I have finished eating, now that my bowl is empty and I am sitting across from my mother, now I have to turn my thoughts back to the reason I just came back home.

  I look over at her. Her face is calm. I’m not sure that mine is.

  “Mother,” I say . . . and that is as much as I can manage to say. I swallow and try again. “Mother . . .” I hold my breath.

  “Yes, Uwohali,” my mother says, “that is who I am.” Then she smiles and that smile of hers is so reassuring and says so much that I am able to breathe again and relax.

  “Do you know what I want to talk to you about?” I ask her.

  In reply she reaches down into her lap and lifts up a piece of paper, a very familiar piece of paper that she places on the table between us. It is the sheet on which I have been practicing my father’s designs. I should have known that there was no place in her house that I could hide anything from my mother. I bite my lip, but the smile has not disappeared from her face. She doesn’t seem to be upset or afraid of those markings that struck such terror into the hearts of some of our people that they have been speaking even louder about . . . doing something.

  “My son,” she says, “your father was not a good husband, but that was not because I feared him or the things he did. Even when he was drunk, he never lost his gentle nature. Our marriage could not last because he cared so much about other things that there seemed to be no space in his life for his family. Now it seems he is a better father than he was back then. I have heard how devoted he is to your half sister. And if he has shared these . . . markings . . . with you, I do not believe that he intends any harm. I believe he is trying to be a father to you as well.”

  I nod my head. My eyes are moist. “That is what I believe, too,” I say, my voice a little choked as I do so.

  “Osdadu,” my mother says. “Good.” She taps her finger on the paper that lies on the table between us but has not come between us. “Now tell me about these markings.”

  “Gahgayyouee, Etsi!” I say. “I love you, mother.” And then, like a stream that was dammed and has finally broken through, my words spill out so fast I can hardly stop talking. I share with her my father’s belief in the importance of writing and reading our own language. I explain how each design stands for a sound in our language just like the English alphabet. How my little sister, Ahyokah, is helping my father. How I have become determined to help him, too. I tell her how I have managed to convince my friend Yugi that it is not witchcraft. But there are still so many of our people who do not understand, who think my father, Sequoyah, is insane or doing evil magic.

  And that is why I have come to her.

  “Nothing good,” I say, “can ever be done among our people if our mothers do not understand and help us,” I say.

  I’ve probably said too much. For one, my mother, intelligent as she is, has never been interested in reading and writing English.

  “All those sounds in English are so strange,” she has said in the past. “I can speak some of their words, but those scratches like little insects on their talking leaves look too hard to learn for an old woman like me.”

  So my comparing my father’s writing to the English alphabet probably meant nothing to her. But the look on my mother’s face is not one of confusion. There is agreement in her eyes that I should try to follow my father’s path. She believes—because I believe it—that his work can bring good to our Tsalagi people! And there is also this other look on her face that I know very well. She is looking up at the ceiling—not to see what is up there, but because she is making a plan.

  I wait while she is thinking. Then she shakes her head.

  “It will not be easy,” my mother says. “There are people whose minds are so hardened against your father that it will take much work to get them to change. There are even some who want to take matters into their own hands.”

  My mother grasps my shoulders with her strong hands. “So you must be careful where you go now. Do not go into those sections of our town where those who are whispering about witchcraft live. Avoid the trails where someone might lie in wait. I cannot tell your father this. He believes that his good intentions will protect him. But you, my stubborn son, you must be wiser to protect yourself—and perhaps your innocent father, as well. So, if you are now going to follow your father’s path, you must promise me that you will take care.”

  “I promise,” I say, a lump in my throat as I say it. But I say it with certainty. My mother’s words have both made me more aware of the dangers of helping my father and more certain that this is the work I must do.

  My mother sighs. “Hawa,” she says. “Okay.” She presses her lips together. “Now,” she says, “you say that your friend Yugi understands this work and wants to help you.”

  “Yes, but his father has told him to stay away from me.”

  “Women’s work,” my mother says. “That is what is needed now.” She stands up and dusts off her apron. It’s what she always does after she has been cooking. Of course there is no flour on that apron right now that needs to be cleaned off. But I understand. She is not thinking of flour, but the foolish thoughts that need to be cleared away from the minds of our people.

  “Come along,” she says. “We are going to the house of Nancy Youngbird.”

  Nancy Youngbird is Yugi’s mother. My mother and Yugi’s mother are cousins and belong to the same clan—as do Yugi and I, of course. But Yugi’s mother is several years younger. As a result she has always looked up to my mother as a wiser older sister.

  My mother is a very forceful person. Now that I think of it, I suppose some of my own stubbornness also comes from her. Once her mind is made up, it might as well be carved into stone.

  Yugi and I are on the ground in front of his mother’s cabin. We’ve drawn a circle in the dirt and are supposedly playing marbles. But neither of us is paying much attention to our shots. We are listening to the conversation our mothers have been having on the front porch as they sit together working on a quilt. My mother has explained what my father has been doing even better than I explained
it to her. They’ve looked over at us once or twice during the conversation. And out of the corners of our eyes we’ve seen that the expression on their faces were those every son likes to see—protective, approving, perhaps a little surprised at how grown up their little boys have become.

  “So, you will talk to your husband?” my mother finally asks, snipping a thread as she did so. The way she says that is not really a question.

  “It would be good for me to talk to him,” Yugi’s mother replies. “Could you hand me that patch?”

  My mother does so and for a time there is no sound but the smooth hissing of needles and thread through cloth.

  “So,” my mother asks, “we are in agreement?”

  And as Yugi’s mother sews on a patch of the quilt, which depicts a rising sun, she firmly nods her head. “We are in agreement, my older sister,” she says.

  My mother stands up and dusts off her apron.

  “Osdadu,” she says. And then my mother and I leave.

  It is the next day. Yugi is telling me about what happened when his father came home.

  “I was eager to hear what my mother would say to my father,” Yugi says. “But that was not to be. As soon as my father walked in, my mother turned to me.

  “‘My son,’ she said. ‘I need you to run an errand for me. Go now!’”

  Yugi shakes his head in amusement. “So I went, leaving my mother alone with my father—who already looked confused about what was going on. I walked down to the river, tossed a few rocks into the water, and then tried drawing some of your father’s symbols in the mud. Finally, when I thought I had been gone long enough, I went back home. My mother was in the kitchen sweeping up the pieces of several dishes that had somehow been broken. There was a little smile on her face that she tried to hide by turning away as I came into the cabin.