by LeAnne Howe
“Father, I have bad news,” says Jean-Marie Critches.
“A moment please,” says Renoir.
...we traveled long hours, savage style, for eight days until reaching the place they call Yanàbi Town. Four nights ago hundreds of the Chahtas, from twenty other villages, arrived and built fires and shelters close to the site where the ceremony was to take place so they could participate in the ritual singing for a headwoman, some kind of honored woman among her people. Many other savages were scaffolded here including those who had died of old age or disease. While not knowing their ways, I observed more than three bone pickers among the villagers.
Before sunrise three days ago the Chahta assembled in small circles of twenty or thirty mourners, kneeling around drums of hollowed-out cypress and stretched skins. The beaters used wooden rods to make the drums sound dichotic, and the clatter of wood was sometimes earsplitting. Both men and women then placed blankets over their heads and cried and sang with ten or twelve voices tracking each other in diaphonic tones, sustaining a timbre a hundred times more powerful than the choirs of Notre Dame. I was hypnotized. Such feelings of loneliness I have never known before. It was terribly mournful, almost romantic, like the intermittent howling of mated wolves. I think I’ve learned the specific cries for the dead. Seated within proximity of the singers were pipe-smoking savages, harping to one another, their strident voices ripping through my very soul. For no matter what Father Baudouin says, the Chahta language is incredibly foreign, spit out of the mouth one syllable at a time.
Then there are the camp noises: barking dogs and clanging pony-bells on the horses and the high-pitched glee of the savage children. Child’s play is not what one thinks of when one watches their games. Their games imitate all aspects of savage life. Hunting. Killing. Making war. Gambling. Giving birth, the savage child’s version of playing house. I observed a tiny girl perhaps four or five, pretending to be in labor. She was lying on her back, propped up by two young companions who were softly encouraging her in the delivery. The girl’s legs were spread apart and she moaned and grunted as if this thing were happening to her. A truer imitation I have never seen. Another child was playing the role of a doctor, waving a kind of feather fan over her. Two other small girls were helping pull the imaginary baby out from the child’s legs. I watched in awe, thinking how at their young ages, they had probably all witnessed many such births. Extraordinary. All this childishness going on while in the background their parents sang for the dead.
Two more days and nights we waited. The wailing and hoarse quavering continued, straining against our ears, ringing in unison with a thousand different sounds of the night forest.
Father Baudouin and I were huddled together for hours, sometimes roused at midnight by savages who shoved clay pots of food in our faces that we were forced to eat. Father Baudouin says it is considered a grave insult to refuse their food. Sometimes we were overlooked entirely.
Winter solstice came, 22 of December, 1738. At sunset, an old bone picker known as Koi Chitto, meaning Big Panther, finally climbed the scaffold and began to pick the bones of his dead wife, the headwoman called Shakbatina, whose remains have been left out in the open since September. This is the same woman who gave her life to avert a war between the Chicachas and Chahta when her daughter, Anoleta, was accused of murdering a Red Fox woman. All sorts of animals, birds mostly, have already destroyed Shakbatina’s corpse. What remained, the bone picker himself pulled apart and cleaned and painted. He is the father of Neshoba, the woman who has helped me understand their ways.
“Excuse me, Father, but your writing must wait,” says the soldier. “A messenger from the Conchas just arrived. He is near collapse, but informs us that the devil Red Shoes...”
Father Renoir raises his hand to silence the Swiss soldier. He’s already been told. It is the reason he has come to a decision about his future.
“Did the Concha say anything else?”
“I interrogated him myself, Father. He said a messenger brought the words to him. He was very much distressed by the news of warfare between the Chicachas and Chahta tribes.”
“Jean-Marie, if you will be so kind as to wait for one moment, I will explain.”
... Once the ritual was over many of the Chahtas carried fire in baskets to each other to signal the beginning of the feast which is continuing as I write. If I am correct, the Chahtas worship, among other things, Hashtali, whose eye is the Sun, and Miko Luak, fire. When the ceremony was completed, they set pine fires and burnt cedar incense all around us. Whiffs of burnt honey drift in the air and mix with the aroma of roasted nuts, herbs, cooked meats, and their special tobacco.
I am convinced now that Chahtas pay more respect to their dead than any other race. To them the bones of their relatives are holy. Proof that they existed in the past as they will exist forever. They are extraordinary people, so beautiful with their long flowing hair, I can hardly believe that it is my destiny to live among them. But it is, thus I go to seek my future with a woman called Neshoba. Her name means “She-wolf,” or Protector. To find love, the temperatures of one’s skin changes throughout the day, like a blush.
Renoir marks out the last paragraph, making sure it is illegible. No use in leaving behind evidence that will disgrace his father in Quebec. It’s better if his father thinks he was killed still honoring the Society of Jesus. He begins again, this time writing hastily, as if these are daily entries.
• Chicachas were barricaded in their fort at Octibea, 10 of September, 1737. The people of the Red Fox and the Yanàbi people were at the heart of this conflict.
• Our Chahta chiefs appear to be stirred up against the Chicachas more than ever. They often bring scalps—but considering what it costs the French in war expenses, how long can we pay the price...? 1746
• Critches has informed me today, 22 of June, 1747, of the death of the Chief of the Alibamu Conchatys who thought himself stronger than the brandy which killed him. All the chiefs, fearing that they will not get brandy, have fallen into debauchery. Deprived of this drink, the chiefs and warriors will surely kill each other to the last man, woman, and child.
Red Shoes and his English trader Elsley are involved in this chicanery. His iksa brother, Imataha Pouscouche, brings another pack train with English brandy and muskets into the region, but our allies say he has not arrived yet. Since the savages never drink before night for fear of the sun’s rays, I expect the rampage to begin shortly after dark. Because the summer solstice is upon us, perhaps I will be able to reach them before nightfall and stop the madness. The battle field will be...? I am taking Neshoba, the daughter of the headwoman Shakbatina, as my guide. Neshoba has taught me well the language, she still knows the country better than most Frenchmen. God grant me safe passage.
Renoir carefully rolls his book and pen in his blanket, and gives the journal to Jean-Marie. “I am not going with you. I leave with the Chahta woman. We will take the children and the infirm to safety. In case something happens to me, if I am killed, I want you to deliver this to Father Baudouin. Tell him my written words are true.”
He slings his bedroll over his shoulder and bids farewell to Jean-Marie. He has no way of knowing if his countrymen will be able to pass on his documents, his lies to history and the French Province of Louisiana. He reasons that it is best for France and the Church not to know that the greed of their faith is causing the demise of Indian tribes. Even though he is leaving his religion, he cannot bring himself to speak ill of it. Besides, why would anyone believe that Indians degenerate over brandy more so than other races? Drink is the common debauchery of all people. This will just be remembered as another war with the godless English, and the Indians.
Renoir’s senses burn as he walks across the humid black Earth to find Neshoba. Tonight he is taking the trip that will surely kill him, at least in the eyes of the Society of Jesus. Images of his beloved whirl around him. She converted him to her ways, that much is true. He will move into her house. Become her man. Learn her wa
ys. He can almost feel her opening herself up to him again. The taste of her breasts, her two little scoops of wheat, and the luxuriant abundance between her legs. When they embrace she whispers, “Inki Cheets, Inki Cheets.” Inki for father, Cheets for Jesuit, the Chahtas having no J. He thinks the Chahta are enchanting people—the way they talk, the way they believe everything is related to them. He doesn’t know if it is possible but he intends to faire peau neuve, try and grow new skin and believe as they do.
Renoir recalls his Paris of poets and the poor. His vows to St. Ignatius. Why had he been sent here? To serve God, the only answer he was given. He will pray for amnesty, but he knows his God is asleep. Has been for centuries. He looks up at the sky. Flakes of stars are burning away as pink daylight approaches. Rain is coming, he smells it. Self-absorbed, he nearly slips in the dew-covered fields close to the boat. Neshoba sees him and laughs at his clumsiness. She motions that he must hurry. Her caju, flatboat, is full of bundles and supplies that she will trade up and down the river. She is surrounded by black-haired children holding onto her like a sail in the wind. Bili, her niece, is his favorite. A chubby little child, she has the most graceful of strides. He will teach her to read and write; maybe in the future she will call him “mon Père.” Who knows? He steps onto the caju. Silently Neshoba pushes them away from shore. Renoir studies her broad, exquisite face, her full lips that pout for no reason. Surely he has died and gone to heaven.
“Yes, death, please,” he repeats in her language.
Neshoba stares suspicioiusly. “Why do you pray to die?”
Dawn.
Anoleta, along with two hundred warriors, has been walking most of the night. She struggles to cross a log with her burden basket strapped across her forehead. It’s fully loaded with powder horns, several pounds of corn, water skins, and two hatchets. One is for her, the other is for Haya. If necessary, they will wield them against their enemies.
Mud clings to her toes and she falls on the slippery bark, but gets up unharmed. She straightens her load and looks around. There is a line of swamp, about two leagues long, that must be endured in order to reach the Alibamu Conchatys. Through a steaming curtain of hot rain the swamp looks more like a massive green wall than anything else. Impenetrable, with brackish water canals, this swamp might once have communicated with the sea.
Along the route, the arteries of runny mud clot like dying blood. Many warriors she passes sit silently on the wet ground waiting for the rain to cease. Others have covered themselves in the sticky black goo and are dozing like shukata, opossums, in the mosquito-laden trees along the edge of the bayou. They are almost invisible. After her failure with Red Shoes nine years ago there was no more talk of the Intek Aliha finishing him. No one believed he would return to her. They were right. People no longer speak about Red Shoes to her, it’s as if he never happened—but he did, and he caused the death of her mother. She has never given up hope of fulfilling her promise to Shakbatina.
She heaves her basket atop a giant broken cypress knee, now a stump, and sits at its base. This is the kind of swamp her mother and father were most at home in. They loved watching panthers loll in the arms of cypress trees; they didn’t mind cutting through spider webs the size of her cabin. When she was little, they’d take a caju up and down the Atchafalaya, Long River, trading everything from beehives to bear oil to alligator hides. Sometimes they’d be gone for a month or more. When they’d return, Shakbatina would press tiny river pearls into her hands and tell her to save them for a necklace to wear on her wedding day. Over the years Anoleta saved enough pearls for several necklaces, but she never used them. It’s just as well. If she returns she will give them all to Chunkashbili, Heart Wounder, “Bili,” as she calls her seven-year-old daughter.
Her sister, Neshoba, was the first to touch Bili when she was born. Neshoba put her hands on Bili’s head as Anoleta pushed out. At that juncture, Anoleta and her daughter glided above two worlds: their ancestors’ and their future. Anoleta could not stay there at the center but for a moment. Her body closed when Bili took her first breath. How the baby shone, glistening with the thick liquid syrup her body had fed her. With her arms and legs folded together like baby hawk wings in an eggshell, Anoleta knew what to call her daughter. “You wounded my heart with your beauty,” she whispers drowsily, hoping the wind carries her words to Bili’s ears. “Neshoba will keep you safe in case I never return. But, my girl, do not forget me.”
At the edge of sleep, Anoleta’s vision shifts. She turns and looks behind her. Floating above the river like an immense crane is her mother, Shakbatina. “You are my firstborn!” her spirit says sternly. “I was the first to see your tiny brown face. I folded and unfolded your wrappings until your human breathing was normal. With your mouth full of my milk you were perfect. Fat. Your belly was warm lying against mine. Fingernails and toes were good and strong. You snatched a strand of my hair. I put the liquid corn in your mouth and you were the first to dance beside me. You quieted my hungry womb—for a time; Neshoba and Haya came next, but there will be others after you. Bili is the mother of Marie, born at Wolf Creek Parrish, a place named for your sister, Neshoba. Marie is the mother of Noga, born near Houma Town. Noga is the mother of Pisatuntema, born in Yanàbi Town. Pisatuntema is the mother of Nowatima, born in the strange time called 1825, also in Yanàbi Town. Nowatima will build a great house where many Bilis will live. Do not fear. Seize my nipple, daughter, take my milk, family boils out of me into you!”
Anoleta is suddenly awakened as a hand covers her drooling mouth. It is her father’s. He points with his lips to the yellow torches coming along in the swamp wall. In dawn’s twilight, little foxes, usually silent and regal, bark that death is approaching. The camp holds its breath as the torches bob up and down, but do not stop. They must be Inkilish okla, no one else would announce themselves like that, especially when warriors all across the region are on foot.
After the torches are out of sight her father says, “Forty times before I believed we should move against our enemies; I hope we are not too late.”
Anoleta wipes the saliva from her mouth and looks at him with tears in her eyes. “Mother was talking to me just now, but I couldn’t understand all her words. She’s angry; I feel it. She said something about Bili’s daughters.”
“She shouted at me too,” shrugs Koi Chitto, “she was just there.” Her father points to the mist above the river. “It’s because she does not know yet how to help us; she is still learning to be a spirit, and patience has never been her friend. I fear your uncle and I improperly read the signs. Your mother needed more time on the scaffold before her bone-picking ceremony released her into the spirit world. Trouble is coming and she cannot stop it.”
Anoleta studies her father’s face. Does he mean she cannot help Bili’s children? However she does not have a chance to ask. They are on the move again. It’s hot, the trees are tall mute witnesses to their struggle. The whole world looks like a fatal green vision. Now the men walk deliberately in front of the women to protect them in case of ambush. The longest day of the year is fully awake. Anoleta hears collective breathing, as if they are the lungs of the swamp, she feels the sweat trickling over them, as though they are one body.
Suddenly, a runner from the Alibamu Conchatys appears out of a palmetto bush, as if a rare progeny of foliage. He says in a terrified voice that the Inkilish okla and Red Fox attacked his people as soon as it was light. She watches her uncle question the man, then advise the warriors of Yanàbi Town. As a respected elder he calmly helps them decide what to do. The men finally agree to send two runners, Hopaii Iskitini and Tatoulimataha, on a scouting mission.
In minutes they regroup and their pace quickens. Many eat dried peaches or corn from their pouches while they walk. Anything to keep going. Rain passes them like a wanderer. The clouds are replaced by an angry red eye of fire that will not close for hours. Anoleta is hot, hotter than she’s ever felt. The swamp air becomes more and more stifling, thick with deadly life. The youn
gest of the warriors, hatak imatahali, collapse. The war party must wait for them to recover. The swamp is salty, so she and other women hike up and down the path giving their fresh water to the thirsty young men. When at last she and her sister, panting like tired animals, sit down to rest, Haya asks, “Do you still intend to finish Red Shoes?”
“You dare speak of him to me!” hisses Anoleta. “I know it was you who warned Red Shoes of the poison I had prepared in the meat. Why did you betray me?”
Haya’s face blanches and swells. The scar on her cheek, a birthmark, rises like a red welt. It’s not the oppressive heat that causes this, but her shame. Haya nervously presses a forefinger against a sharp edge of her burden basket until it splits her skin. She pays for her betrayal as blood oozes down her finger. Her eyes plead for understanding.
“I thought,” says Haya, pitifully, “if he knew that his own people wished for his death, then he would change back into the warrior we had loved. I was very wrong, please forgive me.”
Anoleta suffers a strange sensation of pain, as though the fissure is hers, not her sister’s. The truth went from Haya’s finger into the basket, and into her. It said they were the same. Red Shoes, as he was in the beginning, was a worthy memory. When Anoleta married him Haya was a little girl, but he treated her sister like their baby, even carried her on his shoulders around Yanàbi Town.
Anoleta sighs. They both loved what he had been. Before she can say forgiving words to her sister, Nitakechi interrupts her.
“Come, quickly, the Alibamu Conchatys village is just beyond and our warriors want to strike now. You two must carry the powder horns.” Then he stops. “But if things go badly, you must run, and don’t stop to look back,” he says. “Ohoyo omishke a numpa tillofashih ish hakloh!”
“Yes, Uncle, we are paying attention,” answers Anoleta. “We will do as you ask.”