by Ruskin Bond
Aystan paced in front of the healer’s fire, while the black eyes of ancient Goyogoin, who rarely stirred from his spot by the hearth, bored into Dyami.
“The beaver in our other ponds are disappearing,” Aystan continued. “If we cannot supply the French with furs, the white man will turn his trade to the other tribes in our confederacy — or worse, to the Mohawk.” Aystan’s upper lip curled as though he smelled something bad.
Dyami dropped his gaze, struggling to appear obedient while desperation clawed at his chest.
Aystan’s voice, still firm, grew more gentle. “Men have died playing Little Brother of War. The players use their sticks like clubs. They kick and throw men across the field. There are many injuries. The only act that is forbidden is to touch the ball with your hands.” He shook his head. “Our opponents would crush you in minutes.”
“But what about the dream?” Dyami’s voice rose. “I saw myself playing Little Brother of War. Anan stood between the goalposts. I was flying down the field and scoring again and again. Anan waits for me to play for her so she will be cured.”
A frown clouded Aystan’s face. Like every Wendat, he knew that Little Brother of War was a sacred game with the power to cure, and that dreams were oracles with meaning that must not be ignored. But the sport of the Wendat was also violent and vicious, a substitute for warfare in solving disputes among rival tribes. A muscle twitched under Aystan’s left eye, revealing his internal struggle. To cure his wife, could he endanger the life of his son?
For Dyami there was no confusion. In his dream he had played the game. He had scored point after point as his mother waited in the goal. He must play in the match today to fulfill the prophecy. If he didn’t, Anan would die.
Aystan squatted in front of the healer. “My son speaks true. Along with the other clan chiefs, I negotiated this contest against the Rock People to settle the dispute over the beaver pond without bloodshed.” He fingered the pouch that dangled from his neck. Anan had decorated it with elaborate designs of beads and porcupine quills. “But my wife has taken ill these past weeks. She weakens. If my son dreamed that he played in the game today, the Creator must require this for my wife’s recovery.” Aystan trailed off, the emotions of fear and hope fighting for control of his rugged features.
The aged healer coughed, his chest rattling like beads in a gourd. He studied Dyami so long the boy’s cheeks burned under the scrutiny. Finally, Goyogoin spoke in a voice as dry as thistles in autumn.
“Dyami has not reached his fifteenth year and so has not completed his vision quest. No guardian spirit has come to him and revealed his future.” The old man puckered his lips and spat into the fire. It hissed in resentment. “You have not dreamed of your son playing in today’s game, have you?” he asked Aystan.
When Aystan shook his head, Goyogoin shrugged as though all was now clear. “Then the boy is wrong about his dream. His desires, his future, must come through your mind until he has completed his quest. Your wife has been treated by the Awaterohi curing society. I have treated her myself. We have done what we can and now must wait for her recovery or death.”
Aystan gasped and covered his face with his hands. A shiver ran through Dyami’s body. He wanted the old man to stop talking, but Goyogoin was not yet done. “You are the chief of the Snake clan and the principal leader of this village. Your responsibility is to our entire Bear tribe, not solely to your wife. Today, our sixty worthiest men will play the game to gain control of the beaver pond. A boy of twelve will not aid in victory — dream or no dream.” The old man closed his eyes, dismissing them both.
Dyami trailed Aystan out of the longhouse. His father paused outside the door and laid a hand on his son’s shoulder. “I am playing today. Our family is represented. That will be enough to honor the Creator for your mother’s sake.”
“But it was my face I saw in the dream, not yours,” Dyami cried.
Worry carved lines on Aystan’s face. “Be silent.” His voice cut the air. “Goyogoin has spoken. You are not to play today. My presence on the field will both ensure victory for our village and satisfy the Creator for your mother.” As he turned away, he murmured. “It must. It is all I can do.”
Dyami’s chest rose rapidly as he struggled to calm his frustration and fear. Aystan would not allow the dream to be fulfilled! His responsibilities to the tribe and fear for his son’s safety were too strong. “But will the Creator be satisfied with Aystan, not me?” Dyami whispered.
Later that morning Dyami, surrounded by the crowd of excited people flowing from his village, trudged out the gate of the palisade to the meadow where the game would be played. Under the indigo sky he passed fields of sunflowers, prized by the Wendat for their seeds and oil, and green corn, already waist-high and dressed in bean vines that wound gracefully up the stalks. No women tended the fields on this special day.
The meadow was about a mile away, halfway between his village and that of the Rock tribe. Two sets of goalposts, five hundred yards apart, defined the playing field. Around the edge of the meadow, clusters of Bear and Rock villagers engaged in a flurry of pregame betting. Some women armed themselves with bundles of sticks to throw at opposing players when fights broke out. Others fetched water or prepared coffee to refresh the men during the game. Young mothers carried babies in cradleboards on their backs, while groups of boys and girls practiced playing ball with their child-size sticks, longing for the day when they could play for the honor of their tribe. Dyami, avoiding the hubbub, crouched in tall weeds near the Bear tribe’s goal, nervously gripping the stick that Aystan had carved for him years ago.
At the beat of a lone drummer, two teams of sixty men emerged from the woods on opposite sides and charged onto the field, whooping and circling the goalposts. Dyami swallowed hard. Clad only in breechcloths and covered with paint, these were fearsome warriors — purified and hardened from days spent in fasting and prayer. Although a few wore moccasins, most were barefoot. Many had woven totems of bird feathers into their hair — a raven feather for sharp vision, a sandpiper wing for swiftness, a peewee tail for agility. The Bear players, red paint marking their faces, lined up against the Rock men, streaked with white ash and charcoal. Shamans from both tribes chanted the ceremonial blessing. Then the deerskin ball was released, and the game began.
From the outset the men played with a fierce energy and ferocious violence, each side determined to win the game and control of the beaver pond. Only Dyami and Aystan prayed for a greater victory. A Bear tribe brave scooped up the ball in the net at the end of his three-foot stick. Dyami winced as three Rock warriors tackled the man. The brave’s skull cracked against the ground. He sat up dazed, blood trickling down his cheek as the game continued furiously around him.
Dyami did not join the throngs of spectators on the hillside. He remained hidden all day in the tall grass, hunger and thirst forgotten as he followed the scoring. New players entered the game as the injured hobbled off with bloodied noses or broken collarbones, or collapsing from exhaustion. As the sun began to sink beyond the horizon, the game was tied.
Suddenly, Aystan broke free and ran with the ball toward the Bears’ goal. His feet flew with the wind of fierce determination; but it was not enough. An opponent rammed his stick between Aystan’s feet, tripping him. Aystan fell hard, the ball shooting out of his net. He clutched his ankle, writhing in pain as the wild mob of men turned toward the Rocks’ goal.
“Get up!” Dyami burst from the weeds. “Get the ball.”
Aystan grimaced. “I cannot. My leg.”
As Aystan limped off the field, panic gripped Dyami. He looked down at the game stick in his hand. The Creator had sent him this task, not Aystan. In the dream he had been the one running up and down the field, swinging his stick and shooting the ball into the goal. Dyami was certain that he must secure the victory or his mother would die.
He charged onto the field and ran straight into the pack of players. They were a wall of bodies blocking the ball. The men shrieked
war cries, their faces dripping with sweat and blood. Their bodies glistened with a slimy grease made from slippery elm bark that they smeared on so opponents could not easily grip their limbs. Dyami crouched behind a Bear brave. The ball was in the center of the circle of men, who chopped at it viciously with their sticks. Before Dyami could even try to scoop up the ball, a strong hand grabbed his shoulder. “Get off this field, boy!” The same Rock warrior who had tripped Aystan heaved Dyami onto the sidelines. His playing stick went flying, and he clambered onto his knees, groping in the weeds to find it.
The Rock brave had the ball in his net. He darted and weaved through the men, leaping over bodies that lay strewn on the field. The game was tied two all, and three points were necessary to win. Dyami stared in horror as the brave hurled the ball straight between the goal posts. Before it could cross the goal line, Aystan appeared, jumping to catch the ball in his net. The crowd roared, and Dyami’s heart swelled with pride in his father.
Ignoring his swollen ankle, Aystan lurched, first to the right then the left, using his shoulders like a battering ram to fend off opponents. The Bear tribe offense carved a clear path, and Aystan hurled the ball down the field. A Bear brave caught it and deftly tossed the ball to another man poised near the goal line. He scored! As the sun slipped below the horizon, the Bear players whooped in victory. Dyami collapsed with relief.
His euphoria did not last long, however. Following the Bear victory, Dyami and Aystan stood by Anan’s bedside. The victory had made no difference. Her heartbeat was faint, her breathing raspy. Tears ran down Dyami’s face, and Aystan put an arm around his son’s shoulders. His voice was thick with anguish. “Goyogoin said there was nothing more we could do. We must accept the wishes of the Creator.”
Flinging off the embrace, Dyami ran from the longhouse straight to the playing field. Retrieving his stick from the weeds, he began to swing wildly. He raged at everyone — his mother for her illness, Goyogoin for denying a game to heal her, and Aystan for accepting this decision so placidly. But mostly he raged at himself for disobeying the dream. Dyami struck the air again and again, finding strength in his sorrow and fury.
Finally pausing to catch his breath, Dyami spotted the buckskin ball in the grass, forgotten in the confusion after the game. He scooped it up in his net and ran down the field. He drew back his stick and flung the ball as far as he could and then chased after it. He hit the ball with all his might and it ricocheted off the goalpost. Anger and heartache forced his aim off-kilter; his gait was lumbering and bearlike, but still he played on. Gradually, as the minutes turned to hours, something changed. A sense of purpose fell over Dyami, and he found a rhythm in his running, a flow to his swing. He began to play Little Brother of War with the skill of a veteran warrior. Watched only by the silver moon and an inky sky glittering with stars, he soared like a solitary eagle, up and down the field, sending the ball flying first through one set of goalposts and then the other.
Finally, with bleeding soles and blistered palms, Dyami collapsed on the dewy grass. Rage had ebbed, leaving in its wake an overwhelming fatigue tinged with grief. As a finger of sun nudged the moon from the sky, Dyami walked slowly to the longhouse, dreading what he would find.
Silence greeted him. Aystan lay like a sleeping sentry at Anan’s feet. Dyami could not bring himself to look at his mother’s face. He stopped several feet from where she lay, focusing on the deer hide that carpeted the floor.
“My son, come to me.” Anan’s voice was barely a whisper, but it shouted in Dyami’s heart.
His eyes flew to her face. She was still pale, but a spot of color shone high on each cheekbone and her brown eyes were brighter than they had been in weeks. He ran to her and fell on his knees. Anan’s breathing was clear and steady. Her cool hand smoothed the hair from her son’s brow.
As suddenly as if he had stepped from the shadow into the light, Dyami understood. The dream of the night before had not shown him beating the Rock team on a crowded field. It had shown him running and jumping, throwing and swinging with all his might and faith and love for his mother. That is what he had done throughout the night as he raced for hours up and down the game field fighting his toughest opponents, anger and despair. That had been his sacrifice to the Creator, his gift for his mother’s sake.
“I had a dream,” Anan whispered. “You were the bravest, strongest player in Little Brother of War.”
Dyami reached out and embraced her. He knew it had been more than a dream.
Author’s Note The Wendat were Iroquoian-speaking Indians who lived in what is now southern Ontario, Canada. Their name meant villagers or islanders. When the French encountered the Wendat in the early 1600s — the time at which my story is set — they referred to them as the Huron, a French word meaning ruffian or unkempt person and not a name by which the Wendat called themselves. After warring with the Iroquois in the mid 1600s, the Wendat tribes dispersed, some to the western Great Lakes, where today they are known as the Wyandot.
The Wendats lived in houses about 100 feet long and 30 feet wide. Families in a clan would share a longhouse, constructed with sheets of bark, usually cedar, on a wood frame. There was a long row of about ten hearths down the middle of the house, each hearth shared by two families who lived on either side of it. For protection from attack, a fortified palisade surrounded the longhouses in a Wendat village.
With the coming of the Europeans, the trade in beaver furs became increasingly important to the Indian peoples, leading to disputes among rival tribes as pelts grew scarce with overhunting.
Hundreds of years before Europeans arrived, Indian peoples across North America played a game that blended the footwork of soccer, the swinging sticks of hockey, and the slamming bodies of football. Tribes had many different names for this rough sport, including Little Brother of War; but it is known to us as lacrosse, a name given it by French missionaries and probably derived from the French word for a crooked or hooked staff, a reference to the lacrosse stick.
Indian lacrosse, more violent than today’s game, was deeply rooted in religion. Shamans directed pregame rituals and blessed equipment. Some tribes, including the Wendat, believed playing the game was pleasing to the gods and had the power to cure the sick or influence the weather. Sometimes territorial disputes between nations were decided on the outcome of a game, which served as a substitute for actual warfare.
Like warriors before battle, players painted their bodies and fasted before a game. The number of players and the size of the field varied by tribe. In one Seneca-Mohawk game in 1797, two teams of 600 men played on a field a mile long. As many as 10,000 spectators might attend a game when two Indian nations competed. Pregame betting was common, as people wagered possessions or land. One Wendat man even bet his little finger (and lost).
While my story is based on the best available research into the history of Indian lacrosse, the exact details of how the game was played by the Wendat hundreds of years ago cannot be known with complete certainty.
Beyond the Call of Duty
by Brenda Moore
Rod Hayden stared down at the mass of black fur lying at his feet. What was he to do? Pal, the family dog, had grown so big. Too big. It was 1940, and in the remote Canadian town of Gander, Newfoundland, Pal was a friend to everyone. The 130-pound Newfoundland dog loved to romp with the neighborhood children. He even pulled their sleds in winter. But today the playful giant had accidentally scraped the face of a six-year-old girl. As Pal’s owner, Hayden felt upset and responsible. Now he wrestled with a terrible question of what to do about his massive, energetic pet. He even wondered if Pal should be put down.
Thankfully, a better solution was found. Soldiers at RCAF Station Gander, the air base, knew Pal well. Their exuberant friend loved to chase after landing airplanes. Unsuspecting pilots often radioed in that there was a bear on the runway! When Hayden offered Pal to the soldiers, they eagerly accepted, and Pal became regimental mascot for the 1st Battalion of the Royal Rifles of Canada. The soldie
rs renamed him Gander and quickly promoted him to the rank of sergeant.
World War II had broken out in Europe the previous year, and tiny Gander, located at the eastern tip of Canada, had suddenly swelled into one of the busiest airports in the world, a vital staging and refueling point for thousands of Canadian and American planes bound for Europe. Although the Royal Rifles had been sent from Quebec to defend the base from possible German attack, no one expected the battalion ever to face dangerous combat.
In 1941, that changed. On the other side of the world, Japan had conquered most of China and was now posing a threat to the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong on China’s southern coast. The Royal Rifles were ordered to join other British Commonwealth troops to defend the island should war break out with Japan.
At a farewell parade in Quebec City, thousands of people cheered the Royal Rifles as they marched proudly behind Sergeant Gander. But the battalion ran into trouble in Vancouver as it tried to board the transport ship for Hong Kong. When the crew of the Prince Robert saw Gander trotting along the wharf, they did not believe he was a dog. “You can’t take that bear on this boat!” the captain ordered. But the Royal Rifles refused to back down. They could not leave their mascot behind!
Mascot Sergeant Gander with the Royal Rifles, the men he protected
The Royal Rifles arrived in Hong Kong on November 16, 1941. The climate was very warm for a dog with thick, heavy fur. For relief, his handler, Rifleman Fred Kelly, would let Gander sit in the shower as long as he liked, blissfully soaking up the cool spray. Gander also developed a taste for beer, which he lapped up, right out of the sink. At night, he made it clear he did not like his doghouse, howling until he was brought in to sleep by Kelly’s bed. This was where Gander belonged, alongside his fellow soldiers.