by Simon Rumney
'Would his first words be words of thanks for the loving care she had given him?' 'Would they be cheeky and flirtatious?' Julii particularly liked that scenario. ‘Or would they be mundane words like: "Where am I?"’
Of all the possible questions he would ask when he woke up, Julii thought answering that one would be the easiest because she believed she knew all there was to know about her world.
She had spent lots of time with the elders of her tribe. She had listened attentively and learned all there was to learn about her world; she knew their land intimately all the way to its boundaries. The elders told how her people had been chosen by the sky God, and Julii believed that the gods had placed her people in this valley as a reward.
But the information was false. Everything she knew about her people, her life and her world was based on many life times of misinformation. She simply did not know that the land she lived on was called Tennessee. She simply had no idea the land had been named Tennessee by the Cherokee people. Truth be told, she had never even heard of the once proud Cherokee Nation.
Julii had also never heard of the Koasati tribe. She did not even know that she was a member of the Koasati tribe, and therefore, could have absolutely no idea that she was one of a very last of the Koasati people left in this place called Tennessee.
She did not even know the true reason why her tribe called this tiny but beautiful, well sheltered and fertile, valley “home”, or that her ignorance was caused by nothing more than simple human shame.
It was shame that prevented Julii's great grandfather and great grandmother from telling their offspring about being banished from their respective tribes. Even when they were very old, the couple, still filled with shame, could never find the words to explain the raw emotions that caused their banishment. Those once intoxicating, impulsive, life and death feelings that had simply worn away with time. She, the powerful Chickasaw chief's only daughter, and him, far too low down the pecking order of a secondary tribe like the Koasati, to be taken seriously.
Their love had been ignored and eventually overruled by the elders of both tribes. She was simply too valuable an asset to be wasted on a nobody like him. Even in their youth they understood that a strong alliance between her people and important tribes like the Cherokee, or the Shawnee, or the Yuchi, or even the Quapaw would have been the best thing for both of their tribes but they loved each other.
Their meetings were made more exciting by being carried out in secret, but when she started to show with his child, their excitement turned to agony. Both his and her entire extended families had been banished, forever, forced to live far away from the safety of their tribes.
Their shameful new home had been chosen for them because it was known by both tribes as a 'bad spirit place'; a place where no other humans ever wandered. This was a spiteful, dishonorable and terrible punishment made worse because they were considered outcasts, even within their own banished families.
After a lonely life together, Julii's great grandfather and great grandmother both went to the sky believing that their longed for tribes still lived happily in their ancestral hunting grounds, just as they had for many thousands of years. The awful truth was the direct ancestors of those two love sick fools were now the only native people left on the sweet lands east of the great Mississippi river.
The old couple simply did not know that both of the tribes they longed to rejoin, and all of the tribes in Tennessee, had been herded away west on the “trail of tears” by the ever treacherous white man. Like very poorly treated cattle, many of the native people were driven to their appalling deaths and, by a strange act of destiny, the old couples punishment had come just one moon before these so-called “tribal clearances”.
Julii, like all of her people, did not know the real reason why she was where and who she was. Her father and mother had told her what their father and mother had been told by their father and mother.
All of the original “banished people” had been too ashamed to tell the truth about their foolish love-struck parents, so they made up the more palatable story of being the sky God’s 'chosen people'.
Until the arrival of her shiny pink man, Julii had believed that the members of her little tribe were the only people in the whole wide world. Now she believed that her shiny white-pinkish man laying naked by the fire in her father's tipi was going to explain everything about the world outside her valley - all he had to do was wake up. 'He was going to wake up!'
From time to time, her pink-white man would stir long enough to sip water but he wasn't really awake. The noises he made were not words, they couldn't be, because Julii understood all of the words in the world.
As a child, Julii had sat for many, many hours with the elders learning every word they knew. People in her small tribe even came to Julii to learn about words, because she was recognized by her people as the one who knew them all. This is how she knew that the shiny pinkish-white man's unintelligible noises could not be words.
'Why won't he wake up?' Leaning over the shiny white-pink man, Julii lifted his neck and removed the leaves from the pus-oozing gash on the back of his head for the umpteenth time.
On the day she met him, she had not noticed the terrible cut on the back of his head because she was too afraid to get close to the man who represented so much danger. The deep gash had only been found later, by her mother, as she helped Julii pull the strange gray hide from his body.
She smiled at the thought of her fear on that first, strange, day. He seemed so harmless now that she had seen him naked. ‘'Not harmless exactly, just different.' 'Exciting.' 'What was she thinking?' 'He needed fresh leaves!'
For the umpteenth time in three days, Julii left the tipi believing she needed to gather medicinal leaves. The truth was, there were already more leaves in her father's tipi than the pink-white man was ever going to need. Fetching leaves was simply the excuse she needed to go outside and calm herself down.
When she wasn't gathering leaves, Julii sat looking and waiting for the shiny pink-white man to wake up and answer her questions. His face seemed somehow familiar but that perception must have grown during the days she spent by his side. There was simply no way she could have seen him before, so it must be that.
She looked closer and smiled. His face made her feel like smiling again. 'More leaves!'
She had many chores to do, but she kept putting them off because she had so many questions that needed answers. She could not remember ever having so many questions, even with the elders.
Julii had cleaned him and all of his shiny things more than once. She had told him all about what she was doing as she rubbed his body with the soft, damp, deer hide just in-case he could hear her, but he would not wake up and respond.
The shiny things were all neatly lined up beside him. Each object had a list of questions, 'so many questions.' Each list was stored in her head waiting for the moment he could speak. 'There were just so many questions', and the list grew every time Julii looked at the shiny pink-white man's naked body.
She looked at his naked body a lot, and even her own denial had to admit there were just too many leaves to justify fetching more. When the feelings he evoked inside her became too confusing, she distracted herself by re-cleaning his shiny things. 'There were just so many questions and he would not wake up.' 'But he was going to wake up!'
The bowed thing on top of the horse had been the heaviest of the shiny pink-white man's strange shiny possessions. It was not too heavy, just large and difficult to bring down from the horse, and hard to clean properly. Julii really wanted to clean everything properly. She believed that the shiny pink-white man would be more willing to answer her questions if he could see that his shiny things had been looked after properly.
The black moccasins were also not as heavy as they had looked before they were removed. She had tugged and tugged them away from his leg, and underneath even his feet were covered in a soft woven hide. 'Did he really fear air touching his skin?' 'So many questions for when he wakes up.' 'He
will wake up!'
While cleaning the black moccasins, Julii found they were covered in a magical substance that, when rubbed, began to shine more and more black. It was incredible to see such a wonder, and many of her tribe watched in astonishment as her rubbing action kept bringing more and more of a shine.
None of her tribe could understand why the shiny pink-white man would go to the extraordinary lengths that must be required to create such a magical substance. No one in the tribe had a use for it, so they all assumed he must be a very vain shiny pink-white man who must be unhealthily obsessed by his appearance.
Upset by this negative assessment of her shiny pink-white man, Julii thought long and hard about a practical reason for his magical substance. She eventually surprised and amazed her tribe by pouring water onto the long black moccasins. It just fell off in beads and did nor soak into the hide beneath the black substance - proving the magical substance was to protect the moccasins.
Now Julii could be proud of her shiny pink-white man because everyone in the tribe could see a use for his magical substance. Many even wanted some for themselves, but other than the layer that was already on his long moccasins, the shiny pink-white man did not have any more among his possessions.
Proving her shiny pink-white man was not vain had been a relief for Julii but also caused her a lot of worry. Before she had dared show her tribe the trick of pouring water on the moccasins, she had first tried to cover the shiny things attached to the heel.
Much to her horror, the thing on the heel came off in her hands. She did not want her shiny white-man waking up to find that she had damaged one of his shiny things.
At first Julii thought she had broken his black moccasin. She felt sure that the shiny pink-white man would wake up and be angry with her. Worse, he would not answer any questions because he would be so furious but, much to her relief, she realized it was meant to come off. To prove it, she removed the shiny thing from the heel of his other black moccasin.
The purpose of those shiny things had been a mystery until Julii's close friend Ringwind worked out what they were for. Just by chance, Ringwind had noticed the shape of the shiny thing scarred into the horses flanks. Ringwind was clever. He saw how the pink-white man had made the horse move with the shiny things.
Then, much to her annoyance, Ringwind said that this was proof of the pink-white man’s cruelty. He said that they should send him away now, tied to his scarred horse, before he wakes up. But Julii used her extensive vocabulary to form strong arguments, and she did not let that happen. 'She was never going to let that happen.'
Julii had known since the day after she found him by the waterhole that Ringwind didn't like her shiny pink-white man. This annoyed her because he had no reason to dislike him. Her pink-white man had not said, or done, anything to offend him. How could he? He had been asleep since the moment she freed his leg from the horse.
Halfway through the second day, Ringwind had simply poked his head into Julii's father's tipi; he looked at the man laying naked, then looked at her sitting beside him. He made a strange facial expression she had never seen before and walked away. From then on, Ringwind simply decided not to like her shiny pink-white man.
It was while thinking about the day Ringwind had poked his head into the tipi, Julii noticed the long shiny knife was no longer beside her pink-white man. It should have been there with all of his other shiny possessions, but it was missing and Julii was extremely concerned about it. The shiny hollow thing that covered the long shiny knife thing was there, but the knife itself was missing. 'How can that be?'
Leaving her father's tipi, Julii asked everyone she saw where the long shiny knife could be but no-one knew. It was her mother who eventually told her that the knife and the horse had been put to work by her father.
Upset, Julii went out into the forest to tell her father not to use the pink-white man's things because he would be very angry about it when he woke up. 'Because he was definitely going to wake up!'
When she found him, Julii was horrified to see her shiny white- man's horse loaded with freshly chopped firewood. She told him to stop what he was doing but her father told her that he simply didn't think the pink-white man would care because he would not survive the yellow sickness oozing from the cut in the back of his head.
This made Julii furious with her father. "How can you say such a terrible thing?" "What if the sky gods heard you saying such things?" "My pink-man is going to wake-up! "He is definitely going to wake-up!"
Unable to convince her father to stop using her pink-white man's knife, Julii gave up and returned to nurse him back to health. She just knew her father was wrong. 'She just knew that her pink-white man would survive. When he woke up, she would explain how helpful his long shiny knife had been and he would understand.' 'She would explain it all to her white-pink man.'
'Although it was summer now, he would know that winter always followed and they would need the firewood.' Then she wondered. 'Would he know that?' 'Is it like that where he is from?' 'More questions for when he wakes up.' 'Because he is definitely going to wake up!'
To take her fretting mind away from the impossible predicament her father had placed her in, Julii studied the pink-white man's gray body covering. It was clean, patched and hanging from the tipi.
Julii had beaten it on a rock at the water hole for the greater part of a morning because the stains had been caught within the woven fabric. She now thought of it as fabric and not hide, because no hide she had ever seen absorbed water like her white-man's coverings did.
She marveled at the tiny, beautiful stitches joining all of the separate tightly-woven panels together. She was particularly fascinated by a small part at the bottom of the gray covering. In the place where men make water, there were two panels that were not connected by stitches. There were holes on one panel and round shiny things on the other. On the day she and her mother undressed her pink-white man, Julii had watched her mother force the shiny round things through the holes to make the two panels come apart.
While washing the gray garments, she had pushed the shiny round things in and out of the tiny holes several times. It was so simple but so clever. Of course, everyone in Julii's little tribe had carved bone clasps that join one piece of hide to another, but nothing that hid themselves so cleverly away like her pink-white man's shiny round things.
Looking at the top part of her pink-white man's gray covering, Julii admired the shiny things embroidered around the yellow thing that fitted so tightly around his neck. 'He must be important to have such extraordinary clothes, maybe even a chief.'
Julii felt proud that she was taking care of someone so important. 'But why won't he wake up?' 'Her father cannot be right.' 'Her pink-white man will not die.' 'Her shiny pink-white man will wake up and tell her about the world he is from.' 'He has to wake-up.' 'He will wake-up!'
Looking over her shoulder to make sure no-one was watching, Julii prodded her pink-white man. She had been prodding her pink-white man with her finger from time to time for days.
Every time she did it, she told herself it would be the last time but, just sitting looking at him, she couldn't restrain herself. Julii had to know more about the world outside of hers, she had to learn everything about his world. 'There were just so many questions.'
Then, one day, her waiting simply came to an end. His eyes just flicked open, just like that. No prodding required, not even one of her gentle ones.
After glancing at her and all around the tipi, her pink-white man became scared and panic-stricken. Julii wondered why he seemed so terrified; it was for no reason she could understand. He tried to stand. He couldn't do it. He was too weak.
Water and a little cold possum soup wasn't enough for a man like this, and Julii knew it. She would have liked to have fed him more, but there had simply been no way of doing it in his condition.
Julii held out a large leaf with cold meat and berries on it. He pulled away from her as though she were evil. Then, moving rapidly, he rudely
grabbed the leaf and forced everything on it into his mouth with his hand.
'Meat and berries in one mouthful?' Julii was confused. Here was another question to ask her shiny pink-white man. 'Who eats meat and berries in one mouthful?'
Already she was learning something new about her pink-white-man and his strange world. 'This was exciting.' She handed him a deer hide water skin.
While chewing and slurping desperately at the water skin, he looked at Julii. It wasn't the look she had been anticipating. That look would have been grateful and excited, even a little flirtatious. The look he was giving her was angry, fearful, contemptuous, even a little disgusted.
Julii reached for the empty leaf and he pulled away from her as he spoke a string of gibberish. What came from his mouth had no discernible meaning but she could not mistake the scornful tone in the noises that sounded something like: "Get your goddamn red-nigger hands away from me!"
Prejudice
The shiny pink-white man was not smiling at Julii and it was not fair. She had spent so many days imagining, fantasizing really, how nice his smile was going to be as she sat by his side nursing him through that awful fever.
The fever had broken now and he looked healthy but he would not smile. He had made a few sounds but he had not yet smiled. Julii just knew that he would make a wonderful smile, but even when she smiled at him, he simply would not make one in return.
The expression on his face, and the attitude of his body, made it clear that she was not going to get her way. That was confronting because Julii was used to getting her way when it came to men.
His eyes did not show warmth towards her, they showed contempt. She had never seen that look before in any of her own people. It made her feel something she had never felt before - 'inferior'. Her shiny pink-white man made her feel inferior and it hurt.
Something was very wrong. Her pink-white man was supposed to like her. She had always been the pride of both her family and her small tribe. She was intelligent and very pleasing to look at.