Only a circle of earth scorched black by the cooking-fire was left to show where we had lived with our mother; even the holes which had held the centre-posts of the tepees had been filled in and the ground trampled hard and smooth. I saw a gleam of scarlet among the scattered ashes and picked up a small bead…one of those which Mother had used to decorate our moccasins. “This is all we have left, Raki…all that is left of the place where we used to belong.”
“Na-ka-chek has given us our own tepee,” said Raki, “and he lets us do whatever we like.”
“As though we were bear cubs he was trying to tame! He is afraid we shall run away if he is not very careful.”
“Are you being quite fair, Piyanah? He gives us everything we ask for.”
“Didn’t we give Pekoo honeycomb every day when we first found him?”
“We always did…when we could find any.”
“Yes, but we did it because Pekoo liked it, not because we hoped it would keep him with us. When the Chief is sure of us, he will try to make us obey the laws.”
“Well, we can wait until that happens,” said Raki cheerfully. “I am sorry for him in a way…living all alone as he does. Even the Braves are so much in awe of him that they never speak in his presence except to answer a question.”
“I’m glad he’s lonely,” I said passionately, “terribly glad. He is so proud of being the Leader of Braves, and we are the only people who know he is a coward.”
“He’s not a coward,” said Raki indignantly.
“Yes, he is! A brave man can be frightened of his enemies, but only a coward is frightened of his friends. It was because he was frightened of his own tribe that he wouldn’t let Mother be happy with him. If he had had even a little of her courage, the others might have followed him…instead of being so disgustingly miserable that they don’t even realize that they are miserable.”
“You can’t be miserable without knowing it,” said Raki, in the voice he kept for the times when he thought I was being deliberately unreasonable.
“Oh yes, you can! And it’s the worst kind of misery there is…when it’s so deep that you have to make yourself believe that there’s nothing better to compare it with. They won’t admit that anyone can be happy…that’s why they still hate us, even though they daren’t show it now that Na-ka-chek has declared that you will be the next Chief. We keep on reminding them of the things they have missed…we are the hind that escaped from the hunter, the fish that was too agile for the starving fisherman, the canoe that shot the rapids in which theirs always foundered. That’s why they hate us…and why they always will!”
“They won’t believe us yet,” said Raki, “But that’s only because they don’t take any notice of anyone who hasn’t won a feather for his forehead-thong. When I am the Chief they will have to recognize the truth of my laws…and they will recognize you too, for you will always sit with me in council. When they see we go on being happy together, they will have to believe us.”
“It will be a long time before they let you win a feather, Raki, and what shall I do while you are training to be a Brave?”
“I expect they will go on letting us share a tepee…if they don’t, I shall refuse to attempt the ordeals, and that would make your father so ashamed that he would soon change his mind. I am afraid it will be horrid for you having to watch me undergo the ordeals, but you will have to think of how useful the feather will be to us in making people listen.”
“You and I have only known days with both of us in them, Raki. A day would seem longer than a moon if we were apart.”
“But we shan’t be apart.”
“You will have to be trained by the Brown Feathers, like all the other boys who want to be Braves. They will make everything as difficult for you as they can, to try to prove that a boy who is brought up with a girl is always weak and a fool.”
“They’ll soon get tired of trying that!”
“You are stronger and quicker, and much more wise than any of them…but there are tens of them and only one of you.”
“Well, they can laugh at me…and I can fight. They will find it more difficult to laugh with a split lip and some of their teeth missing! If your father had meant to part us, he would have said so by now.”
But I didn’t trust Na-ka-chek to understand about Raki and me; he was too cold, too spare, to know the hearts even of his own children. So Raki’s confidence in the future brought me little comfort.
Although Ninee had refused to eat for three days after Mother died, we knew she was glad to be back with the tribe. Nona, her mother, was the eldest squaw; a woman so old that only her eyes seemed really alive, yet her word was never disobeyed in the Squaw’s Tepees. Her voice was thin as the echo of a cracked cooking-pot, but when she told stories even the shadows crept closer to listen.
She never spoke when Raki was there, but sometimes, when he was with the other boys learning to build a canoe, I used to let Ninee take me to her. I pretended that I only went there to hear stories which would make Raki laugh, but sometimes it was difficult to remember that they were not really frightening.
Nona seemed to believe that everything was hostile to women: the tree spirits were jealous if a woman brought forth a child, and scornful if she was barren. The animls hated her because she sewed their skins which the hunters had stolen from them, and cooked the flesh that, but for women, the hunters would have been too lazy to kill. The spirits who lived in quiet pools were especially dangerous, for they would catch a girl’s reflection and carry it away, so that she lost her memory and died. For a woman to kindle a flame was so deeply to anger the spirit of fire that she would die before the next noonday, and only after humble supplication might she take a brand from the watch-fire to the place of the cooking-pots.
So many trivial things might lead to disaster: if a girl wore more than a hundred or less than ninety beads in her forehead-band, she might go blind; if one of her bracelets broke, it was certain that her first two children would be born dead. But of all the things the squaws accepted without question, the most surprising to Raki and me was the Choosing.
This took place every year, at the full moon before midsummer, and was the only tribal feast in which the women played an important part. All squaws between sixteen and thirty-two were concerned in it; the first to be Chosen were girls who had not yet been taken into the woods, and then, in order of age, the women whose last child was more than a year old.
For days the Squaws’ Tepees buzzed with preparations like hollow tree-trunks full of bees. I was asked to admire moccasins embroidered with coloured beads and even to advise whether a doe-skin tunic could be improved by another porcupine quill stitched to its hem by the stem of a feather. The tepees smelt of rancid grease, for during the growing moon the women plastered their hair with the fat of those animals whose virtues they wished to possess…deers’ fat for swiftness, beavers’ for industry, owls’ to make them wise at night.
I tried to find out why they wanted to be Chosen, whether they hoped to find someone like Raki among the strangers, but they stared or giggled, and instead of answering ran away. Nona’s power over them seemed to have suddenly increased, and whenever she spoke, they listened attentively…even when she only grumbled at them; and they vied to make her notice them by trying to please her. Raki and I decided that they must think she could help them to get something they wanted if they could persuade her to be genial; but neither of us had any idea what it was, until Ninee told me that at the Choosing each squaw must have one of the Old Women to speak for her at the wrestling.
Raki told me what to expect at the wrestling, for he had watched the young Braves practicing for it. A man who wanted a squaw had to fight for her if another man chose her too; and all were allowed to take part in the Choosing after they had become full members of the tribe by gaining their Brown Feather. In my grandfather’s time no one could become a Brown Feather until he had taken the scalp of an enemy warrior, but now there were other ordeals instead; for we had known peace for more than fifty years, and the scalps that hung in the Tepee of the Elders were so dry and withered that it was difficult to believe they had ever grown on human heads.
So that between us we could see as much of the Choosing as possible, I decided to watch it with the girls while Raki stayed with the boys. The Old Women, wrapped in the blankets with coloured patterns that they kept for ceremonial occasions, sat in a semi-circle on one side of the watch-fire; and opposite them were the Elders, seated on each side of the Chief who wore the Feathered Headdress. The Elders wore feathers too, but reaching only to their shoulders instead of hanging down to the ground as did Na-ka-chek’s.
Behind the Old Women stood the “not yet chosen” and the women who had already borne children. I was with the younger girls, and the women who were not going to take part, either because their babies were too young or they too old. The ground sloped up towards the cliff, so I was able to see everything that happened. Raki must have been on the opposite side of the encampment, among the boys, but the crowd was so thick that I could not pick him out. A white stone had been put near the watch-fire and round it a space marked by a rope tufted with coloured feathers…another rope closed off a square between the two main groups of spectators. The woman sitting beside me held her son on her knee; I was rather puzzled at her sorrowful expression until I realized he must be nearly seven…the age when he would be taken away from her and given to the Brown Feathers to begin his training. If Mother had stayed with the tribe, Raki would have been taken away from her, and instead of our being together always he would belong on the other side of the encampment. …I suddenly felt cold and wished I had not had such a horrible thought.
A group of men and boys had collected behind the Elders and there was a hush as the crowd waited for the ceremony to begin. One of the Elders called out the names of two boys, and at the same time Nona spoke the name of one of the girls who were standing behind her. The girl walked forward and stood on the white stone, and the two boys came to take their place on each side of it. Then one of the Old Women went up to the girl and in a loud voice began to proclaim her advantages, pausing between each statement to allow it to be given full attention. Her name, her age…the boys stared without displaying any interest, and the Old Woman’s voice became more urgent.
“Her hair…see, the braids are thicker than my wrist and they have never starved for good grease…her teeth are as strong and white as a musk-rat’s…and she is lively as a chipmunk.”
The boys began to walk around the girl, noticing each point that the old woman described with such enthusiasm. … “Look at her moccasins, that fine beadwork which proves she is intelligent and has nimble hands! Her shoulders are strong enough to carry a deer; her feet are broad and can walk far uphill without tiring.”
The girl stared in front of her, her face expressionless; not a muscle quivered, even when one of the boys prodded her ribs as though she were a carcass being tested for the cooking-pot.
The Elder who had called them forward asked whether either wished to choose her. Both boys held up their right hand, the sign of assent. At this, a ripple of excitement ran through the crowd, for it meant they must wrestle for her. I had often watched Raki wrestle, so it wasn’t very interesting, though I saw one of them win by a new hold that sent the other spinning over his head.
Then the victor shouted a challenge which could be answered by any boy of his own age; but no one took it up, and without looking at the girl he walked off towards the roped square, the girl following him.
Neither of the second pair of boys chose the next girl, although the voice of her sponsor grew shrill. “Look at her thighs, strong as a cougar’s. Only one tooth missing, and that was broken by a stone.” She was offered twice more, but each pair of boys showed increasing disinterest in what had already been rejected. Even though she struggled to remain impassive, I saw tears on her face as she ran through the crowd to seek sanctuary from this open humiliation. I longed to run after her, for though I thought her lucky to have escaped, I knew she was suffering a desperate shame. Only by being chosen next year or the one after could she hope to end the jeers of her companions, for if she was three times rejected she would have to spend the rest of her life doing the most disagreeable of the work for the other squaws.
A great deal seemed to depend on the words of the Old Women, though to me they all sounded equally vehement, for two girls whom I considered much uglier than the rest were chosen by Brown Feathers, for such uninteresting qualities as endurance and a special skill in the preparation of food.
When a woman had already borne strong children they were displayed with her. “See, twice she has brought forth strong sons, and these wide hips would be a fine cradle for a future Scarlet Feather.”
And of another Nona said, “Look, her son is more than a year old and yet her breasts are still proud with milk. Her children will never be starvelings to disgrace their mother!”
A third woman had three children; they huddled against her, and wept when she followed the man who had chosen her and left them to be taken away to the tepees. Because they had cried in the hearing of men they would not be allowed to share in the feast, so I decided to try to take them something to eat, for tonight there would be plenty for all.
The Scarlet Feathers did not wrestle for their women—I suppose they thought it undignified to display so much interest in squaws; and the men who had just won their brown feathers only wrestled because they enjoyed displaying their strength before the tribe.
After the Choosing, the men, each with his squaw beside him, sat in a large circle while the Old Women and the Elders served them with food as a mark of honour. Only after they had taken all that they wanted were the rest of us allowed to share the feast. Deer had been roasting since early in the day over the cooking-fires and there was as much as we could eat; and there were cakes made of corn-meal and honey, pigeons stuffed with sage, and rare delicacies such as fungus fried in fish-oil.
Suddenly the noise of the crowd stilled, as the drum began the opening phases of the Betrothal Dance. At first the pulse was so quiet and slow it seemed to tremble on the edge of hearing; gradually it grew louder and more insistent. The girls linked hands in single file, and pacing in rhythm to the drum, wove into a circle…faster and faster they padded round while the crowd swayed from side to side in harmony with them.
The men made a wider circle round the women: leaping high in the air, spinning on their heels, yet always drawing into a closer circle. The women were no longer separated by their linked hands…they drew nearer together until each had her hands on the shoulders of the woman in front: their bodies were pressed close; a wall of women drawing into a narrower spiral, until they were a pillar of women on whom the men were closing in. Shouting, leaping men, their bodies glistening with sweat…men who had thrown off their impassivity and roared like stags in autumn.
Then, as the drumming reached a new peak of frenzy, the men broke into the whirling cone of women, who screamed and struggled and pretended to try to escape. Or was it pretense? Were those real screams of terror? I was frightened, and wished that I had stayed with Raki. I looked at the women among whom I was standing: there was pity on some of the older faces, but the younger seemed only envious or excited. So I hoped that the screams were only part of the ritual…like the brandishing of tomahawks in a war dance.
As each man caught his woman, she ceased to struggle; he slung her over his shoulders like a deer, and carried her across the encampment to fling her down before the Totem. Beside it stood an Elder and one of the Old Women…whom I recognized as Nona. The man held out his hands, and into the palms they put something that they took from two pottery jars…later Raki told me it was blood and corn. The girl still lay face downward on the ground, but when the man spoke her name she crept to his feet and raised herself until she could lick the palms of his hands. This seemed to make them become ordinary again, for the man walked away and the girl followed five paces behind him until they took their place with those who had already done homage to the Totem.
At moonrise, the tribe gathered in two long rows, the women on one side, the men on the other. Through this avenue of people walked the Chosen: the men leading, the squaws walking docilely behind them. We watched them take the path to the woods. Some would return before the next full moon, others not until the moon after; but they would never speak of what had happened to them, nor might they mention, after they had returned to the Squaws’ Tepees, the name of the man who had taken them away.
It was difficult to remember that these people were of the same blood as Raki and me, for nearly everything we said to them seemed beyond their understanding, as though an oriole tried to explain to a beaver the freedom of wings. One day I asked a girl whether she was happy, and she stared at me as though she didn’t know what the word meant.
Raki said the boys were just as strange. They did everything with terrible determination. When they speared a fish they must always try to get more than the next boy, even when they didn’t need fish to eat; they must always try to paddle their canoe faster than the others, to find more difficult ways up a cliff. They thought it splendid to go without moccasins on stony ground, and felt proud instead of foolish when they came back with their feet clotted with blood.
“Can’t you make them understand it’s silly to suffer unnecessary pain?” I said to Raki.
“No, I can’t. I tried, but they stared at me as though I was mad, and then began to jeer, shouting, ‘Raki is afraid of being hurt! Raki is a coward!’ I tried to explain that I didn’t mind pain if it was any use to anyone…but they only laughed.”
“None of them really laugh, Raki. The girls make a kind of shrill giggle, and the boys laugh at people…but they never sound as though they were properly happy.”
“Perhaps they never are. Their favorite ambition is to have a face which doesn’t change with their thoughts. One of the Braves earned his scarlet feather by smearing himself with honey and letting fire-ants crawl over him while he didn’t twitch a muscle…they stung him so badly that he nearly died. The boy who told me about it looked horrified when I said it didn’t sound very useful.”
“The girls want to be impassive too. They tickle each other and put pads of nettles between their thighs, and some of them drive thorns under their nails.”
“Why do you suppose they do it?”
“I suppose it’s because they still listen to the Sorrow Bird. …Mother said it was the greatest of all enemies except the Canyon of the Separation, and that until everyone knew it was the great enemy they would never remember the Before People.”
“And they love the Sorrow Bird,” said Raki sadly. “I think it’s the only thing they love at all.”