The Senecas made much of trees.
Spirits lived in the wood, they said, and could be captured in masks cut from living trees. The masks had mouths set in permanent scowls, and were meant to ward off gagohsas. Billie said that if the tree lived after the mask was taken, it brought good luck to its wearer.
At a powwow, I watched from afar as men in masks danced in an open field. I wandered. Whites were not allowed to enter the long house, and in truth, I had not even thought about entering that skeleton of saplings until the moment it was forbidden. I ate a hamburger from a food vendor and watched lacrosse players from other reservations.
Retracing my steps, I found Jolie and her mother sitting on a long slab of wood made into a bench. We swapped stories about what we’d seen. Then Billie, her long hair falling forward, pressed a stick into the ground and said, “Come on now, we better leave if we want to see the burning of the white dog.”
Part of a ceremony the Senecas performed; the dog was burnt and sent as a messenger to the Great Spirit. “It cleans us,” Billie said as she led us over to the field.
“I don’t want to go,” I said, and pulled away from the small crowd beginning to gather around the center of the field. Billie looked at me and laughed, her face wide and brown and friendly.
“It’s just a part of the Handsome Lake religion,” she said. I’d heard of Handsome Lake, but his name and religion were nothing I’d been able to make sense of.
“And the dog is fake, if you really have to know,” she said, still smiling. “We wouldn’t hurt any real dog.” Billie turned and took Jolie’s hand then and they headed toward a post that had been stuck into the ground with a small stuffed dog tied to its base.
“But why is the dog white?” I called after them, rubbing the pale skin of my wrist.
“Why is he white?” I asked again, but it was too late.
My question flailed behind Billie, and was taken up by the wind.