IGMS - Issue 24 Read online

  Every hair on Otter's body tingled as his son was placed amid the circle of dyes and the rattles started shaking. The entire tribe, even those from other villages, had come to see what Otter's son would do. Half watched the baby, and half watched Otter himself. Otter was aware of their looks, but his eyes were fixed on his son. His firstborn son. His only son.

  Next to Otter, his wife, Lake-blooming-flower, strained upward on her toes to see above the shoulders of the man in front of her. Even with mud on their faces, parents were not allowed to stand in the front row, lest the baby notice them and crawl that way. Otter put his hand on Lake-bloom's shoulder and silently guided her in front of him where she could see better.

  Lake-bloom had borne their son with great courage, and it had cost her much. She had bled for several days after bringing him into the world, and the Curers were surprised she survived. Her stomach still pained her when she lifted things, and her moon-flow had stopped altogether. They would have no other children. Their infant son, sitting in the circle right now, would be their only heritage, and the color he chose would determine what that heritage would be.

  Otter was sure his son would pick black, for the boy was a natural hunter. He had crawled for the first time in an effort to catch a sunning lizard, and though his movements were clumsy, his eyes had been intent on his prey. A hunter for sure.

  Sitting in the circle, Otter's son started to cry. Lake-bloom flinched forward a step and clapped her hands over her breasts. Otter still had a hand on her shoulder. Her muscles there were like the hard roots of oak trees.

  Lake-bloom thought their son would choose yellow and become a peace-chief, but then again that's what all mothers thought. Yellow was one of the three rare colors though, and not only was the child always placed with his back to the rare colors, but the three piles were very small and partially blocked on either side by large mounds of black. It wasn't impossible for a child to crawl in between the two black piles and get to the yellow, after all Otter had done it, but it was very uncommon. His son would pick black, and he would be a great hunter-warrior. Otter-in-the-grass would lead him into battle even, and he would be there when his son first shed enemy blood, be there to give him his first warrior tattoo.

  To Otter's right was his father, Leaping-deer. Leaping-deer stood straight and proud in spite of the grey hairs woven through the bun on his head. To him, black and red were the only suitable options for his grandson, because they were the only colors not put around the circle when the child was female. Leaping-deer's lips were pressed together so hard that they were white around the edges.

  Otter's son cried for a time, and when he stopped, his face was covered in snot and tears. Then, his lip trembling, his face glistening, the boy put his arms out in front of him to crawl. The onlookers gasped, the rattles continued to shake, and the baby took a few steps forward to the large piles of black and brown dyes in front of him. Choosing brown would make him a forager. It was a noble task, but not so noble as being a hunter-warrior. Otter silently urged him to pick black.

  Otter's son hesitated a mere handbreadth away from the brown and black piles, then sat up as if considering his options. Slowly, he turned around to look behind him. Then he started crawling again. Fast.

  He had made up his mind, had chosen his color. At first Otter thought the boy was going towards the blue, to be a crafter like his mother, but then he realized with horror that his son was headed for the color right beside it: white. Before Otter had the time for a thought other than panic, his only son stumbled and fell face-first into the pile of white dye.

  Too quickly. It happened too quickly.

  The rattles halted abruptly, and there was nothing but shocked, motionless, silence. Then the baby, Otter's baby, pulled his head up and started crying again, the white powder clinging to his face like a mask. Lake-bloom batted Otter's hand from her shoulder and darted towards their child, scuffing through piles of dye to pick him up. The baby's cries gave the crowd permission to speak. All around the circle, people called to those further back, telling them what had happened. "White," said a dozen different voices, "he chose white."

  The words were like a club to Otter's stomach. White, the unclean color of mold, the dead color of sand where nothing grows, the color of bones left in the sun, the color of froth coming from a sick animal's mouth. Whites were servants, but only in things that were unclean. It was they who cured the animal hides in urine to make them soft, they who kneaded feces into the ground at the base of the corn plants to make them grow.

  And there would be no redress. Otter's son hadn't simply brushed the pile as some children did. No, there was no doubt. Otter's son had chosen white. And though everyone insisted that the whites were just as important to their tribe as anyone else, Otter knew the truth. His son would wear out his body doing the jobs nobody else wanted to do, and he would die young from the unclean things he touched, just as all whites did. He would have no tattoos, no stories told about him at the fire, and no children to speak his name to the ancestors when he died.

  For when the time came that Otter's son was old enough to take a wife, he would be castrated instead.

  People talked excitedly, and some came over to Otter, saying empty words, meaningless words. "To some are given great tasks, and to others lowly, but each has honor," said the sage in front of him. Otter wished to lash out at the man, to take him by his white hair and smash his face into the ground. Instead, Otter nodded, hands trembling at his sides.

  When the time came for the other chiefs to pronounce his son's name, Otter listened numbly. "Whiteface." That was the name they gave him. No animal name, not even a plant name. He was just "Whiteface." Lake-bloom held the baby up to each of the chiefs in turn and each put a hand on the baby's stomach, saying the words of blessing.

  Otter was a chief too though, and he had to give the blessing as well. Lake-bloom brought the child to him last and Otter snatched the baby from her, scrubbed the dye off his face with his fingers. It came off only partially, leaving smears and streaks. "May our ancestors watch over you," said Otter to his son. He had been looking forward to giving his son this blessing ever since he was born, and now the words hurt to say. Tears threatened, but he clenched his jaw, held them back. "May they make strong your arms, swift your feet, and steadfast your heart." He hesitated then, and the other chiefs looked at him expectantly. The next part of the blessing would bind his son to the color he had chosen. Did he dare continue? His son squirmed in his arms and reached out for Otter's mud-covered face as if he wanted to clean off the mud just as Otter had done for him with the dye.

  "Courage," Lake-bloom whispered to Otter.

  Yes, courage. Otter was a man and he would act as a man. There was time to change this, time to train his child into somebody the tribe could not afford to cast away. Others had tried, but Otter would succeed where they had failed. Courage.

  Otter engulfed his son's hand in his own and brought it back to the boy's stomach. The baby giggled. "May the ancestors who watch the dyes apply you wholly to your task: body, mind, and spirit." But that task would not be that of the unclean. Otter would train him as an ambassador, that was it. He would train him so well that the other chiefs would have to allow him to change his colors. "May the ancestors watch over you, Whiteface," my son, "and may you work as unto them."

  Otter looked his boy in the eyes, and his boy looked back at him, listening. "May your name be great in their sight."

  The crowd stomped then, over and over, to awaken the ancestors buried in the mounds overlooking the meeting place, to make the ancestors take notice of the blessings spoken on Otter's child. Otter stomped as well and clutched his son to his chest. "Wake ancestors," he said softly, under the rumbling stomps, "right this wrong."

  When the stomping faded and people started to leave, Otter looked to the right and saw his father. Leaping-deer was sitting on the ground as if his legs had buckled under him. His back was hunched and his arms hung limply at his sides, hands resting on the groun
d. Lake-bloom went over and knelt beside him. "Father Leaping-deer," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder, but he didn't respond.

  "Father," said Otter. "We will fix this. We will make it right. The ancestors will not let this stand." But Leaping-deer continued to stare blankly at the piles of dye before them. The dyes were being scooped up into baskets now. They wouldn't be used for this ceremony again, but they could still be used on fabric.

  "Father," Otter said again, but Leaping-deer just stared forward. People walked in front of him, but his gaze didn't shift.

  Lake-bloom and Otter-in-the-grass eventually left him to his grief. They went back to their chikhee hut -- an open-air house with a thatched roof -- and put baby Whiteface to sleep on his mat. Otter sat with his wife in silence then, idly eating strips of venison as he considered how to make the other chiefs see that the ancestors wished Whiteface a different course in life.

  It would have to be something grand to get them to make such a break with tradition, a truce sealed or a lucrative trade established. But if Whiteface could do such a thing, then how could the chiefs possibly throw away his talents by insisting he become one of the unclean? The task would require both rigorous training and the blessings of the ancestors, but Otter knew they were on his side. He was sure. They would not let his line be cut off.

  For now though, Whiteface was just a babe. Otter-in-the-grass had time to decide how to go about this. He filled a bowl with beans and venison and brought it out to his father, Leaping-deer, who was still sitting at the meeting place just where they'd left him. His staring eyes were red-rimmed, and he was deaf to Otter's pleas to eat. Otter left the bowl on the ground beside his father's limp hand.

  The next morning, Otter went to find his father still in the same place, gazing at the spot where the dyes had been. The bowl was still beside him, full and swarming with flies. This is how it was for four days. Leaping-deer ate nothing, drank nothing, said nothing. And then, on the morning of the fifth day, Otter went out to urge him to eat once again and found him collapsed on the ground, dead.

  The unclean servants, the whites, prepared Leaping-deer's body and buried him in the mound set aside for their family. He was buried with his bow and spear, with eyes open so he could hunt in the afterlife. Otter spoke his name to the ancestors, declaring his lineage back six generations as he had been taught, but all the while, Otter thought of Whiteface.

  If Otter failed, if Whiteface indeed became one of the unclean and was castrated, then Whiteface would be the last buried here. There would be no sons and grandsons to visit the mound. Leaping-deer, Otter, Whiteface --they would be the ancestors of nobody. Nobody would listen to their words of wisdom. Nobody would honor their mound.

  Despair crept over Otter. What happened to an ancestor when his line was cut off? What would become of him? Would he disappear? Become nothing? Would he die a second death, a final death?

  Otter wept bitterly then. He had held it in the day of Whiteface's naming, but it came out now. Sobs racked him, ate at his stomach, brought him to his knees just like his father. Lake-bloom stood by him all the while, a hand resting on his head. And when the great well of tears inside finally dried up, Otter stood and hugged her to him.

  "You must divorce me," she said softly into his ear.

  Otter flinched back, held her at arms length. "What are these words?" he said, but he understood even as the question came out of his lips.

  "My womb is dry," said Lake-bloom. "You must divorce me and take another wife. You must have another child, many other children, and I cannot give them to you. I am too weak to give them to you. Divorce me." Her cheeks were streaked with tears, her eyes puffy with them.

  Otter put a hand over her mouth to stop her foolish talk. "You are my wife," he said. "Did I not give your father many valuable goods to take your face into my hand?" He caressed her cheek, which was wet with tears. "Did I not declare my loyalty to you in front of this, my father, who is now in the ground? Did I not lay with you, and love you?"

  She nodded, crying still more. "My womb is dry," she repeated. "My womb is dry." But Otter just took her into his arms and held her, and every time she said "My womb is dry," he said "You are my wife."

  When Whiteface started speaking, Otter taught him not only the language of the Ka-akin, but also the languages of the surrounding tribes. He taught him the lilting Sopatke tongue, the speech of the Tumuacs, and the language of the Shell-People who lived on the beaches to the south.

  He taught Lake-bloom the languages too, so that when Otter had to leave for several days to meet with other tribes, she could continue teaching in his stead. He also took Whiteface to the fire at night where the sages told their wisdom tales. When they went back to their chikhee hut afterwards, Otter asked him questions about what the tales meant, and by the time Whiteface was six years old, he knew much lore.

  It was then that Otter started taking Whiteface along with him as he settled disputes around the village. The people delighted in how Otter would hear the problem and ask his son what to do before passing judgment, but the other chiefs recognized it for what it was.

  "You are training him as a chief," they said.

  But Otter denied this. "I am teaching him to settle disputes, and that is good knowledge for any man, even one of the unclean."

  The chiefs could not argue with his words, but they saw through him nonetheless. "Teach him then," said the eldest chief, "but if he is old enough to learn from you, then he is old enough to learn the ways of the white as well. We will assign him a tutor early, for he seems a discerning child."

  Otter took this blow as if it were acceptable, but it grieved him deeply. Normally, a child was not assigned a tutor until they were eight years old, and Otter had been counting on being Whiteface's only teacher until then. Thus started a silent battle between Otter-in-the-grass and Whiteface's new tutor, Egret-fishing-among-the-reeds.

  Egret demanded that Whiteface report every morning to the leather-tanning pits west of the village to learn the work of a white. The tanning pits were far away from any house, because they were unclean and smelled of the fermented urine used to cure the leather. Otter brought his son out there the first day and watched from the nearby woods as Egret began his instruction.

  There were several clay-lined pits full of brownish-yellow filth, and other whites stood at the edges of them, driving hides into the foul water with large branches. Whiteface, however, was not given a branch. Egret ordered him to jump down into the pit and churn the water with his feet. Egret himself stood on the pit's edge, yelling at him to step higher, to push his feet down harder. Six-year-old Whiteface did as he was told too, splashing himself as he drove the hide into the disgusting water again and again. When Whiteface tired, Egret lashed him across the back with a thick vine. It was all Otter could do to keep from rushing over and killing the man.

  This lasted all morning, and when Whiteface could march no longer in the putrid water, he was made to bathe in a pond and then sit in the medicine tent for hours so that he might be purified by the smoking herbs. When he emerged from the tent, his eyes were red, he was covered in sweat, and he was too tired to walk. Otter carried him back to the village in his arms.

  For several weeks, Whiteface was too worn out at the end of the day for any of Otter's lessons. He fell asleep right after getting home, often before he could eat. It was necessary to appease the other chiefs in this way though, and eventually Whiteface grew strong and was able again to have his secret training. Otter made for him child-sized weapons and hid them in an isolated stretch of forest far to the west. Instead of going back to the village after his daily purification, Otter took his son to the forest, teaching him how to shoot a bow, how to throw a spear. There, amidst the oak trees and the palmetto bushes, Otter labored to save his son from his horrible fate.

  So it went for years. Every spare moment that Otter was not away from the village was spent training his son. Though his skills with weapons were only average, Whiteface learned the languag
es well, speaking even the harsh and awkward tongue of the Shell-People with ease. Many people in the village remarked that Whiteface had his father's wisdom too, and this pleased Otter very much, for this was exactly the kind of sentiment he wished to foster.

  When Whiteface was thirteen, the Sopatke attacked one of the Ka-akin villages to the north, burning the thatched chikhee roofs with fire-arrows and killing many warriors. The Ka-akin chiefs drove their arrows into the ground of the meeting place to show that they would avenge the deaths, and the two tribes went to war.

  At this, Otter-in-the-grass thanked the ancestors. His opportunity had come.

  Now, the Sopatke were a brutal people, and their numbers were far greater than that of the Ka-akin, but they had one weakness -- they were very superstitious. They had threatened to attack before, but Otter had always kept them from it by reminding them of the burial mounds that sat in every Ka-akin village. The Sopatke were afraid above all else of vengeful spirits come back to life, and Otter had expended much effort in making them believe that such spirits would emerge from the burial mounds if the Sopatke were to ever attack the Ka-akin.

  When the Sopatke did attack, Otter knew that the only way to repel them would be to use their superstitions and realize their fears. The other three war-chiefs bowed to his knowledge of the Sopatke, and he was given freedom to plan the endeavor however he wished.

  He evacuated the village closest to the one the Sopatke had just burned and constructed several hollow mounds there. The most skilled hunter-warriors hid in these mounds and rubbed blue dye into their skin so that their appearance was strange and frightening.

  These men stayed inside the mounds for two days while Otter and the other war-chiefs fought small battles to harry their enemy and drive them into place. When a large group of Sopatke came to camp at the abandoned village, the warriors inside the mounds waited until the darkest hour of night and burst forth. They killed many men, some asleep and some paralyzed with fear, but they also made certain that several escaped to spread panic.