Bound by Honor Bound by Love
Page 16
Gary pulled the wagon to a stop, and Achai pulled up a horse alongside him. Behind them, several white men rode into the tribe.
Citlali glanced at Hache-Hi. “I see Gary brought Fred, Tim, and Victor.”
“Is that a good thing?” Hache-Hi asked.
“Yes. I promised Mahkah that I would make sure the ways of our people wouldn’t be forgotten, and these are the men who’ll make that happen.”
“They are?”
Citlali turned to the man who had become the second chief since Mahkah’s death. “Yes. They said they will record all of our traditions and put them into a book.”
“How much do you plan to tell them?”
“Everything. I’ll tell them the legends of our creation, tell them of our ceremonies, show them our sacred bundles—”
Hache-Hi gasped. “You’re going to reveal all of this? But we buy the rights to learn these things.”
Citlali sighed, knowing not everyone would agree with his decision but realizing there was no other way to preserve their heritage. “We won’t live forever. The day will come when the last full-blooded Mandan will die. Our ways will also die unless we take measures to preserve them.”
“And there’s no other way to do that?”
“Can you think of one?”
After a long pause, Hache-Hi sighed and shook his head. “No, I can’t. There’s no guarantee our children will pass them on their children, not with the influence of the white man.”
“When things are written, they can last forever. In this way, our traditions won’t be forgotten.”
With a nod, he consented. “You’re right. It’s the only recourse we really have.”
Citlali patted him on the shoulder. “Bring them to the ceremonial lodge. I’ll get the sacred bundles and turtles ready.”
The two parted ways, and Citlali went to his lodge where he found Onawa rocking their four-month-old son in her arms. The two looked content together. She was stroking his cheek and humming to him, and he was fast asleep. Smiling at the tender scene, he walked over to her and knelt beside her. He kissed her cheek and touched the boy’s tiny hand. The boy’s lips turned up, but he remained asleep.
“Yuma has your smile,” Citlali whispered in her ear. “When I see him smile at me, I can’t help but think of you.”
She grinned. “He looks so much like you, it’s nice to know a part of me shows up in him.”
Chuckling, he gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze. “He has your good-natured temperament. When you look into his eyes, you can tell he sees the good in everything and is happy about the future. You’re the same way. No matter how dark things seem, you make them brighter. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“I love you, too, Citlali.”
He brought his mouth to hers for a lingering kiss. With reluctance, he ended the kiss and rose to his feet. “The white men are here,” he whispered as he hurried to the travois full of sacred objects of their tribe. “I promised them I’d share our traditions with them.”
“I’ll make something for them to eat and get their beds ready for the night,” she softly replied.
“I’m not sure how long they’ll be here, but I’m sure they’ll want to talk to everyone and learn as much as they can.” He picked up the ends of the travois and glanced at her. “I thought it would be easy to tell them everything, but it’s not.” He blinked back his tears and released a shaky breath. “I understand why Hache-Hi isn’t happy about this.”
She shot him a sympathetic look as she stood up and placed Yuma in his small bed. “It’s not easy to let go of the past.”
He stared at the items in the travois. They were just things. He knew it. But they also represented the many generations of Mandans who lived before him and before his son. They were passed down through generations and cared for. They represented what had once been a flourishing and great people. And now as they continued to dwindle in number, moved away from the tribe, and more married white people, even life as he knew it would be a memory. A memory confined in the words of a book.
He set down the travois and hurried over to Onawa so he could pull her into his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him tightly to her. He felt her body shake and knew she was crying. He buried his face in the nape of her neck and also cried, taking comfort in knowing she shared his heartache. They remained in each other’s arms for a few minutes. In the quiet that passed between them, he calmed, and when he was able to steady his emotions, he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her.
When the kiss ended, he pressed his forehead to hers and took a deep breath. “Life might be always changing, but my love for you will always be a constant you can depend on.”
He kissed her again before he returned to the travois and led it out of the lodge. As he headed for the ceremonial lodge, his emotions settled and he renewed his determination to do this. He hardly noticed the people as they walked by. When they greeted him, he nodded but kept his gaze focused on the lodge ahead of him.
He reached it and pulled the travois through the entrance. He scanned the lodge, thinking of the ceremonies that had once taken place here, but already those were less and less as each year passed.
“Thank you for meeting with us, chief,” Fred called out from beside Gary and Hache-Hi.
Citlali directed his attention to him and set the travois by the rug he planned to lay out the items to show them. He walked over to Fred and greeted him as the white men often did, with a handshake. “You will write everything down?” he asked.
“Yes.” Fred motioned to Tim who took a stack of papers and several pencils from his satchel. “We want to make sure we get everything right, so we’ll ask that you read through it when we’re done.”
“Gary will do that,” Citlali said. “I don’t read your language. I just speak it.”
“That’s fine,” Fred replied.
Citlali gestured for everyone to sit around the fire then sat between Hache-Hi and Gary. He picked up the pipe Hache-Hi carefully laid out for him and lit it. Every time he smoked from Mahkah’s pipe, he felt as if his friend and chief was with him. And on this occasion when he thought of him, a peace settled over him. It wasn’t the way Mahkah would have wanted it, but he thought Mahkah would have understood why he was doing it.
He smoked from the pipe and handed it to Hache-Hi. Turning his attention to Fred, Tim and Victor, he began, “We teach that the world is divided into three layers: the one above us, the one we’re on, and the one beneath us…”
And so, he proceeded to tell them about the ways of his people.
Author’s Note on
the Native American Romance Series
The 19th and 20th centuries marked significant changes for the Mandans. The Smallpox epidemic in 1837-38 hit them so hard that it’s estimated that only 125 full-blooded Mandans remained. In the meantime, Christian missionaries were coming to evangelize and the Mandans (who were a peaceful group of people) had a lot of dealings with the white man. At the turn of the 20th century, some moved into cabins, leaving the tribe, and more and more Mandans had left behind their old belief systems in favor of the white man’s.
A lot of changes were going on, and though I couldn’t effectively portray it all in the Native American Romance Series, I’ve picked out parts that I believe has enhanced the stories as they affected the four couples featured (Woape and Gary, Chogan and Julia, Citlali and Onawa, and — to a small degree — Cole and Penelope who adopted two orphaned Mandan children off an orphan train). With any story, the focus must always stay with the characters and their points of view. The Native American Romance Series is not meant to take the place of historical research into the era where the Mandans thrived and eventually dwindled in numbers.
The resources I used in research include (but are not limited to) the following:
The North American Indian (volume 5) written and published by Edward S. Curtis (1909). (book)
Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization (book) Alfred
W. Bowers foreword by Gerard Baker 2004 University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska original 1950 by The University of Chicago
I also took a trip to Bismarck, North Dakota in 2011 to see Mandan artifacts and read on their traditions and myths at the Heritage Center and a visit to the On-A-Slant Indian Village (south of Mandan, North Dakota) where the earthen lodges, drying platforms, and historical items kept in one of their lodges is available for touring.
I will admit that every time I think of how history has played out (the last full-blooded Mandan died in 1971), I tear up. The bulk of the series has been the struggle for the Mandans to preserve their way of life. But inevitably the tides of change was too powerful for them to fight, and that’s the ultimate conclusion that is reached at the end of the series. So I consider the ending of Bound by Honor, Bound by Love to be a bittersweet one. For Citlali and Onawa, it’s a happy ending, but for the tribe, it means accepting that they would never recapture their past glory.