Spirit Quest

by Jennifer Frick-Ruppert

  “I am tired from the work yesterday,” Ascopo whispered to me as we stood together.

  Somehow Roncommock overheard and said, “Be glad you were preparing an old field for replanting rather than clearing a brand new field. Next year we will shift the fields to a new location.”

  As Ascopo blushed, Andacon smiled with a rather wolf-like grin at him and said, “What will that entail?”

  “We will girdle the trees this winter, before the sap begins to rise and push out the new leaves. Next spring we will burn the fields to get rid of the shrubs, but many grasses and weeds will survive and they will be tough ones. It will take us a day to prepare a single, new field next year instead of working in all four in a single day.”

  “Does that mean we get to celebrate every night?” Ascopo asked hopefully.

  Roncommock laughed quietly as he replied, “Yes, it does. I think it is the anticipation of the evening dance and ceremony that keeps the youth working hard during the day.”

  Then Roncommock tipped out some of the embers onto the first pile of dry weeds near the edge of the field. It caught fire almost immediately and he carried some of that burning frass to other piles of dry grasses, weeds, and old stalks. As he moved along, transferring the fire to a succession of unburned piles, each previous pile burned quickly to ashes. By the time he reached the end of the field, the first fires burned out and turned cold. In this way he purified and enriched the ground for the next crop.

  After purifying the ground, then women arrived to plant the crops. My mother walked out to the center of the field and plunged a sharp stick to poke a hole in the ground. My sister, her apprentice, carried a basket of pagatowr seeds and placed four seeds into the hole, then covered them by pushing some soil with her foot. Four other women came out of the crowd of villagers, walked to the field’s center and each took a long stride, one to the east, one to the west, one north, and one south. They poked holes at each of these points, and other girls added the seeds and covered them. The men and boys simply watched until the whole field was sown with pagatowr and rows ran east-west as well as north-south. These most sacred of seeds would give birth to new plants just as women give birth to children, so only women planted the pagatowr.

  After women sowed the pagatowr, men helped by planting beans—okindgier—and peas—wickonzówr—in a circle around each corn plant, which allowed these vining plants to run up the corn stalks for support. The okindgier also helped the pagatowr to grow, for we have noticed that years of poor okindgier growth decreased the size of the pagatowr and the number of kernels we harvested. Lastly, we planted pumpkins, gourds, and squash, collectively called macócqwer, in between to fill in along the ground and shade out weeds.

  While the men planted these crops in the first field, the women had already moved to plant the sunflowers separately, in a different field all to themselves. We left the other three fields bare. We would plant the second field on the new moon, and the third on the next full moon. In this way, we extended our harvest, providing fresh green pagatowr and okindgier for a long period, and allowing us to divide the harvest into three moderate efforts instead of just one enormous one.

  Planting was not as demanding as clearing the fields, but it seemed more difficult because I was still weary from the previous day. Just as Roncommock suggested, I kept thinking about the good food and the fun dancing. Sure enough, soon the sun was low in the sky and we headed to the river to wash before the celebration began anew.

  At the river, I could catch up with Ascopo, Andacon, and Osocan. Thankfully, both Kaiauk and Mamankanois were somewhere else and so our older siblings didn’t bother us. To immerse ourselves into the cool river water was invigorating and fun, but it was also an important ritual for us—part of the cleansing process that we performed whenever we started or finished an important task. Planting our crops was second only to harvesting our crops in the significance of our rituals. But we could be as silly as we wanted while we were washing in the river, and after two grueling days, hilarity won out. Osocan was sneaky and managed to dunk his bigger brother so unexpectedly that when Andacon came back up he spurted water out of his nose and we all nearly drowned because we were laughing so hard.

  The feast on the second night was even better than the first because we added other foods to the meal. In addition to the hearty succotash from the night before, flavorful venison bones added complexity to the stew while strips of tender back muscle browned on skewers over the fire. They popped and steamed as tiny drops of fat fell on red-hot embers, and Ascopo squealed as one strip burnt the roof of his mouth when he ate it straight off the grill. Slender sticks of hickory wood, soaked in water, provided plenty of scented smoke to the fire. Fresh fish gathered from the nearby weirs in the river and grilled over the fire picked up the smoky, hickory flavor as they steamed to moist perfection.

  Even though we’d been eating a lot of dried fish since the fishing expedition, the fresh fish flaked delicately into bite-sized pieces and exuded the sweet flavor that only fresh fish from the river carry. I noticed that Osocan never wandered far from the fish grill. A little pot of dried plums, reconstituted with water, bubbled enticingly as it boiled, surrounded by hot coals. I couldn’t decide whether I liked it better when its intense sweetness was smeared on the smoky strip of venison or added to the natural sweetness of the fish, so I made several different experimental comparisons. Ascopo was happy to smear it on everything.

  While I was sampling the succotash, I realized that someone had even been out gathering plants from the forest, for I noticed an unusual flavor in the stew.

  “Hey, Mamankanois, what was that root you were after? Was it one of the seasonings?”

  “Good guess, little brother!” my sister teased. “Ginger root provided that flavor.”

  “Well, I am sure glad you found it. I bet mother would have fumed if you had been unable to provide it.”

  “You are right about that. I’m just glad I remembered where I gathered it last spring. There was more in the same area.” My sister let out a sigh, which ended with a satisfied little burp, as if to say, “Oh, I am pleasantly full now!”

  I kept on scooping up succotash while I asked, “So what else have you been doing, Mamankanois? I know you planted the fields, but what else has mother been teaching you?”

  “Recently it has been the preparation of skins as well as sewing and decorating them for garments and other uses. For example, I assisted her with the new loincloths. And I continue to learn about plants and their many different uses for food, medicine, rope, and other purposes, too. I doubt that I will ever know all of them. As yet, my weaving of mats and baskets has been rudimentary, but I heard that soon I will apprentice with Poócqueo, who is the most skilled basket weaver in the village. It will be fun to learn from the best.”

  “You girls have a lot to do even before you have babies to care for. Fishing and hunting seem pretty easy by comparison.”

  “I thought you had learned that everyone in our village has important jobs to do and that it takes all of us to make our village prosper. Hasn’t Roncommock been teaching you anything?” My sister smiled mischievously before she walked over to chat with Kaiauk, and I took the jab with the humor she intended. I liked her much better since we started our training. Both of us now had tasks to focus on and we saw each other less frequently. Perhaps that was for the best when it came to siblings. But why was she always talking with Kaiauk?

  The Busk Celebration

  It was now the height of summertime, and life was easy. Fish were abundant, and the pagatowr grew high in the long, hot days of summer. During the spring, we celebrated the planting of the pagatowr, but after its harvest we held the biggest celebration of the year. It was called the busk, and it marked the beginning of the new year for all tribes. It was the greatest celebration and feasting that our tribes held. Once the busk was over, the husquenaugh began, so while I looked forward to more feasting, I
dreaded its conclusion.

  I was in the field one day, checking the status of the last of the pagatowr, when Ascopo came sneaking up behind me. “Do you think it is ready yet?” he asked.

  I pulled back the shucks covering one ear, pressed the kernels with my finger, and saw that the kernels were dry and felt hard. The silks were brown and dry, the pollen tassels long since fallen off. We were not supposed to pull back the shucks to see the kernels inside, but we noticed that someone had partially shucked a few other cobs and then wrapped back up again. Someone else was checking too. “Must be close!” I answered.

  We’d already picked the early-ripening pagatowr at the beginning of the really hot weather. We planted it in the very first field that we sowed. The small ears with their colorful kernels were best while still moist, sweet, and juicy. The late-harvest ripened at the height of the hottest summer period, and its larger ears produced pale kernels that dried and stored better. We planted this late pagatowr in separate fields, and its dry kernels kept us fed during the cold winter months. When it was finally dry, ripe, and ready for harvest, we celebrated and thanked the spirits, for as long as we have dry pagatowr, we can survive the rigors of the cold season.

  Because Chowanook was the main village and Menatonon was chief over all, Chowanook hosted the busk for the whole tribe. Seventeen other villages joined us and swelled our ranks, and to organize such a large ceremony required some planning. Once Roncommock decided when to hold the busk, he sent runners with a bundle of ten sticks to each village. First the runner, and then the village’s shaman who received the bundle, removed one stick with each sunrise so that all the villages arrived together on the tenth day and in time for the start of the ceremony.

  Just this morning, Roncommock sent out the runners. He picked the fastest runners to go to the most distant villages, and when he selected Chaham for the longest run, Chaham could hardly speak for the pride of it. Ascopo’s brother, Kaiauk, and Andacon also ran to distant villages, but Ascopo, Osocan, and I did not. I tried to console Ascopo, who was annoyed that his brother was selected and he was not. The two were so competitive that I knew there would be trouble between them.

  “Look, Ascopo, you and I are still pretty small. Kaiauk and Andacon are as big as Chaham, and Kaiauk is older than you anyway. They’re bigger and faster than we are. Maybe next year, after we’ve grown taller, we’ll be just as fast as they are.” Ascopo grumbled disconsolately, so I continued, “Remember that you and I were among the best guards of the cornfield. Kaiauk has still not lived down the mistake he made during his guard year. Give him some credit for being fast because you have him beat on attention.” At this, Ascopo laughed with glee, reflecting on his brother’s embarrassment.

  Guarding pagatowr is paramount. When the tiny plants first emerge from the ground, crows often attempt to pull up the tiny plants and eat the sprouted seed, and once the corn ripens, many animals want to eat it. To keep it safe from these predators, a boy stationed in a little guard shack on the edge of the field keeps his eyes on the crops.

  Nearly every harvest season, some animal manages to wreak damage before the guard spots it, but no one will forget the year that Kaiauk was guard. One night a whole family of raccoons—saquenuckot—invaded. With their black masks and striped tail, they could be considered attractive animals, but their nimble black feet shuck the corn as well as we can using our hands. They broke down stalks and stripped a whole section bare, leaving footprints that looked like tiny human handprints. The next morning, Roncommock discovered the devastation, and also found Kaiauk asleep in the guard hut. We lost a huge portion of the crop that year, but luckily our earlier harvests were sufficient to maintain us.

  Kaiauk probably suffered the most. He was hardly able to contain himself, crying and guilt-ridden that he had allowed such destruction, and when Roncommock assigned his grandmother to join him in the guard hut, he wailed harder still. It was a long time before he lived down the embarrassment of spending the remainder of his guard duty under his grandmother’s supervision. Ascopo brightened considerably as he recalled Kaiauk’s misfortune.

  Unlike his unfortunate brother, Ascopo achieved admiration during his guard duty by capturing an opossum. The strange animals use their naked tail like a hand, sometimes even wrapping the prehensile tail around a tree branch to dangle head-down like ripe fruit. The village awoke one morning to find that Ascopo had caught and penned an opossum behind stakes that he drove into the ground and covered with a heavy branch. The penned opossum was scary looking with its teeth bared, hissing like a snake. They have more teeth than any other animal, and their skulls are easy to identify in the midden. But the animal calmed down after a day or two, and fattened up nicely on some old pagatowr until we cooked and ate it. Ascopo was praised by many for his resourcefulness and quick thinking. Now that I considered it, their differing guard experiences may account for the rivalry between Ascopo and Kaiauk.

  The most remarkable aspect of opossums is that they nurture their young in a pouch on the mother’s belly. When I was the guard, I killed one in the crop field that had twelve petite pink babies inside the pouch. I felt terrible that I had deprived them of their mother, and tried to pull them out of the pouch and raise them myself, but they were stuck fast to the nipples in the pouch and would not turn loose. When I finally dislodged one of them and took it to my mother, she said it would not survive because we could not feed it the mother’s milk that it needed. The pitiful thing died the next day. I think that experience may be what discouraged me as a hunter, although I realized that hunting was essential for our survival. I felt such pity for those little creatures.

  Those two, the raccoon and opossum, were the most frequent predators in the crop field, but deer sometimes came, especially to eat the leaves of the beans. If, when boys are guarding, they see a deer, they are supposed to get a man so that he can shoot it. In some years, we harvest several deer that visit the fields, but mostly they stay away from the crop fields because they are at the edge of our village and within the sight, sound, and smell of our people. I suppose that now that I have killed my first deer, I might be called upon as the man a guard boy alerts.

  After we checked the pagatowr, Ascopo and I evaluated the okindgier seeds as well. The stalks of the pagatowr grew much taller than any man and the vines of the okindgier wrapped around the stalks all the way to the top. The flowers of the okindgier were usually red in color, and they produced beautiful seeds with swirls of dark purple on a lighter purple background. When the seeds were dry, the whole pod turned brown, so we didn’t need to open the pods to check the ripeness of the seeds; instead we just compared the number of brown pods with those that were still green and fleshy. Since harvest of the corn would damage the bean plants entwining the stalks, Roncommock waited until most of the okindgier pods were brown and ripe to call the busk. I enjoyed shelling the okindgier because each glossy seed, like the colorful coquina shells from the banks, looked slightly different from all the others. The wickonzówr—or peas—were similar, but were greenish brown when dry, smaller than the big colorful seeds of okindgier, and did not vine up the stalks of the pagatowr.

  As Ascopo and I stood in the field looking at the pagatowr and okindgier, I remembered another experience from my guard duty. One day, while I guarded the pagatowr, a tiny bird with a straight slender beak buzzed like a bumblebee as it visited the scarlet flowers of the okindgier, which were matched by the red throat of the bird. Amazingly, the bird moved forward, backward, up and down while its wings beat so fast that they were just a blur. It moved from flower to flower, hovering in front of each flower and then slipping its bill down inside. On that day, I ran home excitedly to my mother’s wigwam even though we were not supposed to leave the field. It was just such an astonishing animal that I had to tell her about it. She called it a hummingbird and I watched for it on subsequent days. I saw the hummingbird regularly, but never heard another boy mention it.

  Most other
boys focused on the birds they could shoot. Any of the bigger birds that were predators on the ripening seeds were fair game for the small warriors. They shot the birds with blowguns or small bows and arrows, an activity that kept the whole group of boys happily patrolling the edges of the field as the crops ripened. Andacon and Osocan were among the crew who hunted along the edges even when they weren’t on guard duty.

  Ascopo interrupted my reminiscence. “Do you remember what happened to Keetrauk? His blunder was almost as bad as my brother’s. Almost!” he chuckled. “Keetrauk allowed a whole flock of red-winged black birds—or chúwquaréo—to wreak havoc in the field he was supposed to be guarding. My brother’s mistake was far worse because those saquenuckot nearly damaged the entire crop instead of just a portion.” Apparently, Keetrauk had fallen asleep so soundly in the guard hut that he never awoke to the screeching birds flashing their bright red shoulders, but his brother Tetszo heard them from far away and ran to the field, chasing off the birds while Keetrauk stumbled sleepily from the guard hut. As with Kaiauk, Roncommock reacted by assigning their grandmother to supervise Keetrauk for ten humiliating days. Neither Kaiauk nor Keetrauk lived down the embarrassment. No wonder Keetrauk prefers to fish.

  I felt compelled to point out, “Ascopo, it was Keetrauk’s brother that helped him out and minimized the damage. Don’t you feel the least bit sorry for Kaiauk?”

  Ascopo shrugged and said, “Tetszo is Keetrauk’s older brother. Older brothers are supposed to help out the younger, not vice versa. I’m not responsible for Kaiauk since I am younger than he is.”