Stone Face, continued
The chief remembered the fine artworks that we displayed in the old village. He wanted to steal our painted masks and tightly woven cedar baskets and mountain-goat wool blankets – even though our people gave him some of these crafts as gifts at the previous year’s summer potlatch. He especially desired to eat from the Frog Bowl reserved for ceremonial spring meals shared with Wonderful Doer.
The ghost convinced Namquaw he was sorely insulted because the gifts at the potlatch hosted by our tribe were less generous than the one given by his dead father four years before.
“The Kaw-Seth offered less worthy Kaw-Seth gifts in contempt of my people," he said to the spirit.
"You are right. They must pay for mocking father. They must die.” He swung his fist as if striking a victim with a club. His anger grew the longer he brooded.
The ghost brought to his mind the humiliation he felt when his men lost the canoe race and our braves celebrated too loudly in his presence. He was forced to give away his best war canoe as the prize.
“My craftsmen spent many days on that canoe. It was the best in the whole region and those river rats disguised as men took it and laughed all the way. They were laughing at you, mocking the noble chieftain of the Stone Face linage. They must pay back for giving the less worthy gifts. It is only right that they should make up for what their stinking gifts lacked by decorating my lodge poles with a string of their heads. I can see the head string now proving I am right."
Lifting his brow, a smile formed on his tight face. He stood up and found himself speaking out loud up to the ceiling of the long house. His wives sleeping next to him awakened and knew, yes, chief had set his mind to order yet another raid.
"It is right to honor the death of my noble father by making some others wail for a change. The wailing of Kaw-Seth river rats will be like a grand memorial song sounding in the night reminding everyone that Chief Sewid's reputation endures."
Elation filled his chest and overtook his rage, as it often did when he decided to exercise his ghost inspired powers.
Namquaw's people numbered forty times larger than our tribe in those days. So he conspired with his spirits to do us much harm. And he did.
Soon after Namquaw heard the voice, bands of warriors appeared climbing up our shore as swiftly as the blows of the war clubs they used to kill our ancestors. With bloody hands they struck down many people and took those spared death back as slaves to the Village of Raven’s Harbor, forcing them to work hauling wood or water or to fight in Tsonox raids of smaller villages.
We speak about our defeat only now, during the winter ceremonies, to remind our sons and daughters Wonderful Doer did not forget our people, but used our capture and suffering to lead us to Island Home where we live in peace to this day. We tell the story each year because it teaches how the Kaw-Seth way endures.
The strong armed Tsonox knew the power of the spear and spread fear wherever their sleek war canoes beached. As usual Namquaw called a high council of clan leaders and announced through his spokesman that our village must be destroyed. He ordered the braves to ready the canoes for an attack.
The high prows of the war canoes -- adorned with faces of snarling wolves and screaming corpses -- lifted above rocking waves and sent terror deep into the chest of all who saw approaching convoys -- even from a far distance. The emblems were meant to frighten enemies and inspire fearlessness in the fighters. Each canoe held eighteen braves, their bodies painted completely black with magical soot collected from a tree burned by a strike of lighting -- making the warriors invisible in the dark.
For three days before a raid, the warriors obtained spirit power by observing a rite of bathing in cold water up to their necks -- until their bodies lost sensation -- while singing the war song of the ice demons and listening to shamans beat drums and shake raven-frog rattles. Next the elder shaman wearing the stone corpse mask sprinkled each fighter with the dust of dried fireweed pedals, representing the blood of war.
“Strong is your arm. Sure is your aim. Great is your victory.”
“Strong is your arm. Sure is your aim. Great is your victory!”
We know that the rituals worked since the Tsonox never lost a battle. Any and all people they chose to attack fell to their blows.
When all was prepared, the chief sent eighty war canoes on the four-day journey past Ocean Falls and the Thunderbird Nest Tree down to the place where our people lived on the northern shore of the mouth of Great River. They arrived at sunrise wearing supernatural bird helmets and cedar strip body armor and armed with heavy clubs, spears and bows and arrows. The canoes soon beached in the darkness of dawn and the warriors moved like wolves quickly up from the beach to the sleeping village.
The warning sounded only long enough for a few young braves to mount a failed counter attack. Some people escaped to the lava caves or other hiding places in the woods. But, our chief Sisul-eth, his sons and all of the clan leaders were killed immediately by stone axes or spears or tortured to death in front of their wives and children. The evil spirits took pleasure in watching the torture and inspired unspeakable acts of cruelty against our defeated fathers. Many braves were beheaded alive and their heads put up on pikes along the beach.
The Tsonox warriors tied ropes to the two large totem poles that stood at the entrance to the village in honor of chief Sisul-eth’s family and pulled them down. These were the largest and best totems in the village -- one topped by an image of thunderbird and the other by a mountain lion. The poles crashed onto the roof of the winter lodge, and the ruins burned with fire. Black smoke filled the wind along with the cries of our grandmothers. The triumphant warriors joked as they smashed the chief’s prayer box with big rocks because it was decorated with an image of a whale.
Just as Namquaw instructed them, the raiders found the storage box that contained the sacred Frog Bowl, carved from jade stone by our ancestors after the flood and used each spring to serve deer meat from the first hunt in a meal offered to Wonderful Doer. They also took the chiefly weasel hat and the spirit quest canoe paddles, model totems and other treasures that have long since been traded or given away as potlatch gifts to allied chiefs.
Before burning all of the long houses and cutting the throats of strong men of age who resisted and beating to death all the old men, the laughing warriors cut strips of scalps from the dead as trophies and carried away the most valuable artwork, baskets and ceremonial robes and blankets as well the boxes of preserved elk, salmon, blueberries and clams from the storage house and put all the booty into the canoes along with the captured young braves, women and children and brought them back to Raven’s Harbor.
Then the hardships began in full.
We do not know why the Great One in the Heavens -- or his spokesman the Changer -- did not come to our rescue. But, we do know that he preserved our bloodline and sent us a chief to save our people from slavery. This is because one of the women brought back as a slave was the wife of a lion clan elder and she was pregnant with Muxqueum, our founder who became the first Snowy Owl of the people.
Our fathers say that on the ocean journey to Raven’s Harbor after the final raid, Naidah, the mother of Muxqueum, had a dream in which she saw her son as a strong brave, his face painted red with bloodroot and wearing an owl figure head dress fitted with mother-of-pearl eyes and downy feathers. In her dream she saw her unborn son as a young man wrestling with Crooked Beak and breaking the monster’s neck. She kept the dream to herself, knowing that Wonderful Doer would grant the baby special powers.
Next chapter
The ghost convinced Namquaw he was sorely insulted because the gifts at the potlatch hosted by our tribe were less generous than the one given by his dead father four years before.
“The Kaw-Seth offered less worthy Kaw-Seth gifts in contempt of my people," he said to the spirit.
"You are right. They must pay for mocking father. They must die.” He swung his fist as if striking a victim with a club. His anger grew the longer he brooded.
The ghost brought to his mind the humiliation he felt when his men lost the canoe race and our braves celebrated too loudly in his presence. He was forced to give away his best war canoe as the prize.
“My craftsmen spent many days on that canoe. It was the best in the whole region and those river rats disguised as men took it and laughed all the way. They were laughing at you, mocking the noble chieftain of the Stone Face linage. They must pay back for giving the less worthy gifts. It is only right that they should make up for what their stinking gifts lacked by decorating my lodge poles with a string of their heads. I can see the head string now proving I am right."
Lifting his brow, a smile formed on his tight face. He stood up and found himself speaking out loud up to the ceiling of the long house. His wives sleeping next to him awakened and knew, yes, chief had set his mind to order yet another raid.
"It is right to honor the death of my noble father by making some others wail for a change. The wailing of Kaw-Seth river rats will be like a grand memorial song sounding in the night reminding everyone that Chief Sewid's reputation endures."
Elation filled his chest and overtook his rage, as it often did when he decided to exercise his ghost inspired powers.
Namquaw's people numbered forty times larger than our tribe in those days. So he conspired with his spirits to do us much harm. And he did.
Soon after Namquaw heard the voice, bands of warriors appeared climbing up our shore as swiftly as the blows of the war clubs they used to kill our ancestors. With bloody hands they struck down many people and took those spared death back as slaves to the Village of Raven’s Harbor, forcing them to work hauling wood or water or to fight in Tsonox raids of smaller villages.
We speak about our defeat only now, during the winter ceremonies, to remind our sons and daughters Wonderful Doer did not forget our people, but used our capture and suffering to lead us to Island Home where we live in peace to this day. We tell the story each year because it teaches how the Kaw-Seth way endures.
The strong armed Tsonox knew the power of the spear and spread fear wherever their sleek war canoes beached. As usual Namquaw called a high council of clan leaders and announced through his spokesman that our village must be destroyed. He ordered the braves to ready the canoes for an attack.
The high prows of the war canoes -- adorned with faces of snarling wolves and screaming corpses -- lifted above rocking waves and sent terror deep into the chest of all who saw approaching convoys -- even from a far distance. The emblems were meant to frighten enemies and inspire fearlessness in the fighters. Each canoe held eighteen braves, their bodies painted completely black with magical soot collected from a tree burned by a strike of lighting -- making the warriors invisible in the dark.
For three days before a raid, the warriors obtained spirit power by observing a rite of bathing in cold water up to their necks -- until their bodies lost sensation -- while singing the war song of the ice demons and listening to shamans beat drums and shake raven-frog rattles. Next the elder shaman wearing the stone corpse mask sprinkled each fighter with the dust of dried fireweed pedals, representing the blood of war.
“Strong is your arm. Sure is your aim. Great is your victory.”
“Strong is your arm. Sure is your aim. Great is your victory!”
We know that the rituals worked since the Tsonox never lost a battle. Any and all people they chose to attack fell to their blows.
When all was prepared, the chief sent eighty war canoes on the four-day journey past Ocean Falls and the Thunderbird Nest Tree down to the place where our people lived on the northern shore of the mouth of Great River. They arrived at sunrise wearing supernatural bird helmets and cedar strip body armor and armed with heavy clubs, spears and bows and arrows. The canoes soon beached in the darkness of dawn and the warriors moved like wolves quickly up from the beach to the sleeping village.
The warning sounded only long enough for a few young braves to mount a failed counter attack. Some people escaped to the lava caves or other hiding places in the woods. But, our chief Sisul-eth, his sons and all of the clan leaders were killed immediately by stone axes or spears or tortured to death in front of their wives and children. The evil spirits took pleasure in watching the torture and inspired unspeakable acts of cruelty against our defeated fathers. Many braves were beheaded alive and their heads put up on pikes along the beach.
The Tsonox warriors tied ropes to the two large totem poles that stood at the entrance to the village in honor of chief Sisul-eth’s family and pulled them down. These were the largest and best totems in the village -- one topped by an image of thunderbird and the other by a mountain lion. The poles crashed onto the roof of the winter lodge, and the ruins burned with fire. Black smoke filled the wind along with the cries of our grandmothers. The triumphant warriors joked as they smashed the chief’s prayer box with big rocks because it was decorated with an image of a whale.
Just as Namquaw instructed them, the raiders found the storage box that contained the sacred Frog Bowl, carved from jade stone by our ancestors after the flood and used each spring to serve deer meat from the first hunt in a meal offered to Wonderful Doer. They also took the chiefly weasel hat and the spirit quest canoe paddles, model totems and other treasures that have long since been traded or given away as potlatch gifts to allied chiefs.
Before burning all of the long houses and cutting the throats of strong men of age who resisted and beating to death all the old men, the laughing warriors cut strips of scalps from the dead as trophies and carried away the most valuable artwork, baskets and ceremonial robes and blankets as well the boxes of preserved elk, salmon, blueberries and clams from the storage house and put all the booty into the canoes along with the captured young braves, women and children and brought them back to Raven’s Harbor.
Then the hardships began in full.
We do not know why the Great One in the Heavens -- or his spokesman the Changer -- did not come to our rescue. But, we do know that he preserved our bloodline and sent us a chief to save our people from slavery. This is because one of the women brought back as a slave was the wife of a lion clan elder and she was pregnant with Muxqueum, our founder who became the first Snowy Owl of the people.
Our fathers say that on the ocean journey to Raven’s Harbor after the final raid, Naidah, the mother of Muxqueum, had a dream in which she saw her son as a strong brave, his face painted red with bloodroot and wearing an owl figure head dress fitted with mother-of-pearl eyes and downy feathers. In her dream she saw her unborn son as a young man wrestling with Crooked Beak and breaking the monster’s neck. She kept the dream to herself, knowing that Wonderful Doer would grant the baby special powers.
Next chapter
0 Comments:
Post a Comment