Full Moon Woman Mask
Immediately after returning to the village, the newly turned women were secluded behind curtains made of decorated blankets in their lodges until a new moon shines. The seclusion is to insure that no trickster spirit might cause them to stumble in their first steps as women of the tribe. It was also a time when suitors or relatives of suitors might approach the chief and the girl’s mother, grandmother or uncle on the mother’s side concerning an engagement.
When Uma-kwee came home to the village, her father and brothers took her, without a word, directly to Candle-fish House -- the family’s long house. As she was ushered back, she overheard Komokwa – one of her younger brothers -- report that several men from a northern tribe had arrived at Kah-sidaatsoos and were smoking pipes with the chief and some elders at that moment. Everyone thought that they came to greet the mothers and arrange a future marriage for their sons with some of the newly made women.
It was many days until the new moon shone and Uma-kwee was kept in the curtained room. She was expected to sing songs of the family and tribe and was given a small drum and tambourine. But, none of the family could speak to her, even when the food dish and water basket was presented. She accepted the discipline and the honor that came with being a grown up woman. She took out the jewelry box and put on each artifact one by one, brushing and then braiding her hair. She worked to complete a basket with a killer whale design as her step-mother taught her. And she sang songs to her pet worm, which had doubled in size eating his camas and leaves. She carefully changed his moss each day and admired how much he had grown.
“You are getting too big for your bed. Keep growing like this and you will fill the lodge.” She named the grub, Kee-Kee-a-Klika-Coo, or hidden treasure one.
She made up songs about the worm until her youngest brothers suspected that she had a pet with her.
“Uma-kwee is just singing to one of her dolls,” said step-mother.
But, grandmother guessed that she sang in honor of her future husband or perhaps a baby son.
That night she dreamed that the worm grew to the size of a fire log. She held it like a baby and nursed him from her own breasts.
Four more days passed, and then on the seventh night of her seclusion, she awoke in the middle of the night noticing that the place where she lay seemed to glow with a strange, white light in the normally dark house. The mother-of-pearl eyes of the lion figure carved on the jewelry box at her feet also glowed, along with half of the decorated blankets that hung to form the walls of her enclosure. She sat up, rubbed her eyes and lifted a corner of one curtain and looked out across the wide interior of Candle-fish House and saw that every surface, the storage boxes, dance platform, carved house posts and sleeping family members gleamed as white as swan’s down. She could see that the pit of the fireplace was reduced to a few red embers – the once dancing flames were visiting the dream world along with the rest of the family.
With everyone asleep, she slipped outside her confines and stepped quietly past the fire pit toward the middle of the room -- curious at the source of light that came from the ceiling’s smoke hole like a waterfall in the night. Entering into the shaft of light, she looked up to see the moon framed in the square smoke hole.
She thought, “This is the face of full-moon-woman looking down from above with the love of the sky in her eyes.”
For a long time she sat, bathed in the lovely light and wondering at the heavenly face.
“Welcome, moon, to my house,” she whispered. “You come to herald my transformation.”
She watched the moon until her head grew heavy with sleep and she returned to lie down under her blanket safely behind the barrier once again. That night she dreamed of attending a feast hosted by her uncle, chief Katee'qwa, in which she was assigned to sing the moon dance song. She sang so well that the elders gave her a prize – the moon in a bowl to eat. She ate the moon as if it were a salmon cake and when she finished, warmth filled her body and her head and hands and all that she touched glowed with a blue and white light.
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When Uma-kwee came home to the village, her father and brothers took her, without a word, directly to Candle-fish House -- the family’s long house. As she was ushered back, she overheard Komokwa – one of her younger brothers -- report that several men from a northern tribe had arrived at Kah-sidaatsoos and were smoking pipes with the chief and some elders at that moment. Everyone thought that they came to greet the mothers and arrange a future marriage for their sons with some of the newly made women.
It was many days until the new moon shone and Uma-kwee was kept in the curtained room. She was expected to sing songs of the family and tribe and was given a small drum and tambourine. But, none of the family could speak to her, even when the food dish and water basket was presented. She accepted the discipline and the honor that came with being a grown up woman. She took out the jewelry box and put on each artifact one by one, brushing and then braiding her hair. She worked to complete a basket with a killer whale design as her step-mother taught her. And she sang songs to her pet worm, which had doubled in size eating his camas and leaves. She carefully changed his moss each day and admired how much he had grown.
“You are getting too big for your bed. Keep growing like this and you will fill the lodge.” She named the grub, Kee-Kee-a-Klika-Coo, or hidden treasure one.
She made up songs about the worm until her youngest brothers suspected that she had a pet with her.
“Uma-kwee is just singing to one of her dolls,” said step-mother.
But, grandmother guessed that she sang in honor of her future husband or perhaps a baby son.
That night she dreamed that the worm grew to the size of a fire log. She held it like a baby and nursed him from her own breasts.
Four more days passed, and then on the seventh night of her seclusion, she awoke in the middle of the night noticing that the place where she lay seemed to glow with a strange, white light in the normally dark house. The mother-of-pearl eyes of the lion figure carved on the jewelry box at her feet also glowed, along with half of the decorated blankets that hung to form the walls of her enclosure. She sat up, rubbed her eyes and lifted a corner of one curtain and looked out across the wide interior of Candle-fish House and saw that every surface, the storage boxes, dance platform, carved house posts and sleeping family members gleamed as white as swan’s down. She could see that the pit of the fireplace was reduced to a few red embers – the once dancing flames were visiting the dream world along with the rest of the family.
With everyone asleep, she slipped outside her confines and stepped quietly past the fire pit toward the middle of the room -- curious at the source of light that came from the ceiling’s smoke hole like a waterfall in the night. Entering into the shaft of light, she looked up to see the moon framed in the square smoke hole.
She thought, “This is the face of full-moon-woman looking down from above with the love of the sky in her eyes.”
For a long time she sat, bathed in the lovely light and wondering at the heavenly face.
“Welcome, moon, to my house,” she whispered. “You come to herald my transformation.”
She watched the moon until her head grew heavy with sleep and she returned to lie down under her blanket safely behind the barrier once again. That night she dreamed of attending a feast hosted by her uncle, chief Katee'qwa, in which she was assigned to sing the moon dance song. She sang so well that the elders gave her a prize – the moon in a bowl to eat. She ate the moon as if it were a salmon cake and when she finished, warmth filled her body and her head and hands and all that she touched glowed with a blue and white light.
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