Algonquian Words
Cattapeak: spring
Cohattayough: summer
Kwiocosuk: shaman, priest
Mamanatowick: ruler of several villages
Nepinough: earring of the corn season
Popanow: winter
Taquitock: the harvest and the falling of the leaves season
Weroance: chief of a village
Weroansqua: female chief of a village or dominant wife of the
village’s weroance
Characters Mentioned
* historically identified person
Caldwell – 12, cabin boy serving Humphrey Gilbert
* Carleill, Christopher – 33, step-son oof Francis Walsingham
* Gilbert, Humphrey – Colonizer who dies at sea at age of 44
* Hayes, Edward – 34, captain of the Golden Hind
Sokanon (Rain) – 18, Sooleawa’s daughter and Alsoomse’s and Wanchese’s cousin
Tihkoosue (Short) – 13, Granganineo’s son and Hurit’s step-son
* Walsingham, Francis -- 52, Queen Elizabeth’s principal secretary
* Wanchese (Take Flight off of Water) – 20, protagonist
Commentary
I have intentionally juxtaposed these two scenes to contrast how two boys close to the same age and of different cultures are treated, the dominant culture deeming itself enlightened, the other culture judged by the dominate culture to be savage.
Scene One
September 2, 1583. On calmer seas, Humphrey Gilbert, leaving the Squirrel, boarded the Golden Hinde.
He was in a foul mood. The recent tragedy, that he was without supplies to establish a settlement, and that bad weather – not he -- would thenceforth dictate his actions were its causes. He could imagine Walsingham whispering in the Queen’s ear, “I warned you about Gilbert. You should have chosen my step-son, Christopher Carleill.” An hour ago -- Providence not yet finished with him -- walking about his cabin in his stockings, Gilbert had stepped on a rusty nail. As the Hinde’s surgeon dressed his wound, Gilbert conversed with the ship’s captain and first mate.
No, God’s blood, he would not abandon the Squirrel, even though it was much smaller --- a mere ten tons -- than the Hinde. After they had left Newfoundland, he had moved from the Delight to the Squirrel to investigate unexplored harbors and mouths of rivers. The decision had saved his life. But his mooncalf cabin boy – whom he had sent a sailor back to the Squirrel to summon -- had not transferred his notes, mineral samples, and charts! He imagined them lying now scattered on the Sable Island sea bed, below the Delight’s floating dead!
“You will not alter your decision?” Captain Hayes ventured.
“I will not, sir!”
“Recognizing that the Squirrel is over laden with freight? That in almost certain rough weather it could be swamped?”
“Make no doubt, Captain. I am sensible of the danger. I am not a man of inferior parts!”
His face coloring, Hayes raised his left hand above the eating table, thought a moment, allowed it to fall. “Nothing, sir, is further from my heart,” he declared. The hand opened. “Permit me to say, forthrightly, that I had wished to emphasize my unwillingness to countenance our esteemed commander heedlessly risking his life!”
Gilbert scowled.
Hayes moved his hand below the table’s surface.
Gilbert’s eyes bored. "Captain, I will not forsake my little company going homeward! We have shared many perils. I place my trust in our All Mighty God!" He leaned sideways, stared at his bandaged left foot, tentatively flexed his leg. “Yes, we are to return to England!” he said addressing the floor. He looked past Hayes’s right shoulder. “It will be the last year of my six years letters patent. I will establish a colony here and profit handsomely!” He would persuade the Queen, with his half-brother’s help, Walsingham be damned!
Hayes made a supplicating gesture. “My duty lies in your service.”
He spoke of night signals. They needed to stay close together.
Gilbert argued against it.
The cabin door opened. A scarlet-faced twelve-year-old boy lingered at the threshold.
“Come here, Caldwell!” Gilbert ordered. “Captain, I will have your stick!”
Hayes motioned to his cabin orderly to retrieve it. The man, pinkish scalp visible beneath thin strands of unwashed hair, opened the captain’s sea chest. He removed the wooden rod, pivoted, approached Gilbert, relinquished it.
“Boy. Remove your blouse. Bend over this table! One stroke for each chart and sample lost!”
Hayes whispered to his orderly. The man exited the cabin.
Gilbert delivered the first stroke. Caldwell cried out. The second stroke came with greater force.
The orderly and the ship’s surgeon entered the cabin.
Upon the fifth stroke, Gilbert spoke. “Let this be meaningful. Punishment instructs. Orders, without exception, will be obeyed.”
The boy moaned. Hayes motioned for his surgeon to step forward.
“I am not finished here!” Gilbert glared. “Do not think that just five of my precious items were lost!”
“Perhaps, sir, the number lost exceeds the boy’s ability to bear the punishment.”
“Mind you! I have dealt with insubordinate underlings! I will make that judgment!”
“Thank you, admiral. Pray pardon my hasty presumption.”
Gilbert delivered a fierce stroke, straightened, watched Caldwell convulse.
Hayes and his first mate exchanged glances.
Gilbert delivered his final stroke. “The captain speaks well for mercy. Consider yourself fortunate that he has invoked my generosity.” Pivoting: “Your stick, captain!” He handed it to Hayes’s orderly. “Your surgeon may now perform his duties.”
The surgeon and the captain’s mate half-carried the boy out of the cabin.
Breathing less aggressively, Gilbert spoke to Hayes of his return to the Squirrel. “I have nothing to fear. I sail with the Lord’s protection. God rot what the sea might conspire! You shall see me seated on my deck, book in hand, reading Sir Thomas More. Utopia, you need not ask.” He gestured expansively with his left hand. “I shall avail you of More’s erudition upon our return.”
Scene Two
Wanchese and Tihkoosue had returned to Roanoke the next morning.
Tihkoosue had not finished removing his bow before dark. Wanchese had recognized the futility of pushing the boy beyond his limits of will and stamina. It was more important to Wanchese that he finish the task, not how quickly he did so. His bow would be dangerously narrow in breadth but it would be his bow entirely!
“We will sleep here rough tonight. You will finish taking out your wood in the morning.”
“I cannot do it!” the boy had cried.
“You might surprise yourself,” Wanchese had answered.
Wanchese had built a fire to provide them uncovered warmth. He had wondered if Tihkoosue had ever slept outside his parents’ longhouse. The boy – not conscious of Wanchese’s observation -- had twitched, turned, taken a long time to fall asleep. Wanchese had questioned whether he had made any gains in his attempt to change the boy’s attitude. He had been pleased, consequently, to see Tihkoosue head across the field toward the stand of witch hazel while he had spilled sand on the coals of their night fire.
“Show me again how deep to hit the wedges,” Tihkoosue had said when Wanchese had arrived at Tihkoosue’s tree.
“Give more tobacco. Be thankful. The tree is giving you a gift.” Later, when all of the antler wedges had been inserted: “Tap the side of each wedge gently. The bow has to come out whole. You will feel it begin to separate. When you do, stop. Go to the next wedge. When you reach the bottom, start over again. Remember what I told you about patience.”
An hour later the boy had wedged out the long, narrow rectangle of wood. Wanchese had recognized in Tihkoosue’s physical bearing a measure of pride. “About as rough edged as mine,” he had remarked. The boy had smiled, briefly.
“We do the boring work back in the village.”
#
They had eaten bread dipped in Sokanon’s pot. Afterward, taking turns using the semi-sharp edge of a four-inch long section of flint, they started removing their bows’ bark.
Afterward, they would cut away irregularities in the wood. They would take great care to make each section of the bow -- above and below its four-inch center -- symmetrical. That would entail sanding: the up and down hand use of separated granules of sandstone placed in the fold of a foot-square section of deerskin. Later, after they had eaten, they would cut a groove near each end of their bows. That would conclude their day’s labor, the boy not having sufficient resolve to continue.
The following day they would remove sinew from the foreleg of a slain deer, construct bow strings, attach them -- eight strings twisted together -- to the ends of their bows, and glue the strings in place using pine sap. Following that, the third day, they would harvest reeds and commence to make arrows. Wanchese estimated that ten suns would pass before this necessary project would be completed.
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