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
Wassador: copper
Weroance: chief of a village
Weroansqua: female chief of a village or dominant wife of the
village’s weroance
Windigo: cannibal monster (plural: Windigoag)
Characters Mentioned
* historically identified person
Allawa (Pea) – 15, Granganimeo’s daughter and Hurit’s step-daughter
Alsoomse (Independent) –17, protagonist
Askook (Snake) – 21, Hurit’s brother and enemy of Alsoomse and
Wanchese
* Granganimeo (He Who Is Serious) – 33, Roanoke weroance and Wingina’s brother
Hausisse (Old Woman) – 40, Odina’s mother
Keme (Thunder) – 25, warrior and friend of Wanchese
Machk (Bear) – 17, Nuna and Wapun’s brother, friend of Wanchese
Nootau (Fire) – 20, Sooleawa’s son and Alsoomse and Wanchese’s cousin
Nuna (Land) – 16, Alsoomse’s friend across the lane
Odina (Mountain) – 16, Alsoomse’s friend across the lane
Pules (Pigeon) – 11, Odina’s sister
Sokanon (Rain) – 18, Sooleawa’s daughter and Alsoomse and
Wanchese’s cousin
Sooleawa (Silver) – 39, Nadie’s sister and Alsoomse and Wanchese’s
aunt
Tihkoosue (Short) – 13, Granganineo’s son and Hurit’s step-son
* Wanchese (Take Flight off of Water) – 20, protagonist
Wapun (Dawn) – 12, Nuna’s amd Machk”s sister
* Wingina – 34, current mamanatowick and Granganimeo’s brother
Explanation: Allawa is Granganimeo’s child by his first wife, deceased. Grananimeo has two sons, both by his second wife, Hurit, 25. They are Tihkoosue and Ahanu, 3. Hurit has two brothers: Huritt, 24, and Askook.
Maps
Scene Three
Wanchese and his cousin Nootau and Nuna’s brother Machk had returned to the longhouse at midday with the meat, hide, brain, and front legs of a large buck deer. Tihkoosue had complained loudly that Wanchese had not permitted him to accompany them. Wanchese’s curt explanation had been: “After you have built your bow and two arrows and practiced shooting them. Then. Not before.” During their absence Tihkoosue had gone to his father’s longhouse but had hurried back upon learning that the three hunters had returned.
Alsoomse, Sokanon, and Nuna were cutting the meat into smaller segments. Odina and her ailing mother Hausisse were placing the hide over two poles, preparatory to using the sharpened shoulder blade of a stage deer to scrape off adhering flesh and fat. Afterward, they would mash the brain in a wooden bowl, urinate into the bowl, and mix its content. Then -- the two young girls Wapun and Pules watching -- they would spread the mixture over the scraped hide to soften it.
Tihkoosue joined the men at the water’s edge while they cleaned their arrows and knives. He accompanied them to a stand of red cedar a mile south of the village. Three trees, dead limbs broken in different places, lay on the matted earth. They had been felled months ago by successive burnings at the base of their trunks and, afterward, the repeated scraping away of the charred wood. Tihkoosue knew why this had been done, that his village could not depend solely on storm-broken branches for its supply of firewood. This was the first time that he had visited one of these places, where man, not the god of storms, provided fuel for fires. When he and the young men returned to the village with armloads of dead branches, he -- filthy, cranky, exhausted – was eager to return to the men’s section of the water’s edge to cleanse himself.
An hour later the men and women, the two girls, Sooleawa, and Hausisse were seated in a large circle within which lay a large wooden platter containing acorn nuts and roasted strips of venison. The serious eating concluded, conversation between pairs and within gender groups started. Alsoomse was pleased to observe and listen.
“I would like to bring back more meat,” Wanchese said to his cousin. “Tomorrow. When the women start harvesting the last of the corn. We should probably go to Etacrewac. The bucks and does will be mating. The Pasquenoke do not hunt there.”
“We should take two canoes. Keme might go with us. Should I ask him?” Nootau looked past Wanchese, glanced at Machk. Wanchese nodded. Nootau reached for an acorn nut.
“Take me along!” Tihkoosue declared.
Wanchese shook his head. The thick strands of hair below the knot at the back of his head jumped.
“Why not?”
“I told you.”
“How am I going to learn how to hunt if I do not see how it is done?” His eyes did not leave Wanchese’s face.
“You are too short to hunt.” Askook had come up silently behind them.
The hairs along Alsoomse’s backbone prickled.
“A fox might mistake you for an ugly rabbit,” Askook said. “Swallow you up.”
Wapun and Pules, both taller than Tihkoosue but a cohattayough and two cohattayoughs younger, laughed.
“Stupid girls!” The boy glared.
“He makes a good argument,” Wanchese responded.
Tihkoosue’s head swiveled. His eyes implored.
“I will think about it,” Wanchese said.
“Looking to gain more favor, are you, Wanchese?” Askook raised his left forefinger. “Already Granganimeo’s mind tells his nose your turds smell like sweet bay!” He grinned.
Wanchese seized an acorn nut, threw it across the pathway.
Askook laughed. Palms up, elbows close to his sides, he said: “I think I know why you are helping this weak little rabbit. You plan to mount Allawa!” Watching Wanchese’s tight expression, he grinned.
Alsoomse spoke before her red-faced brother was prepared to respond.
“Askook, why have you slithered here? You are not welcome! You are almost our cousin, but you are not our friend!”
“Ah, but I am their friend!” His right hand indicated Nuna, then Odina. “Look at them. Watch their eyes. They want me! They want me in their beds! Look!” He turned, said to them: “Am I right?!”
Machk rose to one knee. Wanchese gripped Machk’s right forearm. “Sit. You, also,” he said to Askook. “Eat that last piece of meat.” He pointed at the platter. “It might stop you being such a fool.”
Askook tilted his head, glanced sideways at Wanchese. Smirking, he settled his haunches on the bare ground. He looked again at Wanchese, whose focus was on Nuna and Odina. Alsoomse recognized triumph in Askook’s eyes.
“The Dasemunkepeuc corn festival!” she said rapidly. “I will be seeing childhood friends! I want all of you to go!”
Nuna and Odina glanced at her, their facial expressions guarded.
Odina leaned left, tucked her left foot under her bent right leg. “I will be too worn out,” she said, not returning Alsoomse’s look. She raised her arms, as if bearing a great weight. “All that stooping, lifting, hauling.”
“Two or three beautiful braves might just see you doing all that and say hello!” Nuna giggled.
“Yes, and we might also see handsome young hunters from Pomeiooc, or Tramaskcooc! New blood! Hope! Future husbands!”
Alsoomse knew this was how Odina countered Nuna’s negative teasing: accept it, expand it. Nuna did not value Odina’s gentle nature. Nuna teased out of need. As for handsome-looking men being at the festival, she, too, would not ignore any unexpected hello!
Askook pointed his half-eaten section of meat at Odina. “If a handsome hunter ever says hello to you, it will be Kiwasa’s doing!” He waited, grinning.
“Kiwasa does not help us, ever,” Nuna answered. “He punishes us. He punishes every girl you look at!”
Odina arched her back, placed her palms behind her on her mat, smiled broadly. Wapun and Pules laughed.
“Not so. Not so at all.” Askook’s shrug connoted indifference. He looked at the last bit of deer meat, placed it deftly in his mouth.
“After the festival,” Nootau announced. “After the festival,” he repeated with characteristic seriousness, “Wingina will be doing some trading. I have never been a part of that. I would like to go up the Nomopana [Chowan River].” He looked at Wanchese. “Would you speak for me, cousin?”
“I will.” Wanchese leaned forward, raised his right knee, placed his right heel perpendicular to it. “But you should know. Wingina has his favorites. But I will ask.”
I will make certain he does! Alsoomse thought. Nootau needed a wife. It was also past time Wanchese had a wife! They were the same age. Young women at Choanoac would not know Nootau’s history. They would not see the shy child that had been the victim of jokes, of male-pack meanness. They would see him only for what he had become – a gentle, responsible, grown man.
They were talking now about trade items: shell beads, pearls, dried fish, turtle shells to exchange for hard stones, lots of stone, flint for arrowheads, wassador, hickory wood fashioned as cooking implements. She and Sokanon could use a better striking stone. The big stirring spoon they used was near its end. Alsoomse looked at Sokanon. Her cousin was staring raptly at Machk, her facade of indifference gone. Alsoomse’s and Sokanon’s eyes met. Sokanon lowered her face, placed four fingers over her throat.
We are not rivals, cousin, Alsoomse wanted to say. Could not say! One difference between them was that Sokanon had chosen somebody she wanted! Machk, soon to be a man, too handsome, too vigorous, too masculine for her to win. Already he was beguiling the pretty ones -- gifts made by Ahone -- who walked daily past all the fires after all the men had returned from the waters and the forests.
And you? Alsoomse reflected. You have not chosen anybody, knowing too well every male here at Roanoke and at Dasemunkepeuc the right age to marry. This was her second reason for wanting Wanchese to take her with him to Choanoac!
“Alsoomse!” She recognized Wapun’s voice. “Tell us a story.”
“You did not finish the story about the two boys and the windigo.” Pules drew her knees close to her chest. “Tell us.”
“Yes, tell us that story,” Askook insisted, mimicking her.
As if struck by a foul odor, Wapun’s face puckered.
Alsoomse leaned forward. “If the rest of you would not mind?”
“I have forgotten most of it,” Machk said.
“I want to hear it!” Tihkoosue exclaimed.
Wanchese nodded.
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