Alsoomse and Wanchese -- Chapter 6

Algonquian Words

Cattapeak: spring

Cohattayough: summer

Kwiocosuk: shaman, priest

Mamanatowick: ruler of several villages

Montoac: a mysterious, immediate, and pervasive power beyond and greater than that of humans

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

* Andacon (Evergreens) – 25, Wingina’s war chief

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

Hurit (Beautiful) – 25, Roanoke’s weroansqua, Granganimeo’s second wife

* Menatonon – 55, mamanatowick of Choanoac

* Mingan (Gray Wolf) – 21, Dasemunkepeuc warrior

Nootau (Fire) – 20, Sooleawa’s son and Alsoomse and Wanchese’s cousin

Nuna (Land) – 16, Alsoomse’s friend across the lane

Odina (mountain) – 16, Alssomse’s friend across the lane

* Okisko – 29, weroance of Weapomoc

* Osacan- 26, elite member of Wingina’s council

* Piemacum (He Who Churns up the Water) -- 25, hostile Pomeiooc weroance

*Tanaquincy – 28, Granganimeo’s chief advisor

* Tetepano – 27, elite member of Wingina’s council

Tihkoosue (Short) – 13, Granganimeo’s son and Hurit’s step-son

* Wanchese (Take Flight off of Water) – 20, protagonist

Wematin (Brother) – dead mamanatowick, brother of Ensenore, uncle of Wingina and Granganineo, 50 at time of death, 1579

* Wingina – 34, current mamanatowick and Granganimeo’s brother

Map

 

Commentary

This chapter launches Wanchese on a journey that will impact considerably his character and his future. We sense in this chapter how important it is to Wanchese what Andacon thinks of him. Their relationship will become a major source of conflict.

The Chapter

Askook’s canoe, under Tanaquincy’s direction, was sending widening v’s -- within each v the water smoother, less sparkling -- to Wanchese’s canoe some fifty feet behind. To Wanchese’s left, water tupelo and bald cypress rose out of water. Looking over his right shoulder, Wanchese could no longer see the northern tip of Roanoke Island, where the previous afternoon Alsoomse had demanded that she accompany him, knowing her words were futile, believing a combative dialogue was essential. It was one aspect of her being he both resented and respected. If he ever did decide to court a young woman, she would have to be just about as strong-minded.

“You and your important friends need to grind corn kernels, tend the fire and pot, dress deer hide, hunt for clams, make pottery, plant seeds, pull weeds, harvest crops, gather nuts and berries, do everything we do every day! Instead, you are permitted to travel, meet new people, do exciting things!” Why was it that she targeted him with her complaints?! It had been Ahone, not he, who had created the People, the sun, the moon, the rivers, the swamps, the great waters, the trees, animals, fish, and birds! “The Great Creator determined our duties!” he had answered. “You have yours. I know mine. It is the way of things.” Her eyes had been large, adamant. “To change would be to destroy order, balance. Without order, without discipline, we do not survive. Our father and mother made that clear to us!” Standing close to him, her chin angled up at him, she had seemed more intent on forcing him to step backward than altering his viewpoint.

“Why must you challenge everything you decide is wrong?! Who are you to decide what is right?! Our leaders and the huskanaws and the gods decide. We accept! Those who cannot must live alone. Is that what you want?!” He had not diverted his eyes. He had not given ground! He had said nothing more!

She, not he, had stepped back. She had looked briefly across the water, had engaged him afterward as resolutely as before.

“I know responsibility! You know that! I know the importance of order! I would do nothing to hurt our people!” Face flushed, she had for five or six heartbeats stared, her frown distinct. “I am not content! My mind wants to know what you know, not by you telling me what you decide to tell me but by my living it. Myself! Can you understand that? I should be allowed! No, not allowed! I should be free to do!”

She was wrong. Going to Choanoac to trade with the great Menatonon is what men did! Important men! That familiar burn of temper was ascending the back of his neck! He was a hunter, a weir builder, a warrior, not a weaver of mats! Men and women were different! Meant to be! They had separate responsibilities, for obvious reasons. All responsibilities had to be met. No village member had the right to choose whatever task he or she wanted! It was hard enough for villagers, working together, to accomplish what survival demanded!

“I want to go someplace with you to learn things I do not know! I will not give up until I do!” Turning her head, she had looked again at the sun-dappled water. “When you get back,” she had said, enunciating each word, “you will tell me everything! About Menatonon, the women there, what Nootau said and did, what their village is like, how they are different from us, everything!”

“I will.” How the corners of his mouth had wanted to celebrate!

Wanchese was his canoe’s lead paddler. Sitting behind him were his cousin Nootau; his former mentor, Osacan; and stern Andacon, Wingina’s most valued warrior, leader of their mission. Wanchese heard their grunts while they heard his. Too soon, their labor – his at least -- would become onerous.

They had left Dasemunkepeuc at midday. Wanchese’s shoulder muscles and back had not yet begun to hurt. He would begin to feel pain after they had passed the great egret island that marked their entrance into Occam [Albemarle Sound]. He was hoping he would see one or two egrets dash across the shallow surface as others waded, stirring the water with their long black legs and yellow feet. From boyhood he had enjoyed watching them fish. He imagined they would be catching spotted trout – the time of year being between taquitock and popanow – perch, white catfish, sunfish, and black crappie being also yet plentiful. Menatonon would serve them something special – white catfish he hoped – the following day when they reached his village. He would keep that special meal in mind once the pain started.

The thought of the repeated dipping, pushing, and raising of his paddle until the sun disappeared caused him to speculate, briefly, whether the honor of being a member of this trading expedition was worth the toil. He knew it was. Being held in high esteem by Wingina and being respected by elite advisors like Osacan and Andacon were major achievements. He would perform his duties conscientiously. He would reward their trust. He would give them greater reason to assign him greater responsibility. Faster than what others might expect, he would become one of the few of Wingina’s necessary men!

“We are going to trade with the Moratuc!” Askook had boasted to Wanchese when they had encountered each other prior to the departure of both canoes. Askook’s implication had been that his group’s expedition a short distance up the lower Moratuc River to a not particularly friendly village was more important to Wingina than Andacon’s expedition to Choanoac, and, therefore, Wingina valued Askook more than Wanchese. Standing behind Askook, waiting for Wanchese and Nootau to load their quantity of trade goods into their canoe, Osacan had grinned derision and Andacon had frowned.

Askook’s inference was ridiculous.

Choanoac was the terminus of Wingina’s major trading activities. It was Menatonon who traded Wingina’s and Choanoac’s and much of Weapemeoc’s wares to the Mandoag for valuables that included what Wingina deemed essential to acquire.

Trade with the Moratuc provided Wingina’s people a portion of the rocks and stones they needed to shape essential tools and arrowheads; but Menatonon provided more, and other essential commodities. In the back of Andacon’s canoe, wrapped in soft deer hide, were many shell beads and two strings of nearly translucent pearls. Six turtle shells lay exposed, as did fifteen shell-tempered, creatively-stamped cooking pots. From the forests and waters where the mountains rose and where the sun each day disappeared, mostly through Menatonon arrived the essential rocks and stones, thinly rolled wassador -- which Wingina’s elite wore as decoration -- red puccoon for medical use and the production of red dye, and antimony, an important ingredient in the making of a silver-colored dye.

Whatever was acquired at the three stops that ended at Moratuc was always a fraction of what Menatonon provided. This trading season Piemacum and the weroances of Aquascogooc and Secotan had refused to pay Wingina their annual tribute. Had Piemacum’s representatives, acting for the two villages and Pomeiooc, gone to Tramaskcooc and Mequopen and then to Moratuc and, ultimately, to Choanoac? If Wingina’s suspicion was fact, Tanaquincy’s group would find little left at Tramaskcooc, Mequopen, and Moratuc and Andacon few items at Choanoac that Wingina desired.

“Askook has become your enemy,” Osacan had commented as he, Andacon, Nootau, and Wanchese were preparing to launch their canoe. “I was told you struck him.” Osacan knew Wanchese well, better than any brave at Dasemunkepeuc, Wanchese thought. Osacan favored him. Osacan had helped him grieve his father’s murder. Osacan’s remark had not conveyed criticism. More likely, it had been spoken to induce him to provide details.

“He was insulting people: my sister, her friends, me. I lost my temper. He insults me now, indirectly, thinking he is safe. He has told Hurit what I did; she has told Granganimeo, who has told Wingina. He wants to be my enemy.”

Thereafter, Wanchese had figuratively cringed. His response had dripped of self-pity. He had given Osacan particulars, which had probably satisfied him; but what had Andacon thought? Andacon did not tolerate weakness. Had his answer been a plea for sympathy?

“I do not need to tell you about turning your back on him.” Osacan had replied, while Wanchese and Nootau had climbed into the canoe. “He is well named.”

“He slithers when he walks,” Nootau, usually silent, had responded.

“He blamed me for my brother’s death!” Wanchese had foolishly contributed.

Not until the four of them had begun paddling -- Wanchese and Osacan off the right side of the canoe, Nootau and Andacon off the left side – had Andacon commented.

“You are his rival. He knows you are ahead of him in Wingina’s preference. He is searching for ways to pull you down.”

Askook was succeeding. Askook had incited him, caused him in front of Osacan and Andacon to appear weak!

An hour’s paddling brought them to the egret island, where Wanchese admired the water birds’ pointed beaks, slender necks, downy white plumage. One egret, watching them from an arrow’s flight afar, was standing one-legged, left leg bent at a forty-five degree angle, left foot angled downward.

The colony of egrets now behind them, Wanchese’s shoulder muscles began to hurt. He bore the pain silently for – counting -- one hundred strokes. Afterward, he said to Nootau, working behind him: “Cousin. How are you feeling? Are you getting tired?”

“I am not tired.”

Wanchese had heard Nootau’s labored grunts. Surely, Nootau had been suffering. “You are certain of that?” he said. “Not sore?”

“I am. Do not ask again.”

Admonished! Wanchese’s face tingled. “I will not ask!” he answered sharply, conscious suddenly that he had sought to embarrass Nootau to hide his own failing!

“Stop paddling,” Andacon commanded seconds later. Their canoe drifted for twenty seconds. “Paddle now on the other side.”

Wanchese dug his paddle into the water. Andacon knew him now to be the weakest-willed paddler of the four and, worse, that he would expose another person’s weakness to conceal his own!

He felt ashamed.

He was better than that!

Before they reached Choanoac, he needed to demonstrate it!

Andacon was allowing the canoe again to drift. They watched Tanaquincy and his crew enter the wide mouth of the river that would direct them to Tramaskcooc. Their second day they would return to Occam and paddle up the narrow river to Mequopen. On the third day they would return to the long waters, enter the mouth of the Moratuc, and arrive at the river’s same-name village. Their journey would be more arduous, but Wanchese’s journey mattered far more!

No one in Andacon’s canoe had spoken of the horrendous event that had led to Wingina’s predicament. Nearly five cohattayoughs had passed since Pomouik warriors had murdered Wingina’s uncle and Wanchese’s father. Taking advantage of the massacre, Piemacum had persuaded the people of his village and, apparently, the leaders of Aquascogooc and Secotan to believe that he alone, not Wingina, could protect their villages.

Wanchese imagined Piemacum’s words.

“Wingina lives far away at Dasemunkepeuc. How often has he come here to satisfy your needs? The Pomouik do not fear him. Not as they did his uncle, Wematin. Wingina is weak, indecisive. I am not. I can make Pomeiooc, Aquascogooc, and Secotan strong!”

Wanchese believed he knew what had to be done. He wondered what Osacan and Andacon thought. If his and Andacon’s opinions were the same, Andacon’s awareness of it could benefit him. But how was he to know Andacon’s thinking? Offer his own first? Commit another mistake?!

Tanaquincy’s canoe had become a dot on the wide, sluggish river.

Wanchese had been to Tramaskcooc once, with his father. He had thought the village isolated and dreary. Had Piemacum bothered to send traders there and to Mequopen and Moratuc before trading at Choanoac? Probably. But then maybe not.

“Back to paddling!” Andacon ordered. The sun was well past its highest position. “We could get a strong breeze yet across these waters.” He rotated his partially bent arms, grasped afterward his paddle. “We will strike across Occam for Perquiman at the Dead Brothers.”

“Perquiman,” Osacan repeated. “Does Kiwasa plan to have Okisko waiting, excited to welcome us?!” Grinning, he lifted his paddle, inserted it deftly into the water.

“Recall, Osacan, the quantity of tobacco we spread for Kiwasa’s favor!” Andacon frowned. “Be serous! Do not tempt him!”

They paddled vigorously.

“The tobacco brought us still waters,” Osacan remarked. “‘That is all I will give you. Kiwasa might now be thinking, ‘What an excellent trick!’ Most likely Okisko is being paddled to Perquiman this moment!” He grinned.

They did not need Wingina’s sometimes enemy confronting them. What was it about Osacan, Wanchese pondered, that caused Andacon to tolerate him?

“Either we go there to sleep or to Weapemeoc! I choose the shorter distance and a more friendly reception!”

“Then you should give some of your tobacco to Wanchese. Have him scatter it off the side of the canoe while I chant, ‘Oh, Kiwasa! Andacon provides you this sacred tobacco for your pleasure. He asks humbly that Okisko be sleeping with his woman in his home village while Wanchese and Nootau sleep with Perquiman girls this night.’”

Andacon laughed.

Osacan had a rare gift.

“Wanchese? Nootau?” Osacan lifted his paddle. “Are you both up for it? Or should I say, ‘Will one important part of you be up?’” He guffawed.

Wanchese had several times thought about that probability. Had Nootau? How could he not have? They were both familiar with the tribal custom of providing important visitors young women the first night of their stay. Wanchese had experienced this once, during Nepinough, when he, Tetepano, Cossine, and Mingan to gone to Mequopen to deliver a message. Previously, two Dasemunkepeuc girls had pleasured him during his period of mourning – either out of their goodness of heart (which he had selfishly encouraged) or to entice him to marry them.

“What, Andacon, you have no tobacco?”

Wanchese grinned. Osacan would not stop.

“Either you are afraid to rouse Kiwasa’s anger or you do not want Wanchese and Nootau to be made impure. Which is it?”

“I want you to stop talking.”

They were nearing the Dead Brothers.

“Ah, yes! We do not want to disturb our Dead Brothers friends!”

Wanchese imagined Andacon’s scowl.

Wanchese had passed the isolated trees twice, marveling at their stark beauty. They were not dead but they should have been, standing always in water well off the shoreline. He studied their thick, knobby roots -- half a bow’s length above the waterline -- imagined how they reached deep into the water’s muddy bottom.

“Ah! Look! The three brothers have an occupant!” Osacan pointed.

An osprey? Not now. Not for another three moons, Wanchese thought. He, Tetepano, and the others had watched an osprey dive forty feet from its nest feet-first into the water, reemerge, leap, and rise above the water’s rippling circles, huge black and white wings beating, a large fish -- white perch or bluefish -- clutched in its fierce talons.

“Bald eagle,” Andacon determined.

“That will make the osprey and his mate happy.” Osacan laughed. “It would be a fight worth seeing!”

At the top of the three cypress trees, where their branches intermingled, inside the large mound of broken apart sticks, the eagle scowled. Large downy-white head, yellow talons, yellow beak, scaly-appearing dark brown breast feathers, longer, darker wing feathers: here observed the king of all creatures that soared! Wanchese knew this would not be the eagle’s breeding place; it was one convenient stop during his day of hunting. Osacan was probably right, about the nest belonging to an osprey; but Osacan was also wrong. Bald eagles and ospreys rarely fought.

They paddled past, each brave’s head turned until he could not continue to do so. Wanchese imprinted in his brain the enlarged base of trunk; the exposed, grasping roots dark brown just above the waterline; the stiff, sparse, short horizontal branches, longer and more frequent near the top; the spider web-like branch extensions that gave the trees their shape; each tree’s rich brown reflection painted on the light blue, quiet water.

How Alsoomse would have enjoyed seeing this, he thought. Perhaps one day he could take her here, and her friends Nuna and Odina and Nuna’s brother Machk, and the two girls, and, yes, the boy Tihkoosue – if ever there was a time when responsibility and ambition could be deferred.