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Chapter
1—Late Summer, 1767
The Kumeyaay Desert Village of Hawi in the
Great Desert east of what is now San Diego
Web
lay in a pit on a mat of deer grass and desert mallow spread
over heated stones. A similar mat of grass and mallow covered
her and the other initiate, Mishtai, her best friend. She was
able to ignore the dust the dancers kicked up, but the
persistent itch on her lower back tested her control. She bit
her lip against the urge to move. The priest had precisely
positioned two crescent-shaped stones on her abdomen just above
her budding pubic thatch. Any movement might shift the stones
before the ceremony ended. A lifetime of criticism awaited the
girl who could not withstand the temporary discomfort of the
roasting pit during her three-day passage from childhood to
womanhood.
Out
of the corner of her eye, Web watched her friend Mishtai. The
two girls had begun their monthly courses on the same day, the
day of the last hellyach-temur full moon. While Web and Mishtai
had gone into seclusion to prepare themselves for the
responsibility that went with their new power to bring forth
life, their parents had sent out runners inviting the scattered
members of their respective sh’mulq sibs to come to Hawi for
the girls’ initiation ceremony. During their seclusion, Web
and Mishtai had spent hours exchanging confidences. As the first
members of their sibs began to arrive, they had made a solemn
pact to help each other through the ordeal ahead of them in
whatever way they could.
The
itching on Web’s back intensified. No, Web thought. I will not
give in to you. I will not move. I have not come this far or
endured this much to fail now.
To
keep her mind off the torment, she turned her attention to the
crowd dancing around the sand pit. Some of the dancers had
traveled many days to reach Hawi in time. So many had come that
their numbers strained the resources of the small village.
While
Web watched the dancing, the girl Amul pushed through the crowd
and came to stand at the pit to smirk down at the two girls.
Despite the mesh ceremonial cap that hid her face, Web stared
back, matching her nemesis’ mocking smile. For as far back as
she could remember Amul had been the bane of her existence,
teasing her, calling her “Slime-Frog” and making slurping
noises that caused the other children to laugh at her, always
careful to hide her cruelty from the adults.
After
a time, Amul tired of her staring and disappeared into the
crowd. The moment she was gone, Web’s itching reasserted
itself. In order to ignore it, she narrowed her eyes to slits to
concentrate on the weave of the mesh that had protected her face
and head from the swarming spring flies during her time in the
pit.
Her
mother had woven the ceremonial cap from juncus grass, spending
hours wrapping and stitching to create a piece every bit as
beautiful as the baskets she made to trade. Woven into the coils
was a unique design of frogs and ducks. The animals had been
sacred to their sh’mulq since the dawn of time when First
Ancestor had seen fit to give certain women of her mother’s
line webbed hands–hands like Web’s–where flaps of skin
grew up to the first joints of each finger. Web had been named
for her hands. Before her, the last one so endowed was her
mother’s grand-mother. Yet, despite the many stories of
Great-Grandmother’s abilities as a healer and maker of baskets
so beautiful that even the warlike Quechan people came under the
flag of truce to Hawi to trade for them and despite her
mother’s exhortations to be proud of her hands, Amul’s
teasing and the stares she drew whenever the people of Hawi
traveled to other Kumeyaay villages made Web self-conscious of
her hands.
One
of the elders of her father’s sib now stepped out of the group
dancing a shuffling circle around the pit and launched into a
harangue about the responsibilities the roasting girls must
assume as adult members of the Hawi band. Web tried hard to be
attentive, but she was too tired and uncomfortable to absorb
much. So many must-nots. So much to remember. How can I ever
live up to the expectations of my parents and my band?
The
delectable perfume of roasting haakwal lizard, her favorite,
assailed her nostrils. In the last three days she had been
allowed to eat only a cup of shawii acorn mush at those times
she had been allowed to leave the pit so that the cooling rocks
could be replaced with hot ones. Now that her monthly courses
had begun, she must not eat meat or fish or salt for at least
one moon; longer if she intended to follow the tradition of the
women of her mother’s sh’mulq. She knew her mother expected
a longer period of abstention, but at that moment, Web could not
imagine another hour without a taste of haakwal, let alone a
full moon cycle.
Steady
pressure against her right arm broke through her thoughts.
Mishtai had given in to the exhaustion of three days without
sleep.
“Mishtai,”
Web hissed softly without moving her lips. “Wake up.”
Her
friend did not respond.
Cognizant
of the consequences to Mishtai if someone caught her sleeping,
Web checked to be sure no one was paying attention before
inching her covered hand slowly toward her friend, praying no
one would notice the barely perceptible ripple in the layer of
grass.
At
that moment, the dancers parted to reveal Amul watching her with
unblinking eyes. The sight stopped Web’s hand. Pact or not,
she refused to give Amul the pleasure of being the one to catch
her breaking the rules of initiation.
Suddenly
Mishtai snorted and jerked upright, convulsing the entire
covering of grass. Instantly the presiding shaman leaped to the
side of the pit and launched into a tirade aimed at the
offending girl. Disgust painted the faces of the members of
Mishtai’s extended family, standing with her dismayed parents.
Throughout
the harangue, Mishtai kept her eyes lowered and barely breathed.
After the priest finished and the adults went back to their
dancing, she murmured a hurt, “You promised” to Web.
Web
could think of nothing to say that would satisfy the embarrassed
Mishtai, especially with Amul still watching her every move. She
kept her eyes on the lengthening shadow of the closest ‘aanall
mesquite. The roasting would end at sunset. This close to the
end, perhaps the adults would not hold Mishtai’s slip against
her for long. Perhaps she could claim she too had nodded off
momentarily. Would a lie help, or make the situation worse?
She
hoped the right answer would come to her before they were lifted
out of the pit for the last time.
After
what seemed an eternity, the singing stopped, leaving a gap of
deafening silence. The priest signaled the girls’ mothers and
aunts forward. While the women rolled back the pit covering, Web
leaned toward Mishtai and whispered, “I didn’t see you until
it was too late.”
“Don’t
lie,” Mishtai said coldly. “I can always tell when you
don’t speak the truth.”
“But,
I–”
Her
mother’s touch cut off Web’s protest. Mother and two aunts
helped her out of the pit. “Oh, my daughter, you have made me
so proud. Now you are a woman,” her mother said, removing the
basket cap and smoothing Web’s long hair. Prior to the
ceremony, she had cut her daughter’s bangs just above her
eyebrows in the style of the adult women of the people. Now she
cupped Web’s cheek and gave her a tremulous smile full of the
emotion she did not voice.
“Not
quite yet, my sister,” said Web’s aunt, Button Cactus. “We
must first give her the tattoo marks of a woman and then the
priest will lead her to the holy place.”
“The
marking will hurt, my child, but you must not cry out,” her
mother whispered. “Remember what I have taught you.”
Web
nodded, sucked in a breath to steel herself against the pain to
come and allowed her mother’s sisters to lead her to a small
boulder. Button Cactus, as the eldest, waved for Web to sit,
then took charge. After a quick glance at the prickly-pear
cactus thorns, laid out in a row next to the sticks of charcoal,
Web closed her eyes, took several deep breaths and retreated to
the quiet place within her as her mother had taught. She was
only partially aware of the thorns puncturing the skin of her
chin and of charcoal being rubbed into the wounds until her
mother announced, “Stand, child.”
Web
came out of her trance to find her mother draping a hekwiir
blanket of twisted rabbit skins over her shoulders. “Remember
how I showed you to hold it?” her mother asked.
Despite
the throbbing pain in her chin, Web grasped the edges of the
drape together at the neck so that both hands were hidden inside
the folds of the hekwiir.
Her
mother smiled, and the aunts placed garlands made of pliable
yucca on her head, then stepped away, leaving her standing by
herself. Suddenly she was uneasy about what she would soon
witness. Besides making the pact to help each other through the
roasting, she and Mishtai had spent endless hours wondering over
what the priest would show them in this final stage of their
initiation. Was it a hole so deep that it led to the back side
of the sky? Or a deep pool in whose depths they would be able to
see into the spirit world? Or something even more terrifying?
Suddenly
she was not at all sure she wanted to become an adult, burdened
with responsibilities and cares. Her chin throbbed from the
recent assault of thorns and charcoal. She had one last step to
complete her initiation into womanhood. No woman in either
parental sib had ever failed any of the ordeals of her
initiation, yet her leaden legs refused to move.
“Go,
child. The priest awaits,” her mother urged.
Web
swallowed against the cottony feel in her throat. I do not want
this, she wanted to scream.
“Daughter?”
The exasperation in her mother’s tone got Web’s feet moving.
Mishtai
was already with the priest. She side-stepped away from Web.
An
assistant stepped forward to help the priest wrap strips of hide
around the girls’ eyes as blindfolds. Then the priest
commanded, “Come.”
Already
light-headed from hunger, fatigue and pain, Web stumbled along,
blindly following the faint crunch of the priest’s steps in
the sand. Her senses told her that he led them out from the
village toward the hot-springs.
Sulfurous
smells a short while later confirmed her guess as the little
party followed the foot path around the steaming water and
headed up the rising pan toward the boundary beyond which
ordinary Kumeyaay did not pass. The jumbled rocks that lay
beyond that boundary were sacred, reserved for those who
possessed the power to enter the world of Spirits. When Web
tried to stop, the priest’s assistant prodded her to keep
moving.
At
the edge of the rocks, the branch of a creosote bush caught at
Web’s ankle. She stumbled and would have fallen if the
assistant had not caught her and restored her to her feet. She
wanted to turn back, away from the land of Spirits into the land
of mortals, but the assistant’s grip remained on her arm,
guiding her over the rock-strewn path.
On
and on they went until Web’s legs turned rubbery. She was
close to fainting when the priest’s voice intoned, ”Stop.”
The
assistant stripped off her blindfold, and the shaman commanded,
“Look. There.”
Web
blinked to adjust to the flickering light of the firebrand the
priest carried.
“Behold
Mother Goddess,” the priest thundered. “Behold Her sacred
Self. Look you well upon Her for it is from Her that you gain
the power to bring forth life. From this moment you, Web, and
you, Mishtai, are no longer children. Now you are women.”
While
the priest’s voice boomed off the wall of boulders before
them, relating all that would be expected of her now that she
was a woman, Web observed, confused by what she saw. An enormous
rock formation rose up before her. An odd formation that looked
like a double-yoked egg.
She
waited for the priest to explain, to tell her what she was
supposed to see, but he had fallen silent. She continued to
stare, then suddenly it hit her. Not an egg, the rocks formed
the flower petals that a woman – that Web herself – carried
tucked between her legs. The two lips that kiss each child as it
leaves its mother to join the world, and the door through which
a baby passes into life.
With
that realization, power seemed to pour forth from the rocks,
glittering with the afterglow of Sun. That power washed over
her, engulfing her like the wind that precedes the life-giving
rains. Awestruck, she nudged Mishtai. “Do you see it, my
sister?” she whispered over the sound of the shaman’s
chanting.
“Do
not call me sister. You are no longer my friend,” Mishtai
hissed.
“Silence!”
the priest’s assistant ordered.
Under
his glare, Mishtai seemed to shrink while Web bit back the urge
to defend herself.
The
priest finished his song and waved his sacred staff toward the
rock formation. “The Mother Goddess shows Herself to you now
so that you may bear many strong sons and daughters. Look you
and think about the man who will be your husband.”
Husband.
In
one word, Web’s awe for the Mother Goddess and her concern
about Mishtai vanished, leaving in her innards a void that had
no bottom. She had been so intent on performing her role in the
initiation ceremony correctly that she had not thought beyond
it. Now that the rites had reached their conclusion, the future
yawned before her like a deep, pitch-black cave. She was now a
woman. Womanhood meant marriage. Children. And keeping a husband
happy.
When
she had five summers, her parents had betrothed her to Shadow
Dancer, a boy of seven summers, son of the renowned wekuseyaay
rattlesnake shaman, Casts No Shadow. Casts No Shadow and Shadow
Dancer lived in the village of Nipaguay over the mountains in
the fertile valley of the river that ran into the ‘ehaasilth
ocean far to the west. The betrothal had brought her parents
great honor and many wonderful gifts from the wekuseyaay and his
band. Nipaguay controlled some of the richest planting and
hunting land and the best fishing areas along the coast. Web’s
marriage would tie Nipaguay to Hawi. For the people of Hawi, it
meant reserves of food should they face another starving time,
and reinforcements should the Quechan people decide to wage war
again.
In
the eight years since her betrothal, Web had seen Shadow Dancer
only once: four years ago, when the winter rains did not come
for the fifth straight year and the desert refused to bloom, the
hungry people of Hawi undertook the long dangerous journey to
the coast for food, and there she had set eyes upon her future
husband. He was a tall boy with an intense gaze who seemed to be
constantly asking questions about everyone and everything around
him. Since the time, she had dreamed about him occasionally, but
the dreams were the fantasies of a mere girl. Now the reality
hit her with the force of a blow.
Marriage
to Shadow Dancer meant leaving Hawi and everyone she loved,
forever. Why had she never thought of that before?
A
great sadness welled up from the pit of her stomach. She ducked
her head and blinked back the tears that threatened to betray
her. She must not cry. Whatever happened, she must make her
parents proud.
Beside
her, Mishtai sniffed. Deep in her own misery, Web ignored her
friend and looked again upon the Mother Goddess through the mist
of her unshed tears. The force flowing from the rocks changed
from an engulfing wave to the tenderest of caresses as if the
Spirits of the rocks, as if the Mother Goddess Herself, felt
Web’s fear and wanted to reassure her.
Web
had no time to absorb the sensation. The priest repositioned her
blindfold, and her world again went dark.
“You
are now women. Come. We will return to the village,” the
priest said, pebbles clattering under his sandaled steps.
Before
she could take a step, a small hand gripped Web’s arm. “I
hope you will leave Hawi soon,” Mishtai said. “You are no
friend of mine.” Releasing her grip, she stumbled off, leaving
Web to return with the assistant priest.
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