SO SAID THE LEGENDS.  And Old Tona, herb-woman of the Fox Clan, often repeated them to the leader of the clan, Raven, and to his son, Sumac and to his mate, Titcui, and to that other female, Mella, who lived in Raven's hut and belonged not there.  And during that time, Mella, who knew not man, was to find her destiny.

 

 

CHEMAN, THE CANOE

 

   

At first, Sumac is pleased with his handiwork, a hunter doll made from deer-hide thongs and sticks, but he soon trots to his mother who is sitting among the women near the cook-fire.

“Ninga!” he cries, using the clan word for Mother. “Make me a hut for my hunter!"

His mother, Titcui, holds out her arms to him, but he doesn't rush into them as he would have only suns before.  At nine summers, he considers himself too big for such displays.

"What clever new thing have you fashioned?” Titcui asks.

“I’ve made a hunter!"

Titcui snatches back her hands, and her pretty face pales.

Mella, sitting apart beneath an oak, stills.  She raises dark eyes to watch, pushing back her long hair as if to hear better.  She sees what she expects to see.  Timid Titcui, frightened but torn, wants both to indulge her son and to keep the other women's good will, and the others are not going to approve of Sumac's hunter doll.

One of the other women, gray-faced Kanecjc, an emaciated ghost, is lost to constant chest pain and barely notices the child, but her maiden-daughter shrinks away like Titcui, and titters nervously.

But Mella knows that it's not poor, sick Kanecic or her daughter who will interfere.  Titcui must fear the bullying, jealous, malicious woman called Wapoos who is watching from her place at the cook-fire.

As if to confirm Mella's thought, Wapoos's delving, meaty hand comes out of her cooking-basket and swipes at Sumac.  She shouts, "Give me that, you young devil!  I'll burn it!"  But Sumac dances easily out of her way.

Mella thinks, He knows Wapoos dares not beat him though she would dearly love to.

However, Wapoos's stripling daughter, Sheekark, named for the white line which streaks the back of her black hair, has no such compunction. Laughing nastily, she lunges at the child, drags him to the ground and straddles him.  Sumac, face swollen with fury, twists and pummels, but Sheekark is older and strong like her mother.  She cruelly pins his wrist and prises the doll from his fingers.  The other maiden gets up and circles them, half-smiling.

"The doll will steal your manitu," Titcui says to Sumac, referring to the inner spirits which inhabit all things, even mere humans.

Sumac bites back pain and tears but still flails at Sheekark, with his free hand.

“Let him up please," Titcui begs.

Sheekark ignores her.  Sumac continues to struggle.

Titcui says desperately to Sumac, "The doll might even steal the manitu of one of our hunters!"  She makes ineffectual feints at Sheekark not touching her.

"Burn it," commands Wapoos and there's delight in her flesh-folded eyes.  She's enjoying this humiliation of her leader's brilliant child.

"No!" Sumac moans through clenched teeth, for Sheekark still twists his wrist to one side with one hand as she shakes the hunter doll in his face with the other.  The circling maiden begins to look uncomfortable but obviously intends to remain neutral.  Mella knows Titcui's afraid of Wapoos and Sheekark.

There's another grunt of pain from Sumac.  Titcui glances frantically about, biting her lips.

Enough! Mella decides and jumps to her feet.

She's a tall maiden with wide shoulders and long, narrow hands which can perform with skill any task they choose.  Her thick, dark hair is parted in the middle and hangs loose instead of plaited with thongs and shells like the others women's.  Her face, were it unintelligent, would be almost plain, but instead it's strikingly, strangely beautiful though as cold as winter wind.

She strides into the clearing. The child is still pinned to the dirt.  As she approaches, all heads but Sheekark's, who is too occupied to notice, turn toward her.  She says nothing at first.  She absorbs the scene, noting big Wapoos's sudden stiffening. As if she might spring.

Mella wills herself to stillness.  Her voice is flat, cool as she says,  "Give him back his toy!"

Sheekark stops laughing and swings to stare belligerently at her. Mella doesn't repeat the command but waits impassive.  Sheekark looks expectantly over her shoulder at her mother, but Wapoos is holding back.

Mella thinks, Wapoos wants me to commit myself so she can whisper of me to others and slide off to the herb-woman's hut to tattle my latest transgression.

"Get off him," she orders calmly.

She expects to be obeyed and she is.  However, there is now something more than casual resentment on Sheekark's narrow face as she slowly rises.

Another enemy.  Something swells in Mella's chest, threatens her throat, but she forces it down and away.  She takes the hunter doll from Sheekark, whose grip tightens momentarily but then loosens.

Sumac scrambles to his feet.  "Let me have it," he pleads, reaching for the toy.

"Aren't you afraid it will steal your manitu?" Mella asks seriously.

Sumac smiles.  It's like the sun shining suddenly upon a gloomy woodland path. "Some sticks and thongs steal my manitu?  That's nonsense, Ninga."

There's a sudden silence.  Sumac has called Mella, Ninga!  And though Mella lives in Raven's hut, she's no blood mother to Sumac.  But it's Wapoos, not Titcui, who glares resentfully at this.  Titcui doesn’t seem to notice.

"If you're not afraid, then you shall have your hunter doll," Mella says and hands it to Sumac.

Titcui murmurs, "Mella, are you sure?  Perhaps we should ask the herb-woman?"

"It's all right," Mella says.  "Don't worry."

"Will you make a hut for him?" single-minded Sumac interrupts eagerly.

"You can have one of my baskets," Mella says and fetches a bark cooking container.  "It will serve as a hut."

Triumphant Sumac trots away to find his playmates, and Mella turns once more towards her oak.  As she goes, she hears a muttered, "She-bitch", from the circle of women.  She doesn't turn.  She doesn't need to.  She knows who calls her this.  She holds her back lodgepole-straight and her head tilted gracefully as she moves serenely off.

But she allows her hips to sway ever so gently.

 

   

   

 

Mella and the other members of the Fox Clan have Journeyed to the Great Barrier River from the southern hills.  It's said that their people came long ago from plains off to the west, far below the ice fields, and that their ancestors once crossed the spirit-bridge.  Their parent-clan is settled now among the southern mountains where they eat