Harold Titus's Blog, page 15
December 27, 2020
Alsoomse and Wanchese -- Chapter 9, Section 2
Characters Mentioned
* historically identified person
*Carleill, Christopher – 33, step-son of Francis Walsingham
*Cecil, William, Baron Burghley – 53, principal advisor of Queen Elizabeth
*Drake, Sir Francis – 43, sea captain, explorer, and privateer
*Gilbert, Humphrey – colonizer who died at sea, 44 at time of death. Walter Raleigh’s half- brother
*Francis, Duke of Anjou – 28, heir to the French throne
Holbein, Hans – (1497-1543), painter of a mural created in 1537 depicting Henry VII and his son Henry VIII and their respective wives
*Howard, Thomas – Duke of Norfolk, 34 at time of execution, 1572
*Mendoza, Bernardino de –43, Spanish ambassador sent to London in 1578
*Philip II, King of Spain – 56, Queen Elizabeth’s fiercest European enemy
*Somerville, John – would be assassin of Queen Elizabeth, hanged himself in prison in 1583 at the age of 23
*Stuart, Mary – 41, former queen of Scotland, cousin of Queen Elizabeth
*Throckmorton, Francis – 29, English conspirator to overthrow Queen Elizabeth
*Walsingham, Francis – 52, Queen Elizabeth’s ambitious principal secretary
Commentary
This section provides necessary historical context regarding Queen Elizabeth’s peril owing to planned assassination to be effected by Catholic enemies, domestic and foreign. It highlights also the tension between the Queen and Francis Walsingham regarding who should receive a patent to manage and benefit from an expedition to North American to found a colony from which privateers would attack Spanish treasure ships.
Section 2
As was her custom, Elizabeth had taken her dinner in her privy chamber, the many dishes arriving punctually at noon. Dressed in a simple, loose-fitting black gown edged with ermine, to reduce the pain of chewing she had selected again a thick soup containing bits of chicken to be washed down by wine mingled with three parts water. A sweet cake had concluded the sparse meal.
Every one of the twenty dishes that had been offered her had been tasted by her presence chamber guards. Courtiers and Privy Council advisors in that chamber and ladies in waiting, seated on the privy chamber floor – the farthingale of their gowns making sitting on chairs difficult – had consumed what she had rejected.
The ceremonial serving, the pomposity of it, was remarkably silly. She acknowledged it; but she would not have it otherwise, for it bespoke allegiance to and reverence for the royal monarch. It was for the protection of her subjects and the Church of England that she served, and sacrificed. Her people’s affection and loyalty were her due.
Each day, brandishing a ceremonial rod, to the sound of trumpets and kettle drums, her gentleman led into the presence chamber many servants carrying tablecloth, eating utensils, drinking glasses, and twenty or more choices of cuisine. Gentlemen guards stood tall about the table while ladies in waiting laid out the cloth and placed the dishes.
Thenceforth, a maid of honor dressed in white silk entered followed closely by a lady in waiting carrying a tasting fork, the lady immediately prostrating herself three times before Elizabeth’s empty chair. The lady then gave each guard a taste of every dish after which Elizabeth’s ladies carried the dishes into the privy chamber for Elizabeth’s selection.
Guarded in her residence day and night, never left alone, Elizabeth could not be assassinated directly. Food tasting prevented indirect assassination.
There had been ample cause for concern. For her entire reign she had had to confront the ramifications of her renunciation of Catholicism. Only by threatening to marry the heir to the French throne had she been able to forestall Philip of Spain from attempting to depose her. This tactic had not stopped Catholics in England and Europe from scheming to remove her and reestablish Catholic rule in the person of Mary Stuart, Elizabeth’s cousin, former queen consort of France, former Queen of Scotland, forced to abdicate her Scottish throne by Protestant Scottish lords. The past fifteen years per Elizabeth’s orders, Mary had been confined at Sheffield Castle closely watched by Sir Francis Walsingham’s many spies.
In 1571 a rebellion in northern England fomented by Catholic earls had convinced Elizabeth that Mary was indeed a threat. That same year Elizabeth’s chief councilors, Lord Burghley and Walsingham, had discovered the Ridolfi plot. Spanish troops, assisted by Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, whose intention was to become Mary Stuart’s royal consort, were to depose Elizabeth and reestablish Catholicism. The plot foiled and Norfolk executed, to achieve a defense treaty with France to forestall Spanish aggression, Elizabeth had initiated negotiations to marry the immediate heir to the French throne, and then, after he, Henry had become King, his brother and heir, Francis, the Duke of Anjou. Entertaining the prospect of marriage, Anjou, despite being Catholic, seeking military glory, had declared himself champion of the Huguenot Dutch. Anjou’s subsequent actions in the Netherlands had revealed his avarice and incompetence. Most of Elizabeth’s advisors and the general public had opposed the proposed marriage. Recognizing finally that her marriage could only be to her people, Elizabeth had ended the charade. The possibility of an alliance between England and France dashed, only King Philip’s desire to conquer the Netherlands first had kept him from invading England.
Two months ago Elizabeth had celebrated her fiftieth birthday. She had been queen for nearly twenty-five years. A month ago an insane young Catholic, John Somerville of Warwickshire, enflamed by Jesuit pamphlets, had bragged in public that he would shoot her with a pistol and see her head on a pole. Quickly arrested, he awaited execution.
Somerville had been but one example of the rabid hatred radical English Catholics possessed. Walsingham apprised her almost daily of the peril and Mary’s desire to replace her, revealed in letters she had written to Catholics abroad. Elizabeth had arisen late this morning hoping to thrust aside temporarily her many burdens. Having finished her dinner, she had set about translating another section of Cicero. Afterward, because she had stayed up into the early morning hours writing correspondence, she had hoped to reserve one or two hours to nap.
That would not be.
The sound of her gentlemen usher’s entrance startled her.
“Your majesty. I present for your acceptance the presence of your chief secretary, Sir Francis Walsingham.”
What is it this time? she thought. Francis Throckmorton, probably. The latest insane plotter. “Yes, yes, admit him,” she responded. She closed the opened two pages of Cicero’s writing on her book mark.
“Your Highness.” Walsingham’s double-layered white ruff separated starkly his dark facial skin, beard, and mustache and his full length, midnight-black mantle.
She rose. Three feet away from her he knelt, bowed his head.
“Rise.” She was in a mood to box his ears, again. Or throw her slipper. She was not wearing any! Her “Moor,” dark as ever, was about to press upon her another action she would not want to take. “What do you have that cannot wait?”
“Throckmorton.” His right knee yet on the thick carpet, he gazed up at her.
“I had thought so. Proceed!”
“Since I last spoke, we have searched his London house. Infamous pamphlets, list of papist lords and harbors where Spanish soldiers could safely be disembarked. The Spanish ambassador is mentioned. We have racked young Throckmorton. He has given up nothing. A second, more severe session will surely break his resolve.”
“You want my authorization.”
“I do. It is imperative. I believe that we will have sufficient evidence of the Scottish whore’s complicity to convince you, finally, that she must be tried and executed.”
His adamancy, conveyed by facial expression, choice of words, and intonation, vexed her. “Tread lightly, sir, how you describe monarchs ordained by God. You know well my thoughts about that!”
His left hand made a supplicating gesture.
“Speak cautiously, least I acquaint your head with the heft of this book. Cicero I will have you know!”
“I seek at this time only your authorization.”
She looked at him. Thin, narrow face; long nose; receding black hairline; furrowed forehead; eyes encircled by … what? Responsibility? Fatigue? Ambition? He served her well. Partly because he spoke his mind. Because he was a steadfast Protestant. Because he hated Spain. Because his intelligence exceeded, perhaps, her own and he followed orders he opposed. Such as attempting to negotiate a marriage agreement between her and Anjou.
She released a long breath. She gazed briefly at Holbein’s wall mural of her parents and grandparents, particularly of her father, legs wide apart, confrontationally defiant.
God’s blood, she was her father’s daughter!
“You have my authorization, as you have had these past several years my approval of the plundering of Spanish treasure ships. Drake has done more to enrage Philip than … you say that Mendoza is implicated?!”
“The Spanish ambassador’s name is mentioned.”
“See to it that Throckmorton specifically implicates him! I will savor Mendoza’s response!”
“I shall.”
The interview, for her, had concluded. He tarried.
“God’s love, rise!” It occurred to her that he had more to say. “Yes?”
He rose, with reluctance towered over her.
“A matter of collateral urgency.” His dark eyes fastened on hers.
“How so?”
“The expedition to the New World. We must found a colony north of Florida but south of where Gilbert had planned to colonize so as to seize in the Caribbean and south of the Azores shipments of Spanish gold! And discover and mine on the new continent comparable riches!”
“We have spoken about this. I have told you the treasury lacks the funds to finance this venture! You must show me a plan that involves private investment! I wait to see such a plan!”
“I am close to showing you a plan.”
“You do know that you have competition.”
She saw in his eyes, despite his skill at concealing emotion, a flash of temper.
“You speak for my issuance of a patent, similar to that I gave Gilbert. Authorization to sell vast acreage to wealthy investors.”
“How else am I to raise sufficient capital?”
“Agreed. And who is to hold this patent, and profit grandly from it? Your step- son, Christopher Carleill?”
“He would be the captain.”
“But who would hold the patent? You?”
His eyes did not blink. “Who but I have the connections to make successful such a risky, complicated venture?”
“Again, agreed. I will look at your plan.”
After Walsingham had left, she was not of the mind to translate or nap. Her blood was up. Walsingham wanted his due. He expected it! Early during her reign, advisors had thought they could intimidate her, because she was a woman. There were times when Walsingham tried. She had allowed no man to control her!
She looked again at Holbein’s mural. She looked at her father. She read part of the Latin inscription on the sarcophagus that separated father and son from their wives.
If it pleases you to see the illustrious images of heroes, look on these: no picture ever bore greater. The great debate, competition and great question is whether father or son is the victor. For both, indeed, were supreme.
Like her father she would not be swayed.
* historically identified person
*Carleill, Christopher – 33, step-son of Francis Walsingham
*Cecil, William, Baron Burghley – 53, principal advisor of Queen Elizabeth
*Drake, Sir Francis – 43, sea captain, explorer, and privateer
*Gilbert, Humphrey – colonizer who died at sea, 44 at time of death. Walter Raleigh’s half- brother
*Francis, Duke of Anjou – 28, heir to the French throne
Holbein, Hans – (1497-1543), painter of a mural created in 1537 depicting Henry VII and his son Henry VIII and their respective wives
*Howard, Thomas – Duke of Norfolk, 34 at time of execution, 1572
*Mendoza, Bernardino de –43, Spanish ambassador sent to London in 1578
*Philip II, King of Spain – 56, Queen Elizabeth’s fiercest European enemy
*Somerville, John – would be assassin of Queen Elizabeth, hanged himself in prison in 1583 at the age of 23
*Stuart, Mary – 41, former queen of Scotland, cousin of Queen Elizabeth
*Throckmorton, Francis – 29, English conspirator to overthrow Queen Elizabeth
*Walsingham, Francis – 52, Queen Elizabeth’s ambitious principal secretary
Commentary
This section provides necessary historical context regarding Queen Elizabeth’s peril owing to planned assassination to be effected by Catholic enemies, domestic and foreign. It highlights also the tension between the Queen and Francis Walsingham regarding who should receive a patent to manage and benefit from an expedition to North American to found a colony from which privateers would attack Spanish treasure ships.
Section 2
As was her custom, Elizabeth had taken her dinner in her privy chamber, the many dishes arriving punctually at noon. Dressed in a simple, loose-fitting black gown edged with ermine, to reduce the pain of chewing she had selected again a thick soup containing bits of chicken to be washed down by wine mingled with three parts water. A sweet cake had concluded the sparse meal.
Every one of the twenty dishes that had been offered her had been tasted by her presence chamber guards. Courtiers and Privy Council advisors in that chamber and ladies in waiting, seated on the privy chamber floor – the farthingale of their gowns making sitting on chairs difficult – had consumed what she had rejected.
The ceremonial serving, the pomposity of it, was remarkably silly. She acknowledged it; but she would not have it otherwise, for it bespoke allegiance to and reverence for the royal monarch. It was for the protection of her subjects and the Church of England that she served, and sacrificed. Her people’s affection and loyalty were her due.
Each day, brandishing a ceremonial rod, to the sound of trumpets and kettle drums, her gentleman led into the presence chamber many servants carrying tablecloth, eating utensils, drinking glasses, and twenty or more choices of cuisine. Gentlemen guards stood tall about the table while ladies in waiting laid out the cloth and placed the dishes.
Thenceforth, a maid of honor dressed in white silk entered followed closely by a lady in waiting carrying a tasting fork, the lady immediately prostrating herself three times before Elizabeth’s empty chair. The lady then gave each guard a taste of every dish after which Elizabeth’s ladies carried the dishes into the privy chamber for Elizabeth’s selection.
Guarded in her residence day and night, never left alone, Elizabeth could not be assassinated directly. Food tasting prevented indirect assassination.
There had been ample cause for concern. For her entire reign she had had to confront the ramifications of her renunciation of Catholicism. Only by threatening to marry the heir to the French throne had she been able to forestall Philip of Spain from attempting to depose her. This tactic had not stopped Catholics in England and Europe from scheming to remove her and reestablish Catholic rule in the person of Mary Stuart, Elizabeth’s cousin, former queen consort of France, former Queen of Scotland, forced to abdicate her Scottish throne by Protestant Scottish lords. The past fifteen years per Elizabeth’s orders, Mary had been confined at Sheffield Castle closely watched by Sir Francis Walsingham’s many spies.
In 1571 a rebellion in northern England fomented by Catholic earls had convinced Elizabeth that Mary was indeed a threat. That same year Elizabeth’s chief councilors, Lord Burghley and Walsingham, had discovered the Ridolfi plot. Spanish troops, assisted by Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, whose intention was to become Mary Stuart’s royal consort, were to depose Elizabeth and reestablish Catholicism. The plot foiled and Norfolk executed, to achieve a defense treaty with France to forestall Spanish aggression, Elizabeth had initiated negotiations to marry the immediate heir to the French throne, and then, after he, Henry had become King, his brother and heir, Francis, the Duke of Anjou. Entertaining the prospect of marriage, Anjou, despite being Catholic, seeking military glory, had declared himself champion of the Huguenot Dutch. Anjou’s subsequent actions in the Netherlands had revealed his avarice and incompetence. Most of Elizabeth’s advisors and the general public had opposed the proposed marriage. Recognizing finally that her marriage could only be to her people, Elizabeth had ended the charade. The possibility of an alliance between England and France dashed, only King Philip’s desire to conquer the Netherlands first had kept him from invading England.
Two months ago Elizabeth had celebrated her fiftieth birthday. She had been queen for nearly twenty-five years. A month ago an insane young Catholic, John Somerville of Warwickshire, enflamed by Jesuit pamphlets, had bragged in public that he would shoot her with a pistol and see her head on a pole. Quickly arrested, he awaited execution.
Somerville had been but one example of the rabid hatred radical English Catholics possessed. Walsingham apprised her almost daily of the peril and Mary’s desire to replace her, revealed in letters she had written to Catholics abroad. Elizabeth had arisen late this morning hoping to thrust aside temporarily her many burdens. Having finished her dinner, she had set about translating another section of Cicero. Afterward, because she had stayed up into the early morning hours writing correspondence, she had hoped to reserve one or two hours to nap.
That would not be.
The sound of her gentlemen usher’s entrance startled her.
“Your majesty. I present for your acceptance the presence of your chief secretary, Sir Francis Walsingham.”
What is it this time? she thought. Francis Throckmorton, probably. The latest insane plotter. “Yes, yes, admit him,” she responded. She closed the opened two pages of Cicero’s writing on her book mark.
“Your Highness.” Walsingham’s double-layered white ruff separated starkly his dark facial skin, beard, and mustache and his full length, midnight-black mantle.
She rose. Three feet away from her he knelt, bowed his head.
“Rise.” She was in a mood to box his ears, again. Or throw her slipper. She was not wearing any! Her “Moor,” dark as ever, was about to press upon her another action she would not want to take. “What do you have that cannot wait?”
“Throckmorton.” His right knee yet on the thick carpet, he gazed up at her.
“I had thought so. Proceed!”
“Since I last spoke, we have searched his London house. Infamous pamphlets, list of papist lords and harbors where Spanish soldiers could safely be disembarked. The Spanish ambassador is mentioned. We have racked young Throckmorton. He has given up nothing. A second, more severe session will surely break his resolve.”
“You want my authorization.”
“I do. It is imperative. I believe that we will have sufficient evidence of the Scottish whore’s complicity to convince you, finally, that she must be tried and executed.”
His adamancy, conveyed by facial expression, choice of words, and intonation, vexed her. “Tread lightly, sir, how you describe monarchs ordained by God. You know well my thoughts about that!”
His left hand made a supplicating gesture.
“Speak cautiously, least I acquaint your head with the heft of this book. Cicero I will have you know!”
“I seek at this time only your authorization.”
She looked at him. Thin, narrow face; long nose; receding black hairline; furrowed forehead; eyes encircled by … what? Responsibility? Fatigue? Ambition? He served her well. Partly because he spoke his mind. Because he was a steadfast Protestant. Because he hated Spain. Because his intelligence exceeded, perhaps, her own and he followed orders he opposed. Such as attempting to negotiate a marriage agreement between her and Anjou.
She released a long breath. She gazed briefly at Holbein’s wall mural of her parents and grandparents, particularly of her father, legs wide apart, confrontationally defiant.
God’s blood, she was her father’s daughter!
“You have my authorization, as you have had these past several years my approval of the plundering of Spanish treasure ships. Drake has done more to enrage Philip than … you say that Mendoza is implicated?!”
“The Spanish ambassador’s name is mentioned.”
“See to it that Throckmorton specifically implicates him! I will savor Mendoza’s response!”
“I shall.”
The interview, for her, had concluded. He tarried.
“God’s love, rise!” It occurred to her that he had more to say. “Yes?”
He rose, with reluctance towered over her.
“A matter of collateral urgency.” His dark eyes fastened on hers.
“How so?”
“The expedition to the New World. We must found a colony north of Florida but south of where Gilbert had planned to colonize so as to seize in the Caribbean and south of the Azores shipments of Spanish gold! And discover and mine on the new continent comparable riches!”
“We have spoken about this. I have told you the treasury lacks the funds to finance this venture! You must show me a plan that involves private investment! I wait to see such a plan!”
“I am close to showing you a plan.”
“You do know that you have competition.”
She saw in his eyes, despite his skill at concealing emotion, a flash of temper.
“You speak for my issuance of a patent, similar to that I gave Gilbert. Authorization to sell vast acreage to wealthy investors.”
“How else am I to raise sufficient capital?”
“Agreed. And who is to hold this patent, and profit grandly from it? Your step- son, Christopher Carleill?”
“He would be the captain.”
“But who would hold the patent? You?”
His eyes did not blink. “Who but I have the connections to make successful such a risky, complicated venture?”
“Again, agreed. I will look at your plan.”
After Walsingham had left, she was not of the mind to translate or nap. Her blood was up. Walsingham wanted his due. He expected it! Early during her reign, advisors had thought they could intimidate her, because she was a woman. There were times when Walsingham tried. She had allowed no man to control her!
She looked again at Holbein’s mural. She looked at her father. She read part of the Latin inscription on the sarcophagus that separated father and son from their wives.
If it pleases you to see the illustrious images of heroes, look on these: no picture ever bore greater. The great debate, competition and great question is whether father or son is the victor. For both, indeed, were supreme.
Like her father she would not be swayed.
December 24, 2020
Alsoomse and Wanchese -- Chapter 9, Section 1
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
Alsoomse (Independent) – 17, protagonist
* Andacon (Evergreens) – 25, Wingina’s war chief
Hurit (Beautiful) – 25, weroansqua. Granganimeo’s second wife
Kitchi ()Brave) – Alsoomse and Wanchese’s dead brother, 11 at ime of death, 1580
Matunaagd (He Who Fights) – Alsoomse and Wanchese’s father, 35 at time of death, 1579
* Menatonon – 55, mamanatowick of Choanoac
Mesickek (Striped Bass) – 35, Ramrushouuog weroance
Nootau (Fire) – 20, Sooleawa’s son and Alsoomse and Wanchese’s cousin
* Okisko – 29, Weapemeoc’s Weroance
* Osacan- 26, elite member of Wingina’s council
* Piemacum (He Who Churns Up the Water) – 25 Pomeiooc’s weroance
Rakiock (Cypress Tree) – 25, Menatonon’s war chief
* Skiko – 13, Menatonon’s son
Sokanon (Rain) – 18, Sooleawa’s daughter and Alsoomse and Wanchese’s cousin
* Tanaquincy – 28, Granganimeo’s chief advisor
Waboose (Baby Rabbit) – 16, Wanchese’s bedmate
* Wanchese (Take Flight off of Water) – 20, protagonist
Wematin (Brother) – dead mamanatowich, brother of Ensenore. 50 at time of death, 1579
Wikimak (Wife) – 22, Menatonon’s newest wife
* Wingina –34 mamanatowich
Section 1
They had taken water at Ricahokene and eaten venison stew from the communal pot. Afterward, Wanchese had walked north of the village to the mouth of the crooked stream. Clear, dark water drifted past two cypresses. Staring at them, Wanchese wondered how the Choanoac people chose their village locations. Fresh water -- a creek close by -- was essential, as was a bit of high ground lengthy enough to grow corn, beans, and squash. Access to where deer and turkey and other sources of meat could be hunted was likewise essential. He gazed at the marsh land across the river. Beyond it was a slightly elevated, eroded plateau covered with swamp trees and several loblolly pines. No exit of creek water there, he concluded. Along the eastern shore, where he stood, the land was not continuously swampy. The river here seemed more defined. Andacon had said that it would narrow as they continued northward.
Wanchese wondered whether living in one of these villages would be better or worse than his present habitation. Could you ever judge accurately anybody’s quality of life without a basis of comparison?
Nootau found him staring into the translucent water.
“I have seen five perch,” Wanchese commented.
Nootau looked at him somewhat lengthily, then nodded.
You will not hear what occupies my mind, Wanchese thought.
#
A light breeze was playing upon Wanchese’s sore right shoulder. Keep at it, he told the shoulder. Andacon would likely be ordering them to paddle harder!
Directly ahead a long, narrow island pointed at them. They labored past its west side. Black water flowed past exposed roots of tupelo and bald cypress. He saw a turtle plop into the water. Long strands of moss hung from leafless limbs. The boy in him, the boy who had had yet a father, would have wanted to investigate this island. He envisioned its turtles, birds, lizards, fish, and snakes. How many young Choanoac boys had come here?
The river angled left. “Not much farther,” Andacon announced. The shoreline to their right was expansive marsh. To their left the marsh land had become intermittent swamp and earthen bank. Farther still they saw a lengthy, low ridge divided, they would discover, by a swamp-lined, twisted creek.
“There, at the top of that ridge, just before the creek. I am certain they see us,” Andacon declared. “Paddle to the mouth of the creek. There is a trail to the top.”
#
Loblolly pine branches and knots of red cedar snapped dissonantly. Menatonon, Rakiock -- the great mamanatowick’s main principal – Andacon, and Osacan talked. Nootau listened. Menatonon’s pipe had reached Osacan. Wanchese watched the fire’s gray smoke spiral through the dark hole in the visitor room’s ceiling.
They had conversed initially outside Menatonon’s longhouse.
“I remember Wematin well,” Menatonon had said to Andacon following formal introductions. “I recall when he succeeded his father as mamanatowick. He was ten cohattayoughs younger than I. We traded. And, yes, I remember his principal man, Matunaagd.” Menatonon’s wizened right arm had gestured feebly. “I am pleased, Wanchese, to meet you, Matunaagd’s son. And you, Nootau. You are Wanchese’s cousin. Was your father and Wanchese’s father brothers? No, his mother and Wanchese’s mother were sisters, Nootau had explained.
Skiko, the mamanatowick’s youngest son, standing between his father and Rakiock, had been full of smiles. Wanchese judged him to be a little older than Kitchi had been the day Kitchi had drowned. Who would become mamanatowick when Menatonon died? Certainly not this boy. Probably Menatonon’s oldest, who, Wanchese guessed, was weroance of Menatonon’s second largest village. Or perhaps Menatonon’s successor would be this Rakiock, bald cypress thick, two changing of the leaves older than Andacon, he estimated.
After their brief outdoor exchange Rakiock had taken them into a small chamber in Menatonon’s longhouse. Young women had bathed them. Afterward, they had been led into a larger chamber where they had enjoyed a feast of black bear meat, venison, striped bass, black crappie, mussels and oysters, silk grass, and acorns. Now they were seated in Menatonon’s visiting room. Seated on a bench across from his guests, the sharing of his pipe concluded, Menatonon spoke.
“My useless limbs vex me. I am very old. Before many seasons, I will be called beyond the mountains toward the disappearance of the sun.”
Wanchese noted the many lines on the mamanatowick’s face: there on his forehead, around his cheekbones, about his mouth and chin. His roached hair -- spiked -- was white and thin. Wisps of hair rode his upper lip and marked the end of his chin. He wore sewed together, elaborately fringed deerskin, which reached from his left shoulder to well below his knees. The fur side lay against his skin.
“There will be change then. Not a moon’s passing before!” He looked at Andacon. “My people trust me. They know that collectively we are strong. We have many warriors. We hold off the Mandoag. The Powhatan respect us.” He scoffed. “Okisko dares not defy me!” He smiled, gestured toward Rakiock. “My right hand would crush him if he did.”
Rakiock’s matching fingertips touched. He grunted. “Okisko knows he needs our protection. The Chesapeake are peaceful but the Nansemond are not.”
“Neither is Matunaagd’s son.” Andacon nodded toward Wanchese. “By now Okisko has probably been told.”
Menatonon raised his right eyebrow, gazed expectantly at Wanchese.
Wanchese adjusted his haunches. Was this to be his punishment: belittlement in the presence of the great mamanatowick?
“Tell him, Wanchese,” Andacon said.
He hesitated, knowing how he spoke would influence greatly how he would be judged. “I … struck to the ground a Weapemeoc hunter at Perquiman. For slapping a canoe builder living separate from four hunters staying there. He had given them no offense other than his refusal to hunt and fight. He had given me deerskin to cover me, a fire to warm me, fish to eat, and conversation before I slept. What I did was hasty. I risked the lives of my friends.”
Rakiock looked at him, looked then through him.
“I … struck one of your subjects.”
Menatonon’s face exploded in lines. “If I were not so feeble, I might have, also!”
All but Wanchese laughed.
“If Okisko complains, I will tell him to bring me the hunter.” Menatonon’s ancient eyes pranced.
“Proximity to power strengthens loyalty.” Rakiock repositioned his bare feet.
“As does the closeness of my villages. I have fifteen, all along the Nomopana. Not spread out and few, like the Weapemeoc. Not spread out even more, like your people and the Secotan.” Menatonon touched the whiskers at his chin, studied for a moment his arthritic right forefinger. “Distance breeds disloyalty. Okisko is losing Pasquenoke.” He leaned toward Andacon, leaned back painfully. “You have come here to learn if Wingina has lost Pomeiooc, and with it probably Aquascogooc and Secotan. Is that not so?”
Andacon looked at his hands. Menatonon and Rakiock waited. Wanchese stared past the principal man’s head.
“We have, mamanatowick.” Andacon shifted his position on the tree branches bench.
Menatonon drew smoke through the stem of his pipe.
Wanchese watched Nootau’s left hand touch his left knee.
Menatonon exhaled. “If not, you are close to losing them. Piemacum sent traders here half a moon ago. Did Wingina not demand tribute?”
Andacon spoke rapidly. “Wingina sent us here and sent another canoe to Moratuc. After the taquitock moon Piemacum’s hunters shot arrows at us on hunting grounds we have previously shared.”
Menatonon sucked in more smoke, slowly exhaled. He pointed the bole of his pipe. “Prudent. Your mamanatowick is prudent, although, I believe, some of your young warriors must want to prove themselves.” Examining Andacon’s face, he nodded, smiled.
A lengthy silence followed.
Andacon stirred. “We request your wisdom.”
“Wisdom? Wisdom?! I am not Wingina. I do not rule there.” He turned slightly, his copper bead earrings swinging. “Rakiock, provide them your wisdom.”
Sitting very tall, Rakiock inhaled, lifted his right hand. “You can tell Wingina, if you choose, what he already knows. He has two options. Allow Piemacum to take what he wants. Or use force and the prospect of the use of greater force to restore obedience. Wingina must decide if he has enough warriors and the desire to commit to war if he chooses to use force.”
Andacon moved his left thumbnail across his upper lip.
“Upstarts must always be crushed.”
Menatonon looked at Osacan. “So you have brought trade items to barter, hoping that the Pomeiooc had not come. We traded with them, but I left in my storage house some of what you have wanted before, believing I would see you. We can see tomorrow what we might trade. I will soon be distributing some of what I received from the Pomeiooc to my villages, starting with Ramushouuoq. Mesickek may have received rocks and such from the Mandoag since I visited his storage house. You are invited to accompany my men and trade.”
Andacon and Osacan thanked him.
Menatonon and Rakiock stood.
Menatonon addressed Wanchese and Nootau. “It is time that I retire. I envy you virile, young warriors. The spirit is willing but the body quits. Each of you will find in a separate chamber of my guesthouse a thoughtfully chosen host waiting for you to share the night.”
#
She was waiting for Wanchese in a corner of the chamber close to a raised, small-branched, deerskin-covered bed. At first he thought he was alone, that the girl would enter from outside. A slight movement caused him to look in her direction.
He stepped over to her. It was difficult to see. He made out her features.
She was young. Fifteen? Sixteen? Not yet Alsoomse’s age. She was naked, adolescent slim, her breasts small, her limbs and buttocks not yet pleasingly rounded.
Her eyes darted. She appeared defensive. This was not what he had experienced the year before at Mequopen.
“What is your name?”
Her right hand moved toward her mouth. “Waboose.”
Wanchese smiled. “Do you have a white, furry tail?”
She looked at him. The corners of her mouth nudged.
“My name is Wanchese.” He waited. “You are but a girl.”
Her head dropped. She looked at the mat underneath her feet.
“Well?” he said.
“You are disappointed,” she said, her voice scarcely audible.
He was disappointed. He felt cheated. Disrespected! Why had Menatonon done this?
“You are angry.”
After a pause: “Not at you.”
“You will tell them. I will be punished.”
Wanchese sighed. He moved a step away from her, turned about. “You do not want to do this.” He turned around, stared at her.
“I … must. It is a great honor to be chosen. Wikimak has told me. The others.” Her right hand moved across her collar bones.
“Who is Wikimak?”
“Mamanatowick’s newest wife. She selects us.”
Wanchese thought of his sister. He imagined Hurit choosing Alsoomse and Sokanon to lie with guests from Weapemeoc. He laughed. Alsoomse would have sent every one of the Perquiman hunters running.
He saw anger in her expression. It stayed.
“I do not consider her choosing me amusing.”
“Of course not. It is a great honor. You said so.”
Her eyes flashed. “Do not mock me.”
“I mock my sister, when she deserves it.” He waited.
“Your sister.”
“Yes, Alsoomse, who is not afraid to say what she thinks of me. You made me think of her.”
After a pause, “Why?”
“She would not lie with a stranger, either. She has not done so with anybody.”
Wanchese now saw curiosity.
“Is … your sister young?”
“A falling of the leaves older than you, I think.”
“Do you … dislike your sister?”
“No.” He paused. “We just argue.”
She looked away. “I have a brother. We argue. He moved away two harvests ago to Ricahokene to live with his wife and her family.” She looked at Wanchese, looked away. “I miss him.”
“Sisters? You have sisters?”
“Two. Both older. Married. Both here. Always telling me what to do.”
“Do you have an admirer? Somebody who looks at you at every opportunity?”
He saw her face blush.
“Do you look at him at every opportunity?”
He sat upon the bed. After a moment she sat next to him, an arrow’s length away.
“I am not going to tell you,” she said.
He was beginning to like her.
They talked. He asked about her parents. Her father was dead, killed by the Mandoag. He told her about his dead parents and brother and sister. They talked superficially about loss.
Eventually, she stood. She glanced at him. “I have been chosen. I will be questioned. I must obey. I have not done this before. I am afraid. My sisters say it is time.”
He looked at her. He saw the smooth line of her shoulders and thought that despite his pangs of conscience he would do it. “All right,” he said.
He reclined beside her. She pulled a sewed together deerskin over their shoulders. He remained still for half a minute. She was lying on her back. He reached for her, felt her stiffness, reached for the curve above her right hip. She was not drawn to him.
He hesitated. Sitting partially upright, he looked at her eyes. He saw tears.
Dasemunkepeuc and Roanoke women did not cry.
“I cannot do this,” he said.
She blinked, brushed away the moisture. “You must.”
“We will lie together. That is all.” He lay back on the bed. Minutes later, he scoffed. “When they question you tomorrow, use your imagination.”
In the middle of the night, lying on his stomach, he put his left arm across her upper body. Seconds later she placed her right hand gently on his forearm. A minute later she said: “If you lived here, I would be looking at you at every opportunity.”
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
Alsoomse (Independent) – 17, protagonist
* Andacon (Evergreens) – 25, Wingina’s war chief
Hurit (Beautiful) – 25, weroansqua. Granganimeo’s second wife
Kitchi ()Brave) – Alsoomse and Wanchese’s dead brother, 11 at ime of death, 1580
Matunaagd (He Who Fights) – Alsoomse and Wanchese’s father, 35 at time of death, 1579
* Menatonon – 55, mamanatowick of Choanoac
Mesickek (Striped Bass) – 35, Ramrushouuog weroance
Nootau (Fire) – 20, Sooleawa’s son and Alsoomse and Wanchese’s cousin
* Okisko – 29, Weapemeoc’s Weroance
* Osacan- 26, elite member of Wingina’s council
* Piemacum (He Who Churns Up the Water) – 25 Pomeiooc’s weroance
Rakiock (Cypress Tree) – 25, Menatonon’s war chief
* Skiko – 13, Menatonon’s son
Sokanon (Rain) – 18, Sooleawa’s daughter and Alsoomse and Wanchese’s cousin
* Tanaquincy – 28, Granganimeo’s chief advisor
Waboose (Baby Rabbit) – 16, Wanchese’s bedmate
* Wanchese (Take Flight off of Water) – 20, protagonist
Wematin (Brother) – dead mamanatowich, brother of Ensenore. 50 at time of death, 1579
Wikimak (Wife) – 22, Menatonon’s newest wife
* Wingina –34 mamanatowich
Section 1
They had taken water at Ricahokene and eaten venison stew from the communal pot. Afterward, Wanchese had walked north of the village to the mouth of the crooked stream. Clear, dark water drifted past two cypresses. Staring at them, Wanchese wondered how the Choanoac people chose their village locations. Fresh water -- a creek close by -- was essential, as was a bit of high ground lengthy enough to grow corn, beans, and squash. Access to where deer and turkey and other sources of meat could be hunted was likewise essential. He gazed at the marsh land across the river. Beyond it was a slightly elevated, eroded plateau covered with swamp trees and several loblolly pines. No exit of creek water there, he concluded. Along the eastern shore, where he stood, the land was not continuously swampy. The river here seemed more defined. Andacon had said that it would narrow as they continued northward.
Wanchese wondered whether living in one of these villages would be better or worse than his present habitation. Could you ever judge accurately anybody’s quality of life without a basis of comparison?
Nootau found him staring into the translucent water.
“I have seen five perch,” Wanchese commented.
Nootau looked at him somewhat lengthily, then nodded.
You will not hear what occupies my mind, Wanchese thought.
#
A light breeze was playing upon Wanchese’s sore right shoulder. Keep at it, he told the shoulder. Andacon would likely be ordering them to paddle harder!
Directly ahead a long, narrow island pointed at them. They labored past its west side. Black water flowed past exposed roots of tupelo and bald cypress. He saw a turtle plop into the water. Long strands of moss hung from leafless limbs. The boy in him, the boy who had had yet a father, would have wanted to investigate this island. He envisioned its turtles, birds, lizards, fish, and snakes. How many young Choanoac boys had come here?
The river angled left. “Not much farther,” Andacon announced. The shoreline to their right was expansive marsh. To their left the marsh land had become intermittent swamp and earthen bank. Farther still they saw a lengthy, low ridge divided, they would discover, by a swamp-lined, twisted creek.
“There, at the top of that ridge, just before the creek. I am certain they see us,” Andacon declared. “Paddle to the mouth of the creek. There is a trail to the top.”
#
Loblolly pine branches and knots of red cedar snapped dissonantly. Menatonon, Rakiock -- the great mamanatowick’s main principal – Andacon, and Osacan talked. Nootau listened. Menatonon’s pipe had reached Osacan. Wanchese watched the fire’s gray smoke spiral through the dark hole in the visitor room’s ceiling.
They had conversed initially outside Menatonon’s longhouse.
“I remember Wematin well,” Menatonon had said to Andacon following formal introductions. “I recall when he succeeded his father as mamanatowick. He was ten cohattayoughs younger than I. We traded. And, yes, I remember his principal man, Matunaagd.” Menatonon’s wizened right arm had gestured feebly. “I am pleased, Wanchese, to meet you, Matunaagd’s son. And you, Nootau. You are Wanchese’s cousin. Was your father and Wanchese’s father brothers? No, his mother and Wanchese’s mother were sisters, Nootau had explained.
Skiko, the mamanatowick’s youngest son, standing between his father and Rakiock, had been full of smiles. Wanchese judged him to be a little older than Kitchi had been the day Kitchi had drowned. Who would become mamanatowick when Menatonon died? Certainly not this boy. Probably Menatonon’s oldest, who, Wanchese guessed, was weroance of Menatonon’s second largest village. Or perhaps Menatonon’s successor would be this Rakiock, bald cypress thick, two changing of the leaves older than Andacon, he estimated.
After their brief outdoor exchange Rakiock had taken them into a small chamber in Menatonon’s longhouse. Young women had bathed them. Afterward, they had been led into a larger chamber where they had enjoyed a feast of black bear meat, venison, striped bass, black crappie, mussels and oysters, silk grass, and acorns. Now they were seated in Menatonon’s visiting room. Seated on a bench across from his guests, the sharing of his pipe concluded, Menatonon spoke.
“My useless limbs vex me. I am very old. Before many seasons, I will be called beyond the mountains toward the disappearance of the sun.”
Wanchese noted the many lines on the mamanatowick’s face: there on his forehead, around his cheekbones, about his mouth and chin. His roached hair -- spiked -- was white and thin. Wisps of hair rode his upper lip and marked the end of his chin. He wore sewed together, elaborately fringed deerskin, which reached from his left shoulder to well below his knees. The fur side lay against his skin.
“There will be change then. Not a moon’s passing before!” He looked at Andacon. “My people trust me. They know that collectively we are strong. We have many warriors. We hold off the Mandoag. The Powhatan respect us.” He scoffed. “Okisko dares not defy me!” He smiled, gestured toward Rakiock. “My right hand would crush him if he did.”
Rakiock’s matching fingertips touched. He grunted. “Okisko knows he needs our protection. The Chesapeake are peaceful but the Nansemond are not.”
“Neither is Matunaagd’s son.” Andacon nodded toward Wanchese. “By now Okisko has probably been told.”
Menatonon raised his right eyebrow, gazed expectantly at Wanchese.
Wanchese adjusted his haunches. Was this to be his punishment: belittlement in the presence of the great mamanatowick?
“Tell him, Wanchese,” Andacon said.
He hesitated, knowing how he spoke would influence greatly how he would be judged. “I … struck to the ground a Weapemeoc hunter at Perquiman. For slapping a canoe builder living separate from four hunters staying there. He had given them no offense other than his refusal to hunt and fight. He had given me deerskin to cover me, a fire to warm me, fish to eat, and conversation before I slept. What I did was hasty. I risked the lives of my friends.”
Rakiock looked at him, looked then through him.
“I … struck one of your subjects.”
Menatonon’s face exploded in lines. “If I were not so feeble, I might have, also!”
All but Wanchese laughed.
“If Okisko complains, I will tell him to bring me the hunter.” Menatonon’s ancient eyes pranced.
“Proximity to power strengthens loyalty.” Rakiock repositioned his bare feet.
“As does the closeness of my villages. I have fifteen, all along the Nomopana. Not spread out and few, like the Weapemeoc. Not spread out even more, like your people and the Secotan.” Menatonon touched the whiskers at his chin, studied for a moment his arthritic right forefinger. “Distance breeds disloyalty. Okisko is losing Pasquenoke.” He leaned toward Andacon, leaned back painfully. “You have come here to learn if Wingina has lost Pomeiooc, and with it probably Aquascogooc and Secotan. Is that not so?”
Andacon looked at his hands. Menatonon and Rakiock waited. Wanchese stared past the principal man’s head.
“We have, mamanatowick.” Andacon shifted his position on the tree branches bench.
Menatonon drew smoke through the stem of his pipe.
Wanchese watched Nootau’s left hand touch his left knee.
Menatonon exhaled. “If not, you are close to losing them. Piemacum sent traders here half a moon ago. Did Wingina not demand tribute?”
Andacon spoke rapidly. “Wingina sent us here and sent another canoe to Moratuc. After the taquitock moon Piemacum’s hunters shot arrows at us on hunting grounds we have previously shared.”
Menatonon sucked in more smoke, slowly exhaled. He pointed the bole of his pipe. “Prudent. Your mamanatowick is prudent, although, I believe, some of your young warriors must want to prove themselves.” Examining Andacon’s face, he nodded, smiled.
A lengthy silence followed.
Andacon stirred. “We request your wisdom.”
“Wisdom? Wisdom?! I am not Wingina. I do not rule there.” He turned slightly, his copper bead earrings swinging. “Rakiock, provide them your wisdom.”
Sitting very tall, Rakiock inhaled, lifted his right hand. “You can tell Wingina, if you choose, what he already knows. He has two options. Allow Piemacum to take what he wants. Or use force and the prospect of the use of greater force to restore obedience. Wingina must decide if he has enough warriors and the desire to commit to war if he chooses to use force.”
Andacon moved his left thumbnail across his upper lip.
“Upstarts must always be crushed.”
Menatonon looked at Osacan. “So you have brought trade items to barter, hoping that the Pomeiooc had not come. We traded with them, but I left in my storage house some of what you have wanted before, believing I would see you. We can see tomorrow what we might trade. I will soon be distributing some of what I received from the Pomeiooc to my villages, starting with Ramushouuoq. Mesickek may have received rocks and such from the Mandoag since I visited his storage house. You are invited to accompany my men and trade.”
Andacon and Osacan thanked him.
Menatonon and Rakiock stood.
Menatonon addressed Wanchese and Nootau. “It is time that I retire. I envy you virile, young warriors. The spirit is willing but the body quits. Each of you will find in a separate chamber of my guesthouse a thoughtfully chosen host waiting for you to share the night.”
#
She was waiting for Wanchese in a corner of the chamber close to a raised, small-branched, deerskin-covered bed. At first he thought he was alone, that the girl would enter from outside. A slight movement caused him to look in her direction.
He stepped over to her. It was difficult to see. He made out her features.
She was young. Fifteen? Sixteen? Not yet Alsoomse’s age. She was naked, adolescent slim, her breasts small, her limbs and buttocks not yet pleasingly rounded.
Her eyes darted. She appeared defensive. This was not what he had experienced the year before at Mequopen.
“What is your name?”
Her right hand moved toward her mouth. “Waboose.”
Wanchese smiled. “Do you have a white, furry tail?”
She looked at him. The corners of her mouth nudged.
“My name is Wanchese.” He waited. “You are but a girl.”
Her head dropped. She looked at the mat underneath her feet.
“Well?” he said.
“You are disappointed,” she said, her voice scarcely audible.
He was disappointed. He felt cheated. Disrespected! Why had Menatonon done this?
“You are angry.”
After a pause: “Not at you.”
“You will tell them. I will be punished.”
Wanchese sighed. He moved a step away from her, turned about. “You do not want to do this.” He turned around, stared at her.
“I … must. It is a great honor to be chosen. Wikimak has told me. The others.” Her right hand moved across her collar bones.
“Who is Wikimak?”
“Mamanatowick’s newest wife. She selects us.”
Wanchese thought of his sister. He imagined Hurit choosing Alsoomse and Sokanon to lie with guests from Weapemeoc. He laughed. Alsoomse would have sent every one of the Perquiman hunters running.
He saw anger in her expression. It stayed.
“I do not consider her choosing me amusing.”
“Of course not. It is a great honor. You said so.”
Her eyes flashed. “Do not mock me.”
“I mock my sister, when she deserves it.” He waited.
“Your sister.”
“Yes, Alsoomse, who is not afraid to say what she thinks of me. You made me think of her.”
After a pause, “Why?”
“She would not lie with a stranger, either. She has not done so with anybody.”
Wanchese now saw curiosity.
“Is … your sister young?”
“A falling of the leaves older than you, I think.”
“Do you … dislike your sister?”
“No.” He paused. “We just argue.”
She looked away. “I have a brother. We argue. He moved away two harvests ago to Ricahokene to live with his wife and her family.” She looked at Wanchese, looked away. “I miss him.”
“Sisters? You have sisters?”
“Two. Both older. Married. Both here. Always telling me what to do.”
“Do you have an admirer? Somebody who looks at you at every opportunity?”
He saw her face blush.
“Do you look at him at every opportunity?”
He sat upon the bed. After a moment she sat next to him, an arrow’s length away.
“I am not going to tell you,” she said.
He was beginning to like her.
They talked. He asked about her parents. Her father was dead, killed by the Mandoag. He told her about his dead parents and brother and sister. They talked superficially about loss.
Eventually, she stood. She glanced at him. “I have been chosen. I will be questioned. I must obey. I have not done this before. I am afraid. My sisters say it is time.”
He looked at her. He saw the smooth line of her shoulders and thought that despite his pangs of conscience he would do it. “All right,” he said.
He reclined beside her. She pulled a sewed together deerskin over their shoulders. He remained still for half a minute. She was lying on her back. He reached for her, felt her stiffness, reached for the curve above her right hip. She was not drawn to him.
He hesitated. Sitting partially upright, he looked at her eyes. He saw tears.
Dasemunkepeuc and Roanoke women did not cry.
“I cannot do this,” he said.
She blinked, brushed away the moisture. “You must.”
“We will lie together. That is all.” He lay back on the bed. Minutes later, he scoffed. “When they question you tomorrow, use your imagination.”
In the middle of the night, lying on his stomach, he put his left arm across her upper body. Seconds later she placed her right hand gently on his forearm. A minute later she said: “If you lived here, I would be looking at you at every opportunity.”
December 20, 2020
Alsoomse and Wanchese -- Cha[ter 8 -- Sections 2 and 3
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
Allawa (Pea) – 15, Granganimeo’s daughter and Hurit’s step-daughter
Alsoomse (Independent) – 17, protagonist
* Andacon (Evergreens) – 25, Wingina’s war chief
Etchemin (Canoe Man) – 18, canoe maker and social outcast
* Granganimeo (He Who Is Serious) – 33, weroance of Roanoke
Hurit (Beautiful) – 25, weroansqua. Granganimeo’s second wife
Machk (Bear) – 17, Nuna’s brother, friend of Wanchese
Matunaagd (He Who Fights) – Alsoomse and Wanchese’s father, 35 at time of death, 1579
* Menatonon – 55, mamanatowick of Choanoac
Nootau (Fire) – 20, Sooleawa’s son and Alsoomse and Wanchese’s cousin
Nuna (Land) – 16, Alsoomse’s friend acrosds the lane
Odina (Mountain) – 16, Alsoomse’s friend across the lane
* Okisko – 29, Weapemeoc’s Weroance
* Osacan- 26, elite member of Wingina’s council
* Piemacum (He Who Churns Up the Water) – 25 Pomeiooc’s weroance
* Pooneno – 29, weroance of Matachwen and Tandaquomuc
Pules (Piigeon) – 11, Odina’s sister
Sokanon (Rain) – 18, Sooleawa’s daughter and Alsoomse and Wanchese’s cousin
* Tanaquincy – 28, Granganimeo’s chief advisor
* Wanchese (Take Flight off of Water) – 20, protagonist
Wapun (Dawn) – 12, Nuna amd Machk’s sister
* Wingina –34 mamanatowich
Sections 2 and 3
Nootau pointed. Wanchese saw high in the cloudless sky large-winged, long-necked migratory birds headed toward the Great Waters. He counted four brown bodies, black legs folded, arrow-straight gray necks extended, the tops of their heads – he anticipated -- red. Brown cranes! A rare sighting!
“Keep paddling,” Andacon ordered.
They had passed Weapemeoc, Okisko’s main village, having stayed well away from the shoreline. Andacon had not wanted talkative fishermen delaying them or – a consequence of Wanchese’s aggression – vengeful warriors attacking them. The risk of either occurrence now behind them, Wanchese anticipated a severe reprimand.
When he had removed his foot from the prone hunter’s head, Wanchese had glanced toward Etchemin’s shelter. The canoe-maker had vanished. As the battered hunter rose to his knees, Wanchese had located the three witnessing hunters, eyes, foreheads, mouths, and cheekbones exuding hate.
“Think before you act!” Andacon had thundered. “Four against three!” His formidable biceps had bulged.
One of the standing hunters had pointed. “He should be whipped! We will allow you to leave after he is whipped!”
“Your brave deserved the attack!” Osacan had answered.
“There will be no whipping, and there will be no fighting unless you begin it!” Andacon had declared.
“Nootau, take Wanchese down to the canoe,” Osacan had ordered. Nootau had immediately seized Wanchese’s left wrist. Wanchese had wrenched it free.
“Do as he says,” Nootau had hissed.
Standing directly behind Andacon, reaching back with his right hand, finding him, Osacan had pushed Wanchese’s chest.
Wanchese had then acquiesced. Slowly, the four of them had retreated, Andacon and Osacan facing the three offended hunters and their suddenly emboldened companion. When they had come to within twenty feet of the landing, Wanchese and Nootau had bolted ahead to push their canoe into the water.
“Get in!” Andacon had ordered, over the noise in the water. “You, Osacan, get in after them! I will push!”
“Ready!” Osacan had said, the three of them having taken up their paddles.
“Now! Decide!” Andacon, standing at the water’s edge, had declared. “Is your certain injury worth your avenging injury done to a bully and coward?!” Bald cypress formidable, he had glared. Satisfied, he had stepped backward into the water, had turned about, and had then pushed the canoe far into the river. Seconds later, as Wanchese, Nootau, and Osacan had paddled, grunting, he had propelled his water-slick, taunt body into the rear of the canoe.
Wanchese had not looked back. Each stroke of his paddle had taken him farther from the danger that he had caused. Leaving quickly the shadows of cypresses and tupelos, they had felt almost immediately the quick warmth of direct sunlight. Minutes later they had become a dot on Occam’s long waters.
They had escaped immediate and delayed attack. They – but not he -- were safe.
Cypress, tupelo, white cedar, and gum continued to line the right shoreline. He saw the trees; he could not see the land. He recognized his crime; he could not predict his certain punishment.
Acting rashly, ignoring Andacon’s order to desist, he had attacked a member of a confederation of villages neither Wingina’s ally nor enemy. He had endangered the lives of his three tribesmen. He had probably killed the canoe-maker. He had given the Weapemeoc an additional reason to dislike Wingina’s people. He had dishonored his father’s reputation.
He would not rise to any position of importance. He questioned only the moment when Andacon would confirm this.
The senior leader pointed across the broad waters. “Over there you can see where the Moratuc enters. At least one of its entrances.” Wanchese saw only marshes, reed vegetation, glints of blue.
“Many entrances.” Andacon scoffed. “May Tanaquincy enjoy finding the right one.”
Ahead of them the broad waters turned sharply right. The distance between the opposite shorelines shortened somewhat. Here enters the Nomopana [Chowan River], Wanchese thought.
“We now enter Menatonon’s territory,” Andacon stated. “We will go closer to this shoreline,” he said, his extended arm’s rippled shadow flitting on the water’s surface. “Much of its way this river goes straight. Then it narrows and bends to the right and then to the left. Choanoac is on the left bank. The sun will be close to leaving when we arrive.”
Lengthy, muscle-aching labor.
“We will make a stop at Ricahokene.”
They toiled. The sun had passed them. Their shadows were stretching toward the shore.
Syncopated grunts.
After awhile Andacon pointed left.
“Look! Metachwen! Look back a little! Tucked in on the little rise of land near the mouth of that swampy creek!”
Wanchese stared. He thought he saw two canoes peeking around the edge of land near the creek’s mouth.
“Pooneno is the weroance. There and at Tandaquomuc, which we also passed. The same side of the river.”
“I cannot see any land along here,” Osacan said. “Never-ending cypress and tupelo.” He laughed. “Nobody would ever find you if you had to hide.”
“The snakes would. The snakes and bugs would.” Wanchese suspended his paddle over the water, hoping he would receive a friendly response.
He heard a quiet chuckle.
The canoe glided.
He sensed, felt … the reprimand might come now.
“The wind is hiding.” Osacan said.
They resumed paddling.
“Who is Pooneno?” It was maybe the fourth time during the voyage that Nootau had spoken. “You said before that Menatonon is the Choanoac weroance.”
“Pooneno is like Granganimeo,” Andacon answered. “Maybe not as loyal. He is not Menatonon’s brother or his son. He is a fierce warrior. So I have been told. Maybe he is like Piemacum. A thorn in Menatonon’s foot.”
He had not been reprimanded! He wondered. How much had he damaged Andacon’s opinion of him? Had he overestimated the harm? He wanted to know! He twisted about. “About Pooneno. Would it be wrong to ask?”
“Yes!” His left hand gripping its middle, Andacon held his paddle still. “We will talk only about Piemacum! And trade. Nothing else!”
Several ring-billed gulls -- white under feathers, black heads, tips of their longest wing feathers also black -- soared overhead, squawked, propelled their bodies toward the western shore. As a boy Wanchese had enticed a ring-billed gull with a morsel of herring to approach within an arrow’s length of his hand. He had eventually tossed the piece and the gull had caught it, gobbled it, and waited a short distance away to be tossed another morsel. A second gull had joined it. Wanchese looked into the cypress-stained, translucent water. No herring swam beneath these waters this time of year as did white perch and spotted bass, wanting to catch smaller fish. If he waited long enough, if the canoe were to drift a bit, he thought he might see one or two. For all it mattered.
When?! He had been foolish to hope. When was he to be rebuked?!
“We paddle now to the other side of the river,” his leader declared.
How far were they from Ricahokene? Both of his shoulders ached. How was Nootau bearing it? But Nootau was accustomed to canoes. He thought of Etchemin, who fished and made canoes but refused to hunt, how that had made him an outcast. Nootau was accepted but because he was not a skilled hunter only partially respected. Wanchese wondered how he would now be judged.
“He gave me fish and a deerskin under me,” he blurted. “He does not kill. Except fish. He does not fight. Because that Weapemeoc hunter knew that he could, he slapped him.” Anger was heating his cheeks, forehead. “Because I had to, I put him on the ground!” The tops of his shoulders tingled.
He heard movement behind him.
Several paddle strokes later, Andacon said, “Sometimes the heart takes command. When it should not.”
3
“Be careful. Do not cut your finger.”
Two dressed deerskin aprons were stretched tightly between separated tree branches set atop two logs. Wapun and Pules were cutting fringes with sharp flint knives.
“This is not how I want it to look!” Raising her head, Wapun scowled.
“It should not look like what you want,” Alsoomse answered. “This is your first attempt.”
“I cannot cut straight,” Pules complained. “I will be laughed at.”
“By girls no better at it than you.”
“All of us had to learn how,” Nuna said. “Stop complaining!”
“Wait until you try to dye in designs.” Odina’s eyes glistened.
“Oh, can we do that?!” Wapun’s eyes turned to Alsoomse. “When?!”
“After you get better doing this.”
Sokanon, carrying broken off lengths of tree branches for the cooking fire, stopped to observe. “Tomorrow I will teach you how to make reed baskets.”
“Does that mean we have to go to a marsh and cut reeds?” Pules asked.
“It does. That is part of it.” Sokanon placed the branches next to the fire. She straightened, and then started.
Granganimeo’s wife Hurit, standing a canoe’s length away in the village lane, was staring at them. She approached.
“Weroansqua,” Sokanon greeted.
Instantly, Alsoomse rose. The back of her left hand covering her mouth, she faced about.
“Sokanon. Alsoomse. You are teaching these children well.” Hurit looked at Wapun and Pules, who were watching her with large eyes. “Is that not so?” she said to them.
“Yes, Weroansqua, they are very good,” Wapun answered.
Pules nodded vigorously.
“I am pleased.” Hurit looked at Alsoomse, then Sokanon. “I have a duty I want you to perform.”
Sokanon’s eyes flitted.
I want both of you to accompany me to Croatoan, tomorrow. To serve me. Together with Allawa, and two other young women.”
Alsoomse’s cheekbones tingled. Her arms felt the rush of adrenaline.
She had expected criticism.
“Both of you appear surprised.” Hurit’s amused smile enhanced her unaffected beauty.
“Weroansqua, we will serve you well,” Sokanon answered.
Hurit nodded. Her face hardened.
“You should know that Croatoan’s weroansqua has asked me to attend a meeting she is to have with Piemacum’s important men, believing, we suspect, that Piemacum wants her to submit herself and her people to his authority.”
Alsoomse felt a second surge of adrenaline. Quick to exhibit temper, her face burned.
The Croatoan were gentle people! Her father Matunaagd had said so, often! For some time now they had been led by a woman, which explained, probably, their peaceful manner. A thought occurred to her. “Weroansqua,” she said, “I believe I know her purpose.”
“Which is …?”
“Your presence will answer Piemacum’s question without the weroansqua needing to give it.”
Hurit nodded, a slow backward and forward acknowledgment. “You are perceptive, Alsoomse. You are your father and mother’s daughter.” She paused, looked at Alsoomse soberly. “But in other ways you are not nearly so. You disturb me.”
Alsoomse’s face blanched.
Sokanon interrupted. “Is Granganimeo to accompany us?”
What other ways? Alsoomse thought.
“No, Sokanon. His or Wingina’s presence would cause a fight.” Hurit’s face softened. “I am to go alone. Men do not usually fight women.”
“We leave then … when?”
“Immediately after the casting of tobacco. Several of our men will take us there in two canoes. They will not be men of high station.” For the first time Hurit looked at Nuna and Odina. “I will need Machk to be one of them. Please tell him.”
“I will, weroansqua,” Nuna responded.
Sokanon made a small hand gesture. Hurit raised her eyebrows. “I will need somebody to look after my mother. She is not strong.” Her face apologized.
“I am certain one of your friends here will do that.”
Simultaneously, Nuna and Odina nodded.
“Then everything is arranged.” Hurit turned, took two steps toward the lane, and stopped. Pivoting, she regarded Alsoomse. “One other matter.” Her eyes examined the length of Alsoomse’s body. “I expect you, Alsoomse, to show your high station the entire time we are there. That means necklaces, Alsoomse. Bracelets. Beads hanging from your ears. You will be representing this village, not yourself. Do you have them?”
“Yes.”
“I should not have to ask.”
“No.” Here was the expected criticism. She felt the start of a second burn.
Hurit studied her, too lengthily.
The burn reached Alsoomse’s ears.
“Why do you do this? Are you not proud of your parents’ standing?” Hurit looked at Alsoomse’s legs. “No tattoos, not even on your calves. Your cousin has them” – she pointed – “there, and there, and on her arms. She wears a nice shell necklace. Polished bones hang from her ears. Every day. Why must you be so different?”
She wants to know; I will tell her!
“We are different people.”
“That is obvious.”
“I love my cousin.” Alsoomse’s eyes combatted Hurit’s sarcasm. “I respect her for who she is. It is not because she is my cousin or she is the daughter of parents of high station. It is because of who she is.”
“We all judge people that way.”
“I know some who do not. Also, some people of high station expect to be treated well but do not deserve it.” She was thinking of Askook.
Hurit’s left index finger touched the outer side of her left breast. Her fingers curled, became a fist. “Are you saying that people who are leaders, who take responsibility for the welfare of their followers, should not be treated with respect?”
“No, weroansqua, I do not.” Both sides of her face were hot. “I am saying that people like me born into high station should have to earn respect, not demand it. That is why I live here, outside the gate to the compound. I do not want anyone to believe I demand respect.”
Alsoomse moved her right foot forward, traced a line in the sandy earth. “I believe also that people not born of high station deserving respect should receive it.”
Fists pressed against her sides, Hurit studied her. “You are outspoken in your beliefs.”
“I spoke them because you asked.”
The flesh beneath her chin stretched, Alsoomse maintained eye contact. Peripherally, Odina and Nuna were figures of stone.
Hurit’s irises remained centered. “You should know, Alsoomse, that there are people in this village, and at Dasemunkepeuc, who believe that you are dangerous. Strong-headed dangerous. My husband has spoken of it. Our kwiocosuk has spoken of it. You risk punishment, from Kiwasa, from your leaders. I will expect you to keep your thoughts to yourself while we are at Croatoan. I have … tolerated your independence, until now. I must be certain that you will say or do nothing to damage our purpose.” Her eyes bored.
“Your answer?”
She would be truthful, not weak. “I respect you and all of our leaders. I will do nothing to hurt our people.”
“You will wear ornaments that signify your station?”
Alsoomse hesitated. “Yes, weroansqua, I will.”
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
Allawa (Pea) – 15, Granganimeo’s daughter and Hurit’s step-daughter
Alsoomse (Independent) – 17, protagonist
* Andacon (Evergreens) – 25, Wingina’s war chief
Etchemin (Canoe Man) – 18, canoe maker and social outcast
* Granganimeo (He Who Is Serious) – 33, weroance of Roanoke
Hurit (Beautiful) – 25, weroansqua. Granganimeo’s second wife
Machk (Bear) – 17, Nuna’s brother, friend of Wanchese
Matunaagd (He Who Fights) – Alsoomse and Wanchese’s father, 35 at time of death, 1579
* Menatonon – 55, mamanatowick of Choanoac
Nootau (Fire) – 20, Sooleawa’s son and Alsoomse and Wanchese’s cousin
Nuna (Land) – 16, Alsoomse’s friend acrosds the lane
Odina (Mountain) – 16, Alsoomse’s friend across the lane
* Okisko – 29, Weapemeoc’s Weroance
* Osacan- 26, elite member of Wingina’s council
* Piemacum (He Who Churns Up the Water) – 25 Pomeiooc’s weroance
* Pooneno – 29, weroance of Matachwen and Tandaquomuc
Pules (Piigeon) – 11, Odina’s sister
Sokanon (Rain) – 18, Sooleawa’s daughter and Alsoomse and Wanchese’s cousin
* Tanaquincy – 28, Granganimeo’s chief advisor
* Wanchese (Take Flight off of Water) – 20, protagonist
Wapun (Dawn) – 12, Nuna amd Machk’s sister
* Wingina –34 mamanatowich
Sections 2 and 3
Nootau pointed. Wanchese saw high in the cloudless sky large-winged, long-necked migratory birds headed toward the Great Waters. He counted four brown bodies, black legs folded, arrow-straight gray necks extended, the tops of their heads – he anticipated -- red. Brown cranes! A rare sighting!
“Keep paddling,” Andacon ordered.
They had passed Weapemeoc, Okisko’s main village, having stayed well away from the shoreline. Andacon had not wanted talkative fishermen delaying them or – a consequence of Wanchese’s aggression – vengeful warriors attacking them. The risk of either occurrence now behind them, Wanchese anticipated a severe reprimand.
When he had removed his foot from the prone hunter’s head, Wanchese had glanced toward Etchemin’s shelter. The canoe-maker had vanished. As the battered hunter rose to his knees, Wanchese had located the three witnessing hunters, eyes, foreheads, mouths, and cheekbones exuding hate.
“Think before you act!” Andacon had thundered. “Four against three!” His formidable biceps had bulged.
One of the standing hunters had pointed. “He should be whipped! We will allow you to leave after he is whipped!”
“Your brave deserved the attack!” Osacan had answered.
“There will be no whipping, and there will be no fighting unless you begin it!” Andacon had declared.
“Nootau, take Wanchese down to the canoe,” Osacan had ordered. Nootau had immediately seized Wanchese’s left wrist. Wanchese had wrenched it free.
“Do as he says,” Nootau had hissed.
Standing directly behind Andacon, reaching back with his right hand, finding him, Osacan had pushed Wanchese’s chest.
Wanchese had then acquiesced. Slowly, the four of them had retreated, Andacon and Osacan facing the three offended hunters and their suddenly emboldened companion. When they had come to within twenty feet of the landing, Wanchese and Nootau had bolted ahead to push their canoe into the water.
“Get in!” Andacon had ordered, over the noise in the water. “You, Osacan, get in after them! I will push!”
“Ready!” Osacan had said, the three of them having taken up their paddles.
“Now! Decide!” Andacon, standing at the water’s edge, had declared. “Is your certain injury worth your avenging injury done to a bully and coward?!” Bald cypress formidable, he had glared. Satisfied, he had stepped backward into the water, had turned about, and had then pushed the canoe far into the river. Seconds later, as Wanchese, Nootau, and Osacan had paddled, grunting, he had propelled his water-slick, taunt body into the rear of the canoe.
Wanchese had not looked back. Each stroke of his paddle had taken him farther from the danger that he had caused. Leaving quickly the shadows of cypresses and tupelos, they had felt almost immediately the quick warmth of direct sunlight. Minutes later they had become a dot on Occam’s long waters.
They had escaped immediate and delayed attack. They – but not he -- were safe.
Cypress, tupelo, white cedar, and gum continued to line the right shoreline. He saw the trees; he could not see the land. He recognized his crime; he could not predict his certain punishment.
Acting rashly, ignoring Andacon’s order to desist, he had attacked a member of a confederation of villages neither Wingina’s ally nor enemy. He had endangered the lives of his three tribesmen. He had probably killed the canoe-maker. He had given the Weapemeoc an additional reason to dislike Wingina’s people. He had dishonored his father’s reputation.
He would not rise to any position of importance. He questioned only the moment when Andacon would confirm this.
The senior leader pointed across the broad waters. “Over there you can see where the Moratuc enters. At least one of its entrances.” Wanchese saw only marshes, reed vegetation, glints of blue.
“Many entrances.” Andacon scoffed. “May Tanaquincy enjoy finding the right one.”
Ahead of them the broad waters turned sharply right. The distance between the opposite shorelines shortened somewhat. Here enters the Nomopana [Chowan River], Wanchese thought.
“We now enter Menatonon’s territory,” Andacon stated. “We will go closer to this shoreline,” he said, his extended arm’s rippled shadow flitting on the water’s surface. “Much of its way this river goes straight. Then it narrows and bends to the right and then to the left. Choanoac is on the left bank. The sun will be close to leaving when we arrive.”
Lengthy, muscle-aching labor.
“We will make a stop at Ricahokene.”
They toiled. The sun had passed them. Their shadows were stretching toward the shore.
Syncopated grunts.
After awhile Andacon pointed left.
“Look! Metachwen! Look back a little! Tucked in on the little rise of land near the mouth of that swampy creek!”
Wanchese stared. He thought he saw two canoes peeking around the edge of land near the creek’s mouth.
“Pooneno is the weroance. There and at Tandaquomuc, which we also passed. The same side of the river.”
“I cannot see any land along here,” Osacan said. “Never-ending cypress and tupelo.” He laughed. “Nobody would ever find you if you had to hide.”
“The snakes would. The snakes and bugs would.” Wanchese suspended his paddle over the water, hoping he would receive a friendly response.
He heard a quiet chuckle.
The canoe glided.
He sensed, felt … the reprimand might come now.
“The wind is hiding.” Osacan said.
They resumed paddling.
“Who is Pooneno?” It was maybe the fourth time during the voyage that Nootau had spoken. “You said before that Menatonon is the Choanoac weroance.”
“Pooneno is like Granganimeo,” Andacon answered. “Maybe not as loyal. He is not Menatonon’s brother or his son. He is a fierce warrior. So I have been told. Maybe he is like Piemacum. A thorn in Menatonon’s foot.”
He had not been reprimanded! He wondered. How much had he damaged Andacon’s opinion of him? Had he overestimated the harm? He wanted to know! He twisted about. “About Pooneno. Would it be wrong to ask?”
“Yes!” His left hand gripping its middle, Andacon held his paddle still. “We will talk only about Piemacum! And trade. Nothing else!”
Several ring-billed gulls -- white under feathers, black heads, tips of their longest wing feathers also black -- soared overhead, squawked, propelled their bodies toward the western shore. As a boy Wanchese had enticed a ring-billed gull with a morsel of herring to approach within an arrow’s length of his hand. He had eventually tossed the piece and the gull had caught it, gobbled it, and waited a short distance away to be tossed another morsel. A second gull had joined it. Wanchese looked into the cypress-stained, translucent water. No herring swam beneath these waters this time of year as did white perch and spotted bass, wanting to catch smaller fish. If he waited long enough, if the canoe were to drift a bit, he thought he might see one or two. For all it mattered.
When?! He had been foolish to hope. When was he to be rebuked?!
“We paddle now to the other side of the river,” his leader declared.
How far were they from Ricahokene? Both of his shoulders ached. How was Nootau bearing it? But Nootau was accustomed to canoes. He thought of Etchemin, who fished and made canoes but refused to hunt, how that had made him an outcast. Nootau was accepted but because he was not a skilled hunter only partially respected. Wanchese wondered how he would now be judged.
“He gave me fish and a deerskin under me,” he blurted. “He does not kill. Except fish. He does not fight. Because that Weapemeoc hunter knew that he could, he slapped him.” Anger was heating his cheeks, forehead. “Because I had to, I put him on the ground!” The tops of his shoulders tingled.
He heard movement behind him.
Several paddle strokes later, Andacon said, “Sometimes the heart takes command. When it should not.”
3
“Be careful. Do not cut your finger.”
Two dressed deerskin aprons were stretched tightly between separated tree branches set atop two logs. Wapun and Pules were cutting fringes with sharp flint knives.
“This is not how I want it to look!” Raising her head, Wapun scowled.
“It should not look like what you want,” Alsoomse answered. “This is your first attempt.”
“I cannot cut straight,” Pules complained. “I will be laughed at.”
“By girls no better at it than you.”
“All of us had to learn how,” Nuna said. “Stop complaining!”
“Wait until you try to dye in designs.” Odina’s eyes glistened.
“Oh, can we do that?!” Wapun’s eyes turned to Alsoomse. “When?!”
“After you get better doing this.”
Sokanon, carrying broken off lengths of tree branches for the cooking fire, stopped to observe. “Tomorrow I will teach you how to make reed baskets.”
“Does that mean we have to go to a marsh and cut reeds?” Pules asked.
“It does. That is part of it.” Sokanon placed the branches next to the fire. She straightened, and then started.
Granganimeo’s wife Hurit, standing a canoe’s length away in the village lane, was staring at them. She approached.
“Weroansqua,” Sokanon greeted.
Instantly, Alsoomse rose. The back of her left hand covering her mouth, she faced about.
“Sokanon. Alsoomse. You are teaching these children well.” Hurit looked at Wapun and Pules, who were watching her with large eyes. “Is that not so?” she said to them.
“Yes, Weroansqua, they are very good,” Wapun answered.
Pules nodded vigorously.
“I am pleased.” Hurit looked at Alsoomse, then Sokanon. “I have a duty I want you to perform.”
Sokanon’s eyes flitted.
I want both of you to accompany me to Croatoan, tomorrow. To serve me. Together with Allawa, and two other young women.”
Alsoomse’s cheekbones tingled. Her arms felt the rush of adrenaline.
She had expected criticism.
“Both of you appear surprised.” Hurit’s amused smile enhanced her unaffected beauty.
“Weroansqua, we will serve you well,” Sokanon answered.
Hurit nodded. Her face hardened.
“You should know that Croatoan’s weroansqua has asked me to attend a meeting she is to have with Piemacum’s important men, believing, we suspect, that Piemacum wants her to submit herself and her people to his authority.”
Alsoomse felt a second surge of adrenaline. Quick to exhibit temper, her face burned.
The Croatoan were gentle people! Her father Matunaagd had said so, often! For some time now they had been led by a woman, which explained, probably, their peaceful manner. A thought occurred to her. “Weroansqua,” she said, “I believe I know her purpose.”
“Which is …?”
“Your presence will answer Piemacum’s question without the weroansqua needing to give it.”
Hurit nodded, a slow backward and forward acknowledgment. “You are perceptive, Alsoomse. You are your father and mother’s daughter.” She paused, looked at Alsoomse soberly. “But in other ways you are not nearly so. You disturb me.”
Alsoomse’s face blanched.
Sokanon interrupted. “Is Granganimeo to accompany us?”
What other ways? Alsoomse thought.
“No, Sokanon. His or Wingina’s presence would cause a fight.” Hurit’s face softened. “I am to go alone. Men do not usually fight women.”
“We leave then … when?”
“Immediately after the casting of tobacco. Several of our men will take us there in two canoes. They will not be men of high station.” For the first time Hurit looked at Nuna and Odina. “I will need Machk to be one of them. Please tell him.”
“I will, weroansqua,” Nuna responded.
Sokanon made a small hand gesture. Hurit raised her eyebrows. “I will need somebody to look after my mother. She is not strong.” Her face apologized.
“I am certain one of your friends here will do that.”
Simultaneously, Nuna and Odina nodded.
“Then everything is arranged.” Hurit turned, took two steps toward the lane, and stopped. Pivoting, she regarded Alsoomse. “One other matter.” Her eyes examined the length of Alsoomse’s body. “I expect you, Alsoomse, to show your high station the entire time we are there. That means necklaces, Alsoomse. Bracelets. Beads hanging from your ears. You will be representing this village, not yourself. Do you have them?”
“Yes.”
“I should not have to ask.”
“No.” Here was the expected criticism. She felt the start of a second burn.
Hurit studied her, too lengthily.
The burn reached Alsoomse’s ears.
“Why do you do this? Are you not proud of your parents’ standing?” Hurit looked at Alsoomse’s legs. “No tattoos, not even on your calves. Your cousin has them” – she pointed – “there, and there, and on her arms. She wears a nice shell necklace. Polished bones hang from her ears. Every day. Why must you be so different?”
She wants to know; I will tell her!
“We are different people.”
“That is obvious.”
“I love my cousin.” Alsoomse’s eyes combatted Hurit’s sarcasm. “I respect her for who she is. It is not because she is my cousin or she is the daughter of parents of high station. It is because of who she is.”
“We all judge people that way.”
“I know some who do not. Also, some people of high station expect to be treated well but do not deserve it.” She was thinking of Askook.
Hurit’s left index finger touched the outer side of her left breast. Her fingers curled, became a fist. “Are you saying that people who are leaders, who take responsibility for the welfare of their followers, should not be treated with respect?”
“No, weroansqua, I do not.” Both sides of her face were hot. “I am saying that people like me born into high station should have to earn respect, not demand it. That is why I live here, outside the gate to the compound. I do not want anyone to believe I demand respect.”
Alsoomse moved her right foot forward, traced a line in the sandy earth. “I believe also that people not born of high station deserving respect should receive it.”
Fists pressed against her sides, Hurit studied her. “You are outspoken in your beliefs.”
“I spoke them because you asked.”
The flesh beneath her chin stretched, Alsoomse maintained eye contact. Peripherally, Odina and Nuna were figures of stone.
Hurit’s irises remained centered. “You should know, Alsoomse, that there are people in this village, and at Dasemunkepeuc, who believe that you are dangerous. Strong-headed dangerous. My husband has spoken of it. Our kwiocosuk has spoken of it. You risk punishment, from Kiwasa, from your leaders. I will expect you to keep your thoughts to yourself while we are at Croatoan. I have … tolerated your independence, until now. I must be certain that you will say or do nothing to damage our purpose.” Her eyes bored.
“Your answer?”
She would be truthful, not weak. “I respect you and all of our leaders. I will do nothing to hurt our people.”
“You will wear ornaments that signify your station?”
Alsoomse hesitated. “Yes, weroansqua, I will.”
December 17, 2020
Alsoomse and Wanchese -- Chapter 8, Section 1
Characters Mentioned
* historically identified person
Captain Harris – 30, attendee of Harriot’s navigational instruments class
Captain Sturgess – 31, attendee of Harriot’s navigational instruments class
*Carleill, Christopher – 33, step-son of Francis Walsingham
*Cecil, William, Baron Burghley – 53, principal advisor of Queen Elizabeth
*Drake, Sir Francis – 43, sea captain, explorer, and privateer
*Dudley, Robert, Earl of Leicester – 51, former love interest of Queen Elizabeth
*Gilbert, Humphrey – colonizer who died at sea, 44 at time of death. Walter Raleigh’s half- brother
*Harriot, Thomas – 24, scientist
*Philip II, King of Spain – 56, Queen Elizabeth’s fiercest European enemy
*Raleigh, Walter – 32, courtier of Queen Elizabeth
*Stuart, Mary – 41, former queen of Scotland, cousin of Queen Elizabeth
*Walsingham, Francis – 52, Queen Elizabeth’s ambitious principal secretary
Commentary
Thomas Harriot is an important secondary character in the novel.
Section 1
It was raining. Walter Raleigh listened to the course of water in the rain gutter above Hariott’s room on the second floor. His employee was teaching a class of sea captains how to use advanced navigational instruments and how to utilize his tables of corrections related to the instruments’ findings.
Dressed in black – Raleigh had never seen him wear clothing of another color – Harriot, but 23 years, was holding before his four students a quadrant. “Latitude, gentleman.” The young man held the quarter circle-shaped instrument tilted upward at eye-level. “Any sea venture you attempt requires that you know frequently your latitude. This instrument, as two of you well know, is one of the simplest ways of determining it.” He lowered the quadrant, smiled, extended his left hand to convey apology. “Captains Harris and Sturges, you could demonstrate the employment of this instrument as easily as I. To our distinguished gentlemen also attending, my demonstration, I conjecture, is essential to their basic understanding.”
Appreciating his employee’s mathematical aptitude, attention to detail, and insatiable curiosity, Raleigh had encouraged Harriot to attack the sea captain’s seemingly insurmountable difficulty of determining location where no land was visible to assist him. He had sent Harriot to the London and Plymouth docks to interview grizzled seamen -- preferably captains, over pints of ale in bawdy taverns -- to learn everything he could about ships, life at sea, and methods captains used to navigate.
In addition to other titles of inquiry an astronomer, Harriot had researched what the ancients, and later the Arabs, had discovered about the constellations and the measurement of time. He had read as well two modern publications about this vital subject: John Dee’s translation into English in 1570 of Martin Cortes’s Arte de Navigation and William Bourne’s A Regiment for the Sea, printed in 1574, a corrected and expanded version of Cortes’s work. In short, Raleigh believed that Harriot knew more about the reading of the sun and stars, the instruments used, and the imperfections of those readings and how they could be partially corrected than any English seaman alive.
Harriot had assembled all that he had learned – from personal observations, interviews, and research -- in a book of writings that he called the Arcticon.
Enterprising merchants and veteran sea captains were attending Harriot’s classes to learn how to make their privateering enterprises in the West Indies and off the west coast of Africa less difficult. The two merchants in the room, not familiar with the quadrant, lacked a basic understanding of specific difficulties that their hired crews would surely encounter.
“Captains, your rutters are of unquestioned value. It is said that Sir Francis Drake seized the charts and descriptions of coastlines of every Spanish ship he boarded during his voyage around the world. The compass, I need not say, is also valuable. But it does not establish latitude. Or tell time.” He lowered the quadrant, held it beside his right hip. The weighted plumb string bounced gently against his legging. “It was the quadrant, the cross-staff, and the astrolabe, however, that Drake made most use of.”
In discovering Harriot and persuading him to join his small circle of associates fixated on the exploration and colonization of the North American continent Raleigh had been most fortunate. He had asked Principal Richard Pygott of St. Mary’s Hall, a former classmate of his at Oriel College at Oxford, who among recently graduated students might be capable of instructing seamen mathematical navigation. Pygott had suggested Harriot.
Raleigh had then asked Richard Hakluyt, one of his close associates and one of Harriot’s teachers at Christ Church College, what he thought of the young man. Hakluyt had given Raleigh a good report. A commoner with exceptional skills of investigation, needing a patron to finance his varied inquiries, Harriot had immediately accepted Raleigh’s offer of employment.
“The quadrant, gentlemen, measures the altitude of the sun or Polaris, the so-called North Star. I will demonstrate.” Harriot raised the instrument to eye-level, the arc of the quarter circle pointed downward. “Pretend that I am sighting the sun. Along one of the radial arms are two sights, here and here.” He touched them with his left forefinger. “Looking through the sights, I locate the sun. Ah, there it is!” The string, anchored at its bottom by a lead weight, hung vertically straight from the point of the right-angle intersection of the quadrant’s two arms.
“Now, having located the sun through my sights, I gently pin my plumb line against the side of the bottom of the quadrant’s arc and read the measure of degree indicated on the inscribed scale. That, gentlemen, is your latitude.” He grinned.
If navigation were only so simple, Raleigh thought. If convincing the Queen to authorize my enterprise were only five times more difficult!
“But our sea captains present know well that this instrument is useful only on land and aboard a becalmed ship. Put some waves under the ship and try to locate and hold your sight of the sun for even a fraction of a second! And your plumb line dances like the farmer’s comely daughter at the country fair!”
The seamen laughed. Raleigh was amused. Harriot possessed both brains and a commoner’s touch.
“So that leads us to the cross-staff.” Harriot placed the quadrant on the black rectangular table at his immediate left. He picked up a long contraption that consisted of a square-shaped, three foot long wooden staff and a sliding rectangular cross piece. The four sides of the staff had different degree markings, each side applicable to a different-sized cross piece.
“The cross-staff,” Harriot began, “measures the altitude of a given celestial object, like the sun, from the horizon. Which cross piece you choose to slide along the staff depends on the predicted angle of the object relative to the horizon. Let me demonstrate.”
Raleigh watched him elevate one end of the staff to his right cheekbone, directly below his right eye. His left hand held the cross piece just below the staff. “The lower edge of the cross piece must be aligned with the horizon. The upper edge must sight, if it is your choice, the sun. You slide the cross piece along the staff until you accomplish both at the same place on the staff. Hold the cross piece in place and read the measurement on the staff where the cross piece is located. This measurement must only be taken at noon, at no other time. Done so successfully, you have determined your latitude.”
Raleigh had not told Harriot of his intention to send him on an exploratory voyage to locate a suitable port along the North American coastline where privateers could re-provision and repair their ships. He had advocated this idea persuasively to the Queen. She had seemed amenable. She had not, however, agreed to extend to him his half-brother’s patent!
“Who can tell us what advantages the cross-staff has over the quadrant?”
One of the sea captains raised a hand.
Harriot gestured. “Please.”
“The cross-staff tisn’t bothered by gravity. You can use the bugger on a rollin’ ship, if’n the waves tisn’t too choppy so as to find the ‘orizon. Tis a ‘ound t’find the sun at the same time, but can be done, with a bit o’ swearin’!”
Harriot nodded. He placed the instrument on the table. “Now what might be its disadvantages?”
Raleigh observed a movement of heads and shoulders. The sea captain that had already spoken said, “The buckin’ of the sea. Like I said.”
“Noted. And?”
“The bleedin’ sun!” Using his left index fingernail, the seaman scratched his scalp. “You d’ave t’look straight into the bleedin’ sun!”
“Yes! Better to have the first mate do the measurement!” Harriot grinned. The captain nodded, appeared to Raleigh to be pleased.
“There is another disadvantage I should mention,” Harriot said. He waited, causing the four men – Raleigh noticed -- to straighten. “Who do you know who is able to look at two separate things well apart from each other at the same time? Nobody, I suspect. It cannot be done.”
“You have to shift your eyes,” the captain who had not yet spoken said.
“Therefore, the place where you stop moving the cross piece might not be entirely accurate. Close to accurate but not entirely. Part of my lesson today involves certain ways you can make a more accurate reading, despite this difficulty. But enough with words. I will have each of you now practice taking a reading with the quadrant and the cross-staff. Please come up here in turn. Captain Harris, if you would be first, to set the best example.”
They rose from their chairs, the leg bottoms scraping the bare floor. Watching them, Raleigh exhaled. He had heard rumors that Secretary Walsingham was soliciting the Queen hard for Humphrey’s patent. He had thought rigorously about Walsingham’s motives. He was uneasy about his chances.
Walsingham was the most powerful of Elizabeth’s advisors. Walsingham’s spies operated everywhere. (He, Raleigh, had provided Walsingham reports about targeted Catholics while he had been at Oxford!) For years, Walsingham had fought Leicester and Burghley about how Philip of Spain and the House of Guise in France should be stymied.
Walsingham was relentless in ferreting out plots against the Queen, especially those that implicated Mary Stuart, the former Queen of Scotland. Here now intruded the knave upstart Walter Raleigh, born and raised in Devon, one or two cuts above common stock, the Queen’s newest love interest, advising her how to emasculate the King of Spain!
Walsingham had tried to stop Humphrey from exercising his patent. Now he wanted to send his step-son, Christopher Carleill, to North America to discover a permanent port and establish a colony for the identical reasons that he, Raleigh, had advocated.
Walsingham was about Power. Control.
And, Raleigh believed, income. It was rumored that Walsingham was in debt. Humphrey’s patent had given him the authority to sell large sections of land within the boundaries of his patent to wealthy investors.
“Tomorrow I will acquaint you with the astrolabe and of the ways of determining time,” Raleigh heard Harriot say. And perhaps tomorrow the rain might stop. Harriot had forgotten to mention how foul weather negated the benefits of navigational instruments. That was common knowledge. As was the assumption at Court that Walsingham would receive Humphrey Gilbert’s patent.
He would make plans as though that would not happen.
* historically identified person
Captain Harris – 30, attendee of Harriot’s navigational instruments class
Captain Sturgess – 31, attendee of Harriot’s navigational instruments class
*Carleill, Christopher – 33, step-son of Francis Walsingham
*Cecil, William, Baron Burghley – 53, principal advisor of Queen Elizabeth
*Drake, Sir Francis – 43, sea captain, explorer, and privateer
*Dudley, Robert, Earl of Leicester – 51, former love interest of Queen Elizabeth
*Gilbert, Humphrey – colonizer who died at sea, 44 at time of death. Walter Raleigh’s half- brother
*Harriot, Thomas – 24, scientist
*Philip II, King of Spain – 56, Queen Elizabeth’s fiercest European enemy
*Raleigh, Walter – 32, courtier of Queen Elizabeth
*Stuart, Mary – 41, former queen of Scotland, cousin of Queen Elizabeth
*Walsingham, Francis – 52, Queen Elizabeth’s ambitious principal secretary
Commentary
Thomas Harriot is an important secondary character in the novel.
Section 1
It was raining. Walter Raleigh listened to the course of water in the rain gutter above Hariott’s room on the second floor. His employee was teaching a class of sea captains how to use advanced navigational instruments and how to utilize his tables of corrections related to the instruments’ findings.
Dressed in black – Raleigh had never seen him wear clothing of another color – Harriot, but 23 years, was holding before his four students a quadrant. “Latitude, gentleman.” The young man held the quarter circle-shaped instrument tilted upward at eye-level. “Any sea venture you attempt requires that you know frequently your latitude. This instrument, as two of you well know, is one of the simplest ways of determining it.” He lowered the quadrant, smiled, extended his left hand to convey apology. “Captains Harris and Sturges, you could demonstrate the employment of this instrument as easily as I. To our distinguished gentlemen also attending, my demonstration, I conjecture, is essential to their basic understanding.”
Appreciating his employee’s mathematical aptitude, attention to detail, and insatiable curiosity, Raleigh had encouraged Harriot to attack the sea captain’s seemingly insurmountable difficulty of determining location where no land was visible to assist him. He had sent Harriot to the London and Plymouth docks to interview grizzled seamen -- preferably captains, over pints of ale in bawdy taverns -- to learn everything he could about ships, life at sea, and methods captains used to navigate.
In addition to other titles of inquiry an astronomer, Harriot had researched what the ancients, and later the Arabs, had discovered about the constellations and the measurement of time. He had read as well two modern publications about this vital subject: John Dee’s translation into English in 1570 of Martin Cortes’s Arte de Navigation and William Bourne’s A Regiment for the Sea, printed in 1574, a corrected and expanded version of Cortes’s work. In short, Raleigh believed that Harriot knew more about the reading of the sun and stars, the instruments used, and the imperfections of those readings and how they could be partially corrected than any English seaman alive.
Harriot had assembled all that he had learned – from personal observations, interviews, and research -- in a book of writings that he called the Arcticon.
Enterprising merchants and veteran sea captains were attending Harriot’s classes to learn how to make their privateering enterprises in the West Indies and off the west coast of Africa less difficult. The two merchants in the room, not familiar with the quadrant, lacked a basic understanding of specific difficulties that their hired crews would surely encounter.
“Captains, your rutters are of unquestioned value. It is said that Sir Francis Drake seized the charts and descriptions of coastlines of every Spanish ship he boarded during his voyage around the world. The compass, I need not say, is also valuable. But it does not establish latitude. Or tell time.” He lowered the quadrant, held it beside his right hip. The weighted plumb string bounced gently against his legging. “It was the quadrant, the cross-staff, and the astrolabe, however, that Drake made most use of.”
In discovering Harriot and persuading him to join his small circle of associates fixated on the exploration and colonization of the North American continent Raleigh had been most fortunate. He had asked Principal Richard Pygott of St. Mary’s Hall, a former classmate of his at Oriel College at Oxford, who among recently graduated students might be capable of instructing seamen mathematical navigation. Pygott had suggested Harriot.
Raleigh had then asked Richard Hakluyt, one of his close associates and one of Harriot’s teachers at Christ Church College, what he thought of the young man. Hakluyt had given Raleigh a good report. A commoner with exceptional skills of investigation, needing a patron to finance his varied inquiries, Harriot had immediately accepted Raleigh’s offer of employment.
“The quadrant, gentlemen, measures the altitude of the sun or Polaris, the so-called North Star. I will demonstrate.” Harriot raised the instrument to eye-level, the arc of the quarter circle pointed downward. “Pretend that I am sighting the sun. Along one of the radial arms are two sights, here and here.” He touched them with his left forefinger. “Looking through the sights, I locate the sun. Ah, there it is!” The string, anchored at its bottom by a lead weight, hung vertically straight from the point of the right-angle intersection of the quadrant’s two arms.
“Now, having located the sun through my sights, I gently pin my plumb line against the side of the bottom of the quadrant’s arc and read the measure of degree indicated on the inscribed scale. That, gentlemen, is your latitude.” He grinned.
If navigation were only so simple, Raleigh thought. If convincing the Queen to authorize my enterprise were only five times more difficult!
“But our sea captains present know well that this instrument is useful only on land and aboard a becalmed ship. Put some waves under the ship and try to locate and hold your sight of the sun for even a fraction of a second! And your plumb line dances like the farmer’s comely daughter at the country fair!”
The seamen laughed. Raleigh was amused. Harriot possessed both brains and a commoner’s touch.
“So that leads us to the cross-staff.” Harriot placed the quadrant on the black rectangular table at his immediate left. He picked up a long contraption that consisted of a square-shaped, three foot long wooden staff and a sliding rectangular cross piece. The four sides of the staff had different degree markings, each side applicable to a different-sized cross piece.
“The cross-staff,” Harriot began, “measures the altitude of a given celestial object, like the sun, from the horizon. Which cross piece you choose to slide along the staff depends on the predicted angle of the object relative to the horizon. Let me demonstrate.”
Raleigh watched him elevate one end of the staff to his right cheekbone, directly below his right eye. His left hand held the cross piece just below the staff. “The lower edge of the cross piece must be aligned with the horizon. The upper edge must sight, if it is your choice, the sun. You slide the cross piece along the staff until you accomplish both at the same place on the staff. Hold the cross piece in place and read the measurement on the staff where the cross piece is located. This measurement must only be taken at noon, at no other time. Done so successfully, you have determined your latitude.”
Raleigh had not told Harriot of his intention to send him on an exploratory voyage to locate a suitable port along the North American coastline where privateers could re-provision and repair their ships. He had advocated this idea persuasively to the Queen. She had seemed amenable. She had not, however, agreed to extend to him his half-brother’s patent!
“Who can tell us what advantages the cross-staff has over the quadrant?”
One of the sea captains raised a hand.
Harriot gestured. “Please.”
“The cross-staff tisn’t bothered by gravity. You can use the bugger on a rollin’ ship, if’n the waves tisn’t too choppy so as to find the ‘orizon. Tis a ‘ound t’find the sun at the same time, but can be done, with a bit o’ swearin’!”
Harriot nodded. He placed the instrument on the table. “Now what might be its disadvantages?”
Raleigh observed a movement of heads and shoulders. The sea captain that had already spoken said, “The buckin’ of the sea. Like I said.”
“Noted. And?”
“The bleedin’ sun!” Using his left index fingernail, the seaman scratched his scalp. “You d’ave t’look straight into the bleedin’ sun!”
“Yes! Better to have the first mate do the measurement!” Harriot grinned. The captain nodded, appeared to Raleigh to be pleased.
“There is another disadvantage I should mention,” Harriot said. He waited, causing the four men – Raleigh noticed -- to straighten. “Who do you know who is able to look at two separate things well apart from each other at the same time? Nobody, I suspect. It cannot be done.”
“You have to shift your eyes,” the captain who had not yet spoken said.
“Therefore, the place where you stop moving the cross piece might not be entirely accurate. Close to accurate but not entirely. Part of my lesson today involves certain ways you can make a more accurate reading, despite this difficulty. But enough with words. I will have each of you now practice taking a reading with the quadrant and the cross-staff. Please come up here in turn. Captain Harris, if you would be first, to set the best example.”
They rose from their chairs, the leg bottoms scraping the bare floor. Watching them, Raleigh exhaled. He had heard rumors that Secretary Walsingham was soliciting the Queen hard for Humphrey’s patent. He had thought rigorously about Walsingham’s motives. He was uneasy about his chances.
Walsingham was the most powerful of Elizabeth’s advisors. Walsingham’s spies operated everywhere. (He, Raleigh, had provided Walsingham reports about targeted Catholics while he had been at Oxford!) For years, Walsingham had fought Leicester and Burghley about how Philip of Spain and the House of Guise in France should be stymied.
Walsingham was relentless in ferreting out plots against the Queen, especially those that implicated Mary Stuart, the former Queen of Scotland. Here now intruded the knave upstart Walter Raleigh, born and raised in Devon, one or two cuts above common stock, the Queen’s newest love interest, advising her how to emasculate the King of Spain!
Walsingham had tried to stop Humphrey from exercising his patent. Now he wanted to send his step-son, Christopher Carleill, to North America to discover a permanent port and establish a colony for the identical reasons that he, Raleigh, had advocated.
Walsingham was about Power. Control.
And, Raleigh believed, income. It was rumored that Walsingham was in debt. Humphrey’s patent had given him the authority to sell large sections of land within the boundaries of his patent to wealthy investors.
“Tomorrow I will acquaint you with the astrolabe and of the ways of determining time,” Raleigh heard Harriot say. And perhaps tomorrow the rain might stop. Harriot had forgotten to mention how foul weather negated the benefits of navigational instruments. That was common knowledge. As was the assumption at Court that Walsingham would receive Humphrey Gilbert’s patent.
He would make plans as though that would not happen.
December 13, 2020
Alsoomse and Wanchese -- Chapter 7
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
Etchemin (Canoe Man) – 18, canoe maker and social outcast
* Menatonon – 55, mamanatowick of Choanoac
Nootau (Fire) – 20, Sooleawa’s son and Alsoomse and Wanchese’s cousin
* Osacan- 26, elite member of Wingina’s council
* Wanchese (Take Flight off of Water) – 20, protagonist
Chapter 7
They had angled across Occam toward a jutting peninsula between two broad rivers. “That way!” Andacon ordered, pointing emphatically. Wanchese, Nootau, and Osacan, paddles raised, stared. “That way!” Andacon pointed again, moving his hand leftward.
When they were a hundred yards from the tip of the peninsula, Osacan spoke. “All I see is bald cypress. Where is an opening?”
“Perquiman had three or four longhouses when I was here last,” Andacon answered.
“Ah, no village then.” Osacan laughed. “Wanchese, Nootau, no village girls for you!”
Wanchese shook his head. He was not going to play the fool of Osacan’s joke. “The land is deep swamp,” he said, blandly. “Where could anybody grow corn?”
“Plenty of fish,” Nootau said.
Had Nootau also declined to play?
“Wide river. Seagulls,” Nootau added. “White perch. Probably striped bass.”
Nootau was not a skilled hunter. Mostly, he fished. He spoke from knowledge. As for hunting, there would be game here. Deer, especially. A person could live here. But not many. He was curious.
He saw beyond the shoreline a slight elevation. Maybe there, he thought.
“I see a weir,” Andacon declared.
They headed for it, saw beyond it two beached canoes, one quite small, the other the size of their own.
A minute later they were pulling their canoe out of the water.
Thirty feet away somebody was staring at them. Wanchese glanced past the man to view the slight incline of a small clearing. Its leaves gone but colored buds forming, two large red maples back-dropped the clearing. Wanchese looked again at the man. Like Wanchese and his companions, he wore a deerskin apron. He had no feathers inserted in his head.
Andacon raised his right hand. “May we stop here? We are traveling to Choanoac. We need to spend the night. I am Andacon, of Dasemunkepeuc.” He took two steps forward.
The man said nothing, stayed motionless.
Wanchese watched Andacon’s back and shoulder muscles tighten.
“I came here at cohattayough. I spent the night at your weroance’s long house. He will know me.”
“He is not here.” Arms dangling, the man showed no emotion.
Andacon looked at Osacan, looked back at the man. “Who lives here? Where do I find them?”
The man bent his left arm, examined it, allowed it to hang. “Four hunters. From Weapemeoc. This is not a village.” He looked up the gradual slope past the two maples.
All right, then.” Andacon strode past him. Osacan, smiling at nobody, followed. Nootau and Wanchese trailed. Beyond the maples, twenty feet to the left of what was a rude pathway lay a felled, limbless tree trunk held in place horizontally by forked tree branches embedded in the ground. A canoe in the making, Wanchese recognized.
Wanchese saw beyond the half tree trunk, half canoe a rude, bark-covered shelter. Where this silent man spends his nights, he concluded. He hoped he and his party would have a roomier, more accommodating shelter within which to sleep.
Passing the red maples, they saw near the top of the incline four longhouses, similar to but somewhat smaller than the longhouses at Roanoke. Raising his right hand, Andacon stopped. He pivoted, looked at Osacan, grimaced. “I don’t trust that … man we just passed.” His right thumb and forefinger traced the sides of his nose. “Somebody needs to guard our trade goods.” He craned his neck, as if to see over the tops of the maples and the tupelo and cypress close to the river. “Also, can we trust these ‘hunters’?” He looked expectantly at Wanchese.
“You want me to stay by the canoe.” Why me? Wanchese thought. Nootau was the fourth man!
“I do.” Andacon nodded.
“One of us will wake you when you are asleep,” Osacan said, smiling.
“Be certain that you do,” Wanchese responded.
“Your task bears responsibility. You will have first choice of a Choanoac girl,” Andacon said. “We promise.”
It was a remark Wanchese would have expected from Osacan. He was surprised, and pleased! Andacon was a serious man who meant what he said. Even though Menatonon, not Andacon, would decide who would be lying beside him. That he had been assigned to guard the canoe meant that he had not lost entirely Andacon’s respect. Or, maybe he was being tested. Either way, he would perform the task. He nodded, turned about, walked down the incline.
The strange canoe-maker was near his shelter. He was starting a fire, striking together two rocks over shaved wood. By his side was a reed basket containing fish. Hearing Wanchese’s footfalls, he looked up.
“I will be spending the night by my canoe,” Wanchese said, passing him.
He had a deerskin to cover him but nothing to cover the ground. He had suffered worse. He thought it wise to find a place where he might not be noticed by any thief. He saw no such place.
Footsteps. He turned. The canoe-maker approached, a deerskin draped over his right forearm. “Use this. Do you have pearls, shells, and pottery to trade?”
Wanchese said nothing.
“So you need to protect them.” He dropped the deerskin at Wanchese’s feet. He turned, started to walk back.
“Thank you.”
The canoe man stopped, turned, looked at Wanchese for ten seconds. “I have fish for us to eat. You will know where I am while you eat.”
#
They had not spoken after the canoe-maker’s candid invitation. Wanchese had followed him to his fire pit: a depression covered with sand enclosed by sections of charred logs. The man had dried Spanish moss and brittle twigs burning. He had taken from beneath sewed-together deerskin broken-off tree branches stacked against the nearest corner of his shelter. Wanchese guessed the branches had come from the tree trunk that the man was hollowing into a canoe.
After placing several branches on the fire, the man brought out of his shelter a four-legged, tied-together framework of blackened branches similar to what the women at Roanoke and Dasemunkepeuc used to roast fish. Wanchese had seated himself on a log near the fire. The man sat on a log opposite him, the fire between them. Roasting perch, the canoe man made twice quick eye contact. Appreciative of the man’s generosity, Wanchese felt compelled to speak.
“I am called Wanchese. You?”
The man’s mouth stretched; its corners moved downward. He grunted. “I am called many names.”
Wanchese shifted his position on his log, lifted his right hand. “What can I call you?”
The man rubbed the flesh between his right thumb and forefinger against the underside of his chin. He looked into the fire. “Enkoodabaoo. Etchemin.”
Wanchese’s mouth widened. “You have two names? Which should I call you?”
The man looked toward the skeletal limbs of the red maple and gum, dark against a darker backdrop that would soon be night. Orange tendrils curled around the firewood’s top branch. Wood snapped where a twig had been torn off.
Wanchese studied the man. Etchemin continued to look away. He was young, not fully grown. Wanchese judged him to be close to Alsoomse’s age, shunned by others because … of what? Dislike? Distrust? Compared to youths his age Etchemin was slimmer, lean. Wanchese assessed the youth’s biceps, the tautness of his shoulders and chest. He was, not surprisingly, well formed, the consequence of hard labor.
Wanchese had to ask. “Etchemin. Why are you living here? Where do you come from?”
He did not receive an answer.
Etchemin tore off a section of fish with his front teeth.
Wanchese resumed his visual examination. There was nothing about Etchemin that indicated either knowledge of acceptable social behavior or attainment of elevated status. Wanchese saw no earrings, no tattoos, no shaving of the hair at the sides of his head. Clearly, Etchemin did not hunt! The only aspect normal about him was that his long hair was tied tightly at the back of his head.
Wanchese took another bite out of the second fish provided him. Is this what Etchemin lived on? Why was he not eating with the hunters? Feeling the heat of the fire on his bare arms, legs, and chest, Wanchese glanced down the now indiscernible slope.
He had noticed scars on the youth’s upper body. A scar extended across his jaw bone.
“My friends and I follow Wingina, mamanatowick of Dasemunkepeuc, Roanoke, Pomeiooc, Aquascogooc, and Secotan,” Wanchese informed. “We will be trading with the great Choanoac mamanatowick Menatonon.” Expecting no response, Wanchese watched gray flakes rise from the flames of the fire. “Thank you for sharing this food,” he said.
Etchemin rose from his log, walked to his stack of branches, returned with an armful. He placed two on the fire. “I will sleep in my house. You may sleep here,” he said. “Water to drink is in the river.” He turned, walked to his shelter, disappeared within.
Wanchese rose. He would use the deerskin he had not taken out of the canoe, expecting to be provided a bed inside a longhouse, to cover himself. Etchemin’s deerskin would cover the ground. He expected to be awake much of the night.
#
He was awakened by the staccato sounds of a Great Horned Owl. “Hoo-hoo hoo, hoo-hoo hoo, hoo-hoo hoo.” A mating call. He anticipated a response. There was none. “Hoo-hoo hoo, hoo-hoo hoo, hoo-hoo hoo,” the same male sounded, unexpectedly close. He had never seen the Great Horned Owl, which lived, bred, and hunted exclusively at night. He had seen the crushed remains of its prey -- too large to be ingested.
Wanchese glanced at the fire. It was still burning. It had, in fact, not diminished! The corner of his left eye caught movement. He started, sat instantly upright. A human figure sat close to the fire.
Etchemin.
His arms and upper back tingling, Wanchese stared.
“Wanchese.” The youth’s right heel made a groove in the sandy earth. He looked at the mark. “You asked who I am.”
“I did.”
“I am Chesapeake. From Skicoac. I came here because I could not live there.”
Ten seconds passed. The light of the fire extended up past Etchemin’s face.
“Why?”
“Because … I am different. … I do not kill, do not hunt. I will not fight.”
Wanchese pointed. “Those scars?”
“Braves have hit me.”
Wanchese inhaled, exhaled. His jaw and cheek bones hardened. He thought of Askook. “You let them hit you?”
Etchemin looked at the fire.
“Why?
Etchemin stared past Wanchese’s left shoulder.
”Were you afraid of them?”
Etchemin made eye contact. Wanchese recognized anger. He raised his palms to the level of his chin. “Why?”
“I do not hunt and kill. I do not fight!”
Wanchese leaned backward. Staring at the Chesapeake, he struggled to understand. “Why do you not hunt?”
His right hand gripping his right knee, Etchemin leaned forward. “What do you see in the eyes of a doe that you have struck with your arrow and she is dying?”
Fear, Wanchese thought. It was the worst part of hunting.
Wanchese spoke rapidly. “Ahone permits us to hunt. It is the way of life. Eat or die. We give thanks to the animals who sacrifice themselves. You know that.”
“Killing is evil,” Etchemin said. “Fighting leads to killing. I will not become evil to fight evil.” He rose. He glared toward the river.
“If you never fight, … you are the doe.” Wanchese stood.
Etchemin turned away, went to and entered his dwelling.
Wanchese knelt upon Etchemin’s deer skin, stretched himself upon it, pulled his own deer skin over his body. He questioned how much sleep he would get before the sun made sleep no longer possible. He could not respect a man who had the physical ability to defend himself. It was probably that unwillingness more than Etchemin’s refusal to hunt that had caused other young men to abuse him. Etchemin had chosen to live this way and had been punished for it. He had been rejected and driven away to restore harmony, balance. Ahone had created a world that abhorred imbalance. Herring, striped bass, plovers, hawks, squirrels, turtles, bears all lived according to Ahone’s rules. Ahone’s dictate to the Real People: maintain His balance. Those who refused to obey had to be expelled.
#
Voices woke him. Early sunlight had penetrated the little clearing. Wanchese rose to a sitting position. He heard Osacan and a voice he did not recognize. Six men appeared out of a cluster of red maple and yellow-poplar. Osacan saw him.
“Wanchese, I am sorry I did not wake you. How went your night?” He laughed.
They veered toward him. He stood, and started to fold his deer skin.
“Not talking? You should know I had a very comfortable night!”
They converged. Osacan thumped Wanchese’s right shoulder.
Andacon had been studying the down slope. “You slept here, not by the canoe?”
“There was no need.” Wanchese brushed moisture off a section of his deer skin.
“You did well here?”
“It was good.” He looked at the ashes of the fire.
The brave standing beside Osacan spoke. “I know what happened.” He jerked his right thumb toward Etchemin’s dwelling. Etchemin had exited it. “You had fish.” He and his companion hunters laughed. “Not deer, rabbit, duck, or beaver. Fish!”
Wanchese straightened his back. “We did. Excellent perch.” He fixed his eyes on the hunter that had spoken.
“We had excellent deer stew, Wanchese.” Osacan extended his right arm. “I would have brought you some but I forgot.”
The hunter whom Osacan had apparently befriended stooped. He picked up from the fire pit the end of a branch not incinerated. “We allow him to live here,” he said to the wood, “because he builds canoes. Except for that, he is worthless.” He stared at Etchemin, standing next to his stacked branches. “Is that right, Useless?!” He hurled the piece of wood. Etchemin stepped to his right. The wood struck the side of the dwelling.
The hunter faced Osacan and Andacon. “He is useless and he is a coward! Watch!” The man strode toward Etchemin, who waited. “Show them I am right! Tell them you are a coward!”
Etchemin stared past him. The hunter slapped him, the sound of palm against cheek distinct.
Etchemin regained his balance, resumed his stance.
“Say it! Say it or defend yourself! No? Then here!” The hunter slapped Etchemin again.
“That is not necessary!” Andacon declared.
“Let him be!” Osacan responded.
“You see?” The hunter, facing them, grinned. “This is what we live with!”
Andacon motioned toward the river. “We have nothing here we must do. Down to the canoe,” he ordered. He stepped off. Osacan; Nootau, ever silent, looking tense; and Wanchese, red-faced, followed.
“Why not take him with you?!” the hunter shouted. “He can build you canoes! If you need to warm your hands, slap him!” They heard a third slap.
Wanchese stopped. He turned about, started up the incline.
“Wanchese!” Osacan exclaimed.
Wanchese heard Andacon’s stern voice. “No!”
He was twenty feet away from the hunter, then ten, then standing in front of him.
“Ah, the coward has made a friend!” the hunter mocked.
Wanchese grabbed the hunter’s skull feather, pulled it out of its groove, held it in front of the hunter’s astonished face, broke it in half. He dropped the two pieces. Locking his eyes on the brave’s face, he waited.
A deep red covered the hunter’s countenance. He swore. Wanchese saw the man’s right hand, of a sudden, move upward. Blocking the upward thrust, Wanchese kneed the hunter’s genitals. He heard instant distress. The hunter doubled over, Wanchese kneed his forehead. The brave went down. Wanchese pinned the hunter’s head to the soil with his right foot.
Breathing fiercely through his nose, Wanchese watched the hunter’s legs thrash. He applied greater pressure. The man emitted a plaintive cry.
He was aware suddenly that the others were close by. The thought that he might be attacked penetrated. He would bring each of them down! “You!” he shouted at the hunter immobilized under his foot. “I will let you up! If you choose to fight, I will kill you!” Three more fierce breaths and he removed his foot.
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
Etchemin (Canoe Man) – 18, canoe maker and social outcast
* Menatonon – 55, mamanatowick of Choanoac
Nootau (Fire) – 20, Sooleawa’s son and Alsoomse and Wanchese’s cousin
* Osacan- 26, elite member of Wingina’s council
* Wanchese (Take Flight off of Water) – 20, protagonist
Chapter 7
They had angled across Occam toward a jutting peninsula between two broad rivers. “That way!” Andacon ordered, pointing emphatically. Wanchese, Nootau, and Osacan, paddles raised, stared. “That way!” Andacon pointed again, moving his hand leftward.
When they were a hundred yards from the tip of the peninsula, Osacan spoke. “All I see is bald cypress. Where is an opening?”
“Perquiman had three or four longhouses when I was here last,” Andacon answered.
“Ah, no village then.” Osacan laughed. “Wanchese, Nootau, no village girls for you!”
Wanchese shook his head. He was not going to play the fool of Osacan’s joke. “The land is deep swamp,” he said, blandly. “Where could anybody grow corn?”
“Plenty of fish,” Nootau said.
Had Nootau also declined to play?
“Wide river. Seagulls,” Nootau added. “White perch. Probably striped bass.”
Nootau was not a skilled hunter. Mostly, he fished. He spoke from knowledge. As for hunting, there would be game here. Deer, especially. A person could live here. But not many. He was curious.
He saw beyond the shoreline a slight elevation. Maybe there, he thought.
“I see a weir,” Andacon declared.
They headed for it, saw beyond it two beached canoes, one quite small, the other the size of their own.
A minute later they were pulling their canoe out of the water.
Thirty feet away somebody was staring at them. Wanchese glanced past the man to view the slight incline of a small clearing. Its leaves gone but colored buds forming, two large red maples back-dropped the clearing. Wanchese looked again at the man. Like Wanchese and his companions, he wore a deerskin apron. He had no feathers inserted in his head.
Andacon raised his right hand. “May we stop here? We are traveling to Choanoac. We need to spend the night. I am Andacon, of Dasemunkepeuc.” He took two steps forward.
The man said nothing, stayed motionless.
Wanchese watched Andacon’s back and shoulder muscles tighten.
“I came here at cohattayough. I spent the night at your weroance’s long house. He will know me.”
“He is not here.” Arms dangling, the man showed no emotion.
Andacon looked at Osacan, looked back at the man. “Who lives here? Where do I find them?”
The man bent his left arm, examined it, allowed it to hang. “Four hunters. From Weapemeoc. This is not a village.” He looked up the gradual slope past the two maples.
All right, then.” Andacon strode past him. Osacan, smiling at nobody, followed. Nootau and Wanchese trailed. Beyond the maples, twenty feet to the left of what was a rude pathway lay a felled, limbless tree trunk held in place horizontally by forked tree branches embedded in the ground. A canoe in the making, Wanchese recognized.
Wanchese saw beyond the half tree trunk, half canoe a rude, bark-covered shelter. Where this silent man spends his nights, he concluded. He hoped he and his party would have a roomier, more accommodating shelter within which to sleep.
Passing the red maples, they saw near the top of the incline four longhouses, similar to but somewhat smaller than the longhouses at Roanoke. Raising his right hand, Andacon stopped. He pivoted, looked at Osacan, grimaced. “I don’t trust that … man we just passed.” His right thumb and forefinger traced the sides of his nose. “Somebody needs to guard our trade goods.” He craned his neck, as if to see over the tops of the maples and the tupelo and cypress close to the river. “Also, can we trust these ‘hunters’?” He looked expectantly at Wanchese.
“You want me to stay by the canoe.” Why me? Wanchese thought. Nootau was the fourth man!
“I do.” Andacon nodded.
“One of us will wake you when you are asleep,” Osacan said, smiling.
“Be certain that you do,” Wanchese responded.
“Your task bears responsibility. You will have first choice of a Choanoac girl,” Andacon said. “We promise.”
It was a remark Wanchese would have expected from Osacan. He was surprised, and pleased! Andacon was a serious man who meant what he said. Even though Menatonon, not Andacon, would decide who would be lying beside him. That he had been assigned to guard the canoe meant that he had not lost entirely Andacon’s respect. Or, maybe he was being tested. Either way, he would perform the task. He nodded, turned about, walked down the incline.
The strange canoe-maker was near his shelter. He was starting a fire, striking together two rocks over shaved wood. By his side was a reed basket containing fish. Hearing Wanchese’s footfalls, he looked up.
“I will be spending the night by my canoe,” Wanchese said, passing him.
He had a deerskin to cover him but nothing to cover the ground. He had suffered worse. He thought it wise to find a place where he might not be noticed by any thief. He saw no such place.
Footsteps. He turned. The canoe-maker approached, a deerskin draped over his right forearm. “Use this. Do you have pearls, shells, and pottery to trade?”
Wanchese said nothing.
“So you need to protect them.” He dropped the deerskin at Wanchese’s feet. He turned, started to walk back.
“Thank you.”
The canoe man stopped, turned, looked at Wanchese for ten seconds. “I have fish for us to eat. You will know where I am while you eat.”
#
They had not spoken after the canoe-maker’s candid invitation. Wanchese had followed him to his fire pit: a depression covered with sand enclosed by sections of charred logs. The man had dried Spanish moss and brittle twigs burning. He had taken from beneath sewed-together deerskin broken-off tree branches stacked against the nearest corner of his shelter. Wanchese guessed the branches had come from the tree trunk that the man was hollowing into a canoe.
After placing several branches on the fire, the man brought out of his shelter a four-legged, tied-together framework of blackened branches similar to what the women at Roanoke and Dasemunkepeuc used to roast fish. Wanchese had seated himself on a log near the fire. The man sat on a log opposite him, the fire between them. Roasting perch, the canoe man made twice quick eye contact. Appreciative of the man’s generosity, Wanchese felt compelled to speak.
“I am called Wanchese. You?”
The man’s mouth stretched; its corners moved downward. He grunted. “I am called many names.”
Wanchese shifted his position on his log, lifted his right hand. “What can I call you?”
The man rubbed the flesh between his right thumb and forefinger against the underside of his chin. He looked into the fire. “Enkoodabaoo. Etchemin.”
Wanchese’s mouth widened. “You have two names? Which should I call you?”
The man looked toward the skeletal limbs of the red maple and gum, dark against a darker backdrop that would soon be night. Orange tendrils curled around the firewood’s top branch. Wood snapped where a twig had been torn off.
Wanchese studied the man. Etchemin continued to look away. He was young, not fully grown. Wanchese judged him to be close to Alsoomse’s age, shunned by others because … of what? Dislike? Distrust? Compared to youths his age Etchemin was slimmer, lean. Wanchese assessed the youth’s biceps, the tautness of his shoulders and chest. He was, not surprisingly, well formed, the consequence of hard labor.
Wanchese had to ask. “Etchemin. Why are you living here? Where do you come from?”
He did not receive an answer.
Etchemin tore off a section of fish with his front teeth.
Wanchese resumed his visual examination. There was nothing about Etchemin that indicated either knowledge of acceptable social behavior or attainment of elevated status. Wanchese saw no earrings, no tattoos, no shaving of the hair at the sides of his head. Clearly, Etchemin did not hunt! The only aspect normal about him was that his long hair was tied tightly at the back of his head.
Wanchese took another bite out of the second fish provided him. Is this what Etchemin lived on? Why was he not eating with the hunters? Feeling the heat of the fire on his bare arms, legs, and chest, Wanchese glanced down the now indiscernible slope.
He had noticed scars on the youth’s upper body. A scar extended across his jaw bone.
“My friends and I follow Wingina, mamanatowick of Dasemunkepeuc, Roanoke, Pomeiooc, Aquascogooc, and Secotan,” Wanchese informed. “We will be trading with the great Choanoac mamanatowick Menatonon.” Expecting no response, Wanchese watched gray flakes rise from the flames of the fire. “Thank you for sharing this food,” he said.
Etchemin rose from his log, walked to his stack of branches, returned with an armful. He placed two on the fire. “I will sleep in my house. You may sleep here,” he said. “Water to drink is in the river.” He turned, walked to his shelter, disappeared within.
Wanchese rose. He would use the deerskin he had not taken out of the canoe, expecting to be provided a bed inside a longhouse, to cover himself. Etchemin’s deerskin would cover the ground. He expected to be awake much of the night.
#
He was awakened by the staccato sounds of a Great Horned Owl. “Hoo-hoo hoo, hoo-hoo hoo, hoo-hoo hoo.” A mating call. He anticipated a response. There was none. “Hoo-hoo hoo, hoo-hoo hoo, hoo-hoo hoo,” the same male sounded, unexpectedly close. He had never seen the Great Horned Owl, which lived, bred, and hunted exclusively at night. He had seen the crushed remains of its prey -- too large to be ingested.
Wanchese glanced at the fire. It was still burning. It had, in fact, not diminished! The corner of his left eye caught movement. He started, sat instantly upright. A human figure sat close to the fire.
Etchemin.
His arms and upper back tingling, Wanchese stared.
“Wanchese.” The youth’s right heel made a groove in the sandy earth. He looked at the mark. “You asked who I am.”
“I did.”
“I am Chesapeake. From Skicoac. I came here because I could not live there.”
Ten seconds passed. The light of the fire extended up past Etchemin’s face.
“Why?”
“Because … I am different. … I do not kill, do not hunt. I will not fight.”
Wanchese pointed. “Those scars?”
“Braves have hit me.”
Wanchese inhaled, exhaled. His jaw and cheek bones hardened. He thought of Askook. “You let them hit you?”
Etchemin looked at the fire.
“Why?
Etchemin stared past Wanchese’s left shoulder.
”Were you afraid of them?”
Etchemin made eye contact. Wanchese recognized anger. He raised his palms to the level of his chin. “Why?”
“I do not hunt and kill. I do not fight!”
Wanchese leaned backward. Staring at the Chesapeake, he struggled to understand. “Why do you not hunt?”
His right hand gripping his right knee, Etchemin leaned forward. “What do you see in the eyes of a doe that you have struck with your arrow and she is dying?”
Fear, Wanchese thought. It was the worst part of hunting.
Wanchese spoke rapidly. “Ahone permits us to hunt. It is the way of life. Eat or die. We give thanks to the animals who sacrifice themselves. You know that.”
“Killing is evil,” Etchemin said. “Fighting leads to killing. I will not become evil to fight evil.” He rose. He glared toward the river.
“If you never fight, … you are the doe.” Wanchese stood.
Etchemin turned away, went to and entered his dwelling.
Wanchese knelt upon Etchemin’s deer skin, stretched himself upon it, pulled his own deer skin over his body. He questioned how much sleep he would get before the sun made sleep no longer possible. He could not respect a man who had the physical ability to defend himself. It was probably that unwillingness more than Etchemin’s refusal to hunt that had caused other young men to abuse him. Etchemin had chosen to live this way and had been punished for it. He had been rejected and driven away to restore harmony, balance. Ahone had created a world that abhorred imbalance. Herring, striped bass, plovers, hawks, squirrels, turtles, bears all lived according to Ahone’s rules. Ahone’s dictate to the Real People: maintain His balance. Those who refused to obey had to be expelled.
#
Voices woke him. Early sunlight had penetrated the little clearing. Wanchese rose to a sitting position. He heard Osacan and a voice he did not recognize. Six men appeared out of a cluster of red maple and yellow-poplar. Osacan saw him.
“Wanchese, I am sorry I did not wake you. How went your night?” He laughed.
They veered toward him. He stood, and started to fold his deer skin.
“Not talking? You should know I had a very comfortable night!”
They converged. Osacan thumped Wanchese’s right shoulder.
Andacon had been studying the down slope. “You slept here, not by the canoe?”
“There was no need.” Wanchese brushed moisture off a section of his deer skin.
“You did well here?”
“It was good.” He looked at the ashes of the fire.
The brave standing beside Osacan spoke. “I know what happened.” He jerked his right thumb toward Etchemin’s dwelling. Etchemin had exited it. “You had fish.” He and his companion hunters laughed. “Not deer, rabbit, duck, or beaver. Fish!”
Wanchese straightened his back. “We did. Excellent perch.” He fixed his eyes on the hunter that had spoken.
“We had excellent deer stew, Wanchese.” Osacan extended his right arm. “I would have brought you some but I forgot.”
The hunter whom Osacan had apparently befriended stooped. He picked up from the fire pit the end of a branch not incinerated. “We allow him to live here,” he said to the wood, “because he builds canoes. Except for that, he is worthless.” He stared at Etchemin, standing next to his stacked branches. “Is that right, Useless?!” He hurled the piece of wood. Etchemin stepped to his right. The wood struck the side of the dwelling.
The hunter faced Osacan and Andacon. “He is useless and he is a coward! Watch!” The man strode toward Etchemin, who waited. “Show them I am right! Tell them you are a coward!”
Etchemin stared past him. The hunter slapped him, the sound of palm against cheek distinct.
Etchemin regained his balance, resumed his stance.
“Say it! Say it or defend yourself! No? Then here!” The hunter slapped Etchemin again.
“That is not necessary!” Andacon declared.
“Let him be!” Osacan responded.
“You see?” The hunter, facing them, grinned. “This is what we live with!”
Andacon motioned toward the river. “We have nothing here we must do. Down to the canoe,” he ordered. He stepped off. Osacan; Nootau, ever silent, looking tense; and Wanchese, red-faced, followed.
“Why not take him with you?!” the hunter shouted. “He can build you canoes! If you need to warm your hands, slap him!” They heard a third slap.
Wanchese stopped. He turned about, started up the incline.
“Wanchese!” Osacan exclaimed.
Wanchese heard Andacon’s stern voice. “No!”
He was twenty feet away from the hunter, then ten, then standing in front of him.
“Ah, the coward has made a friend!” the hunter mocked.
Wanchese grabbed the hunter’s skull feather, pulled it out of its groove, held it in front of the hunter’s astonished face, broke it in half. He dropped the two pieces. Locking his eyes on the brave’s face, he waited.
A deep red covered the hunter’s countenance. He swore. Wanchese saw the man’s right hand, of a sudden, move upward. Blocking the upward thrust, Wanchese kneed the hunter’s genitals. He heard instant distress. The hunter doubled over, Wanchese kneed his forehead. The brave went down. Wanchese pinned the hunter’s head to the soil with his right foot.
Breathing fiercely through his nose, Wanchese watched the hunter’s legs thrash. He applied greater pressure. The man emitted a plaintive cry.
He was aware suddenly that the others were close by. The thought that he might be attacked penetrated. He would bring each of them down! “You!” he shouted at the hunter immobilized under his foot. “I will let you up! If you choose to fight, I will kill you!” Three more fierce breaths and he removed his foot.
December 10, 2020
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
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.
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
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.
December 6, 2020
Alsoomse and Wanchese -- Chapter 5, Section 2
Characters
* historically identified personal
* Carleill, Christopher – 33, step-son of Francis Walsingham
* Dudley, Robert, Earl of Leicester – 51, chief advisor and former love interest of Queen Elizabeth
* Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of England – 51
* Farnese, Alexander, Duke of Parma – 38, nephew of King Philip of Spain. Governor and captain general of the Netherlands under King Philip’s authority
* Francis, Duke of Anjou and Alençon – 29, heir to the throne of France, died in 1584. Possible marriage to Elizabeth used to discourage King Philip from attempting to remove Elizabeth from her throne
* Gilbert, Humphrey – half brother of Walter Raleigh, colonizer who dies at sea, 1583, 44 at time of death
* Hatton, Christopher – 43, Captain of the Queen’s Guard
* Hayes, Edward – 34, captain of the Golden Hind
* Ingram, David – English sailor and explorer who claimed to have walked across the interior of the North American continent from Mexico to Nova Scotia in 1568
* Peckham, George – merchant venturer
* Philip II, King of Spain – 57, former husband of Queen Elizabeth’s sister Mary, defender of Catholicism in Europe, intent on overthrowing the Protestant Elizabeth
* Raleigh, Walter – 32, courtier of Queen Elizabeth
* Stuart, Mary – 41, former Queen of Scotland. A devout Catholic, deemed a threat to Elizabeth (her cousin), she was confined for many years in various castles and manor houses in the interior of England.
* Walsingham, Francis – 52, Queen Elizabeth’s principal secretary
* William, Prince of Orange – 50, the main leader of the Dutch Revolt against the Spanish Habsburgs that resulted in the formal independence of the United Provinces in 1581
Commentary
On this blogsite, under the label “Blogs about English Settlements at Roanoke,” I have posted detailed information about Queen Elizabeth’s difficulties with King Philip of Spain and other problems she faced up to late 1583, if you wish to investigate. Take from this section of Chapter 5 the knowledge that Queen Elizabeth and her advisors were greatly concerned about King Philip’s intentions of deposing her and placing Mary Stuart on the throne.
This novel focuses on the conflicts of coastal Algonquians in the years 1583 and 1584, especially those of sister and brother Alsoomse and Wanchese, each not content to live a subordinate life determined by their tribal culture and superiors. Because the English will affect the two protagonists’ and the entire tribe’s conflicts, I narrate throughout the novel how their mission to establish contact with the native population along the coast of North America came about and the portray the major characters involved.
Section 2
Leaning back in his leather upholstered chair, Walter Raleigh stared at the Thames River through his upstairs turret window. He half expected the Queen’s barge being made ready for her to avail herself of this October day’s clement weather. If so, he would be summoned to provide her visual and intellectual stimulation, their meeting providing him, concomitantly, fortuitous opportunity.
He would reinforce Leicester and Walsingham’s views that rebel forces in the Netherlands needed her military support. But he would put a twist to their basic argument. He would again apprise her of the danger to her person of Mary Stuart’s continued confinement at Sheffield Castle or whatever other property to which the Earl of Shrewsbury chose to imprison her. After the Ridolfi Plot had been exposed and Norfolk had been executed, Elizabeth should have had Mary beheaded! Keeping the Scottish vixen alive provided Catholic traitors, the Pope, and Philip of Spain all the more cause to attempt Elizabeth’s assassination. That Philip had not invaded was verification of the importance of keeping Parma’s army preoccupied in the Low Lands, notwithstanding Anjou’s abject failure to forestall him.
Anjou! That fawning French smell-smock! Good riddance to him! The Queen was finally done with him, in great measure due to the virile presence and ardor of that newcomer to Court, that man with the Devon burr, that soldier who had cut his teeth in Paris during the Huguenot suppression, that leader of the defeat of the Desmond Rebellions, Humphrey Gilbert’s right hand (not to mention half-brother), to wit: Walter Raleigh!
Anjou! The queen no longer pined for him. Heir to the French throne, he had been useful. The possibility of Elizabeth’s marriage to him had kept Philip at bay. But now the likelihood of an alliance with France to forestall Spanish aggression seemed remote. All the more reason to assist aggressively William, the Prince of Orange.
Yes, he had much to fill Her Majesty’s ear, and infuriate his rivals! “Jack the Upstart” and “that Knave” they called him. Leicester, at fifty corpulent, bad-tempered, believing every man his enemy, was no longer the “Sweet Robin” of Elizabeth’s youth. Christopher Hatton, Captain of the Queen’s Guard, member of the Privy Council, pretty boy dancer petulant that Her Majesty no longer looked upon him as her most handsome courtier, had sulked, until she had tended his lacerated heart. He had sent her a miniature gold bucket, a symbol of his fear of being displaced by “Water,” the name she used to address Raleigh, a tease about his Devon accent. In return she had given Hatton an olive branch and a dove, to indicate he would not be destroyed by the flood. Two months later Hatton had given her a jewel cut in the shape of a fish.
Hatton did not compare in physical appearance, military acumen, scholarly endeavor, intellect or wit. He was the least of Raleigh’s rivals.
Thinking about Hatton, Raleigh laughed. Hatton played the courtly game of unrequited lover -- which Elizabeth craved and at which he, Raleigh, was far superior. Two months ago using his diamond ring Raleigh had carved on a lattice window in the Queen’s Presence Room the message: “Fain would I climb, yet I fear to fall.” Taking his ring from him the next day, she had inscribed: “If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all.”
To Elizabeth, he was “Water.” He was her Shepherd of the Ocean. She “died of thirst” whenever he left her presence. In his poems he called her Cynthia, goddess of the moon and symbol of chastity. He had penned the past two days two stanzas that, if he were quick about it, he might complete before her inevitable summons. He walked to his desk, bent over its surface, and quickly read.
Those eyes which set my fancy on a fire,
Those crisped hairs which hold my heart in chains,
Those dainty hands which conquered my desire,
That wit which on my thought does hold the reins!
Those eyes for clearness do the stars surpass,
Those hairs obscure the brightness of the sun,
Those hands more bright than every ivory was,
That wit even to the skies hath glory won.
One more stanza might suffice. He would sit at his desk this very afternoon to write it if he were not summoned. If not this day, then he would tomorrow. She would read it; he would win greater favor; he would press more aggressively his request to acquire Gilbert’s patent.
#
He had not been summoned. Riding the newly paved road to the palace the following morning, Raleigh thought about his goal. He had competition. Because of what Humphrey had experienced, he believed he knew his competitor’s identity.
Francis Walsingham, the Queen’s primary secretary. Humphrey had communicated his frustration to Raleigh during the final days before he had left England for Newfoundland.
Desperate to raise money to finance his voyage and intended colonial settlement, Raleigh’s half-brother had sub-granted large parcels of land where he expected the settlement might be founded to Catholic elites, they seeking refuge from onerous fines and penalties imposed for religious nonconformity. These investors had thereupon petitioned Walsingham for permission to establish a colony. Then, quite unexpectedly, they had withdrawn their investments. Shortly thereafter, Gilbert had learned that Walsingham, his stepson Christopher Carleill, and Sir George Peckham had interviewed the English seaman David Ingram about his purported journey by foot past the Bahia de Santa Maria all the way to Cape Breton. “Why their particular interest, Walter? Why their interest?” Humphrey had sarcastically asked him.
Unable to raise investment capital, the six year time limitation on his patent a year from expiring, Gilbert had sold his estate. In March 1583 Walsingham had informed him that the Queen doubted his competency. Gilbert was not “of good hap at sea.” Because of this, and because he still needed money, he should, therefore, relinquish his patent. He would not! “I went to London! I repudiated their perfidious slanders!” Gilbert had informed Raleigh. Fortuitously, Raleigh had come into wealth. The Queen had provided him not only his residence, Durham House, on the Thames. She had granted him a substantial income from leased property and from commercial monopolies that included a license to tax retailers of wine. He had provided Gilbert a 200 ton ship that he had purchased from the Southampton merchant, Henry Oughtred. Raleigh had renamed it the Bark Ralegh and had equipped it at a cost of 2,000 pounds. Weeks before Gilbert’s delayed departure Raleigh had learned that the mayor of Bristol had persuaded local merchants to pledge funds to provide a ship and a bark for Carleill, not Gilbert!
Raleigh had passed that information along. He did not know if his half-brother had learned of the discourse that Carleill had had published in April. It had laid out his plans for a voyage to North America later that year. Gilbert had not mentioned it in their communication. Raleigh had learned of the discourse only recently. Aggrieved that he lacked the Queen’s confidence, Gilbert had asked Raleigh to speak to her. Raleigh had persuaded her to send Gilbert an affectionate letter.
Gilbert had left Southampton June 11 with five ships. Regrettably, the Bark Ralegh had returned but days later. The captain and crew had deserted. Sickness and lack of provisions to make the Atlantic crossing had been their excuses. Captain Edward Hayes and the Golden Hind had returned to England September 22. The news: Raleigh’s half brother and good friend and his ship the Squirrel and crew had been swallowed during a violent storm.
Raleigh had set in motion plans to outfit his own expedition. He had already gathered together at Durham House diverse people to ensure that his expedition would be well organized and equipped. Sometime in April of 1584 he expected to send two or more ships to North America, perhaps somewhat south of Gilbert’s intended settlement, to locate a practical place to found a settlement and a base from which privateers would operate. He believed he could convince Elizabeth to award him Humphrey’s patent. But he had to be vigilant! Walsingham, and Carleill, had their own designs!
* historically identified personal
* Carleill, Christopher – 33, step-son of Francis Walsingham
* Dudley, Robert, Earl of Leicester – 51, chief advisor and former love interest of Queen Elizabeth
* Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of England – 51
* Farnese, Alexander, Duke of Parma – 38, nephew of King Philip of Spain. Governor and captain general of the Netherlands under King Philip’s authority
* Francis, Duke of Anjou and Alençon – 29, heir to the throne of France, died in 1584. Possible marriage to Elizabeth used to discourage King Philip from attempting to remove Elizabeth from her throne
* Gilbert, Humphrey – half brother of Walter Raleigh, colonizer who dies at sea, 1583, 44 at time of death
* Hatton, Christopher – 43, Captain of the Queen’s Guard
* Hayes, Edward – 34, captain of the Golden Hind
* Ingram, David – English sailor and explorer who claimed to have walked across the interior of the North American continent from Mexico to Nova Scotia in 1568
* Peckham, George – merchant venturer
* Philip II, King of Spain – 57, former husband of Queen Elizabeth’s sister Mary, defender of Catholicism in Europe, intent on overthrowing the Protestant Elizabeth
* Raleigh, Walter – 32, courtier of Queen Elizabeth
* Stuart, Mary – 41, former Queen of Scotland. A devout Catholic, deemed a threat to Elizabeth (her cousin), she was confined for many years in various castles and manor houses in the interior of England.
* Walsingham, Francis – 52, Queen Elizabeth’s principal secretary
* William, Prince of Orange – 50, the main leader of the Dutch Revolt against the Spanish Habsburgs that resulted in the formal independence of the United Provinces in 1581
Commentary
On this blogsite, under the label “Blogs about English Settlements at Roanoke,” I have posted detailed information about Queen Elizabeth’s difficulties with King Philip of Spain and other problems she faced up to late 1583, if you wish to investigate. Take from this section of Chapter 5 the knowledge that Queen Elizabeth and her advisors were greatly concerned about King Philip’s intentions of deposing her and placing Mary Stuart on the throne.
This novel focuses on the conflicts of coastal Algonquians in the years 1583 and 1584, especially those of sister and brother Alsoomse and Wanchese, each not content to live a subordinate life determined by their tribal culture and superiors. Because the English will affect the two protagonists’ and the entire tribe’s conflicts, I narrate throughout the novel how their mission to establish contact with the native population along the coast of North America came about and the portray the major characters involved.
Section 2
Leaning back in his leather upholstered chair, Walter Raleigh stared at the Thames River through his upstairs turret window. He half expected the Queen’s barge being made ready for her to avail herself of this October day’s clement weather. If so, he would be summoned to provide her visual and intellectual stimulation, their meeting providing him, concomitantly, fortuitous opportunity.
He would reinforce Leicester and Walsingham’s views that rebel forces in the Netherlands needed her military support. But he would put a twist to their basic argument. He would again apprise her of the danger to her person of Mary Stuart’s continued confinement at Sheffield Castle or whatever other property to which the Earl of Shrewsbury chose to imprison her. After the Ridolfi Plot had been exposed and Norfolk had been executed, Elizabeth should have had Mary beheaded! Keeping the Scottish vixen alive provided Catholic traitors, the Pope, and Philip of Spain all the more cause to attempt Elizabeth’s assassination. That Philip had not invaded was verification of the importance of keeping Parma’s army preoccupied in the Low Lands, notwithstanding Anjou’s abject failure to forestall him.
Anjou! That fawning French smell-smock! Good riddance to him! The Queen was finally done with him, in great measure due to the virile presence and ardor of that newcomer to Court, that man with the Devon burr, that soldier who had cut his teeth in Paris during the Huguenot suppression, that leader of the defeat of the Desmond Rebellions, Humphrey Gilbert’s right hand (not to mention half-brother), to wit: Walter Raleigh!
Anjou! The queen no longer pined for him. Heir to the French throne, he had been useful. The possibility of Elizabeth’s marriage to him had kept Philip at bay. But now the likelihood of an alliance with France to forestall Spanish aggression seemed remote. All the more reason to assist aggressively William, the Prince of Orange.
Yes, he had much to fill Her Majesty’s ear, and infuriate his rivals! “Jack the Upstart” and “that Knave” they called him. Leicester, at fifty corpulent, bad-tempered, believing every man his enemy, was no longer the “Sweet Robin” of Elizabeth’s youth. Christopher Hatton, Captain of the Queen’s Guard, member of the Privy Council, pretty boy dancer petulant that Her Majesty no longer looked upon him as her most handsome courtier, had sulked, until she had tended his lacerated heart. He had sent her a miniature gold bucket, a symbol of his fear of being displaced by “Water,” the name she used to address Raleigh, a tease about his Devon accent. In return she had given Hatton an olive branch and a dove, to indicate he would not be destroyed by the flood. Two months later Hatton had given her a jewel cut in the shape of a fish.
Hatton did not compare in physical appearance, military acumen, scholarly endeavor, intellect or wit. He was the least of Raleigh’s rivals.
Thinking about Hatton, Raleigh laughed. Hatton played the courtly game of unrequited lover -- which Elizabeth craved and at which he, Raleigh, was far superior. Two months ago using his diamond ring Raleigh had carved on a lattice window in the Queen’s Presence Room the message: “Fain would I climb, yet I fear to fall.” Taking his ring from him the next day, she had inscribed: “If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all.”
To Elizabeth, he was “Water.” He was her Shepherd of the Ocean. She “died of thirst” whenever he left her presence. In his poems he called her Cynthia, goddess of the moon and symbol of chastity. He had penned the past two days two stanzas that, if he were quick about it, he might complete before her inevitable summons. He walked to his desk, bent over its surface, and quickly read.
Those eyes which set my fancy on a fire,
Those crisped hairs which hold my heart in chains,
Those dainty hands which conquered my desire,
That wit which on my thought does hold the reins!
Those eyes for clearness do the stars surpass,
Those hairs obscure the brightness of the sun,
Those hands more bright than every ivory was,
That wit even to the skies hath glory won.
One more stanza might suffice. He would sit at his desk this very afternoon to write it if he were not summoned. If not this day, then he would tomorrow. She would read it; he would win greater favor; he would press more aggressively his request to acquire Gilbert’s patent.
#
He had not been summoned. Riding the newly paved road to the palace the following morning, Raleigh thought about his goal. He had competition. Because of what Humphrey had experienced, he believed he knew his competitor’s identity.
Francis Walsingham, the Queen’s primary secretary. Humphrey had communicated his frustration to Raleigh during the final days before he had left England for Newfoundland.
Desperate to raise money to finance his voyage and intended colonial settlement, Raleigh’s half-brother had sub-granted large parcels of land where he expected the settlement might be founded to Catholic elites, they seeking refuge from onerous fines and penalties imposed for religious nonconformity. These investors had thereupon petitioned Walsingham for permission to establish a colony. Then, quite unexpectedly, they had withdrawn their investments. Shortly thereafter, Gilbert had learned that Walsingham, his stepson Christopher Carleill, and Sir George Peckham had interviewed the English seaman David Ingram about his purported journey by foot past the Bahia de Santa Maria all the way to Cape Breton. “Why their particular interest, Walter? Why their interest?” Humphrey had sarcastically asked him.
Unable to raise investment capital, the six year time limitation on his patent a year from expiring, Gilbert had sold his estate. In March 1583 Walsingham had informed him that the Queen doubted his competency. Gilbert was not “of good hap at sea.” Because of this, and because he still needed money, he should, therefore, relinquish his patent. He would not! “I went to London! I repudiated their perfidious slanders!” Gilbert had informed Raleigh. Fortuitously, Raleigh had come into wealth. The Queen had provided him not only his residence, Durham House, on the Thames. She had granted him a substantial income from leased property and from commercial monopolies that included a license to tax retailers of wine. He had provided Gilbert a 200 ton ship that he had purchased from the Southampton merchant, Henry Oughtred. Raleigh had renamed it the Bark Ralegh and had equipped it at a cost of 2,000 pounds. Weeks before Gilbert’s delayed departure Raleigh had learned that the mayor of Bristol had persuaded local merchants to pledge funds to provide a ship and a bark for Carleill, not Gilbert!
Raleigh had passed that information along. He did not know if his half-brother had learned of the discourse that Carleill had had published in April. It had laid out his plans for a voyage to North America later that year. Gilbert had not mentioned it in their communication. Raleigh had learned of the discourse only recently. Aggrieved that he lacked the Queen’s confidence, Gilbert had asked Raleigh to speak to her. Raleigh had persuaded her to send Gilbert an affectionate letter.
Gilbert had left Southampton June 11 with five ships. Regrettably, the Bark Ralegh had returned but days later. The captain and crew had deserted. Sickness and lack of provisions to make the Atlantic crossing had been their excuses. Captain Edward Hayes and the Golden Hind had returned to England September 22. The news: Raleigh’s half brother and good friend and his ship the Squirrel and crew had been swallowed during a violent storm.
Raleigh had set in motion plans to outfit his own expedition. He had already gathered together at Durham House diverse people to ensure that his expedition would be well organized and equipped. Sometime in April of 1584 he expected to send two or more ships to North America, perhaps somewhat south of Gilbert’s intended settlement, to locate a practical place to found a settlement and a base from which privateers would operate. He believed he could convince Elizabeth to award him Humphrey’s patent. But he had to be vigilant! Walsingham, and Carleill, had their own designs!
December 3, 2020
Alsoomse and Wanchese -- Chapter 5, Part 1
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
Alsoomse (Independent) –17, protagonist
* Andacon (Evergreens) – 25, Wingina’s war chief
Askook (Snake) – 21, Hurit’s brother and enemy of Alsoomse and
Wanchese
* Ensenore – 53, Wematin’s brother and Wingina and Granganimeo’s father
* Eracano – 30, Wingina and Granganimeo’s brother-in-law
Gilbert, Humphrey – colonizer who dies at sea, 44 at time of death
* Granganimeo (He Who Is Serious) – 33, weroance of Roanoke
Kimi (Secret) – Alsoomse and Wanchese’s dead sister, 4 at time of death, 1575
Kitchi (Brave) – Alsoomse and Wanchese’s dead brother, 11 at time of death, 1580
Machk (Bear) – 17, Nuna and Wapun’s brother, friend of Wanchese
* Manteo (To Snatch) – 22, son of Woanagusso, weroansqua of Croatoan
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
Nuttah (My Heart) – 17, flirtatious enemy of Alsoomse
Odina (Mountain) – 16, Alsoomse’s friend across the lane
* Piemacum (He Who Churns Up the Water) – 25, Pomeiooc weroance
Powaw (Priest) – 31, Wingina’s kwiocosuk
Pules (Pigeon) – 11, Odina’s sister
Skow (Sour) – 16, enemy of Alsoomse
Sokanon (Rain) – 18, Sooleawa’s daughter and Alsoomse and Wanchese’s cousin
* Tanaquincy – 28, Granganimeo’s chief advisor
* Tetapano – 27, ekute member of Wingina’s council
Tihkoosue (Short) – 13, Granganineo’s son and Hurit’s step-son
Ussac – 17, friend of Askook, former friend of Wanchese
* Wanchese (Take Flight off of Water) – 20, protagonist
Wapun (Dawn) – 12, Nuna’s amd Machk”s sister
Wematin (Brother) – dead mamanatowick, brother of Ensenore, 50 at time of death, 1579
* Wingina – 34, current mamanatowick and Granganimeo’s brother
Commentary:
Some explanation is needed here to avoid subsequent reader confusion. Pomeiooc and Panauuaioc are separate villages. The Algonquian weroance of Pomeiooc is Piemacum, who is rebelling against Wingina’s authority. South of Pomeiooc and the broad Pamlico River, Panauuaioc is the capitol village of the Pomouik tribe. It was at Panauuaioc in 1579 that Wingina’s uncle and important Algonquian warriors including Wanchese’s father were tricked into meeting with Pomouik leaders to consumate a peace agreement and were murdered. The Pomouik have remained enemies of Wingina’s confederation of villages since.
Another tribe, the Neusiok, is mentioned in what you will read. That tribe occupies land southeast of the Pomouik tribe.
Not only is Wingina and his council members concerned about Piemacum’s disavowal of obedience to Wingina. They fear that he intends to persuade other villages in Wingina’s confederation to join him in his rebellion and that he may establish an alliance with the Pomouik.
Part 1
Alsoomse was attempting to outlast her partner and twelve paired dancers gyrating in a large circle between seven Kiwasa face-carved posts. Alsoomse’s Dasemunkepeuc partner leaped, twisted, twirled, rotated. The rhythmic sound of pebbles, corn kernels, and fruit pits inside the hollow gourd that each dancer’s right hand shook compelled her to dip, twist, hop, and leap, all the while waving in front of and behind her a tobacco branch grasped in her left hand. Each male dancer brandished in place of a tobacco branch a lengthy arrow. Outside the circle, on the village lane, six dancers -- crouched single file -- waited.
This was the second time that Alsoomse had been one of the dancers. It was her favorite activity of the fall corn festival. She had not, did not aspire to be, one of the three naked virgins clutching one another as they adjoined the circle’s center post. Contrary by nature, physically strong, not maidenly slim, she abhorred the objective of many girls her age of being leered at by virile young males amongst whom might be a future husband. It was the rhythm of the gourds and the release of kinetic energy and the feeling of communion with the Real People that roused her to release her gratitude to the Great Spirit for the successful harvest and for her robust health. As she danced, she thought of her father, of his many kindnesses up to her twelfth cohattayough; of her mother, whom she very much wanted and whom nobody could replace; of her younger brother – foolish, impetuous Kitchi – two cohattayoughs younger, whose spontaneous antics had often caused her to laugh; of her sister Kimi -- four cohattayoughs younger -- who had followed her and copied her, had never found fault with her, had died of a fever at the age of four. All, but Wanchese, were gone.
The dancing gave her cause to venerate their existence, mourn their deaths, feel joy that they witnessed her from their place beside Ahone, the Creator. Her dancing was an essential part of the necessary whole. It was a manifestation of her people’s respect for both their family members and their leaders – alive and deceased. It was a demonstration of their gratification for possessing montoac, that spiritual power so essential for combating life’s cruelties. To not dance would be to disdain all whom she cherished, her people’s traditions, her aspirations of life, her reason for existence.
Spiritually fulfilled, she desired now food and companionship. She would not take a crouching position for a third time at the end of the line of waiting dancers. She would find her friends Nuna and Odina, and, maybe, Machk and Nootau, feasting on bear meat, turtle, venison, pumpkins, melons, beans, corn, and squash.
That morning Ensenore, Wingina’s father, had prayed to the Great Spirit. Every villager and guest had sat about the large ceremonial fire to hear his words.
“We thank the Great Spirit that we are here and able to praise Him. We thank Him for creating men and women and requiring them to multiply.”
Ensenore was half-priest, half-weroance. He wore the garment of a priest: a short cloak of fine quilted hare skin with the hair outside hung from his shoulders to the middle of his thighs. His head was shaved except for a fringe of straight-standing hair that fanned across the top of his forehead and the crest of hair that covered the very back of his scalp. Rabbit bones hung from his pierced ears. He did not live apart from the village as Dasemunkepeuc’s kwiocosuk Powaw did tending Kiwasa’s temple, guarding the corpses of the elite, and keeping the temple’s perpetual fire burning. Ensenore was Wingina’s most important worldly as well as spiritual advisor, as he had been for his brother Wematin, Wingina’s uncle and mamanatowick predecessor.
“We thank Him for making the earth and all its products that give us life. We thank Him for the water that comes out of the earth, for all the animals, for the branches that grow shadows for our shelter and for all the forests.”
Alsoomse had studied the lines in Ensenore’s forehead, the crevices that framed his mouth, the parallel lines that circled his neck, the lines that stretched across the base of his weather-worn throat. He was old, fifty cohattayoughs, she guessed, older than most every man she had known, but healthy, quick with thoughts, skilled with words.
“We thank Him for the thunder and lightning that water the earth and the light that works for our good and the dark that allows us to sleep. We thank Him for the bright spots in the skies that give us signs. We give Him thanks for our harvests. We thank the Great Spirit that we have the privilege of this joyous occasion.”
Ensenore deserved respect.
She thought that Nuna and Odina had probably helped in the food preparation. She would stop at the several fires to speak to friends she had know during better times, before her family had moved to Roanoke. At one of these fires, if invited, she would sit, eat, and reflect on favors granted and desires not – her wish that Sokanon had crossed the shallow waters with her because she needed to be noticed. Participation in the upcoming game of ball in which a team of men competed against a team of women would have accomplished that. Sokanon needed to escape for a time the burden of caring for her mother, whom the village kwiocosuk had not been able -- with his communications with the spirit world and with his mixture of roots and herbs – to fully regenerate.
Alsoomse knew what Sokanon was experiencing, having borne the same burden tending her mother: the daily, fatiguing ministration; the expectation of irretrievable loss; afterward, the disquietude of determining who she should be and what she should forfeit. Had she, Alsoomse, been entirely unselfish, she would have taken her cousin’s place; but she had not, the least reason being her certainty that Sokanon would have declined her offer.
Anticipating the friendly greeting of past friends, Alsoomse approached the first of the five cooking fires. Seven or eight girls and boys close to her age, seated on and standing behind a large log, were waiting for the meat and vegetables already cooked to be placed on platters. She saw in their midst Askook, two eye-blinks before he recognized her. Not averting his eyes, he whispered to the young man, Ussac, standing beside him, Ussac, who had once imagined himself one of Wanchese’s friends! Seated in front of the two were Nuttah and Sokw, of Roanoke, girls her age who believed they privileged each day the air they breathed. She would walk past them.
“There goes the goose that waddles so much she cannot walk straight,” Ussac said, laughing.
“Her back-end is definitely big enough,” Nuttah said.
“Like Nuna’s and Odina’s. No surprise they are friends.” Sokw made her familiar sour expression.
Askook looked at Alsoomse, raised his eyebrows, winked.
Looking straight ahead, passing them, Alsoomse said: “How long did it take that welt to heal?” She heard no response. “Have you told them how you got it?”
She had silenced them. Young males like Ussac, too proud of themselves, and girls like Nuttah were not a problem. It pleased her that they knew this. Askook’s malice was different.
#
Inside his longhouse Wingina was conducting an informal council. Attending were his brother, Granganimeo; his brother-in-law, Eracano; his father, Ensenore; three of his best warriors, Tetepano, Andacon, and Mingan; Manteo, the son of Croatoan’s weroansqua; Granganimeo’s closest advisor, Tanaquincy; and Wanchese. Wingina and Granganimeo were smoking long-stemmed clay pipes. Flashes of the great fire outside danced on the nearest matted wall. Soon to be twenty cohattayoughs, Wanchese recognized that he was the youngest man present. Most had seen twenty-five cohattayoughs; Wingina, Granganimeo, and Eracano at least thirty; and Ensenore more than fifty. He was gratified that he had been included and hopeful his presence foreshadowed advancement. He would be a respectful listener. If asked, he would be a deferential fact-giver. He thought it highly unlikely that these mature men would solicit his opinion.
Eschewing preliminary words, Wingina addressed their problem. “With the growing season ended, we must focus on our difficulties with Piemacum.” Removing his pipe stem from his mouth, Wingina glanced at his brother, then at his war chief, Andacon.
Ensenore nodded. He lifted his haunches off the long bench he shared with his two sons and son-in-law, afterward settled himself.
Granganimeo began. “Piemacum is your age, Andacon. He is too ambitious for his loin skin. He wants power more than he wants two or three wives.”
Andacon frowned. “Do not connect my two wives with Piemacum’s intentions.
Concentrate on his plans to take away our trade!”
Wingina nodded.
“I believe he wants an alliance with the Pomouik,” Tanaquincy volunteered.
“We do not know if that is true.” Wingina raised his pipe, looked briefly at its stem. “But we should assume that.”
Manteo half-raised his right hand. The large turkey feather embedded above his forehead bobbed. “Piemacum wants friendship with the Neusiok. It follows that he needs an alliance with the Pomouik.”
Wanchese watched Manteo out of the right corners of his eyes. He had had little acquaintance with this rather tall, self-important-behaving Croatoan. What he had seen of Manteo he had not liked. Interjecting himself into this discussion with information that Wingina probably knew was an attempt to gain stature. It contributed nothing to solving Wingina’s problem.
Wingina nodded. “How do you know that?”
“He has spoken to my mother.”
“Then I will need to speak to her.” Wingina frowned, folded his arms slowly across his chest. “She should have told me.”
“He visited her four sleeps ago. I came here especially to tell you.”
“Deliver to her, then, my gratitude.”
Manteo’s upper torso straightened. His face revealed ever so briefly – Wanchese interpreted – self congratulation.
“What is it you propose we do?” Ensenore asked. He moved his knobby left hand down the front of his quilted cloak. “Start a war? If he has Aquascogooc with him, he has more warriors. My kwiocosuk and I need to confer with the spirits. We must please Kiwasa, whatever we choose to do.”
“I would not do otherwise, father. But I must do something. Piemacum is the immediate problem. But for him, his people and the people of Aquascogooc and Secotan would bow to my authority.” Inhaling deeply, he gazed at his subordinates’ attentive faces. “I want to hear your suggestions.”
Wanchese had a suggestion. Put an arrow in Piemacum’s throat. But that would enrage his people, not win their allegiance. Wingina had to defeat Piemacum – kill him -- in battle or devise some way to cause Piemacum’s supporters to judge him unworthy.
“We who live beside the Great Waters must be one people. We need to think alike, be alike, benefit each other.” Wingina released a stream of smoke. “We are strong only if we are one. Our enemies where the rivers run fast are a greater threat to us than are the Pomouik. Piemacum does not understand this. Or he does not care. I ask again for your wisdom.”
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
Alsoomse (Independent) –17, protagonist
* Andacon (Evergreens) – 25, Wingina’s war chief
Askook (Snake) – 21, Hurit’s brother and enemy of Alsoomse and
Wanchese
* Ensenore – 53, Wematin’s brother and Wingina and Granganimeo’s father
* Eracano – 30, Wingina and Granganimeo’s brother-in-law
Gilbert, Humphrey – colonizer who dies at sea, 44 at time of death
* Granganimeo (He Who Is Serious) – 33, weroance of Roanoke
Kimi (Secret) – Alsoomse and Wanchese’s dead sister, 4 at time of death, 1575
Kitchi (Brave) – Alsoomse and Wanchese’s dead brother, 11 at time of death, 1580
Machk (Bear) – 17, Nuna and Wapun’s brother, friend of Wanchese
* Manteo (To Snatch) – 22, son of Woanagusso, weroansqua of Croatoan
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
Nuttah (My Heart) – 17, flirtatious enemy of Alsoomse
Odina (Mountain) – 16, Alsoomse’s friend across the lane
* Piemacum (He Who Churns Up the Water) – 25, Pomeiooc weroance
Powaw (Priest) – 31, Wingina’s kwiocosuk
Pules (Pigeon) – 11, Odina’s sister
Skow (Sour) – 16, enemy of Alsoomse
Sokanon (Rain) – 18, Sooleawa’s daughter and Alsoomse and Wanchese’s cousin
* Tanaquincy – 28, Granganimeo’s chief advisor
* Tetapano – 27, ekute member of Wingina’s council
Tihkoosue (Short) – 13, Granganineo’s son and Hurit’s step-son
Ussac – 17, friend of Askook, former friend of Wanchese
* Wanchese (Take Flight off of Water) – 20, protagonist
Wapun (Dawn) – 12, Nuna’s amd Machk”s sister
Wematin (Brother) – dead mamanatowick, brother of Ensenore, 50 at time of death, 1579
* Wingina – 34, current mamanatowick and Granganimeo’s brother
Commentary:
Some explanation is needed here to avoid subsequent reader confusion. Pomeiooc and Panauuaioc are separate villages. The Algonquian weroance of Pomeiooc is Piemacum, who is rebelling against Wingina’s authority. South of Pomeiooc and the broad Pamlico River, Panauuaioc is the capitol village of the Pomouik tribe. It was at Panauuaioc in 1579 that Wingina’s uncle and important Algonquian warriors including Wanchese’s father were tricked into meeting with Pomouik leaders to consumate a peace agreement and were murdered. The Pomouik have remained enemies of Wingina’s confederation of villages since.
Another tribe, the Neusiok, is mentioned in what you will read. That tribe occupies land southeast of the Pomouik tribe.
Not only is Wingina and his council members concerned about Piemacum’s disavowal of obedience to Wingina. They fear that he intends to persuade other villages in Wingina’s confederation to join him in his rebellion and that he may establish an alliance with the Pomouik.
Part 1
Alsoomse was attempting to outlast her partner and twelve paired dancers gyrating in a large circle between seven Kiwasa face-carved posts. Alsoomse’s Dasemunkepeuc partner leaped, twisted, twirled, rotated. The rhythmic sound of pebbles, corn kernels, and fruit pits inside the hollow gourd that each dancer’s right hand shook compelled her to dip, twist, hop, and leap, all the while waving in front of and behind her a tobacco branch grasped in her left hand. Each male dancer brandished in place of a tobacco branch a lengthy arrow. Outside the circle, on the village lane, six dancers -- crouched single file -- waited.
This was the second time that Alsoomse had been one of the dancers. It was her favorite activity of the fall corn festival. She had not, did not aspire to be, one of the three naked virgins clutching one another as they adjoined the circle’s center post. Contrary by nature, physically strong, not maidenly slim, she abhorred the objective of many girls her age of being leered at by virile young males amongst whom might be a future husband. It was the rhythm of the gourds and the release of kinetic energy and the feeling of communion with the Real People that roused her to release her gratitude to the Great Spirit for the successful harvest and for her robust health. As she danced, she thought of her father, of his many kindnesses up to her twelfth cohattayough; of her mother, whom she very much wanted and whom nobody could replace; of her younger brother – foolish, impetuous Kitchi – two cohattayoughs younger, whose spontaneous antics had often caused her to laugh; of her sister Kimi -- four cohattayoughs younger -- who had followed her and copied her, had never found fault with her, had died of a fever at the age of four. All, but Wanchese, were gone.
The dancing gave her cause to venerate their existence, mourn their deaths, feel joy that they witnessed her from their place beside Ahone, the Creator. Her dancing was an essential part of the necessary whole. It was a manifestation of her people’s respect for both their family members and their leaders – alive and deceased. It was a demonstration of their gratification for possessing montoac, that spiritual power so essential for combating life’s cruelties. To not dance would be to disdain all whom she cherished, her people’s traditions, her aspirations of life, her reason for existence.
Spiritually fulfilled, she desired now food and companionship. She would not take a crouching position for a third time at the end of the line of waiting dancers. She would find her friends Nuna and Odina, and, maybe, Machk and Nootau, feasting on bear meat, turtle, venison, pumpkins, melons, beans, corn, and squash.
That morning Ensenore, Wingina’s father, had prayed to the Great Spirit. Every villager and guest had sat about the large ceremonial fire to hear his words.
“We thank the Great Spirit that we are here and able to praise Him. We thank Him for creating men and women and requiring them to multiply.”
Ensenore was half-priest, half-weroance. He wore the garment of a priest: a short cloak of fine quilted hare skin with the hair outside hung from his shoulders to the middle of his thighs. His head was shaved except for a fringe of straight-standing hair that fanned across the top of his forehead and the crest of hair that covered the very back of his scalp. Rabbit bones hung from his pierced ears. He did not live apart from the village as Dasemunkepeuc’s kwiocosuk Powaw did tending Kiwasa’s temple, guarding the corpses of the elite, and keeping the temple’s perpetual fire burning. Ensenore was Wingina’s most important worldly as well as spiritual advisor, as he had been for his brother Wematin, Wingina’s uncle and mamanatowick predecessor.
“We thank Him for making the earth and all its products that give us life. We thank Him for the water that comes out of the earth, for all the animals, for the branches that grow shadows for our shelter and for all the forests.”
Alsoomse had studied the lines in Ensenore’s forehead, the crevices that framed his mouth, the parallel lines that circled his neck, the lines that stretched across the base of his weather-worn throat. He was old, fifty cohattayoughs, she guessed, older than most every man she had known, but healthy, quick with thoughts, skilled with words.
“We thank Him for the thunder and lightning that water the earth and the light that works for our good and the dark that allows us to sleep. We thank Him for the bright spots in the skies that give us signs. We give Him thanks for our harvests. We thank the Great Spirit that we have the privilege of this joyous occasion.”
Ensenore deserved respect.
She thought that Nuna and Odina had probably helped in the food preparation. She would stop at the several fires to speak to friends she had know during better times, before her family had moved to Roanoke. At one of these fires, if invited, she would sit, eat, and reflect on favors granted and desires not – her wish that Sokanon had crossed the shallow waters with her because she needed to be noticed. Participation in the upcoming game of ball in which a team of men competed against a team of women would have accomplished that. Sokanon needed to escape for a time the burden of caring for her mother, whom the village kwiocosuk had not been able -- with his communications with the spirit world and with his mixture of roots and herbs – to fully regenerate.
Alsoomse knew what Sokanon was experiencing, having borne the same burden tending her mother: the daily, fatiguing ministration; the expectation of irretrievable loss; afterward, the disquietude of determining who she should be and what she should forfeit. Had she, Alsoomse, been entirely unselfish, she would have taken her cousin’s place; but she had not, the least reason being her certainty that Sokanon would have declined her offer.
Anticipating the friendly greeting of past friends, Alsoomse approached the first of the five cooking fires. Seven or eight girls and boys close to her age, seated on and standing behind a large log, were waiting for the meat and vegetables already cooked to be placed on platters. She saw in their midst Askook, two eye-blinks before he recognized her. Not averting his eyes, he whispered to the young man, Ussac, standing beside him, Ussac, who had once imagined himself one of Wanchese’s friends! Seated in front of the two were Nuttah and Sokw, of Roanoke, girls her age who believed they privileged each day the air they breathed. She would walk past them.
“There goes the goose that waddles so much she cannot walk straight,” Ussac said, laughing.
“Her back-end is definitely big enough,” Nuttah said.
“Like Nuna’s and Odina’s. No surprise they are friends.” Sokw made her familiar sour expression.
Askook looked at Alsoomse, raised his eyebrows, winked.
Looking straight ahead, passing them, Alsoomse said: “How long did it take that welt to heal?” She heard no response. “Have you told them how you got it?”
She had silenced them. Young males like Ussac, too proud of themselves, and girls like Nuttah were not a problem. It pleased her that they knew this. Askook’s malice was different.
#
Inside his longhouse Wingina was conducting an informal council. Attending were his brother, Granganimeo; his brother-in-law, Eracano; his father, Ensenore; three of his best warriors, Tetepano, Andacon, and Mingan; Manteo, the son of Croatoan’s weroansqua; Granganimeo’s closest advisor, Tanaquincy; and Wanchese. Wingina and Granganimeo were smoking long-stemmed clay pipes. Flashes of the great fire outside danced on the nearest matted wall. Soon to be twenty cohattayoughs, Wanchese recognized that he was the youngest man present. Most had seen twenty-five cohattayoughs; Wingina, Granganimeo, and Eracano at least thirty; and Ensenore more than fifty. He was gratified that he had been included and hopeful his presence foreshadowed advancement. He would be a respectful listener. If asked, he would be a deferential fact-giver. He thought it highly unlikely that these mature men would solicit his opinion.
Eschewing preliminary words, Wingina addressed their problem. “With the growing season ended, we must focus on our difficulties with Piemacum.” Removing his pipe stem from his mouth, Wingina glanced at his brother, then at his war chief, Andacon.
Ensenore nodded. He lifted his haunches off the long bench he shared with his two sons and son-in-law, afterward settled himself.
Granganimeo began. “Piemacum is your age, Andacon. He is too ambitious for his loin skin. He wants power more than he wants two or three wives.”
Andacon frowned. “Do not connect my two wives with Piemacum’s intentions.
Concentrate on his plans to take away our trade!”
Wingina nodded.
“I believe he wants an alliance with the Pomouik,” Tanaquincy volunteered.
“We do not know if that is true.” Wingina raised his pipe, looked briefly at its stem. “But we should assume that.”
Manteo half-raised his right hand. The large turkey feather embedded above his forehead bobbed. “Piemacum wants friendship with the Neusiok. It follows that he needs an alliance with the Pomouik.”
Wanchese watched Manteo out of the right corners of his eyes. He had had little acquaintance with this rather tall, self-important-behaving Croatoan. What he had seen of Manteo he had not liked. Interjecting himself into this discussion with information that Wingina probably knew was an attempt to gain stature. It contributed nothing to solving Wingina’s problem.
Wingina nodded. “How do you know that?”
“He has spoken to my mother.”
“Then I will need to speak to her.” Wingina frowned, folded his arms slowly across his chest. “She should have told me.”
“He visited her four sleeps ago. I came here especially to tell you.”
“Deliver to her, then, my gratitude.”
Manteo’s upper torso straightened. His face revealed ever so briefly – Wanchese interpreted – self congratulation.
“What is it you propose we do?” Ensenore asked. He moved his knobby left hand down the front of his quilted cloak. “Start a war? If he has Aquascogooc with him, he has more warriors. My kwiocosuk and I need to confer with the spirits. We must please Kiwasa, whatever we choose to do.”
“I would not do otherwise, father. But I must do something. Piemacum is the immediate problem. But for him, his people and the people of Aquascogooc and Secotan would bow to my authority.” Inhaling deeply, he gazed at his subordinates’ attentive faces. “I want to hear your suggestions.”
Wanchese had a suggestion. Put an arrow in Piemacum’s throat. But that would enrage his people, not win their allegiance. Wingina had to defeat Piemacum – kill him -- in battle or devise some way to cause Piemacum’s supporters to judge him unworthy.
“We who live beside the Great Waters must be one people. We need to think alike, be alike, benefit each other.” Wingina released a stream of smoke. “We are strong only if we are one. Our enemies where the rivers run fast are a greater threat to us than are the Pomouik. Piemacum does not understand this. Or he does not care. I ask again for your wisdom.”
November 29, 2020
Alsoomse and Wanchese -- Chapter Four
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
Alsoomse (Independent) –17, protagonist
Askook (Snake) – 21, Hurit’s brother and enemy of Alsoomse and Wanchese
Gilbert, Humphrey – colonizer who dies at sea, 44 at time of death
Kitchi (Brave) – Alsoomse and Wanchese’s dead brother, 11 at time of death, 1580
Machk (Bear) – 17, Nuna and Wapun’s brother, friend of Wanchese
Nuna (Land) – 16, Alsoomse’s friend across the lane
Odina (Mountain) – 16, Alsoomse’s friend across the lane
Pules (Pigeon) – 11, Odina’s sister
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
Chapter Four
“All right, I will.” Alsoomse placed her palms behind her. “The two boys – whose father was the sun god -- had killed the monster wolf. They had come back to their home. Their names were Sesigizit and Ooseemeeid.” She looked at each of the young girls. “Remember their names. I will ask you later.”
Pules’s face tightened.
“You better not,” Wapun answered.
Grinning, Alsoomse resumed. “Because they wanted to make strong bows and arrows, they asked their mother where they could find the best of wood.
“‘Far away in the foothills is a ravine, where a forest of just such wood grows,’ the mother said. ‘But the path to the forest is steep and narrow, and a great windigo giant guards it, throws every traveler off a cliff.’”
“How inconvenient,” Askook remarked.
Wapun made a derogatory face.
“There was also a fierce mountain lioness that prowled the path. She had killed and dragged many travelers to her den.”
“Did the mother tell that to the two boys?”
Tihkoosue laughed. Wanchese looked at him, scowled.
“Yes, Pules, she did.” Alsoomse consciously smiled.
“The boys -- Sesigizit and Ooseemeeid – they went there anyway?” Wapun’s teeth glinted.
“We will just have to see.” Alsoomse straightened. “So you remembered their names, just to outdo me!” she said, feigning indignation.
Pules frowned. Wapun giggled.
“Go on,” Tihkoosue said.
“Is there a chance we can guess the outcome?” Askook loosened his neck muscles, leaned backward, yawned.
“Just tell the story, Alsoomse,” Wanchese said.
“Thank you, Brother. Thank you for your interest.”
She turned toward the two girls. “They did leave to find the wood. Up the path they climbed, watchful for the lioness. And, there ahead of them … they saw her! But Sesigizit, the older boy, had a plan!
“‘Lioness, would you tell us,’ he asked politely, ‘where we can find the forest in the ravine that has excellent wood?’
“‘Yes, I am going that way myself. I will show you the way.' Her plan was to lure them close to her den where she would kill them” – Alsoomse raised her eyebrows – “and feed them to her cubs!” Alsoomse smacked her lips.
Tihkoosue grinned.
“So they started up again along the path, which twisted along a ledge. At their left was the terrible cliff and -- far below -- huge, sharp rocks. At their right was the steep wall of the mountain. The lioness wanted the boys to walk ahead of her, but the boys refused. ‘Our mother taught us to respect our elders,’ Sesigizit said.”
Nuna and Odina glanced at Tihkoosue.
“So the lioness let them walk behind her. Soon they came to where the path became very narrow. The boys pretended to be very afraid. They asked if they could walk beside her, putting themselves between her and the wall of the mountain.”
Alsoomse paused. She recognized that Tihkoosue and the two girls knew what was about to happen. Yet they wanted to hear it. She enjoyed as much her listeners’ anticipation and appreciation as she did her creative story-telling. Despite herself, she smiled, remembering the times she had told her young listeners the opposite of what they had expected.
“Afterward,” Alsoomse said, “the boys found the lioness’s den and killed her cubs. They cut off the cubs’ front paws to take home with them.”
“Wait! You … you jumped ahead! What happened … in between?!” Pules appeared suddenly two inches taller.
Machk slapped his right thigh, laughed.
“They pushed her over the cliff! What did you think happened?!” Wapun made her Stupid-Pules face.
“Well, I know that! But how?! The lion was so much bigger!”
“Lioness.”
“You think you are so smart!”
“Go tell Alsoomse their names! Can you?!”
“Their magic sticks,” Alsoomse answered, raising her voice. “They used their magic rabbit sticks.”
“Where would they have been without their magic sticks!” Askook shuddered, exaggeratedly embraced himself.
Pules was pouting. Feeling a tinge of guilt, Alsoomse resumed. “It so happened that the windigo heard the lioness scream as she fell toward the rocks. So he went close to where the path ended and waited. The boys were very high up the mountain now and could see the forest that had the excellent wood. Walking around a bend in the path, they saw the windigo. They quickly shot their arrows at him. He was so big the arrowheads just stung him!”
“Use your magic sticks! Use your sticks!” Tihkoosue exclaimed.
Machk laughed.
“Tihkoosue. Do not get ahead of me,” Alsoomse said, grinning. “Let me finish!”
“Do not use up all the daylight,” Wanchese remarked, the corners of his mouth twitching.
“You do not appreciate a good story!” she countered, eyebrows high. To the others, she said: “The windiigo became very angry. He tried the grab them but he was fat and clumsy and they were quick and nimble. So he began tearing huge rocks out of the mountainside to throw at them. The boys realized they were in great danger.” She stopped, looked lengthily at each of the girls.
“The magic sticks!” Tihkoosue exclaimed.
“Wrong, Tihkoosue. You are right to think that but their father, the sun god, helped them!” She looked at Pules. The girl’s rapt attention made her want to cackle. “He shot his rays straight into the windigo’s eyes so he could not see them. So his rocks missed them! But their arrows were not killing him and they had used almost all they had!”
“What to do?! What to do?!” Askook exclaimed. “I would have run back home screaming ‘Help! Help!’”
“No! They would not!” Pules’s chin jutted. “They are brave! They came to get the wood!”
“Why do you have to spoil this?” Wapun accused.
He smirked.
Alsoomse waved her hands. She said loudly: “It was just the boys’ luck that an old woman came by!” Alsoomse had regained their attention. “The boys talked to her. She was angry at the windigo because he would never let her go to the forest to gather dead sticks for her fire. She told them: ‘The only way to kill that monster is to crack his skull. Then send an arrow into his brain.’ So …”
“Did they do that?”
“Yes, Pules,” Wapun said. “They did that! They cracked his skull with a magic stick and put an arrow in his brain!” She looked at Alsoomse. “Am I right?”
“You are. And that is the end of the story. Any questions?”
They looked at her, surprised. Pules glared. Wapun beamed. Odina’s expression was quizzical. Tihkoosue appeared astonished. How much she enjoyed changing what they expected! Lifting her chin, she asked, “Any lessons?”
Askook, filtering dirt between his fingers, raised his head. “An observation. Too bad Kitchi did not have the sun god protecting him when he took his canoe out into the Great Waters.” He tilted his head, half grinned. “Too bad, also, nobody human was bothering to look after him.” He glanced sideways at Wanchese.
Alsoomse watched her brother rise.
Askook had gone too far.
“Get up!”
Askook stood. He brushed the back of his rear apron.
“Follow me!” Wanchese turned, walked to the center of the lane, faced back. Askook had not moved.
“Are you a coward? Do as he says!” Alsoomse said.
Askook looked at her. “I am not a coward.”
“Then, …?”
“Come with me!” Wanchese, taking long strides, disappeared where the path turned.
“Do not be a woman!” Alsoomse said.
Askook looked at her hatefully. Taking less lengthy strides than Wanchese had, he walked toward the bend.
Wanchese was waiting for him. “Follow me.”
“Why? Where?”
Wanchese turned around, walked ahead.
They arrived at the secluded alcove of spruce branches where Granganimeo had spoken to Wanchese about Tihkoosue.
“Well?” Askook’s eyes wavered. He pressed the heels of his hands against his sides.
“Mind what you say. I am very close to tearing you apart.”
“Do not exaggerate.”
“Should I lose control, I will kill you.”
They stared at each other.
“Well, …” Askook looked away.
“You wear Wingina’s four arrows dyed behind your left shoulder. That is supposed to mean something. You do not show it!”
“I am as loyal to Wingina as any man.” Askook raised his chin, tightened his legs.
“Those arrows mean we are one. We protect each other. We are not each other’s enemy.” Wanchese’s eyes penetrated. “But you make yourself the enemy! You insult, you accuse, you hate.”
“I tell the truth.”
“I see a man who cares only about himself.”
“I see a man who cared so much about himself that he was never here, to watch over his brother.”
Each man’s taut body craved release.
Shoulder muscles straining, Wanchese leaned forward. “There are two things you can choose to do.”
Askook looked at him warily.
“You can be what you are supposed to be. Or you can be our enemy and be banished.”
“Not killed?” Askook mocked.
Wanchese struck him full on the right cheek with the heel of his left hand. Askook went down. He lay still for six or seven seconds, then moved his upper body, groaned.
“Not killed yet?!” Wanchese mocked.
Askook raised himself to a sitting position. A red welt was forming. “Tearing me apart will do you no good,” he muttered.
“Tell my hands and feet that.”
“You are responsible for Kitchi’s death. That is the truth!”
Wanchese crowded him with his legs. “Why does that matter to you?”
“That is for you to find out.”
“You are no cousin of mine. Your blood and my blood are not the same. You would be wise to return to Dasemunkepeuc. Determine there your fate.”
Askook touched the welt.
Wanchese walked away.
#
Wanchese gazed across the water toward the not visible mainland. Wavelet tips, the terminus of the orange sun’s illuminating path, flashed. A canoe’s length away, three sanderlings -- throats and faces fire red -- were plunging their long beaks into the low-tide water.
He marveled at the potency of his temper. He was surprised that his blow to Askook’s head had not been followed by a fist to the throat and a crushing knee to the side of the skull.
He savored the idea.
Something inside him had interfered.
Had Askook been a Pomouik, he would not have hesitated. He was a warrior. Any man who chose to make himself an enemy needed to beware. Askook had become such: to him, to his sister, to the children, to Odina and Nuna, therefore, to all of Wingina’s people. The strength of a village was each member’s loyalty to every member. Minor grievances could be overlooked. Persistent verbal attacks signified a hatred that poisoned. He did not believe Askook would – in fact could -- change.
Why had he stopped? Because Wingina and his council determined punishments? He had not thought of that. He had acted spontaneously. Something deep within him had halted him, was refusing to tell him why.
His sister’s influence? She disliked Askook as much as he and was as quick to show it. She, too, detested cruel people. She would surely enjoy seeing the welt he had put on Askook’s face. If he had killed Askook, would she have approved? He did not believe so. Had that thought stopped him? No.
What then?
He did believe his frequent absences had helped Kitchi become too self-willed, had definitely made it easier for him to behave irresponsibly. He had been at Dasemunkepeuc the day Kitchi had taken his canoe through the exit to the Great Waters.
He had not needed Askook’s reminder about blame.
He had struck Askook because Askook had used this tragedy to inflict pain.
He had worked hard not to contemplate Kitchi’s death: his increasing fright; the realization that the storm that had overtaken him was stronger than his will to triumph; the expectation that he would be capsized into the churning waters; his prayers to Kiwasa; being suddenly overturned, separated from the canoe, spun about, driven down, down given no chance to open his mouth to breathe. How long had he fought? Had he willingly succumbed, opened his mouth to swallow? Or had he screamed his defiance?
It occurred to Wanchese that he had not killed Askook because he, nobody else, deserved the pain that Askook had inflicted! What other explanation could there be?
Askook had laid bare his deficiency. He, Wanchese, had instantaneously responded, had again, just as quickly, acted, choosing not to end Askook’s life.
He had suffered deserved punishment.
He would not permit its reoccurrence!
2
On September 8, north of the Azores, Humphrey Gilbert’s two ships passed through a weather front. The men of the Hinde watched the Squirrel mount the peaks and plummet into the canyons of fifty to one hundred foot waves. The light on the Squirrel’s main-mast appeared, disappeared, reappeared. Gilbert, true to his word, remained seated on the stern deck, Utopia in hand.
Later, when the Hinde neared the Squirrel, Gilbert stood. His red hair flapping, he leaned against the railing. The wind carried his voice. "We are as near to heaven by sea as by land." Losing his balance, he seized the top of his sliding chair, righted himself, sat, reopened his book.
A strange man with strange thoughts, more than one crew member had probably thought, the meaning of what Gilbert had said escaping all but the most intelligent.
Their vigil continued into the night. Just before midnight, the sailors of the Hinde saw the Squirrel’s light disappear but not reappear. For several minutes they waited, before they acknowledged that the sea had indeed swallowed the Squirrel and their forty-eight year old commander.
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
Alsoomse (Independent) –17, protagonist
Askook (Snake) – 21, Hurit’s brother and enemy of Alsoomse and Wanchese
Gilbert, Humphrey – colonizer who dies at sea, 44 at time of death
Kitchi (Brave) – Alsoomse and Wanchese’s dead brother, 11 at time of death, 1580
Machk (Bear) – 17, Nuna and Wapun’s brother, friend of Wanchese
Nuna (Land) – 16, Alsoomse’s friend across the lane
Odina (Mountain) – 16, Alsoomse’s friend across the lane
Pules (Pigeon) – 11, Odina’s sister
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
Chapter Four
“All right, I will.” Alsoomse placed her palms behind her. “The two boys – whose father was the sun god -- had killed the monster wolf. They had come back to their home. Their names were Sesigizit and Ooseemeeid.” She looked at each of the young girls. “Remember their names. I will ask you later.”
Pules’s face tightened.
“You better not,” Wapun answered.
Grinning, Alsoomse resumed. “Because they wanted to make strong bows and arrows, they asked their mother where they could find the best of wood.
“‘Far away in the foothills is a ravine, where a forest of just such wood grows,’ the mother said. ‘But the path to the forest is steep and narrow, and a great windigo giant guards it, throws every traveler off a cliff.’”
“How inconvenient,” Askook remarked.
Wapun made a derogatory face.
“There was also a fierce mountain lioness that prowled the path. She had killed and dragged many travelers to her den.”
“Did the mother tell that to the two boys?”
Tihkoosue laughed. Wanchese looked at him, scowled.
“Yes, Pules, she did.” Alsoomse consciously smiled.
“The boys -- Sesigizit and Ooseemeeid – they went there anyway?” Wapun’s teeth glinted.
“We will just have to see.” Alsoomse straightened. “So you remembered their names, just to outdo me!” she said, feigning indignation.
Pules frowned. Wapun giggled.
“Go on,” Tihkoosue said.
“Is there a chance we can guess the outcome?” Askook loosened his neck muscles, leaned backward, yawned.
“Just tell the story, Alsoomse,” Wanchese said.
“Thank you, Brother. Thank you for your interest.”
She turned toward the two girls. “They did leave to find the wood. Up the path they climbed, watchful for the lioness. And, there ahead of them … they saw her! But Sesigizit, the older boy, had a plan!
“‘Lioness, would you tell us,’ he asked politely, ‘where we can find the forest in the ravine that has excellent wood?’
“‘Yes, I am going that way myself. I will show you the way.' Her plan was to lure them close to her den where she would kill them” – Alsoomse raised her eyebrows – “and feed them to her cubs!” Alsoomse smacked her lips.
Tihkoosue grinned.
“So they started up again along the path, which twisted along a ledge. At their left was the terrible cliff and -- far below -- huge, sharp rocks. At their right was the steep wall of the mountain. The lioness wanted the boys to walk ahead of her, but the boys refused. ‘Our mother taught us to respect our elders,’ Sesigizit said.”
Nuna and Odina glanced at Tihkoosue.
“So the lioness let them walk behind her. Soon they came to where the path became very narrow. The boys pretended to be very afraid. They asked if they could walk beside her, putting themselves between her and the wall of the mountain.”
Alsoomse paused. She recognized that Tihkoosue and the two girls knew what was about to happen. Yet they wanted to hear it. She enjoyed as much her listeners’ anticipation and appreciation as she did her creative story-telling. Despite herself, she smiled, remembering the times she had told her young listeners the opposite of what they had expected.
“Afterward,” Alsoomse said, “the boys found the lioness’s den and killed her cubs. They cut off the cubs’ front paws to take home with them.”
“Wait! You … you jumped ahead! What happened … in between?!” Pules appeared suddenly two inches taller.
Machk slapped his right thigh, laughed.
“They pushed her over the cliff! What did you think happened?!” Wapun made her Stupid-Pules face.
“Well, I know that! But how?! The lion was so much bigger!”
“Lioness.”
“You think you are so smart!”
“Go tell Alsoomse their names! Can you?!”
“Their magic sticks,” Alsoomse answered, raising her voice. “They used their magic rabbit sticks.”
“Where would they have been without their magic sticks!” Askook shuddered, exaggeratedly embraced himself.
Pules was pouting. Feeling a tinge of guilt, Alsoomse resumed. “It so happened that the windigo heard the lioness scream as she fell toward the rocks. So he went close to where the path ended and waited. The boys were very high up the mountain now and could see the forest that had the excellent wood. Walking around a bend in the path, they saw the windigo. They quickly shot their arrows at him. He was so big the arrowheads just stung him!”
“Use your magic sticks! Use your sticks!” Tihkoosue exclaimed.
Machk laughed.
“Tihkoosue. Do not get ahead of me,” Alsoomse said, grinning. “Let me finish!”
“Do not use up all the daylight,” Wanchese remarked, the corners of his mouth twitching.
“You do not appreciate a good story!” she countered, eyebrows high. To the others, she said: “The windiigo became very angry. He tried the grab them but he was fat and clumsy and they were quick and nimble. So he began tearing huge rocks out of the mountainside to throw at them. The boys realized they were in great danger.” She stopped, looked lengthily at each of the girls.
“The magic sticks!” Tihkoosue exclaimed.
“Wrong, Tihkoosue. You are right to think that but their father, the sun god, helped them!” She looked at Pules. The girl’s rapt attention made her want to cackle. “He shot his rays straight into the windigo’s eyes so he could not see them. So his rocks missed them! But their arrows were not killing him and they had used almost all they had!”
“What to do?! What to do?!” Askook exclaimed. “I would have run back home screaming ‘Help! Help!’”
“No! They would not!” Pules’s chin jutted. “They are brave! They came to get the wood!”
“Why do you have to spoil this?” Wapun accused.
He smirked.
Alsoomse waved her hands. She said loudly: “It was just the boys’ luck that an old woman came by!” Alsoomse had regained their attention. “The boys talked to her. She was angry at the windigo because he would never let her go to the forest to gather dead sticks for her fire. She told them: ‘The only way to kill that monster is to crack his skull. Then send an arrow into his brain.’ So …”
“Did they do that?”
“Yes, Pules,” Wapun said. “They did that! They cracked his skull with a magic stick and put an arrow in his brain!” She looked at Alsoomse. “Am I right?”
“You are. And that is the end of the story. Any questions?”
They looked at her, surprised. Pules glared. Wapun beamed. Odina’s expression was quizzical. Tihkoosue appeared astonished. How much she enjoyed changing what they expected! Lifting her chin, she asked, “Any lessons?”
Askook, filtering dirt between his fingers, raised his head. “An observation. Too bad Kitchi did not have the sun god protecting him when he took his canoe out into the Great Waters.” He tilted his head, half grinned. “Too bad, also, nobody human was bothering to look after him.” He glanced sideways at Wanchese.
Alsoomse watched her brother rise.
Askook had gone too far.
“Get up!”
Askook stood. He brushed the back of his rear apron.
“Follow me!” Wanchese turned, walked to the center of the lane, faced back. Askook had not moved.
“Are you a coward? Do as he says!” Alsoomse said.
Askook looked at her. “I am not a coward.”
“Then, …?”
“Come with me!” Wanchese, taking long strides, disappeared where the path turned.
“Do not be a woman!” Alsoomse said.
Askook looked at her hatefully. Taking less lengthy strides than Wanchese had, he walked toward the bend.
Wanchese was waiting for him. “Follow me.”
“Why? Where?”
Wanchese turned around, walked ahead.
They arrived at the secluded alcove of spruce branches where Granganimeo had spoken to Wanchese about Tihkoosue.
“Well?” Askook’s eyes wavered. He pressed the heels of his hands against his sides.
“Mind what you say. I am very close to tearing you apart.”
“Do not exaggerate.”
“Should I lose control, I will kill you.”
They stared at each other.
“Well, …” Askook looked away.
“You wear Wingina’s four arrows dyed behind your left shoulder. That is supposed to mean something. You do not show it!”
“I am as loyal to Wingina as any man.” Askook raised his chin, tightened his legs.
“Those arrows mean we are one. We protect each other. We are not each other’s enemy.” Wanchese’s eyes penetrated. “But you make yourself the enemy! You insult, you accuse, you hate.”
“I tell the truth.”
“I see a man who cares only about himself.”
“I see a man who cared so much about himself that he was never here, to watch over his brother.”
Each man’s taut body craved release.
Shoulder muscles straining, Wanchese leaned forward. “There are two things you can choose to do.”
Askook looked at him warily.
“You can be what you are supposed to be. Or you can be our enemy and be banished.”
“Not killed?” Askook mocked.
Wanchese struck him full on the right cheek with the heel of his left hand. Askook went down. He lay still for six or seven seconds, then moved his upper body, groaned.
“Not killed yet?!” Wanchese mocked.
Askook raised himself to a sitting position. A red welt was forming. “Tearing me apart will do you no good,” he muttered.
“Tell my hands and feet that.”
“You are responsible for Kitchi’s death. That is the truth!”
Wanchese crowded him with his legs. “Why does that matter to you?”
“That is for you to find out.”
“You are no cousin of mine. Your blood and my blood are not the same. You would be wise to return to Dasemunkepeuc. Determine there your fate.”
Askook touched the welt.
Wanchese walked away.
#
Wanchese gazed across the water toward the not visible mainland. Wavelet tips, the terminus of the orange sun’s illuminating path, flashed. A canoe’s length away, three sanderlings -- throats and faces fire red -- were plunging their long beaks into the low-tide water.
He marveled at the potency of his temper. He was surprised that his blow to Askook’s head had not been followed by a fist to the throat and a crushing knee to the side of the skull.
He savored the idea.
Something inside him had interfered.
Had Askook been a Pomouik, he would not have hesitated. He was a warrior. Any man who chose to make himself an enemy needed to beware. Askook had become such: to him, to his sister, to the children, to Odina and Nuna, therefore, to all of Wingina’s people. The strength of a village was each member’s loyalty to every member. Minor grievances could be overlooked. Persistent verbal attacks signified a hatred that poisoned. He did not believe Askook would – in fact could -- change.
Why had he stopped? Because Wingina and his council determined punishments? He had not thought of that. He had acted spontaneously. Something deep within him had halted him, was refusing to tell him why.
His sister’s influence? She disliked Askook as much as he and was as quick to show it. She, too, detested cruel people. She would surely enjoy seeing the welt he had put on Askook’s face. If he had killed Askook, would she have approved? He did not believe so. Had that thought stopped him? No.
What then?
He did believe his frequent absences had helped Kitchi become too self-willed, had definitely made it easier for him to behave irresponsibly. He had been at Dasemunkepeuc the day Kitchi had taken his canoe through the exit to the Great Waters.
He had not needed Askook’s reminder about blame.
He had struck Askook because Askook had used this tragedy to inflict pain.
He had worked hard not to contemplate Kitchi’s death: his increasing fright; the realization that the storm that had overtaken him was stronger than his will to triumph; the expectation that he would be capsized into the churning waters; his prayers to Kiwasa; being suddenly overturned, separated from the canoe, spun about, driven down, down given no chance to open his mouth to breathe. How long had he fought? Had he willingly succumbed, opened his mouth to swallow? Or had he screamed his defiance?
It occurred to Wanchese that he had not killed Askook because he, nobody else, deserved the pain that Askook had inflicted! What other explanation could there be?
Askook had laid bare his deficiency. He, Wanchese, had instantaneously responded, had again, just as quickly, acted, choosing not to end Askook’s life.
He had suffered deserved punishment.
He would not permit its reoccurrence!
2
On September 8, north of the Azores, Humphrey Gilbert’s two ships passed through a weather front. The men of the Hinde watched the Squirrel mount the peaks and plummet into the canyons of fifty to one hundred foot waves. The light on the Squirrel’s main-mast appeared, disappeared, reappeared. Gilbert, true to his word, remained seated on the stern deck, Utopia in hand.
Later, when the Hinde neared the Squirrel, Gilbert stood. His red hair flapping, he leaned against the railing. The wind carried his voice. "We are as near to heaven by sea as by land." Losing his balance, he seized the top of his sliding chair, righted himself, sat, reopened his book.
A strange man with strange thoughts, more than one crew member had probably thought, the meaning of what Gilbert had said escaping all but the most intelligent.
Their vigil continued into the night. Just before midnight, the sailors of the Hinde saw the Squirrel’s light disappear but not reappear. For several minutes they waited, before they acknowledged that the sea had indeed swallowed the Squirrel and their forty-eight year old commander.
November 26, 2020
Alsoomse and Wanchese -- Chapter Three -- Scene Three
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.
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.
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.
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.
