The Year of Rice and Salt

Keeper of the Wampum had some Neutral youths round up the other sachems, and they wandered around the grounds until they found all fifty. When they returned Fromwest was sitting in a group, holding out a lacrosse ball between thumb and forefinger. He had big square hands, very scarred.

I Here, let me mark the world on this. The world is covered by water, mostly. There are two big islands in the world lake. Biggest island is on opposite side of world from here. This island we are on is big, but not as big as big island. Half as big, or less. How big the world lakes, not so sure.'

He marked the ball with charcoal to indicate the islands in the great world sea. He gave Keeper the lacrosse ball. 'A kind of wampum.'

Keeper nodded. 'Like a picture.'

'Yes, a picture. Of the whole world, on a ball, because the world is a big ball. And you can mark it with the names of the islands and lakes.'

Keeper didn't look convinced, but what he was put off by, Iagogeh couldn't tell. He instructed the sachems to get ready for the council.

Iagogeh went off to help with the clean up. Fromwest brought bowls over to the lakeside to be washed.

'Please,' Iagogeh said, embarrassed. 'We do that.'

'I am no one's servant,' Fromwest said, and continued to bring bowls to the girls for a while, asking them about their embroidery. When he saw Iagogeh had drawn back to sit down on a bit of raised bank, he sat on the bank beside her.

As they watched the girls, he said, 'I know that Hodenosaunee wisdom is such that the women decide who marries whom.'

Iagogeh considered this. 'I suppose you could say that.'

'I am a Doorkeeper now, and a Hawk. I will live the rest of my days here among you. I too hope to marry some day.'

'I see.' She regarded him, looked at the girls. 'Do you have someone in mind?'

'Oh no!' he said. 'I would not be so bold. That is for you to decide. After your advice concerning lacrosse players, I am sure you will know best.'

She smiled. She looked at the festive dress of the girls, aware or unaware of their elders' presence. She said, 'How many summers have you seen?'

'Thirty five or so, in this life.'

'You have had other lives?'

'We all have. Don't you remember?'

She regarded him, unsure if he was serious. 'No.'

'The memories come in dreams, mostly, but sometimes when something happens that you recognize.'

' I've had that feeling.'

'That's what it is.'

She shivered. It was cooling down. Time to get to the fire. Through the net of leafy branches overhead a star or two winked. 'Are you sure you don't have a preference?'

' None. Hodenosaunee women are the most powerful women in this world. Not just the inheritance and the family lines, but choosing the marriage partnerships. That means you are deciding who comes back into the world.'

She scoffed at that: 'If children were like their parents.' The offspring she and Keeper had had were all very alarming people.

'The one that comes into the world was there waiting. But many were waiting. Which one comes depends on which parents.'

'Do you think so? Sometimes, when I watched mine – they were only strangers, invited into the Long House.'

'Like me.'

'Yes. Like you.'

Then the sachems found them, and took Fromwest to his raising up.

Iagogeh made sure the cleaning was near its finish, then went after the sachems, and joined them to help prepare the new chief. She combed his straight black hair, much the same as hers, and helped him tie it up the way he wanted, in a topknot. She watched his cheery face. An unusual man.

He was given appropriate waist and shoulder belts, each a winter's work for some skilful woman, and in these he suddenly looked very fine, a warrior and a chief, despite his flat round face and hooded eyes. He did not look like anyone she had ever met, certainly not like the one glimpse she had had of the foreigners who had come over the eastern sea to their shores. But she was beginning to feel he was familiar anyhow, in a way that made her feel peculiar.

He looked up at her, thanking her for her help. When she met his gaze she felt some odd sense of recognition.

Some branches and several great logs were thrown on the central fire, and the drums and turtleshell rattles grew loud as the fifty sachems of the Hodenosaunee gathered in their great circle for the raising up. The crowd drew in behind them, manoeuvring and then sitting down so all could see, forming a kind of broad valley of faces.