The Year of Rice and Salt

Pointing the skull at Iagogeh, who felt her heart skip within her 'You would never have known before what to do with your great power, 0 my sister. You would never have been able to teach Keeper so much.

'We grow together, as the Buddha told us would happen. Only now can we understand and take on our burden. You have the finest government on this Earth, no one else has understood that all are noble, all are part of the One Mind. But this is a burden too, do you see? You have to carry it – all the unborn lives to come depend on you! Without you the world would become a nightmare. The judgment of the ancestors' swinging the skull around like a pipe to be smoked, gesturing wildly at the bone house. His head wound was bleeding freely now and he was weeping, sobbing, the crowd watching him open mouthed, travelling out now with him into the sacred space of the shaman.

'All the nations on this island are your will be brothers, your will be sisters. This is how you should greet them. Hello, will be brother! How fare you? They will recognize your soul as theirs. They will join you as their elder brother, showing them the way forward. Struggle between brothers and sisters will cease, and the league of the Hodenosaunee will be joined by nation after nation, tribe after tribe. When the foreigners arrive in their canoes to take your land, you can face them as one, resist their attacks, take from them what is useful and reject what is harmful, and stand up to them as equals on this Earth. I see now what will happen in the time to come, I see it! I see it! I see it! I see it! The people I will become dream now and speak back to me, through me, they tell me all the world's people will stand before the Hodenosaunee in wonder at the justice of its government. The story will move from long house to long house, to everywhere people are enslaved by their rulers, they will speak to each other of the Hodenosaunee, and of a way things could be, all things shared, all people given the right to be a part of the running of things, no slaves and no emperors, no conquest and no submission, people like birds in the sky. Like eagles in the sky! Oh bring it, oh come the day, oh oooooooooooohhhhhhh…'

Fromwest paused then, sucking in air. Iagogeh approached him and tied a cloth around his head, to staunch the bleeding from his wound. He reeked of sweat and blood. He stared right through her, then looked up at the night sky and said 'Ah,' as if the stars were birds, or the twinkling of unborn souls. He stared at the skull as if wondering how it got there in his hand. He gave it to Iagogeh, and she took it. He stepped towards the young warriors, sang feebly the first part of one of the dance songs. This released the men from the spell cast over them, and they leapt to their feet, and the drumming and rattling picked up again. Quickly the dancers surrounded the fire.

Fromwest took the skull back from Iagogeh. She felt as if she was giving him his head. He walked slowly back to the bone house, weaving like a drunk, looking smaller with every weary step. He went inside without a torch. When he came out his hands were free, and he took a flute given him, and returned to the edge of the dance. There he swayed feebly in place and played with the other musicians, tootling rhythmically with no particular melody. Iagogeh shuffled in the dance, and when she passed him she pulled him back into the line, and he followed her.

'That was good,' she said. 'That was a good story you told.'

'Was it?' he said. 'I don't remember.'

She was not surprised. 'You were gone. Another Fromwest spoke through you. It was a good story.'

'Did the sachems think so?'

'We'll tell them to think so.'

She led him through the crowd, testing the look of him against one maid or another who had occurred to her as possibilities. He did not react to any of these pairings, but only danced and breathed through his flute, looking down or into the fire. He appeared drained and small, and after more dancing Iagogeh led him away from the fire. He sat down crosslegged, playing the flute with his eyes closed, adding wild trills to the music.

In the time before dawn the fire crumbled to a great mound of grey coals, glowing orangely here and there. Many people had gone into the Onondagas long house to sleep, and many others were curled like dogs in their blankets on the grass under the trees. Those still awake sat in circles by the fire, singing songs or telling stories while they waited for dawn, tossing a branch on the fire to watch it catch and blaze.

Iagogeh wandered the lacrosse field, tired but buzzing in her limbs from the dance and the tobacco. She looked for Fro mwest, but he was not to be found, in long house, on meadow, in the forest, in the bone house. She found herself wondering if the whole marvellous visitation had been only a dream they had shared.