Sacajawea (30 page)

“I see clearly now,” whispered Rosebud, “why it was that the white trader, Jussome, contributed the trade cloth to the ceremony. His woman is the one to capture the Devil and thus be an important person in this village.”

“Ai.”
Sacajawea nodded.

From the east side of the arena came a steady beating of drums and rattling of gourds, but Broken Tooth continued to talk, pushing her stringy hair over her eyes, telling how the Evil Spirit can come into anyone if he is not suspecting and watchful at all times. Then she did a fantastic thing. She positioned the black penisupward and spread her legs to straddle it. Slowly she sat down until the thing disappeared, her eyes blazing.

And even as the watchers roared and clapped and made coarse jokes and obscene signs with their hands, laughing and screeching in fever-pitched voices, the solemnity of the Okeepa came to claim the village.

Calling through a thin-walled wild goat horn, the Conductor of the Bull Dance ordered the dancers to halt. The official witnesses entered the Medicine Lodge to judge the bravery of the candidates.

Fast Arrow noticed the Wolf Chief and Chief Black Cat come into the lodge. He felt he was in great danger, but he could not rouse himself to stand on his feet. He was shaking so badly that he could not move. He had suffered hallucinations for some time now, the result of the strict four-day fast and no sleep. Brightly colored images, larger than life, floated past his eyes. He wondered if he had truly seen others enter the lodge. He was lying on his back on a robe. The leather thongs hanging from the top of the scaffolding became long, black bull snakes, writhing. He could not concentrate on the reasons for his fear. He seemed to turn to water inside himself. He had never felt this way before. Finally, with great effort, he turned his head from side to side and saw other candidates lying upon robes. Some seemed asleep. But that could not be. They were watched by seated officials.

Attendants singing a song about bravery worked under the scaffold. One worked on the scalping knife with a stone grinder. Another was sorting the bone splints into separate small piles. Now names were being called.

Fast Arrow managed to stand when it was his turn to go forward, although it did not seem that his bones were stiff enough to support his body. He swayed from side to side, and he felt as if he would fall down. Then a circlet of thorns, prickly pear spines, was jammed onto his head by the Conductor, as one had been placed on each man called before him. He felt a trickle of blood seep over his forehead as the thorns tore into his skin. He imagined the blood oozed onto the dirt floor and inundated his bare feet. From far away the Conductor was speaking about bravery, and of a man many sea-sons before who had worn thorns upon his head and hung high above the crowd.

Fast Arrow did not understand; he could not gather his thoughts enough to make sense of the story. He was frightened and could hardly control himself. He felt as if he must run away, but he was not able to do so. An attendant placed his hand upon Fast Arrow’s shoulder and handed him his medicine bag, directing him to hold it tight no matter what he felt or thought. The man spoke in a low voice. He explained that the center poles from which the rawhide cords hung were set deep into the ground and great stones had been put on the earth around them so that the poles would be held firmly, but Fast Arrow did not hear. He saw only the yellow-and-white diagonal stripes decorating the man’s chest. The stripes wove in and out like small worms crawling over his oiled body.

The man placed the scalping knife under Fast Arrow’s nose so that he could see it. Then he held it up to the sun coming into the lodge from the smoke hole, and he prayed to the spirits of the air. He prayed to the spirits of the earth, and to the spirits of the water. Then he took hold of the skin on Fast Arrow’s right breast, pinched it up, and passed the knife through it. The knife was not sharp; it had been hacked and notched with the stones to produce as much pain as possible. Fast Arrow gritted his teeth and spread his feet to steady himself.

An attendant forced one of the wide bone splints through the wound underneath the breast muscles to keep it from being torn out. A rawhide cord was lowered from the top of the scaffold and fastened to the splint. In the same way, the attendants fastened a cord to Fast Arrow’s left breast. The pain was deep and caused his whole body to throb. Fast Arrow kept his eyes open, but his mind seemed outside somewhere, seeing but not fully believing that this was taking place on his own body.

The knife and additional splints were passed through the flesh on each arm below the shoulder, below each elbow, on each thigh, and below each knee. Fast Arrow could not perceive all this happening. He could hear a candidate groan, and another go
“Ai-ii-iee, ai-ii-iiee”
nearly as fast as he could breathe. He was determined to remain silent. He felt himself falling into a deep pit that was as black as the night. His mind could not bring him out of the pit into the light. His mouth was dry.

The rawhide cords were pulled, and he was suspended just off the ground, blood streaming down his body. His shield, bow, and quiver hung on the splints below his shoulder, elbow, and thigh. A single buffalo skull was hung to the splints below one knee. When the weights were hung on the splints, his mind came back to life. His cheeks pulled up as if trying to lift him out of the pain. His breath sucked into him in little gasps that got louder and louder as his weights bore down. The weights swung clear of the ground.
⁴

Fast Arrow’s head swung forward on his breast, but some of the young men’s heads were thrown backward by the suspension. One young man suspended thus was already dead. His soul was carried away by the beat of the death drums. The warmth of his body left as the blood coagulated on his arms and legs and no longer dripped to the ground. The shrill wailing of women outside could be heard as the death drums beat.

“Y?-hay. “The ominous phrase of ending rolled around the circle of witnesses. There was silence, broken by an outcry from the father of the young man. It was drowned by the heavy, ruthless beat of the death drums. There was no more to be done for that one. His body was pulled down and laid on a clean robe in front of the fire. He was lean and angular. His thin brown arms were laid straight beside him, and his hair freshly greased. On his face was still the echo of horror and agony; they had not been able to shut his eyes. The tireless, heart-shaking monotony of the drums went on. The young man’s face was painted as if for a feast.

Outside in the open arena, the waiting women took up the death chant, each one mourning as though it were her relative that had started his journey to the Land Beyond Sunset. A shell containing the black paint for mourning was passed. Rosebud and Sacajawea painted their faces and loosened their hair. Rosebud ripped her tunic to the waist and, with naked breasts and shoulders, moved quietly to the swaying beat. Thearena fire was built higher, lest the soul not know its way home.

The death drums beat on; they beat in the women’s blood. Sacajawea heard not the singing of the women, only the drums leap and change their rhythm. The women began their circling dance; voices began to chant to the rhythm of the drums. The arena fire gave heat. Even so. Rosebud pulled her tunic up and fastened it with a small stick. She pulled Sacajawea along to the swaying beat. Now they were rising, stealthily, slowly. They were crouching and rising and stepping behind the others, their high voices rising and falling in the terrifying cries of the chant. Swept by the vibrancy, by the pulling of Rosebud, Sacajawea leaped into the circling dance. She was deeply one with the drums and cries; she was singing as she moved in the repeated rhythms. She forgot all but the sound of her own voice, crying with the others, “We shall also follow!” as her arms flung up and her feet stamped with other feet.

The dance slackened, then swept on.

The fortitude with which the finest young men of the Mandans bore the final torture of the Okeepa surpassed credulity. They were completely suspended from wounds in their flesh, and now the attendants turned each around with a pole, gently at first, and then faster and faster until the candidate could control the agony no longer and burst out crying to the Great Spirit to support him.

If death should come to me, Fast Arrow thought, let it be quick.

The attendant and the witnesses now watched each candidate intently, until he hung as if dead, and his medicine bag, which he clung to, dropped to the ground. Then the signal was given and the young man was lowered to the floor of the Medicine Lodge. The cords by which he was suspended were pulled out, leaving the weights hanging to the splints.

No assistance was allowed to be given any man in any way, for each now trusted his life to the keeping of the Great Spirit.

Little by little, the strips of skin and muscle on Fast Arrow’s breast, legs, and arms stretched out longer andlonger. His legs jerked involuntarily under him. He knew that if he had not fasted he would have been incontinent, unable to control the bowel spasms that shook him; if his bladder had been full, that would have emptied without his will long ago.

The drums beat on. Fast Arrow sensed that one candidate was crawling on the ground, screaming, past the witnesses. The witnesses spoke low among themselves; he could not know what they said.

There was silence as the attendants lowered another candidate to the ground and loosened his bindings.

Fast Arrow’s mind wondered if the last man’s skin had broken or if he had dropped his medicine bag. Horrified, he noticed that his hand no longer squeezed hard on the soft leather pouch that held his own medicine collection. He pushed his finger against his palm; there was no feeling. He could not tell if he held the bag, although his fingers seemed circled stiffly around something. He dared open his fingers a little. Nothing; there was nothing! Just as he had thought at first! An attendant suddenly was lowering him to the floor. The dark pit rushed past his ears and swallowed him up. The blessed darkness.

Fast Arrow did not know how long he had been on the ground. He did not care. He felt the vibrations of the drums, and the rhythm of the dancers’ feet pounding on the earth. He gathered the strength and courage to get up on his hands and knees. He knew he could never stand. He crawled to where Redpipe and Four Bears sat by a dusty buffalo skull. He collapsed in front of them, his eyes shut; then he sensed that he was surrounded by light. His ears were sharply aware of a mounting chant and exultant shrieks inside the Medicine Lodge, and the drums—the drums. Finally he opened his eyes. It was too bright! He puzzled over it and squinted his eyes down for a better look. His eyes burned, and he thought he had his face in the fire. But when he tried to see why the fire was in his face, all he could see was a long ray of the afternoon sun coming in through the smoke hole.

Four Bears leaned down and looked at him. He held a sharp hatchet. Fast Arrow did not understand. Had he been a coward?

Four Bears grunted and placed the little finger of Fast Arrow’s left hand on the earth, spread away from his other fingers. Then Four Bears prayed, saying, “Listen, Great Spirit, this is the sacrifice that my son is now making to you. You have heard how he cried to you for help in his deepest agony. Now hear this last prayer.” The hatchet was raised and down before Fast Arrow could wake up his mind. His little finger had been chopped off at the first joint as a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Great Spirit for sparing his life and permitting him to be the adopted son of Four Bears.

Rosebud and Sacajawea both screamed as the first candidates were led outside the Medicine Lodge. All the weights still dragged from their mutilated bodies. Fast Arrow was among these first men. Rosebud tried to go to him, but she was restrained. The Ehkenah-kanahpick, the Last Race, was yet to be endured—and endured within public view.

Each man was taken in charge by two attendants. Rawhide straps were wrapped around his wrist, and these straps were used by the attendants to race him furiously around the sacred ark in the center of the arena. The men struggled to remain on their feet as long as possible. The skulls and other weights dragged behind.

When his endurance could carry him no farther, Fast Arrow fell like a dead man on the ground. His face was blotched green and white, like a peeled sycamore.

He had survived the Last Race of the Okeepa.

Fast Arrow was left to lie where he fell until he could get to his feet without aid. Then, staggering like a drunk, he made his way to Four Bears’s lodge. The crowd opened silently to let him through.

Redpipe, waiting in the lodge of Four Bears, was exultant. His mighty son-in-law had passed the ordeal with bravery and was now considered the Mandan son of Chief Four Bears. He danced, sang, smoked, and danced again.

Fast Arrow crawled through the lodge door that had been left wide open. He could go no farther. The darkness enveloped him again.

Redpipe roused him with water from a buffalo paunch.

What little he was able to drink came back up. “Now, my son,” he said, “you shall sleep in this lodge until your legs once again hold your body up.” Redpipe placed the shield, medicine bag, bow, quiver, and arrows near the couch to which the women carried Fast Arrow. “If you are spoken to in your sleep, remember carefully what is said to you,” he said.

But Fast Arrow was asleep and did not hear the prayers that were said for him.

Sacajawea felt a great nausea engulf her at the sight of Fast Arrow’s mutilated body. She moved out of the lodge and vomited. She felt pride for Fast Arrow, who, Redpipe said, had taken the ordeal without an outburst of protest, but a single thought stayed in the front of her mind. Was this ceremony necessary to prove bravery? This torture that took a man so close to death— why did they do it? Fast Arrow would bear permanent scars. She prayed to the Great Spirit that his muscles would heal properly so that he would not limp and that his arms would not remain so defective they could not be raised past his ears for the rest of his life. Her pride was not filled with elation for Fast Arrow, but with grief. She looked at the silhouetted lodges in the moonlight and felt as though she were passing into another time. The great rocks on the plains and the juniper and sage jutted arrogantly against the pale prairie and were at once older than now. She felt the passing of time within herself, as though it had a demanding quality. It seemed to her that she had lived many lives already; in each one she had done nothing but wander and wander, always straying farther from the People that had been so dear to her.