Svaha - Charles de Lint - Mass Market Paperback - REPRINT

ONE 1 Rattle and drum. It was beautiful music. Deer hoof rattles and cedar-shelled water drums. The clatter of bird quills against the skins of the hoop band drums. Speaking to theanimiki, the grandfather thunders. The voices of the People raised in song. "Midewewigun, n'gaganoodumaugonaun," they sang. The drums speak for us. In the clear night skies, theanimikirumbled. Giwitaweidang, the scout thunder that goes all around the sky. Andjibnes, the renewer of power. "Mino-dae aeshowishinaung," the People sang. "Tchi minoinaudiziwinaungaen." Fill our spirits with good; upright then may be our lives. The underpinning rhythm of the drums spoke to the feet of the dancers, to the shaking rattles in their hands, the stamping of their heels. A Parting Dance. Alone in the center, one man sat, his water drum speaking under the palms of his hands. "N'midewewigunim, manitouwiyauwih," he sang. Upon my drum bestow the mystery. "K'neekaunissinaun, ani-maudjauh," the People replied. Our brother, he is leaving. Not to walk the Path of Souls, but to walk in the Outer Lands. "K'neekaunissinaun, zunugut ae-nummook." Our brother, difficult is the road. Alone he drummed by the post of a living green tree that had been cut and then erected in the center of the glade. A great fire burned beside it. "K'neekaunissinaun, kego binuh-kummeekaen," the People sang. Our brother, do not stumble. They sang to him, of the path he would take, as though he had died, as though he would never return during this turn of the world's wheel. In some ways, it was true, for to walk the Outer Lands meant one could not return, whether one lived or one died. To the tribe, it would be as though he died. So they sang to him and let their drums speak to the thunders, asking the grandfathers to bestow their medicine on him to give him strength on his journey. He acknowledged the gift. "Kikinowautchi-beedaudae," he sang. It shall be written. Then he set his water drum aside and rose to dance. He offered his hand to the oldest of the women present. Maudji-GeezhigquaeMoving Sky Woman. His uncle's mother. In conducting her to the dance, through the joining of the hands of young and old, he sought to gain endurance from her long life. It was also the hand of man espousing that of woman, the giver of life. Other women then rose and danced. Old men joined, followed finally by the very young. The water drums continued to speak. Theanimikireplied. The bird quills on the hoop band drums and the rattles in the hands of the dancers added a high counterpoint rhythm. Now they represented amadjimadzuin, a moving line, an earthly Milky Way connecting those who have gone before with those who follow. The old singers often told of the Milky Way stars that rode the skies at night, how they were a part of an enormous bucket-handle that held the earth in place. If ever it broke, the world would come to an end. So it was with the chain ofmadjimadzuin. When it broke, a clan ended. The People danced thatmadjimadzuinnow to assure their departing brother that the tribe would continue, that it would hold a place for him. They would meet again in the west, across the river that separates Epanggishimuk, the Land of Souls, from the world of the living. They would meet again in that spirit realm joined only to this world bymeekunnaug, the Path of Souls. He would be reborn from Epanggishimuk, into the tribe once more. Themadjimadzuinwould remain unbroken. * * * Later he stood in the Lodge of Medicine with amedeof hisde Lint, Charles is the author of 'Svaha - Charles de Lint - Mass Market Paperback - REPRINT' with ISBN 9780812534092 and ISBN 0812534093.