Blue Ravens: Historical Novel by Gerald Vizenor Page B

peyote ceremonies started at sundown, so we waited and listened near the lake. We were too young to use peyote, and we had no obvious need to be healed at the time, but we were curious about visionary stories. There were several cabins in the woods, so we slowly ambled around the lake and listened for any soundof the ceremony. Finally, several hours later we heard an eagle whistle and the fast sound of drums.
    The peyote ceremony was held in a wigwam in the woods a short distance from the lake. The mongrel healers circled the horse when we dismounted in the dark, so we walked to the nearby cabin and tied the horse to a post. Misaabe, the old healer, invited us into his tiny cabin, and at the same time the mongrels pushed through the rickety door. We had been there only once last summer. The cabin was dark, lighted by a tiny kerosene lantern, and the oil was scented with cedar.
    Misaabe sat naked on a plank bench near the cook stove. He seldom wore clothes in the summer, and only covered his body in winter, and when he was on duty with the mongrel healers at the hospital. Doctor Mendor paid the old healer for the services of the mongrels at the hospital, and always brought food, sometimes even dog food, and chocolate when he gathered nearby for a peyote ceremony.
    No other public health doctor had promoted the mongrel healers on the reservation. The mongrels detected by the scent of urine, bare skin, bad breath, sweat, and by muscle tension various diseases. The mongrels were not shy about pushing their noses into the crotch of a human, and they had learned how to quickly pitch the hem of a dress and sniff the genitals of a woman. The doctor was amused by the disease detection practices of the mongrels, but the nurses tightened their dresses and sidestepped the mongrel healers.
    Liver, kidney, pancreas, thyroid, and stomach diseases were detected and treated by the doctor, but most tumors were not treatable by ordinary medicine. Surgery was dangerous and the last resort. The mongrel healers detected and now and then healed the most serious diseases.
    Misaabe trained the mongrels to sing, smile, nudge, nuzzle, and heal the patients in the hospital. Some patients resisted the healing energy of the mongrels because they could not accept the natural spirit of animals, and because they could not imagine the presence of a disease.
    Misaabe once told a federal surveyor, a man who had marked and divided reservation land into government allotments, that the ice woman caused his tumors. He encouraged the surveyor to locate by imagination the tumor in his body as a chunk of ice and then slowly day by day concentrate on the location and melt the ice away. The man could not imagine achunk of ice in his body. He could not create or envision a scene or story to survive.
    Misaabe and his mongrels healed serious diseases of more natives than the hospital doctors. Most of the government agents could not create stories, and could not imagine a disease. The ice woman stories were sources of fear and caution. That very sense of fear in stories of the ice woman could be imagined as the power to heal a disease.
    Misaabe and the mongrels were natural healers. Sometimes he told natives to concentrate and imagine scenes of the ice woman and then melt the disease away with a song or story. Naturally, natives and others worried when the mongrels sniffed too closely. Any lingering scent could be the detection of disease. Harmony, a spaniel mongrel, had a nose much colder than the stories of the ice woman. The four other mongrels were distinct healers. Shimmer nuzzled and her body glowed when she sang. Nosy was skinny, tender, curious, and could heal anyone with her dark, watery eyes. Ghost Moth was so named because of his faint and misty coat. Mona Lisa was an artful healer by secretive smiles, a poser, and her gentle furry paws were crossed at rest. Misaabe named the young mongrel healer last summer when the Tomahawk reported that the Mona Lisa by