People of the Weeping Eye (North America's Forgotten Past) by W. Michael Gear, Kathleen O'Neal Gear
Authors: W. Michael Gear, Kathleen O'Neal Gear
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Horned Serpent River like some oversize thumb. Below its steep bluff, the sluggish brown waters swirled and eddied. At the root of the thumb a tall palisade—six hundred paces in length and offset by archers’ platforms
atop bastions—guarded the land approaches. Behind its secure heights, square houses had been built in haphazard clusters. Additional ramadas, elevated granaries, and charnel houses filled the open spaces. Elite houses and a platform mound that supported a tall chieftain’s palace with its peaked roof of thatch dominated the center of the town. A tchkofa, or council house, stood to one side of the square plaza, as did the warriors’ lodge and several of the Priest’s temples. The Women’s House had been built across the plaza from the warriors’ lodge. There the adult females of the White Arrow Chief Clan retired to spend their menses in seclusion, away from men and isolated from artifacts and places of Power.
Inside the structure, firelight flickered on mud-plastered walls. It gleamed on the peeled wooden posts that supported a heavy roof. The room measured ten by ten paces, with a puddled clay hearth in the center of the floor. Sleeping benches lined the walls, each belonging to a specific lineage or clan. The walls had been painted red, the color of a woman’s cyclical bleeding. Looms, pottery molds, and half-finished textiles, along with containers of partially crafted shell beads, offered entertainment to the occupants while they spent their three or four days of solitude.
On this night, two women occupied the room. One old and self-possessed, the other young, with the energy of a caged lark. The elder, called Old Woman Fox, studied her granddaughter curiously as the young woman added another length of wood to the fire.
When young Morning Dew looked up, she could see the latticework of poles in the ceiling and make out the cord that bound thick shocks of thatch together. All was covered with a fine coating of soot that softened the lines. Here and there, bundles hung from cords. Some were net bags filled with herbs; others held bone tubes for sucking cures. Leather sacks contained different pigments to be mixed with grease to create paints. The
colors were used ceremonially to adorn bodies, carvings, and woodwork.
Benches had been built along the walls to a midthigh height above the floor. People thought that no flea could jump that high, and thus the sleepers were safe from vermin. Morning Dew, however, knew that to be false. Most women spent their days squatting or kneeling on the floor mats. There they had ample exposure to fleas. Once they took them to bed, the little beasts infiltrated both hides and corn-shuck bedding to bedevil everyone.
“It’s a fib,” her mother, Matron Sweet Smoke, had once confided. “Actually, the sleeping benches are built to be under smoke level. High enough for easy breathing, but low enough that the smoke keeps mosquitoes at bay. And in winter, that’s where heat from the winter fires keeps a person at just the right temperature.”
Morning Dew had always wondered why some nonsensical explanations supplanted the perfectly reasonable.
Below the sleeping benches lay wooden boxes with intricately carved sides that depicted flowers, bees, and spiders. Others were decorated with geometric and spiral designs and painted in gay yellows, reds, blues, and greens. Here and there incised ceramic jars, water bottles, and beautiful baskets stored foodstuffs, grease, tools, and personal effects. Each container was the inviolate property of its owner.
“Is it time to change your padding?” Old Woman Fox asked from where she knelt across the fire. She was spinning myrtle fibers into cordage, holding one end and rolling the fibers against her thigh.
Morning Dew made a face and reached under her short skirt to retrieve the pad of hanging moss from between her legs. She tossed the sticky bundle into the fire and said, “Sacred Fire, make my red into
atop bastions—guarded the land approaches. Behind its secure heights, square houses had been built in haphazard clusters. Additional ramadas, elevated granaries, and charnel houses filled the open spaces. Elite houses and a platform mound that supported a tall chieftain’s palace with its peaked roof of thatch dominated the center of the town. A tchkofa, or council house, stood to one side of the square plaza, as did the warriors’ lodge and several of the Priest’s temples. The Women’s House had been built across the plaza from the warriors’ lodge. There the adult females of the White Arrow Chief Clan retired to spend their menses in seclusion, away from men and isolated from artifacts and places of Power.
Inside the structure, firelight flickered on mud-plastered walls. It gleamed on the peeled wooden posts that supported a heavy roof. The room measured ten by ten paces, with a puddled clay hearth in the center of the floor. Sleeping benches lined the walls, each belonging to a specific lineage or clan. The walls had been painted red, the color of a woman’s cyclical bleeding. Looms, pottery molds, and half-finished textiles, along with containers of partially crafted shell beads, offered entertainment to the occupants while they spent their three or four days of solitude.
On this night, two women occupied the room. One old and self-possessed, the other young, with the energy of a caged lark. The elder, called Old Woman Fox, studied her granddaughter curiously as the young woman added another length of wood to the fire.
When young Morning Dew looked up, she could see the latticework of poles in the ceiling and make out the cord that bound thick shocks of thatch together. All was covered with a fine coating of soot that softened the lines. Here and there, bundles hung from cords. Some were net bags filled with herbs; others held bone tubes for sucking cures. Leather sacks contained different pigments to be mixed with grease to create paints. The
colors were used ceremonially to adorn bodies, carvings, and woodwork.
Benches had been built along the walls to a midthigh height above the floor. People thought that no flea could jump that high, and thus the sleepers were safe from vermin. Morning Dew, however, knew that to be false. Most women spent their days squatting or kneeling on the floor mats. There they had ample exposure to fleas. Once they took them to bed, the little beasts infiltrated both hides and corn-shuck bedding to bedevil everyone.
“It’s a fib,” her mother, Matron Sweet Smoke, had once confided. “Actually, the sleeping benches are built to be under smoke level. High enough for easy breathing, but low enough that the smoke keeps mosquitoes at bay. And in winter, that’s where heat from the winter fires keeps a person at just the right temperature.”
Morning Dew had always wondered why some nonsensical explanations supplanted the perfectly reasonable.
Below the sleeping benches lay wooden boxes with intricately carved sides that depicted flowers, bees, and spiders. Others were decorated with geometric and spiral designs and painted in gay yellows, reds, blues, and greens. Here and there incised ceramic jars, water bottles, and beautiful baskets stored foodstuffs, grease, tools, and personal effects. Each container was the inviolate property of its owner.
“Is it time to change your padding?” Old Woman Fox asked from where she knelt across the fire. She was spinning myrtle fibers into cordage, holding one end and rolling the fibers against her thigh.
Morning Dew made a face and reached under her short skirt to retrieve the pad of hanging moss from between her legs. She tossed the sticky bundle into the fire and said, “Sacred Fire, make my red into
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