Under the earth and flat stones.
Few are the acorns,
Past is the time for berries,
Fled are the fishes, the prawns and the grasshoppers,
Blown far are the grass-seeds,
Flown far are the young birds,
Old are the roots and withered.
Built are the fires for the meat.
Laid are the boughs for sleep,
Yet thy people cannot sleep.
Red Cloud, thy people hunger.
Red Cloud (Still descending.) Good hunting! Good hunting!
Hunters Good hunting! Good hunting!
(Completing the descent, Red Cloud
motions to the meat-bearers. They throw
down their burdens before the women,
who greedily inspect the spoils.)
MEAT SONG OF THE NISHINAM
Meat that is good to eat,
Tender for old teeth,
Gristle for young teeth,
Big deer and fat deer,
Lean meat and fat meat,
Haunch-meat and knuckle-bone,
Liver and heart.
Food for the old men,
Life for all men,
For women and babes.
Easement of hunger-pangs,
Sorrow destroying,
Laughter provoking,
Joy invoking,
In the smell of its smoking
And its sweet in the mouth.
(The younger women take charge of the meat,
and the older women resume their acorn-pounding.)
(Red Cloud approaches the acorn-pounders
and watches them with pleasure.
All group about him, the Shaman to the
fore, and hang upon his every action, his
every utterance.)
Red Cloud The heart of the acorn is good?
First Old Woman (Nodding.) It is good food.
Red Cloud When you have pounded and winnowed and
washed away the bitter.
Second Old Woman As thou taught'st us, Red Cloud, when the
world was very young and thou wast the first man.
Red Cloud It is a fat food. It makes life, and life is good.
Shaman It was thou, Red Cloud, gathering the acorns
and teaching the storing, who gavest life to the
Nishinam in the lean years aforetime, when the
tribes not of the Nishinam passed like the dew
of the morning.
(He nods a signal to the Old Man.)
Old Man In the famine in the old time,
When the old man was a young man,
When the heavens ceased from raining,
When the grasslands parched and withered,
When the fishes left the river,
And the wild meat died of sickness,
In the tribes that knew not acorns,
All their women went dry-breasted,
All their younglings chewed the deer-hides,
All their old men sighed and perished,
And the young men died beside them,
Till they died by tribe and totem,
And o'er all was death upon them.
Yet the Nishinam unvanquished,
Did not perish by the famine.
Oh, the acorns Red Cloud gave them!
Oh, the acorns Red Cloud taught them
How to store in willow baskets
'Gainst the time and need of famine!
Shaman (Who, throughout the Old Man's recital, has
nodded approbation, turning to Red
Cloud.)
Sing to thy people, Red Cloud, the song of
life which is the song of the acorn.
Red Cloud (Making ready to begin) And which is the song of woman, O Shaman.
Shaman (Hushing the people to listen, solemnly) He sings with his father's lips, and with the
lips of his father's fathers to the beginning of time
and men.
SONG OF THE FIRST MAN
Red Cloud I am Red Cloud,
The first man of the Nishinam.
My father was the Coyote.
My mother was the Moon.
The Coyote danced with the stars,
And wedded the Moon on a mid-summer night
The Coyote is very wise,
The Moon is very old,
Mine is his wisdom,
Mine is her age.
I am the first man.
I am the life-maker and the father of life.
I am the fire-bringer.
The Nishinam were the first men,
And they were without fire,
And knew the bite of the frost of bitter nights.
The panther stole the fire from the East,
The fox stole the fire from the panther,