Bear began to catch another wind, and as he continued the initiates sat still and listened. The old warrior paused to look at them. Then he spoke.
“The legends tell about how people are the way they are. The legends were known first by the Ulibahali, the first people who spoke the old language. They had a word for the order of things. That word defines why the primal beings, the rocks, trees, the rivers and hills, are worshipped because they also have a spirit and are close to Master of Breath. They witnessed the peoples’ creation. That word is alive in our legends. I can speak that word only at sacred places honored by Master of Breath. It was the first word spoken. So when I speak it, I tremble. I wait for the silence. It comes and I can commune with Him in the skies. You will know that word one day. To know our ancestors you must know it.”
But Bear didn’t tell them the word. It was not the time or the place. The legends reeled off his tongue. He told his listeners how Grandmother Spider once stole the sun, the life and death of the Sweet Medicine, how the Mudheads did not know how to copulate until Groundhog told them. He told them how the miko of Kialgi lost his medicine, and of how Pasikola fought the lump of pitch.
The initiates soon became thirsty in the afternoon heat. Bear didn’t stop until the stories of pride and passion, lust and envy, vanity and greed, and nobility and loving-kindness of the people were told. By the time the sun had dropped below the clouds late in the day he still had them spellbound. And that was it.
“My talk is ended,” said the old warrior to his twelve initiates, “and I am done with you for today.” Otci, still alert to the old warrior’s legend-giving, turned from Nokusi’s eye and peered down the line of his brothers. They sat quietly in the brightness of the tales, unwilling to break from the grasp Nokusi held over them. Otci now felt a tinge of uneasiness, as he would feel if he showed up late for the departure to a hunt.
Bear spoke again. “The sun is heavy and yellowing now in the west, and my tongue is spent. Go down to the river and cleanse yourselves before returning to your mother’s fire. I will call you again in the morning.” The aged eyes flashed with the intensity of his younger, greener days. “I said it is ended,” he spoke sternly. “Go down to the river. You sit around staring stupidly like children. You are nearly men! Now go!”
Otci rose quickly as the others, too, jumped to their feet. They sprang out of the small clearing like a pack of wild horses, choking the narrow path leading down to the bluff above the river. He stepped aside to let them pass. Running and stumbling over each other, they bounded through the opening in the woods. The river would take them in. To it they would give the spirit so keenly held by their teacher back in the thicket.
Otci let them all run past. He was soaring in the expectancy of the Poskita. Nokusi’s words hung in his ear for that adventure, for his ambitions were formed by the flashing eyes and the broad sweeps of the hand that emphasized the low rumblings and musical quality of his voice in his lesson giving. In the quiet of his walk, he spoke to it from within:
I am strengthened for the fast and for the show of courage. The mockingbirds and the jays and the crows are calling out the woodland song that will lead me to the great silence. Their presence, too, increases my knowledge as does the council talk as I break into this shining, new world.
He walked on a ways.
They are all washing in the river now, he thought. The path lies open. The clamor of creation and the profusion of spirit is all so vigorous. Down the bluff is the source, the Long Person. There, like the strength of Esaugetu Emissee, is the moving water which restores. It takes away the spirit’s pollution that distances us from the divine. It is a living thing and its distance is long.
He reached the water’s edge to find them bathing. They washed in the single devotion which called to each of them: Hobithli (Fog), his companion in all adventures; Katutci (Little Panther), another companion; two ballplayer athletes, Illitci (Killer) and Kunip (Skunk); Tumchuli, the quiet one and, as some suspected, perhaps unready for this trial; the hunters, Fuswa (Bird) and Pinili (Turkey Foot); Lojutci (Little Fist), who scraped out burned-out cedar logs to fashion long canoes; Halpada (Alligator), the tall and guileful one; Eli Francis, the son of Owl clan mother and a white trader; and Hobayi (Faraway), the one different from them all by his silent, distant mien. Otci stripped off his breechcloth and dove into the cool, green water, closing his eyes to feel the water envelop him in a clean freshness.
He swam in the broad flow. Gliding downward in the cool water, he arched his body upward to face the wavelets. Splinters of dancing light flashed on the rippling face of the river. Bursting up to the air, he pressed the water away from his eyes and shook his topknot of hair.
He breathed deeply as he faced the sinking sun, warm on his skin. He recited the prayer of his teachings as the voice in the thicket came alive in his own.
“Receive me, Master of Breath, and cleanse me of the unclean spirit tainted by my absence from you. Make me invincible. Fill me with courage, strength and cunning, as I wash away the impurity from my body and spirit.”
His prayers were strong in the water. He and his brothers had heard them all their lives when they came down to the river to bathe with their fathers and with the elders, the beloved men. The divine words, too, were formed in his memory. Only Nokusi put them in the proper place in the devotions. The far heights where the Master sits behind the sun took the prayers as the river took their spirit’s corruption and bore it away, down to the faraway white water that lies wide at the end of the long journey, at the mouth of the stream that is in the Choctaw country. As Otci stood waist deep in the water, he turned to the east and offered his supplication to the Hiyayalgee, the Light People, holders of the medicine and directors of the wind.
As I tend the fire and keep the good medicine, light the way to the wisdom of my emerging manhood so that my people might praise and honor me. Open my eyes to that which sustains the spirit.
He then completed his bathing. The cool running stream enveloped every part of his lean body. His strong hands gripped muscles along slender arms and legs, and rubbed them to a renewal of power and lightness. Stroking deeply with his palms and fingers, he rubbed away the smell brought on by the long day at the fireside; he stretched away the strain in his back gathered up at the old warrior’s talk. The work he would perform in his mother’s cabin during the green corn rites must be as precise in spirit-calling as this is in cleansing. The dream of measuring up to the feats of his brother, Ispokeega, of surpassing them even, must demand as sure a devotion. The river took the useless away, allowed for the courage to rise up within the new cleanness. So his bathing habits he kept exact.
Otci pressed firmly the muscles of his shoulder so that he might invigorate the strength of his club-swinging and bow-drawing power. Arching to stretch out again the tension and stiffness, he heard the popping of his spine as the gathered concentration of his learning released in the beneficent stream.
He ducked beneath the water to clean his face and hair. His fingers scratched his skull all about its clean-shaven sides and close-cropped hair atop. He rubbed deeply the flesh that spread across his broad cheekbones from a strong, straight nose, as prominent and noble as an eagle’s beak. He rubbed his chin, then the muscles of his neck. Lifting himself up again, he spread his hands out on the surface, then slapped the water once.
Now it is done. Master