“I suppose, Husband of my sister, that you are normal for your kind? You who braved everything to travel so far north in search of this magical Trade of yours?”
White Bird smiled. “I would like to think I am normal, but no, I suppose I Dream too much.”
“I could Dream of that young woman who ran down to wave at you last night.” Hazel Fire tried to look unconcerned. “A sister of yours, perhaps? Someone you could introduce me to?”
“Sorry.” White Bird had caught his subtle meaning. “She’s Rattlesnake Clan. There’s a chance I might end up married to her. She won’t be Lark, but …”
“She’ll be here,” Hazel Fire supplied with a shrug. “That is the way of things. Though I wouldn’t mind you coming home to be a permanent husband to Lark.”
White Bird kept his eyes on the shimmering wall of mist that hid Sun Town. “You don’t know how tempting that might be. I have no idea of the situation here. I could tell by my mother’s actions last night. By the way she stood. The clans are at it again.”
“And how is that? I would learn what I’m stepping into before it’s on my moccasin.”
White Bird’s preoccupation seemed to vanish. “Oh, you’ll be fine. They’ll treat you right. It’s in the nature of the gifting. You helped to bring the Trade. For that the clans will make you most welcome. Fear not. Just turn your Trade over with a smile, and they will shower you with gifts. Enough to more than fill your canoe before you must head north.”
“This giving interests me.”
“Giving, Trade if you will, is what binds us together. We are a people of parts and pieces. It goes back to the beginning, to the Creation. It is said that in those times we fought with each other, constantly at war. And then, one day, a magical Masked Owl, one of the Sky Beings from the Creation, came spiraling down to tell us that there was a better way.”
Hazel Fire nodded. “Go on.”
“We have two moieties.” White Bird squatted, using his finger to draw a circle in the charcoal-black mud. This he divided into two sections. “Everything we do is meant to achieve balance. My moiety consists of Owl Clan, Alligator Clan, and Frog Clan. Sky, Earth, and Underworld. We are the night side, that of the north.” He divided one-half of the circle into three to denote the clans. “On the other side is the world of day, or the south. The clans are Eagle, Rattlesnake, and Snapping Turtle. Again, Air, Earth and Underworld. Eagles live in the air. Rattlesnakes crawl across the ground and snapping turtles live in the mud underwater.” He divided the southern half of the circle into three sections.
“But that’s a total of six clans.”
“You’re right. Six is the number of directions that make up the world. Your people have four sacred directions: north, south, east, and west. My people believe them to be sacred, too, but we add up and down for a total of six directions. In our stories the clans came together here, at the center of the world, from each of the different directions. My people, my clans, my city, all reflect the world. Opposites crossed, night and day, north and south, east and west, up and down. Everything must be brought together to keep Creation intact. We constantly strive to do that, and gifting is how we accomplish such a seemingly hopeless task. The greatest challenge is to hold the world together. Forces, people, are always trying to split it apart. We have to work constantly to bind it back together.”
“You told me once that your clan will just give all of these things away to people in other clans.” Hazel Fire was frowning. “You won’t take anything back from them? Nothing in Trade? No reciprocity?”
“Oh, we’ll get our value back,” White Bird assured. “We just won’t get it in things. Our return comes from the influence our Clan Elder and Speaker have in the Council. We don’t collect large amounts of things because that would create envy. People who covet what other people have turn wicked, their souls are the perfect home for evil. But if you give necessary things to the needy, they cannot feel slighted. In turn, when you need, they will provide. We have a very complicated system of give-and-take. It works, it keeps us together, and we keep the Creator happy.”
“But I know you were worried when we arrived last night. You and Yellow Spider were unsure about your homecoming.”
White Bird nodded absently. “I didn’t say that we do not compete with each other. It would have been very different had another clan gained ascendancy. My arrival could have proved, well, shall we say, uncomfortable, for Alligator or Snapping Turtle Clan had they become dominant.”