People of the Sea

One


The lodge had grown unbearably hot, stifling. Sunchaser shoved weakly at the mound of hides that covered him. Sweat drenched his naked body, matting his long black hair to his temples and stinging his deep-set eyes. Cold trickles ran down his sides. He was so tall—twelve hands—that his feet rested uncomfortably against the opposite wall. The fire in the center of the dirt floor had been built up high enough that the flames leaped and crackled. Golden reflections danced across the shiny coating of creosote on the hide ceiling. He studied them through fever-brilliant eyes, and the images wavered like a silvery mirage on the desert.

“Good Plume? Aunt?”

He managed to lift his head enough to look around. The lodge consisted of a pine-pole frame covered with hides. It spread in a rectangle, four body lengths long and one wide. Good Plume was gone, but from the dimly lit corners of the lodge, tiny eyes gleamed as field mice froze at the sound of his voice. For long moments he watched the small creatures before they began to scurry about in search of food. One mouse jumped like a grasshopper onto the log that held down the southern wall. Long whiskers shivered in glints of silver as he sniffed his way around the bases of two soapstone bowls, hopped over a curved throwing stick used for hunting rabbits and stopped beside a winnowing basket. He chewed a bit of wheat-grass chaff while he stared unblinking at Sunchaser, his glossy sides pulsing with his rapid breathing.

Then the mouse zipped behind the winnowing basket as Sunchaser sighed and settled into the robes. A nightmare sensation of helplessness possessed him. His mouth had gone as dry as the autumn grasses. Was it the fever, or did he hear voices… soft, muted words intermixed with the sputters of the fire?

He let his head fall to the left. Sweat slipped over the skin of his face. Along the northern wall stood a row of thirteen baked-clay figurines. They peered at Sunchaser through sparkling dove snail-shell eyes. The Steals Light People. In their hands they held the timeless ebb and flow of divine Power. Above-Old-Man stood at the far end of the lodge, looking down upon the Steals Light People. Like Mother Ocean, he was not one of the Steals Light People, but was greater than all of them. Because of that, his figurine was twice the height of the others, four hands tall. His entire body had been painted pure white, but he wore a black weasel-fur headdress sprinkled with quartz crystals that had been glued on with pine pitch.

Sunchaser blinked wearily at the figurine. It seemed to be watching him intently. “Above-Old-Man…” he murmured reverently. “Your death … gave life to the world.” Sunchaser smiled.

In the Beginning, Above-Old-Man was all that existed. He was soft and shapeless like the clouds. He knew that to create the world, he would have to use part of himself. It took a great act of courage for him to open his veins and allow the blue blood to flow unheeded, but it poured out and turned into the blue waters of Mother Ocean, from which every other life form emerged. The froth on the Mother’s surface gave birth to the Steals Light People: Father Sun, Dawn Child, Winter Boy, the Ice Ghosts, the Thunderbeings, Great White Giant and all the others. Even Sister Earth and Brother Sky were born from the vast blue womb.

First Condor, the biggest bird in the world, sprang to life soon thereafter, created from a ball of Sister Earth’s clay. As Above-Old-Man’s blood drained away, he called to Condor. When Condor came, Above-Old-Man said, “Please, Condor, I am too weak. Let me give you the Power to breathe Life



into the things I have created. You must hurry, before the magic of Creation dies. Otherwise, everything will just be bone and stone and water. It will never feel or think.”

Condor had to fly very fast to cover the whole world before the magic was gone.

While Condor did his duty, Above-Old-Man grew weaker and weaker, until he shrank to nothingness and died. The world lived because of Him and Condor, but Above-Old-Man became cold and white and hard. Mother Ocean wept. She begged the other Steals Light People to help her, and they made a net of seaweed and put Above-Old-Man in it. First Condor carried the net high into the sky, where Above-Old Man was reborn as the moon.

Sunchaser could feel the Power of the Steals Light People; it radiated from them like heat from flames. They made the rains come and winter go. As the children of Above-Old Man, their prayers gave their Father the strength to rise and cross the belly of Brother Sky every night. If the Steals Light People ever failed to pray, the moon would rise no more.

Pinches of sacred acorn meal lay sprinkled at the feet of the clay figurines, just as it was sprinkled on the living Dancers who represented them at the annual ceremonials. Good Plume had laboriously painted these Steals Light People, crushing the colors from plant roots, flowers, berries and clays, working for long hands of time with a frayed willow-twig brush to get the details right. Then she had dressed them in special, ritually blessed clothing–as befitted gods.