The Broken Land(45)

The palisade, forty hands tall, and made of upright pine logs, had an imposing presence. Before Tila had become too ill, she’d personally selected each log by touch. The afterlife soul of those who died violently could not find the Sky Road that led to the Land of the Dead. They were excluded from joining their ancestors in the afterlife and doomed to spend eternity wandering the earth. The souls of such men and women moved into trees. It was these trees with indwelling warrior spirits, that the People cut to serve as palisade logs, thereby surrounding the village with Standing Warriors. When she’d run her fingers over the wood, she’d felt the souls of the warriors that inhabited the logs, and knew each had been very powerful and dedicated to protecting his or her people. There were no better guardians in any world than such men and women.

“Are you ready, Grandmother?” Zateri asked as she held aside the leather curtain.

“Yes, child.”

Zateri steadied Tila’s arm as she ducked beneath the curtain and entered the firelit warmth. Fifty women, or so, were already here, standing about talking softly beneath the great hollow-eyed False Face masks that lined the walls. Each had recently been rubbed with sunflower oil. Their crooked noses and wide mouths shone, framed by long hair.

“Thank you, Granddaughter. You may go to your proper place now.”

“Are you sure you don’t need me to help you—?”

“I must walk the last steps by myself. A high matron can’t afford to look weak before the other matrons, or they will crush her bones with their teeth. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Grandmother.”

Zateri hesitantly released Tila’s arm and walked straight ahead to join the group of “little clan matrons”—village clan leaders who had not risen to the status of village matron, the woman who led all the clans in the village. Most cast vaguely hostile looks in her direction. Zateri was young and too strong-willed for their tastes. They thought her impulsive. Which she was. Only a recklessly impulsive young woman would, after an argument with the chief, strike out to form her own village at the age of fourteen summers. And that, of course, would be today’s main topic. But Tila was prepared for it.

She blinked her dim eyes at the darkness. The sweet tang of hickory smoke filled the house. She was trembling as she propped her walking stick and carefully made the last five steps to the central fire. The other great-grandmothers, Inawa and Yi, respectfully dipped their heads to her. She nodded in return. As she lowered herself to the bench, a slave girl rushed to dunk a tea cup, made from the skull of an enemy warrior, into the boiling bag that hung on the tripod near the fire, and bring it to her.

“This will help warm you, Matron.”

Tila took it, said, “Thank you, girl,” and placed the cup on the bench before her fingers shook it empty.

Now that the great-grandmothers—the leaders of the Wolf Clan ohwachiras—were all settled, conversations hushed. Every eye turned to Tila, matron of the Wolf Clan, and high matron of the Ruling Council of the People of the Hills. She quietly scanned the assembly.

The world had a hierarchy. Great Grandmother Earth stood at the top, followed by Grandmother Moon, Wind Mother, Elder Sister Gaha, Elder Brother Sun, and many others. The ohwachira, the basic family unit, was patterned in the same way. An ohwachira was a kinship group that traced its descent from a common mother, and the members were bound together by the strongest tie known: blood. The ohwachira had great power, for it possessed and bestowed chieftainship titles and held the names of the great people of the past. It bestowed those names by raising up the souls of the dead and requickening them in the bodies of newly elected chiefs, adoptees, or other people. In the same way, if a new chief disappointed the ohwachira, after consultation with the clan, it could take back the name, remove the soul, and depose the chief. It was also the sisterhood of ohwachiras that decided when to go to war and when to make peace.

All three ohwachiras of the Wolf Clan were represented today. Tila’s ohwachira was the largest and most powerful; then came Inawa’s ohwachira, and lastly Yi’s ohwachira.

The titles in the ohwachira were logical, beginning with the status of the eldest “mother,” usually great-grandmother, but in rare cases in the past there had been great-great-grandmothers. After great grandmother, came grandmother, then mother. Mother had a much deeper meaning than just the woman who gave you birth. It was applied to all of her sisters and to all women of her generation in her sisters’ lines of descent. This often confused members of other nations, for they called these same women cousins.

After mother came uncle, meaning only the mother’s brother. The hierarchy continued to elder sister, elder brother, younger sister, younger brother, granddaughter, grandson. Only uncles used the terms niece and nephew. A person’s title, such as eldest daughter, defined her duties and responsibilities to the clan.