The Voyageur by Paul Carlucci

Author:Paul Carlucci
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: tate of nature;war of all against all;colonialism;morality;fur trapping;Canada;nineteenth century;Margaret Atwood;John Banville;Cormac McCarthy
Publisher: Swift Press
Published: 2024-03-18T21:43:45+00:00

32

It was warm inside Namid’s wigwam and Alex opened his coat but felt too shy to take it off, as though there were something presumptuous in such a gesture, something disrespectful. The walls loomed up and above, rising to a conical point overhead. A firepit had been dug into the middle of the frond- and fur-covered floor, and smoke wafted up and out of a hole in the centre of the ceiling. The walls had been covered in hides decorated with long, twisting patterns of beads all red and blue and black, and along the bases of the walls were piles of animal-skin clothing and moccasins and bundles of leather twine and bowls of loose beads. Biskane, free of his cradleboard, sat in the fronds with a doll in his lap, kicking his feet and watching the smoke as it funnelled overhead. Miigwan, stripped to his shirtsleeves, rested his chin in his palm and sat quietly next to Alex, and on the other side of the firepit Namid had crossed her legs in what appeared to be her bedding, hair covering her face as she hunched over a wooden bowl full of plant stems, and these she gathered up into a cylindrical bundle, which she bound tight with thin strips of leather.

After watching her do this for what seemed like an eternity of silence, Miigwan said something like ‘Meenuhzgo?’ And at this Namid issued a drawn-out sigh and flipped her head back and glared at Miigwan for a second, before leaning forward and touching the bundle to the fire and holding it there until it caught and began to smoke. Then she set the bowl in front of her legs and passed her hands through the smoke and brought them to her face as if she were washing it, as if she were rubbing the smoke into her flesh.

Miigwan leaned over and whispered in Alex’s ear: ‘It’s sage. Purifying medicine. She’s smudging her mouth so she can do the ceremony with a pure voice.’

Alex watched as Namid brought the smoke now to her long, thin neck and then down her fur-covered chest and then to her thighs and calves clad in tanned-leather leggings, and then she fixed him with her dark eyes and began speaking rapidly in Ottawa, taking the bundle from the bowl and rising to her feet, walking around the fire and standing over him, and Alex felt confusion contort his face as he looked up at her.

‘She wants you to stand,’ Miigwan said, nudging him in the back.

‘She doesn’t speak French?’

‘She does. English too.’

He turned to Miigwan expecting to see a grin, but l’Indien just nodded at him and moved his mouth as if to say, vas-y, lève-toi, so Alex stood and shifted his weight from foot to foot, then took a step back and cleared his throat and looked at the ground. He smelled smoke from the bundle, and in his peripheral vision he could see Namid moving her hands in the air around his body, as if washing him in the smoke.

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