AHMM, Sep 2005 by Dell Magazine Authors

Author:Dell Magazine Authors [Authors, Dell Magazine]
Language: rus
Format: epub
Publisher: Dell Magazines
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Copyright © 2005 by Doug Allyn.

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The Chant of the Powwow by Janice Law

Dimly over a murmur of voices, Nadie heard the powwow chanting. She thought she was dying at last, but the song continued on, a repetitive murmur unlike the hoarse and expressive voice of the powwow, who knew all the spirits of the earth. And where was the hissing beat of his turtle shell rattle? It would be like him to cheat her, to leave out some essential of the ritual and leave her suspended in agony, physical and spiritual. Yes, she'd been right to plan as she had, to do as she'd done. She was not called Wise for nothing, not even if some called her Pauwau behind her back and hinted they'd turn her in to the English as a witch. Let them try.

For a moment, Nadie's feverish mind ran to thoughts of vengeance, to spells and potions, before she realized that the great pain was gone. The fox gnawing ceaselessly at her bowel had been appeased, killed, driven away. Ahanu, the powwow, her great enemy, had managed what all her medicines, the spells Grandmother Alawa had taught her, and English whiskey, straight from the bottle and burning like fire in the gullet, had not touched. The powwow had done it; she was without pain. Sitting, yes, it appeared she was sitting outside her own wigwam, it must be her own, though there was a strange woman grinding grain beside her. Nadie could see, dimly, stalks of corn and sunflowers, although she did not recognize her garden. She was without pain and that was wonderful, but where had he taken her?

Summer, she was sure, for the woman beside her wore only a light deerskin skirt, and the sunflowers were in full bloom. Just the same, the light was very dim for high summer, neither the pale pink and gold of dawn, nor the deep yellow and red of evening, but a strange illumination like the pallid glow reflected off the thick bellies of clouds at the onset of a storm. Nadie felt frightened, though she missed the sudden skip of her heart and the sound of blood in her ears, the sound that had always terrified her, that had convinced her she was about to die at any moment, her great fear.

She, herself, sat motionless, immobile—could she have been paralyzed? Could that ghostly fox have severed her spinal cord? Perhaps, for there was motion all around, a swirl of colors, strange costumes, high, unintelligible voices. Not her own people, then; they spoke no Algonquin dialect, nothing she knew. They were moving right before her, always moving, and Nadie realized this was the real nature of the transitory world, ephemeral as the summer, a place where men and women passed insubstantial as ghosts.

In the distance, the powwow was still singing. During her great illness, Nadie had not appreciated his stamina. Whatever she thought of him, she had to admit that he was earning his fee, holding her above the pain with his chant and carrying her to the spirit world in his trance.

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