Storm Singer

[A chanted song by Silver Fox of the Abnaki, great-granddaughter of Two-Bears]

Four sunsets the sea-storm raged.
Then three canoes of our men went
across the bay to Seabird Island
to fish and hunt.

They had been gone three sunsets,
not due back for another four.
Since the storm the women and children
had been gathering driftwood
from the shoreline
to dry outside our mamateeks.
It would soon be the time
for gathering berries.
Then the People would hunt
before the winter came.
The driftwood was a gift from the storm-god.

Stone Worker, though old, still had good eyes.
While the people gathered wood
he stood on the hillside and watched
for signs of seals or fish close to shore.
He shouted when he saw canoes
coming through the passage between
Muskrat and Marten Islands.
He told them
that there was an extra person
in the second canoe.
Everyone ran to the beach to watch.

‘Why have they come back early,
and who is the stranger’,
they asked each other.
The canoes came up the river mouth
and were pulled well up
on the sand below the village.
Everyone crowded around.
Two of the canoes carried
some birds and fish, but not many.
Had the stranger’s presence driven them away?

The stranger wore no ochre.
He is not one of The People.
His hair was black like the bear
and covered his face as well.
He looked as tall as Two-Bears’ father,
Hunts-with-a-Bow.
His vest was leather and very well sewn.
His leggings were strange,
not of leather,
and wrapped all around his legs
in place of a loincloth.
His moccasins were hard leather,
not soft like ours.
He was not one of the Naskapi traders
from the west,
or one of our Miqmaq enemies
on the Great River.
Everyone asked questions at once.
The children were laughing.
The young women were looking.
The men said nothing.
The mothers were frightened
that this stranger might be
a bad spirit come to steal away the children.
Salmon-Eagle and Two-Bears led him up
the slope to the Shaputuan house in the village.
There was to be a village meeting.

After he lit the sacred fire,
and everyone had been fed,
including the stranger,
Hunts-with-a-Bow gave his report.
‘On a beach on Seabird Island
we found two downed men like the stranger.
There was much driftwood on the beach,
carved wood.
We thought some great canoe was wrecked
on the rocks during the storm.
We found this one barely alive nearby,
and fed him and gave him water.
He did not speak any words we understood.
He had no weapons, no fire, and no tools,
so we brought him back to the village to decide his fate.’

The stranger looked very tired and weary.
There was some worry in his eyes,
but he sat calmly through the meeting.
That night he slept in the Shaputuan
between his guards Salmon-Eagle and Two-Bears.
Their wives wanted their husbands
in their mamateeks with the children,
but they had a duty to complete.

The next morning the meeting continued.
Salmon-Eagle and Two-Bears said
‘the man had caused no trouble in the night.’
Stone Worker, as oldest man in the village,
said he ‘could not remember ever seeing
this kind of person before.’
Hunts-with-a-Bow said
‘we must let the stranger speak on his own behalf,
even if we do not understand him.’

That was only good manners.

Salmon-Eagle and Two-Bears stood the man up
and untied the sinew binding his hands.
Hunts-with-a-Bow motioned for him to speak.
It took some time for the man to understand.
When he did start talking he used
his arms and hands to make gestures.
It was all very entertaining,
even though we didn’t understand.

Then he did a surprising thing.
He started to sing.
His voice was very deep,
and the song sounded sad,
and some people cried.
When he was finished he made a motion
with his right hand across his face and chest,
then sat down between his guards.

The oldest woman, Mist-on-the-Water,
then spoke on the stranger’s behalf.
She said that ‘because he could not answer
any questions, and because he had no weapons,
and had not harmed anyone,
he should not be harmed.
That was good manners.
We are not Miqmaq, who have no manners,’
she said in conclusion.

After she spoke the men made their decision.

They named him ‘Storm-Singer’.
He would not be killed
unless he proved to be an enemy,
but he could not live in the village.
He would be taken to the flat hillock in the marsh.
The women would build him a small mamateek,
start a fire, and give him a cooking bowl
and a week’s food.
The men would show him where to find shellfish,
and give him one stone knife and one fishing spear.
If he lived, he lived.
If he left, that was his decision.

He stayed.
Soon he built a larger Mamateek,
not like ours,
and lived among us for six winters.
He was allowed to fish and hunt with the other men,
and soon learned the language of The People.

Snow Owl went to live with him
because her husband had been killed by a black bear,
and there were no other single men her age.
She had a girl child by him,
but the baby died after a year.
In the seventh year after coming to us he also died.
He was buried near his mamateek.
Snow Owl moved back to the village and did not remarry.
She was childless and twice bitter.

It was decided that the place
of Storm-Singer would not be built on
by any of our people.
The men burned his mamateek.

Soon after that two large grey birds with long legs
came and nested on the knoll
and fed in the swamp.
Every year for many nesting seasons
they were seen there.
We named the marsh after them.

Because of these omens
we do not let our children play in that swamp.

That is my story, my song.