When the animals were people, Deer and his little son were fishing, and the boy fell asleep. Some Wolf people passed in a canoe, and Deer derided them, speaking so low they did not hear him. Another canoe passed, and again he said:
‘Are you going home, you raw-eaters?’
They asked what he had said, and he answered,
‘I just spoke about your having such a fine day to move.’
But they had heard his insult, and they dragged him out of his canoe into theirs,
leaving the little boy asleep in the canoe. So he became a slave to the chief of the Wolves. The wife of the chief one day ordered him to sharpen two knives for her. He went to the beach, and as he rubbed the shell knives on the stone, he sang:
‘Knife, knife, knife, knife, knife! I am making a sharp knife for the woman Wolf chief!
He decided to hide one of the knives and say it was broken; so he placed it at the corner of the house, and took the other to the Wolf woman, saying,
She asked where he had thrown it, and he answered,
‘it was broken in small pieces that could not be put together, and I threw them into the water.’
That night the chief said to Deer,
“Come and tell me a story that will make me sleep.”
So Deer sat beside him as he lay on the floor leaning his head against the bed, and began to tell a story; and soon the chief and all the others fell asleep. Then Deer slipped out and recovered the knife, cut off the chief’s head and placed it on the prow of a canoe, and paddled for home, singing a boasting song about the Wolf chief’s head. When the chief’s wife awoke, she gave him a push and said,
There was no response and she perceived that the floor was wet. When she looked more closely and saw that his head was gone, she began to wail, and the people rushed in. It was soon discovered that Deer was missing. Living in the village was Aupuwaik “wren,” who could see everything, no matter how far away. He saw where Deer was, and called on Crane to bring out his box and release a fog. So Crane opened his box, and fog covered the water so thickly that Deer could not see his way, and becoming confused, returned to the Wolf village, thinking he was on his way home. Now the Wolves, with teeth sharpened in anticipation, were waiting on the beach. Deer stepped ashore, and then saw the Wolves. He leaped into a tree, and the Wolves, unable to follow him, began to gnaw off the roots; but when the tree fell, Deer leaped into another. So it went, until the Wolves, exhausted, assembled to discuss what they should do. Nobody knew what was best, and they sent for Wren.
As he came in, Elk sneered, “Such a little man, and we always have to wait for him!”
Wren sat down beside him and said…
I have been memorizing faces since I was a child. Mimicking smiles and grins. Faking chins and brows. But over time, the face in the mirror refused to match mine: Wondering whether does fight for the title of this 28-year-old as it re-examines her face today. Hunting for clues, with no hand to guide me here but my own. Revealing a question I do not ever need to ask because, in any light, the answer is so clear and bright.
Joan Didion writing about engines (The American variety) in her essay,
“Even lacking any clue as to what Mother said, one can scarcely fail to be impressed by the entire incident: the father reading, the Indians filing in, the mother choosing the words that would not alarm, the child duly recording the event and noting further that those particular Indians were not, “fortunately for us,” hostile. Indians were simply part of the donnée.”
Mother kindly changing all the names in the fairy tales. Father quietly singing to me the Jackson Browne tune that lulled me asleep. Stealing off into dark corners to read The Moorchild over and over. They are the hallmarks of my childhood.
But I remember faces quite well. And one face in particular haunts my memory. Because it seems to fit me these days. An old photograph, and though I have never really known the man in the photo, an image keeps popping into my mind. I run to the mirror. And the faces now match so well. No need to mock it this time.
Maybe I don’t have a dirty face... It’s the kind of face that tends to rebel the older I get. It’s the kind of face. . It’s a wild face.
I don’t even need to say anything at all. It’s that kind of face.
“Well, why do you not think, and make up your mind about this, you big man? Such a big nosed thing!”
“I will crush you with my arm if you do not keep silence,” threatened Elk.
“Try it, and I will go into your nose!” answered Wren.
But Elk would not give up the quarrel, and suddenly Wren darted into his nostril, and the big man began to sneeze. When he was almost dead, Wren came out, and they were at choose with each other. Then Wren taught them a song about the arms and legs of Deer falling down from the tree, and they were to sing it while dancing around the tree. Lying there was a fallen tree with one end raised above the ground, and in passing under it they forgot the song and had to go back to Wren. Four times this happened before they knew the song, and then they sang it four times, going about the tree four times. One of Deer’s legs fell down, and the Wolves leaped upon it and devoured it. Thus successively were brought down and devoured the other leg, the two arms, and the body of Deer. But the stomach was not eaten, for Deer had begged them not to eat it. That is why wolves never eat the stomach of a deer.
*Text from Edward Sheriff Curtis’ The North American Indian and Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem
