The distant sounds of wooden drums reached them from somewhere north of the cliff. It was joined by sounds resembling those of pan pipes. Singing joined the music. Gordon looked at Tonton. “What is that?”
“You are being called to the Love, God’n. The peoples of Black Mountain are there to guide you into your marriage with Pela.” The naticha stood and faced him. “See if there might be something in it worth saving for the times to come.”
The Love was held back in the north hills beneath the stars in a snowy clearing surrounded by giant cedars. There was a large fire for light and warmth and a group of seven men on the fire’s east side beating with sticks upon hollowed logs working up a rhythm that, as Gordon sat among the gifted upon a winter bearskin, was joined by the pan pipers and the voices of thirty or so young girls and boys. The girls were from as young as six or seven up to in their early twenties and they circled the fire in a deliberately suggestive yet humorous dance. These were the unmarried girls dancing for their older sister’s good fortune, and for that special pair of eyes in the surrounding audience of bachelors.
In a moment the young girls were replaced by another set of dancers. “Married,” informed a man to Gordon’s left who introduced himself as Aukis. He was a pointmaker and he pointed out his bride of eleven years, Tijin. The wife of Aukis was a formidable woman who danced as though she were killing mice with her moccasin-boots. Aukis held seven fingers up and grinned. “Four boys, three girls,” he said proudly. “We put youth to good use.”
Out of curiosity Gordon wiggled a finger at him and Aukis shrugged and nodded. Something caught the man’s attention. He looked up and pointed toward the dancers. Gordon looked and Pela was joining the dancers. The dance this group did, erotic as it was, described the cycle of life. As Pela and the married women swayed and turned they played out courtship, lovemaking, pregnancy, birth, growing, age, and a death surrounded by loving friends and many descendents.
He glanced down at the pack he was using for an armrest, remembering as he did so to reset the shockcomb. He held the bag between his legs, opened it, and checked the weapon. It was within three hours of puckering itself out of existence. Gordon reached in, reset the shockcomb. When Mahu asked for another look at the pack, Gordon handed it to him and decided to make a gift of the pack to the Clan Father as soon as he had a replacement. Then Gordon watched Pela dance until Ekav brushed the eastern sky with pale yellows and rose.
At a signal from the drums the ceremony became a moving affair as Mahu stood and led the way down from the hill toward the clanhouse. After all the feasting, talking, and dancing of the previous two ceremonies, the wedding itself was somewhat subdued. The clanhouse was filled with well-wishers. Mahu’s brother led Pela before a recently installed totem of Bel, which was a fearsome looking thing, a twisted oak log about thirty-five centimeters in diameter with branches for arms and a face formed from its bark with obsidian for eyes and milky quartz splinters for teeth. Gordon found himself next to Jatka, who was wearing a new set of leathers that were stylish indeed with diamond-shaped red beadwork on the shoulders and on his fur cap. He had a bundle beneath his left arm. He held it out to Gordon.
“You are to put these on,” said Jatka.
“Where?”
Jatka nodded at someone and soon Jatka and Gordon were inside an area walled with pelts held up by Gifted Ones. As he stripped to his waist, Gordon asked, “Who does the totem represent?”
“Bel, god of tiwineh.”
With a few probing questions, Gordon determined tiwineh meant agreements, and among the agreements under Bel’s jurisdiction was the institution of marriage. Tiwineh was also their word for honor, which to the peoples of the Black Mountain meant saying what you mean and meaning what you say.
Gordon looked at the deerskin shirt Pela had made for him. On its back in beadwork was the head of Coyote from the center of Gordon’s belt, just the way Hosteen Ahiga had worked it into the leather, wink and all. He put on the shirt and it fit perfectly. He faced his new son. “How do I look?”
“Like a man.”
Gordon picked up his pack and stuffed the furs that he had taken off into the bag. Facing Jatka, he said, “Let’s begin.”
Jatka muttered a word, the pelts came down, and Gordon and Pela stood before the god of contracts and a new arrival, Tonton Annajaka in full makeup. Pela took Gordon’s head in her hands and drew him toward her until their foreheads touched. Pela said to him, “I am your gift and you are my gift.” Gordon repeated the vow, then looked at Tonton as he reached out and placed his hand on Jatka’s shoulder. “This is our son, Jatka,” he said. Pela placed her hand on Jatka’s other shoulder, saying, “This is our son.”
Jatka placed a hand on Pela’s arm and said, “This is my mother.” He placed a hand on Gordon’s arm and said, “This is my father.”
“Let it be so,” said the guests.
From a tiny white leather pouch of grain, Tonton took a pinch of grain and placed it in Pela’s mouth, then another pinch of grain in Gordon’s. She reached between them and placed a pinch of grain in Jatka’s mouth. She pulled the drawstring on the pouch and handed it to Gordon. To the three of them she said, “Before all the clans and peoples of Black Mountain, may you be filled with love, respect, and honor the rest of your days together.” She paused as she closed her eyes and trembled slightly. Opening her eyes once more, she said, “In the name of Bel, I seek for your health, fertility, and prosperity.”
Gordon said to the naticha. “We would bring Jatka into manhood now.”
Tonton looked at Jatka, placed her right palm on his left cheek, and said, “I am happy for you, Jatka. Do not forget Tonton Annajaka.”
“I will stay and study with you, naticha,” he said, glancing at Gordon. He nodded back. Jatka looked at Tonton. “I want to keep studying the herbs and powders. I have no sight to become naticha, but when a back hurts, I maybe can ease a pain.”
The naticha smiled and removed her hand from Jatka’s cheek. “Climb the tiers to your childhood, sit, and select your gifts,” she said.
As Jatka climbed to the top tier, the Gifted Ones seated themselves along the bottom tier. Even Tonton Annajaka took her place among the women. It was a man-raising that granted all who attended for Jatka with wisdom from all the gifted, including the women. The gift he asked from each was the most important thing he or she knew. It was a question Gordon had once asked Iron Eyes. When his turn came, he passed on to his son Hosteen Ahiga’s answer. “To learn from your own mistakes is intelligence; to learn from the mistakes of others is wisdom.” Tonton Annajaka’s gift was, “Any moment may be your last; fill it with what you would remember for eternity.”
The gifted men took Gordon and Pela’s new son to the Men’s Ledge to spend the night beneath the sky getting Jatka acquainted with the society of men and to introduce him to Wuja, white bear god of men, fatherhood, and the hunt. Another feast, another dance, and more music. By the time Pela and Gordon reached Pela’s house, the afternoon had become evening and the serenading had begun.
Gordon awakened the next morning, memories of his wedding night warring with the abrupt end to everything he knew was coming. He stretched and wriggled into the most comfortable bed he had ever slept in. Bear robes on a thick bed of cedar boughs. The smell of the cedar was a perfume that permeated everything. He opened his eyes and looked up. The roof was made of poles covered with thatch. The circular wall was built of heavy sod reinforced by cedar poles. The floor was made of flat stones set in dirt. The fire was in a fireplace made from stones, sod, and dried mud.