Sacred Ground (6 page)

Payat began to cry. He tugged Marimi’s hand and pointed back to where they had come from, crying for his mother.

But Marimi took him by the shoulders and, looking deeply into his young eyes, said, “We cannot go back, little one. We can never go back. I am your mother now. I am your mother.”

Sniffing back his tears, Payat delivered his small hand into Marimi’s, and said, “Where are we going?”

And she pointed toward the sun, a giant red ball in the western sky, her guide, the raven, outlined sharply against it.

* * *

Payat noticed the vultures first, circling overhead.

“Why doesn’t Raven lead us to water?” he asked, his lips parched and cracked.

“I don’t know,” Marimi said, puffing with the exertion of having to carry the boy on her back. He was too weak to walk. “Maybe he’s looking.”

“Those birds want to eat us,” Payat said, meaning the vultures.

“They are just curious. We are strangers in their land. They mean us no harm.” It was only a small lie, enough to comfort the boy.

Marimi and Payat had traveled far, for many days and nights, along stark jagged cliffs and through deep canyons, across fields of boulders and vast areas of flat sand where they saw cacti taller than a man, always following the raven, who flew westward, ever westward.

At each nightfall the raven would come to a rest— on a rock or a cactus or a tree— and Marimi and the boy would make camp, to awaken the next morning to follow the raven again in his flight toward the west. Where was Raven leading them? Were they to join another people? Marimi was worried because her child was going to be born soon and it was unthinkable that it should be born without a shaman in attendance to ask the gods for blessings. How would her baby receive protection and beneficence from the gods with no shaman there to speak on its behalf?

During their long trek Marimi and Payat had survived on beans from the mesquite, wild plum, dates, and cactus buds. When hunting was good, they had feasted on a stew of rabbit, wild onions, and pistachio nuts. For water, when they could not find a stream or a spring, they sucked on the thick stems of prickly pear, which were full of water.

Wherever they walked, they showed etiquette toward the land. All things were treated with respect and ritual. Taking any part of a tree, killing an animal, using a spring, or entering a cave was prefaced by ceremony, however simple, in the form of a request or an acknowledgment. “Spirit in this spring,” Marimi would say. “I ask pardon for taking your water. May we together complete the circle of life that was given to us by the Creator of All.” She also fashioned snares with bait, and as she and the boy hid behind rocks, she kissed the back of her hand to make a sucking sound, which attracted birds. And when they caught small game thusly, she apologized to the animal and asked that his ghost not take revenge on them.

Once, when the ground roared and trembled so mightily that she and Payat were thrown off their feet, Marimi shook with terror until she retraced their steps and discovered the cause of the earthquake. She had inadvertently crushed a tortoise burrow. She begged forgiveness of Grandfather Tortoise and cleared the opening to the reptile’s home.

She never forgot her debt to the moon. When she and Payat had a meal, they never ate the whole of it but always left some behind, an offering to the goddess who had saved them.

Occasionally they had come upon evidence of people having recently occupied a site— blackened stones, animal bones, shells from nuts. But sometimes the evidence was from long ago, when they would come upon petroglyphs that looked as if they had been carved in the rock back at the beginning of time. Marimi sensed the ghosts of those ancient people all about them as she and Payat crossed the foreign landscape, over the hot sand, in and out of the shade of massive date palms. She wondered what the ghosts thought of these strange intruders trekking over their ancestral land, and she always asked their pardon and assured them she and Payat meant no disrespect.

The moon had died and renewed herself five times since the night Marimi prayed to her, and in that time Marimi had watched the moon and marveled at her power. Only the moon could die and be reborn in an endless cycle of death and birth, and only the moon cast light during the night when it was needed, whereas the sun shone his light during the day when it wasn’t needed. And when she walked in the moonlight, despite the burdens she carried on her back and inside her body, Marimi found her stride widening, she felt moon power flowing in her veins. With each step, her strength grew.

And while she journeyed ever westward across the endless expanse, she let her thoughts fly to the stars, to linger there and then to return with new knowledge. Marimi knew something her people had never known: that an individual could pray directly to the gods without the intervention of a shaman. She had also learned that the world was not necessarily a malevolent place, as the Topaa believed. There were spirits everywhere to be sure, but they were not all evil. There were those who could be friendly and could be called upon for help and guidance, such as birds that circled the sky at sunset, indicating a water hole below. Whereas the shamans of the Topaa taught their people that only fear ensured survival, Marimi learned during her long sojourn among the silent boulders and cacti, the slinking coyotes and tiptoeing tortoises, that mutual respect and trust also ensured survival.

When she saw how beautifully the moon lit up the desert landscape at night to light their way, Marimi marveled at how the Topaa could believe her to be an angry and fearful goddess. Not only was it taboo to look upon the moon, but the people were afraid of her because of her tremendous power over menstrual blood, birth cycles, and the dark mysteries of women. Likewise did the Topaa fear the sun because it burned the skin and caused fires and droughts and was angry all the time, being placated only through the intercession of a shaman’s prayers. But Marimi and Payat learned to love the feel of the warm sun on their limbs in the mornings, and they observed how flowers turned their faces to follow the sun’s path across the sky. Marimi came to understand that what her people had feared could also be loved, and she began to regard the sun as like a father, stern but benevolent, and the moon as like a mother, gentle and loving.

But now they were in a land where there was no water, no berries or seeds, and the only shrubs were bitter and waterless. Even small animals didn’t come out of their burrows. Marimi was carrying the boy on her back, and because her sandals had disintegrated long ago, her bare feet were cut and bleeding. They sucked on pebbles to stave off thirst. They stopped at dry streambeds, which often have water just below the surface, sinking at the lowest point on the outside of a bend in the channel as the stream dried up, and it was along these bends she dug for water. But none could be found.

Finally, they had to stop, Marimi easing Payat to the sand and then stretching her lower back. Her baby moved restlessly, as if it, too, were thirsty, and when she looked for her raven, she could not find him.

Had her spirit guide abandoned them in this harsh wilderness? Had she and Payat inadvertently offended a spirit somewhere along their trek, perhaps disturbing a snake’s nest or not showing enough gratitude when she sliced open the last prickly pear they came upon?

Shading her eyes, she scanned the barren landscape, where only stunted, withered plants grew, and a dry wind whispered mournfully across the sand. In the distance she saw silver waves shimmering up from the hard-baked clay, but she had learned by now that this was not water but a trick played by desert spirits. Finally, she looked up at fierce Father Sun. It was to him she must pray, she realized, for the moon was in her sleeping house.

But as Marimi raised her arms and sought the proper words, she was suddenly stricken with her head sickness, causing her to drop to her knees and press her hands to her eyes. As the pain swept her away, she saw a vision of a lost child, trapped among rocks. She saw it from the sky, as if through the eyes of a bird. And then Marimi saw people searching for the child, but in the wrong place, and moving farther away from him in their search.

When the pain subsided, she said urgently to Payat, “Raven led me to a lost boy. We must find him before the vultures make a feast of his body.”

Within the embrace of a barren, rocky watercourse, they found the boy, unconscious and dehydrated, but still alive. “Oh, you poor little boy, poor thing,” Marimi crooned as she knelt at his side. “Look, Payat, see how his foot is caught.” The child’s ankle was raw and bloody, and the rocks were scarred where he had clawed to free himself.

Marimi sat back on her heels and listened. She lifted her nose to the air and sniffed. She closed her eyes and summoned up the vision the raven had shown her from the air. “There is a stream,” she said to Payat. And she pointed through the boulders.

Marimi first slaked Payat’s thirst and then her own, then she brought water to the child, dripping it between his lips. She collected ground ivy from along the bank and wrapped the fresh leaves around the child’s ankle. There were fish in the stream, which Payat caught with a basket, and the three ate well that night at a campfire that burned as brightly as the full moon.

The next day the boy, already recovering from his ordeal, said his name was Wanchem, but he didn’t know his clan or his family name, and he didn’t know in which direction he lived. As Marimi wondered how she could get him back to his people, she saw that the raven was calling again, impatiently circling in the sky. Marimi had no choice but to follow. And so, shouldering her basket and blanket, clasping her spear, and hefting Wanchem onto her hip, with Payat at her side, she set forth once again toward the setting sun.

* * *

Finally, they reached the western edge of the desert, where fierce mountains rose straight up, sharp and jagged. Marimi found a pass through the mountains, and after days of hardship the trio emerged on the other side to find a great lush rolling plain before them. It was green such as they had never seen, and dotted with trees as far as the eye could see, with streams and ponds, and gentle hills. When they descended into the valley, they found an ancient animal track and, knowing it would lead them to food and water, followed it. And indeed along the way they came upon trees laden with fruits and nuts, and streams running with fish and clear water. Marimi wanted to stop and say: Here is our home. But the raven kept flying ever westward, and Marimi followed, unquestioning.

They continued along the track through glades and open fields, past marshes and great ponds of a black substance that bubbled on the surface and stung the nose with its stench. Westward the trio continued, encountering a few people along the way who were friendly but who spoke a language unknown to Marimi. These people lived in small round shelters and shared their food with the travelers. Marimi stopped occasionally to look at a sick child or a sick elder, and to share the healing herbs she carried.

And then the air began to change and it was unlike any she and Payat had inhaled. It was fresh and cold and smelled of salt. And when Marimi saw the green mountains in the distance, she was filled with a sense of coming to an ending. Soon, she assured Payat and Wanchem, Raven would stop for his final rest.

* * *

As they drew near to the foothills of the green mountains, dark clouds gathered in the sky. A wind arose, buffeting Raven and impeding his progress. Around and around he circled in the sky, while Marimi hugged the two boys to her, drawing her rabbit fur blanket around them. When the storm broke, they huddled beneath the shelter of a great oak tree and watched in fear as streams overflowed and gushed down gullies and ravines, threatening to sweep the three frightened humans away. They watched in horror as cliffs broke apart and gave way, sliding down in great muddy avalanches. The wind roared and the storm thrashed the sturdy oak. Marimi lost sight of her raven and she wondered in terror if she and the boys had broken a taboo and were now being punished.

And then her birth pains struck.

Leaving the boys beneath the tree, she plunged into the downpour to search for shelter. Blinded by rain, she groped and stumbled over rocks and brush, searching the rocky base of the mountains for somewhere dry and out of the storm.

Finally, through the torrent, she glimpsed the black bird-shape, gliding sleekly into the wind and rain, drawing her toward a towering jumble of rocks. Here Raven perched, shaking his feathers and blinking at her in silent communication. Marimi explored around the rocks, slipping and sliding on the sodden ground, and found that the boulders hid the entrance to a ravine. Going farther into the small canyon, she blinked and saw the entrance to a cave, where she and the boys could be warm and dry and protected from the storm. Later, after her baby was born and her strength returned, Marimi would go back to the boulders and carve two petroglyphs into the rock: the symbol of her raven, in gratitude for having guided them here, and the symbol of the moon, for having answered her prayers.

* * *

Marimi was not surprised when she gave birth to twin girls. She came from a long line of women who gave birth only to daughters. When Marimi’s strength returned, the raven flew to the top of the ridge, with Marimi and her babies, Wanchem and Payat following. There they climbed to the crest and stood transfixed for a long time.

They had arrived at the edge of the world, for before them stretched the largest expanse of water Marimi had ever seen. There was the land of the dead, she thought, the place to where the Topaa went after they died. It was breathtaking in its majesty.

The raven had come to rest in an oak tree. He had something in his beak. He dropped it, before flying off forever. Marimi picked it up, a strange, beautiful stone, perfectly round and, smooth, blue-black like a raven’s feather. When she curled her fingers around it she felt the power of the raven-spirit in it.

She looked again out at the body of pale blue water and saw, closer in on the distant shore, tall thin columns of smoke from cookfires. She said to the two boys and to the babies in her arms, “We will not meet those people, for they will have customs and taboos and laws that are different from ours. We were outcast and now we will be our own people. This is our home now. We will call this the Place of the People,” she said, putting together the words in her language:
Topaa
, meaning “the people,” and
ngna
, meaning “the place of.”