Take Us to Your Chief (2 page)

Tracey was getting tired of the truth. “So what? You want us to just play countr
y music?!”

“Not just country music. You know we program a wide selection of genres to please the diverse audience across our community. My guess is that listening to archival drum music on the morning drive to work is probably not going to be—” Emily knew exactly what Tracey was going to sa
y next.

“That show is not archival, it's
historical!
Either let me do it, or I wil
l quit.”

Emily waited for a moment. Should she call Tracey's bluff? “Fine! You don't have to pack up your office. You can have Sunday mornings, 8:30. Only half an hour, though.”

“I'd rather have Mondays at 7:00 in th
e evening.”

Emily shook her head. “No, I promised that to Karl for his radio bingo show. In lieu of
a raise.”

“But Karl's…”

“I know. But we can't cancel a show that's already been promoted. We'll just have to find a new host. So it's Sunday 8:30 or nothing.” Now it was Emily's turn to wait for a response to he
r ultimatum.

Satisfied with her partial victory, Tracey took her knuckles off Emily's desk. She had her show. Now she had to get to work putting it together. “Thanks, Emily. You won't b
e sorry.”

Emily already was. She hated these head-to-heads with Tracey. Somewhere back a few generations they were cousins. And Emily actually liked her cousin. Last year, Tracey had joined Weight Watchers after being diagnosed as prediabetic, and she had applied to weight loss the same force of will she brought to the station and cultural preservation. As a result, she had dropped twenty-three pounds. Unfortunately, she was short, and the added weight had helped make her a formidable physical force to be reckoned with. Now she was just short and lean. During the wet spring that year, her front door had swollen shut, imprisoning her in her own house until she phoned for help. The old Tracey would never have let an eight-by-three-foot piece of wood and glass get the best of her. Being a skinny Native woman has it
s drawbacks.

Emily, however, had recently been morphing into her grandmother, an imposing figure with a rather matronly physique. Running a radio station and babysitting half a dozen employees left her little time to burn calories or eat a balanced diet. She was on a first-name basis with the employees of several drive-thrus circling the reserve. Physically, Emily was now the sole alpha woman in the room and at the radi
o station.

As soon as Tracey left Emily's office, she found Aaron, huddled over his precious editing suite, working on something that may or may not have been for the station. He had so many pet projects that it was difficult to know what he was working on at any given time. After years of keeping the station operating, nobody questioned what he was doing because all roads, be they sound or systems, led to him. Focusing on the minutiae of a circuit board, Aaron didn't notice Tracey enter th
e room.

“Aaron! Aaron! Earth calling. Hello.”

Turning off his headphones and shaking out his new shag cut, Aaron finally looked a
t Tracey.

She certainly was looking good these days, thought Aaron. “You look like somebody blew up your Death Star. What did the Emperor have to say?” After years of working together, Aaron could no longer find endearing nicknames for Emily. Theirs was not the first relationship to be altered because of hierarchical offic
e structure.

Tracey pulled up a chair next to Aaron. “It's
a go.”

Aaron looked mildly surprised. “She went for it? Wow, I wasn't expecting that. This is so not her kind o
f show.”

“You just need to know how to play her,” Tracey said smugly. “First thing we have to do is find a way to digitize all the old records
I found.”

“Did you threaten to qui
t again?”

“The communications between the station manager and the program manager are privileged information,” Tracey said with a full stop. “Do you think you can filter out all the scratching noises? Make them broadcas
t ready?”

Aaron was silent for a moment before answering as solemnly as he could, “If you bring them, I will d
o it.”

At a garage sale put on by Tracey's cousin Joseph five months earlier, Tracey had found something ver
y interesting.

“They belonged to Granny,” Joseph wheezed due to his deviated septum. “Just found them a month ago when I was cleaning out the basement after the flood. She left them to me when she died. I didn't know what to do with them. Interested?”

Tracey didn't want to show how interested she was. Stacked in two beat-up boxes were countless thick polyvinyl slabs of Haudenosaunee culture. Sometime in the 1920s, an anthropologist had come to their village seeking to record traditional songs of their people. He graciously made copies and sent the records back to their grandmother as thanks for her help. Authentic, vintage and original Haudenosaunee social songs and, with any luck, specifically Kanienké'hà:ka ones.
C-
RES
listeners and the world had to know abou
t these.

Tracey could dimly remember her grandmother playing the records while she babysat Tracey and her cousins. Occasionally, snatches of the songs would creep out of her subconscious like the faint aroma of some delicious pastry made by a loved one long ago. As soon as she found the records, she knew this new way of generating more interest in her people's heritage was practically heaven sent. Now that Emily was no longer the main stumbling block, she could put a program together that truly showcased the traditional songs of her people. It might even foster more unity within the Iroquois Confederacy, not to mention placing another brick in the dam that held back the flood of the dominant culture's influence.
C-
RES
—all social music, all the time was he
r motto.

A few minutes later, lugging the treasured boxes into Aaron's sound lab, a place he liked to call his “magic suite,” Tracey was ready to start immediately. At that point he was huddled over a non-responsive and ancient Ampex reel-to-reel recording machine. His curiosity piqued by her story, Aaron stopped his labours long enough to rifle through Tracey's precious box of records. A look of concern popped up on hi
s face.

Tracey noticed it instantly. “I know that look. What'
s wrong?”

“My bad. I… these records…” He took a deep breath. “These are 78s—I didn't realize when you said records they would be these old, massive hunks o
f wax.”

“Why is this
a problem?”

Leaning back, Aaron stared at the box, but his mind was elsewhere, already working on rectifying the problem. “They may just take a little more time. I think I have one of those old-time record-player arms that can handle these artifacts. Give me a second.” He started to rummage around in a large box full of what appeared to Tracey to be vintage tec
h equipment.

Tracey was amazed. “You have one of those? In here?” She had heard rumours that Aaron had
UFO
odds and ends that had been rescued from Roswell hidden somewhere in the labyrinth of hi
s office.

Finally, she heard an “Aha!” as Aaron's head and right arm emerged from the crate, victoriously holding a large metallic device. It reminded Tracey of the arm that had been on the record player she had owned as a teenager, except this was much larger and mor
e ornate.

“Never throw anything out. That's m
y rule.”

Aaron, the problem solver, had come through for her once again. Already he was busy attaching it to a wor
n stereo.

“It'll just take a second,” he said, grabbing his solderin
g iron.

Tracey leaned against a counter and looked around the room, wondering what other marvels were lurking in bins and shelves. All around the half mixing/editing, half repair room was a hodgepodge of wires, circuit boards, equipment and tools. An altar to man's insatiable need to tinker and invent. It looked like a Terminator had exploded in here, which suited Aaron's aesthetic jus
t fine.

A few minutes passed before he spoke again. “There.”

The confidence and finality in how Aaron said that single word gave Tracey hope that she and her community might actually be able to hear what was on the records she cradled s
o protectively.

“Let's take another look at those babies,” Aaron said. Once more, he began leafing through the contents of the box. “I haven't heard of half of these songs. You sure they're authentic?” Aaron's great-aunt was a clan mother, so he was no stranger to the songs of hi
s people.

“Of course they are. I've researched and double-checked as many as I could. I can't tell you how cool this is! Look, one of the earliest recordings of ‘The Alligator Dance' known. Same with ‘The Smoke Dance' and ‘The Pigeon Dance.' This i
s priceless.”

The Haudenosaunee people were well known for a variety of social dances and songs, usually sung with a unique water drum. Who knows? She might get one of those Aboriginal Achievement Awards for he
r show.

Aaron was holding up one record, studying the worn and faded wording on the label at the centre. “I've never heard of this one… ‘The Callin
g Song'?”

“Me neither. I looked everywhere. It seems to have disappeared sometime between when it was recorded and now.” Unfortunately, that applied to a lot of Haudenosaunee and other First Nations cultural offerings in the New World. Segments of precious history lost in the progression of Manifest Destiny. But moments like this made her feel there was hope. “Can you pla
y it?”

“Can and will do. Actually, this is kind of exciting. A lost archive of mysterious records containing unknown songs. A very Indiana Jones kind o
f thing.”

“Just play the song.” Tracey's puls
e quickened.

Try as he might, Aaron couldn't get rid of all the scratching sounds loved by vinyl fans. Then, faintly, a water drum could be heard, reminding Tracey of the sound of a heartbeat, specifically a baby's heartbeat but at an even higher rate. The rapid succession of thump-thumps echoing back from the water in the drum was the sound every Haudenosaunee knew and was proud of. The sound gradually built. The rising volume of the water drum was followed by growing voices that sounded like a dozen Haudenosaunee elders singing in unison. The song seemed to have all the characteristics of a traditional social melody, but then it grew increasingly discordant. Each voice seemed to find dominance over the next, as if the elders were proclaiming their place in the universe. The discord lasted a couple more minutes before returning to the more familiar keen of the traditional social song. Slowly the voices ebbed away, leaving the water drum. Then there was a scratchy nothing before the sound of the needle being lifted. Aaron turned the machin
e off.

“Well, that was interesting. No wonder it didn't catch on. What do you make of that?” Aaron asked. As if Tracey had an
y idea.

She was silent for a moment, letting the vestiges of the sound slowly evaporate from her mind. “It was very different. Most of our songs have a purpose or a meaning. What did the label of the record say it wa
s again?”

“‘The Calling Song,'” Aaron said. “Maybe if you're looking for
a moose!”

Tracey gave Aaron a quick swat on the back of his head. “B
e respectful.”

“Always,” Aaron gave back. “Are you really going to broadcast it? It's worse than a Klingon opera.” Grabbing his big mug of coffee with his left hand, he handed the record back to Tracey with his right. “I mean, I can clean it up all you want, but really… You think people will want to listen to that? I mean, I'm as proud of our culture as the nex
t Mohawk—”

“Kanienké'hà:ka!”

“Kanienké'hà:ka, then, but that sure ain't our bes
t work.”

Tracey had to agree. “It would be a bit intense first thing in th
e morning.”

She knew this song had to have some significance. It came from her community, so maybe somebody in the listening audience migh
t know.

“Still, it's our heritage.” Tracey's imagination and enthusiasm ran on. “I mean, it's a previously unknown social song. Do you know how important that is? Maybe what we should do…” Her mind was still whirling. “Maybe we should put it in heavy rotation and run a contest for the best information leading to the meaning of ‘The Callin
g Song'!”

Realizing his mug was empty, Aaron stood to adjourn to the interview room. “That might work. Look, I'll do what you want, but I'm predicting
a disaster.”

“Disaster? You're being overdramatic,” Tracey scoffed. “What's so disastrous about thi
s song?”

“Oh, any number of things. We don't know if it's authentic. We just have the word of a long-dead cultural anthropologist. And you know how considerate they were. It doesn't sound like any other social song we know. You might just be setting yourself up to fail. And,” he paused for dramatic effect, “I don't like the song. Makes m
e uncomfortable.”

“Don't worry,” Tracey said. “It'll be a great mystery for the community t
o solve!”

Knowing it was futile to even attempt to dissuade her, Aaron asked the bigger question as he walked out the door. “Hey Tracey, can I get a ride with you to Karl's funera
l tomorrow?”