The Orenda Joseph Boyden (11 page)

I have learned from one captain of the confederation that these Huron believe a body has two souls, or okis. One soul is more attached to the body and will stay with it in the cemetery, watching over it for eternity, unless someone bears it again as a child. When I asked the captain why he thought such a thing, he pointed out to me, as proof of this soul transferring from one body to another, the amazing resemblance some people have to a deceased person. Oh, these poor and simple heathens.

According to him, the second oki leaves the body and makes a harrowing journey to a “village of souls” that is very similar to those of the living. Travelling along the southern shore of what the Huron call the Sweet Water Sea, they must pass by a cliff painted with ancient animals, some human in form, others part man, part beast, and still others frightening sea creatures.

Beyond this, a malevolent spirit called Pierce Head draws out the brains of the departed, who then must cross over a river on an unsteady tree trunk guarded by a dog that will leap at them and frighten many off the log and into the wicked current below. God, give me the courage and resolve to enlighten those who walk in darkness.

But back to the ceremony at hand, dear Superior. Once all have arrived at the new village and have mourned for three days, the people carry the bags of bones, or spirit bags, to the largest cabins of their clans and put them on display, along with gifts for the dead that include beaded necklaces and kettles and robes. Another feast is held in each of these longhouses, and the songs of the deceased are sung as family members mingle and mourn. The guests are allowed to help themselves to any food they desire and even to take some home with them, which is typically forbidden. As they finally leave, they sing out as loud as they can, “Haeey! Haeey!” in order to appease and to comfort
their dead relations in the spirit bags. It is truly something to hear, as frightening as wolves calling out to one another in the moonlight.

As the next couple of days pass, the mood changes to one of excitement as people of the different communities play games for prizes. With my own eyes I’ve seen women shooting their bows at distant targets, every bit as talented as any of the men as they try to win quill-work belts or necklaces or strings of beads. The young men battle one another in ferocious scrums to keep hold of a baton, while others throw spears to compete for axes and knives and beaver robes. These people are truly physical, as sleek and fit as any race I’ve ever encountered.

But then the mood changes to solemnity again. On the preor-dained day, families go to where their dead are displayed and once more unwrap them to say one last goodbye, the longhouses smelling a little stronger than musk. Tears flow anew, and it is startling to watch as women comb the hair of freshly dead relatives and mothers place beaded bracelets on the bones of their children and grown warriors cradle what is left of their wives. And then as one, each family stands, forms a line, and carries the remains of their loved ones to the pit that has been dug outside the palisades.

Let me describe this burial place. It is about the size of the inner courtyard at Versailles, and in the middle of it a pit has been dug at least two fathoms deep by fifteen fathoms wide. Around the circumference of the pit is an intricate and sturdy scaffold at least two fathoms high, with cross poles where the Huron, according to clan, will soon hang their bundles of souls. The bodies that remain whole, covered by their beaver robes, surround the burial pit underneath the scaffold, stretched out on their bark mats and fastened to stakes at about a fathom, or the height of a man. I’m told that they will go in first.

But before the spirit bags are hung on the scaffold, the sauvages, according to clan and village, lay their parcels of souls upon the ground, essentially once again putting them on display for curious visitors to stroll by and admire as if they are perusing wares at a village fair. For a distance of some three thousand feet these bags are laid out,
poles planted beside them so that presents brought for the living may also go on display. All manner of beaver robes and quillwork belts and beaded necklaces and skinning knives and amulets are strung on these poles for everyone to see. I believe that the families and clans compete with one another to try and prove who has the most wealth. The spirit bags and gifts remain on display for several hours, as several thousand people have descended upon the new village to partake of the proceedings.

This is when the Feast of the Dead truly begins. The captain of each clan gives the signal and his people climb the scaffold at good speed and tie their bundles of souls to the crosspieces. Once all the bags have been hung, the captains, now that afternoon has arrived, announce and give away the presents, each made in the name of the dead, to different living friends and relations. I witness these sauvages approach to receive their gift, some crying, others smiling, and still others with moods upon their faces impossible to read.

Once all the presents have been handed out, the most extraordinary sight occurs when the sauvages line the entire pit with the finest beaver robes so that the robes extend out of the pit a few feet from its edge. Hundreds and hundreds of beaver furs line the ossuary in a stunning display of abundance. In European terms, the robes alone would be worth a king’s small ransom, and this doesn’t take into account all the furs used to bundle the corpses that will soon end up in the pit.

As evening has arrived, designated individuals take the whole bodies that hang below the scaffold to the bottom of the pit and arrange them in an orderly fashion, the din of the people all around growing. In the centre of it all, three kettles have been placed, apparently to feed the dead in the other world. Once all the whole bodies have been thus carefully placed and arranged, the people build many fires to cook their food and pass the rest of the night here.

At dawn the next morning, I awake to the louder murmurings of the Huron as the men of importance return to the top of the scaffold and begin to empty the bags of bones down to others waiting in the pit.
As the bones begin to fill the pit, the men below, using poles, continue to carefully mingle them in no order that I can understand. This is when the people begin to sing in such a lugubrious tone that one truly understands what utter despair is, hundreds and even thousands of voices rising up so that one can’t help but weep for the living whose souls certainly head for damnation. It is a sound the likes of which I have never heard before and don’t expect to again, one that filled my whole body with a great vibration of sadness.

There are so many bones that soon the pit is nearly filled, leaving only a few feet of space. And once the last bone has been placed, the beaver robes that still extend out of the pit are folded back over, and then mats and poles and eventually part of the scaffold, apparently to prevent animals from getting to the remains. After that, the excess dirt is mounded on, and women carrying dishes of corn sprinkle it onto the mound, doing so for a number of days following.

The rest of the day is passed in gift giving, and even I was offered ten beaver robes by an important captain. I turned this down, explaining that the only gift I desire is that he and his people begin to believe in Him, the Great Voice, the one who makes all things.

WASH YOU WITH MY TEARS

I hold you in my arms, my love. Since your passing to the land of Aataentsic and Iouskeha so many years ago, this is all I’ve ever wanted again. And I have wanted to cradle our daughters again, too, and now I finally do. We are all together once more.

The time for the Kettle has come, and the time for the village to move has arrived. I would never leave you behind. I sit here and cry and wash your bones with my tears. I hold you again as I hug you close to me. I watch over all of you this night.

The three of you aren’t heavy on my shoulders as I carry you to the place of the Kettle. I stop at some of your favourite spots along the way. The place where the river splashes into the Sweet Water Sea. The cliff overlooking where the waves crash below it. The field that blossoms with berries in late summer. I remember our life together in the village we have now left for good. I didn’t realize how sentimental I’ve grown over these last many seasons. I remember what it felt like to come home from a long journey, to walk into the longhouse and your arms, our girls hugging my legs. I’ve not been able to move on from you even though I know you want me to.

Many gifts are given in your names. Necklaces of polished beads, furs, quill tobacco bags, moccasins, and moose-hair barrettes dyed the colour of strawberries. In your death you still bring smiles to the faces of your friends, and they all tell me how they miss you, how they still
dream of you, how they know for certain that you do well in the other world while you wait there for them and for me.

With my own two hands I place your bones into the ossuary and mingle them with the others so you will never be lonely. I sing your song as the tears flow down my face, my song weaving into those of the others until we are all one great voice. You are with me right now, my love. I can feel your hands upon my face and our daughters’ arms wrapped around my waist. We are one again, at least for now, and as we cover you with the warmth of beaver furs, I whisper to you that it won’t be too long now before we are finally together again.

THERE IS NO MIDDLE OUT HERE

It is with the lightest and most joyous of hearts that I write you today, dear Superior, to report on the many successes of my current mission. These people are obstinate and childlike. They live in a sinful world of heathen worship and are certainly under the sway of Satan, which makes my work all that more important.

And so it is the pleasure of your most humble of servants to report that I am on the verge of bringing this entire village of some two or three thousand souls to finally kneel at the feet of Christ and accept Him as the true Son of God.

I put down my pen and tear the page from my journal, rip it up into small pieces. I cannot lie, not to You, Lord. The girl, at least, has accepted You, or so I can only guess, but she is most probably mad, and the insane don’t truly count as converts, do they?

At least this country is beautiful. We’ve completed our first day’s paddle on what I’ve calculated is the summer solstice. A coincidence, or do they truly comprehend some rudimentary aspects of astronomy? I sit on a rocky escarpment sewn with windswept pine, looking out over a great turquoise sea. If I didn’t know better on this day of bright sun and light breeze, I’d have guessed I was on a Mediterranean archipelago, my face warm with the day’s heat. I’ve taken to calling this body of water the Sweet Water Sea just as the sauvages do. My companions have explained that this coast we paddle along is simply a bay on a string of massive lakes that stretch west of here for hundreds
of leagues. I’m not sure if I should believe them. They seem prone to lying when they don’t know the answer to something I ask.

Sixty-seven Huron, if my count is correct, currently accompany me back to New France. We left the village in a flotilla of canoes as the sun rose. It both impresses and confounds me that while I am, on the one hand, important enough to warrant such a large party for protection from the Iroquois, I also remain the constant focus of their derision and even outright anger.

Life did take a turn for the better in the spring when Bird sent me to live in another longhouse, whose members seemed intent on teaching me their language. I’m happy to report, dear Lord, that if those around me speak slowly enough, I can now understand much of what they say. And, most exciting, I am beginning to dream in their tongue, which I think is a sure sign of my progress. I’ve come to believe what I was taught before coming over, that to truly understand these people I must first learn their language. This is the only way I will ever be able to begin converting them to the true and righteous path and out of these dark days in which they reside. Satan might feel far away as I sit here on these rocks watching the sun set over the place they also call the glittering waters, though I must only remind myself that darkness is just a few hours away.

Making my way back from evening prayers, I see they’ve set up their shelters and have eaten, I assume, as most of them are already asleep. A handful of men sit by the fire and talk amongst themselves, stopping when I approach. Two of them mimic the sign of the cross and laugh. Another scowls at them and makes an eating gesture. When I nod and sit beside him, he hands me a birchbark plate with a small serving of sagamité mixed with smoked fish. Despite my fear that it’s rancid, I scoop it up with my fingers.

“You like this place?” he asks me slowly so I can understand him. He’s a very handsome young man, high cheekboned and with a frame like Michelangelo’s David.

“Yes,” I tell him. “I do.”

He hesitates for a moment, not sure, apparently, how to say what he wants to. “You must make the decision,” he begins, “either to paddle or not to paddle.” He looks into the fire and I can sense he’s being as genuine as he knows how. There’s none of the joking in his tone that I’ve become accustomed to with so many of the others.

I nod for him to go on.

“You will be respected only if you make a firm choice,” he says. “You can’t choose in the middle. Paddle or don’t paddle tomorrow. If you don’t paddle”—he looks at me—“then maybe tell those in your canoe a story about your god. If you do paddle, don’t talk, just paddle. Paddle until the rest of us stop paddling.” He studies my face to see if I understand. “There is no middle out here.” He lifts his arms, as if welcoming the world to him.

—

BUT NOTHING IN
this world, their world, is idyllic for long. All morning the sky’s gushed rain, and I’ve taken it upon myself to bail out the canoe with my birchbark plate. Shivering in the wind that gusts waves, rocking us and making me feel as sick as I was back on the ship that carried me to this continent, I try to be useful to them. Rather than being morose or angry to mimic the weather, the eight men in my canoe keep their heads down and paddle hard, as if they are in some magical trance, and, just as they do when the sun is shining, they bend to their task with a cadence that’s both madly redundant and hypnotizing. I give up my weak attempt at helping for a short while, exhausted by their energy.