The Unfinished Song: Initiate
Dindi
…when she considered how close she had come to running off that cliff during her blind escape attempt.
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| "Tribal Mask" by Dylan Erb |
Dindi
…when she considered how close she had come to running off that cliff during her blind escape attempt.
“Abiono! Did you rescue us already?” Hadi asked. He rubbed his eyes.
“No, idiot,” Tamio said, giving Hadi a disgusted look. “Don’t you get it? The mock kidnapping is part of Initiation. Isn’t it, Uncle?”
“Yes.” Abiono winced as he adjusted his costume. “Learning to face fear is an important part of becoming an adult.”
A babble of questions and exclamations followed. Hadi kept repeating, “So we aren’t slaves?” as though he didn’t dare believe it yet. Jensi wanted to know if they could bathe now. Kemla declared, “Fa! I knew the truth all along. Your goat-headedness had better not have ruined our chance at Initiation, Dindi.”
Dindi burned with an all too familiar feeling of shame and frus- tration. How did she always mean to do right and still go so wrong? It didn’t seem fair she violated a taboo even when trying to defend herself and others from becoming human sacrifices.
“It’s taboo to reveal too soon the true nature of your capture. However, since you all know now, thanks to Dindi,”—Abiono heaved a sigh in her general direction—“We may as well distribute the totems. We would have soon in any case. We will be traveling to the Yellow Bear tribehold for your Initiation.”
“What?” Tamio sounded outraged. “Why go to outtribesmen?”
“Once we would have taken you to the ancestral tribehold of our own people, the Rainbow Labyrinth,” said Abiono. “But a generation ago, the Bone Whistler took over there and forbade the practice of Many-Banded magic, Imorvae magic. Those of us who were of the age of Initiation had to go elsewhere for our testing and training. I myself went to live with the Purple Thunder tribe. A few years later the three clans in the Corn Hills made a permanent agreement to bring our Initiates to be tested along with the youth of our allies in the Yellow Bear tribe. We have kept that agreement ever since, even after we heard of the fall of the Bone Whistler. Remember as we travel to the place of Initiation, that we represent not just our clan, and not just our clan-klatch, but our whole tribe. It is we who are the outtribesfolk here. Walk with honor.”
Abiono stared out to sea. He cleared his throat. “Many other secrets you will all learn as you become men and women. Though there are also secrets you will only learn if you become Tavaedies. Now.” He smiled slightly. “We will not let you pass through the lands of outtribesmen as naked as pigs. Look inside your baskets.”
Blushes passed all around. They had grown so used to it that they’d forgotten their nakedness.
Girls and boys instinctively edged away from one another. They unwove the cords that fastened down the top flaps of the baskets.
“I knew it,” said Hadi, pulling out a number of flint arrowheads…
TO BE CONTINUED
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