Day 8 The Mist

The cold mist brings my soul back to life. My brothers and sisters rise next to me to reclaim for one day our home. I see their familiar shapes hover and then disappear into our sacred places.

Once we hunted these woods plentiful with deer and turkey to feed our families…we tracked the fox, the wolf, and the mighty bear for furs to protect us from the cold…the lakes fed us with their plentiful fish…

We were one with the Land.

Our family took only what we needed.

 

We were one with the Land.

The mighty Gods gave to us its use and we vowed to protect it for our children, and they in turn for their children, and on and on.

 

We were one with the Land.

Sometimes we fought our neighboring clans to preserve our hunting rights but each of us, enemy and friend alike knew the sacred lands and kept them safe.

We were one with the Land.

One day the white men came, we could smell their stink before we could see them…dressed in strange garbs of little sense…

At first we hid from them to learn, but when they lingered too long, cutting away at the sacred woods to build their homes, we knew that we must drive them out to protect the Land.

 

We were one with the Land.

At first we were successful but more and more they came with fire sticks too powerful against our arms.

And then, against the advice of our wise men, those who spoke with the long past dead, we decided to make peace with the strangers and began to trade…furs, always furs, to send to some far off land.

Again and again our shamans warned us to stop but we continued and traded for their trinkets, firewater, and warm colored blankets that hid weapons stronger than their guns. By the time the blisters, boils ,or crops of red bumps appeared on our sleek brown skin hope left our clans. Some died quickly with fever and shaking chills, others more slowly covered with oozing sores, but die we did by the thousands, all of us, enemy and friend.

The forest lay unprotected and our spirits wept at the loss.

But on cold and misty days our souls rise again to reclaim our hunting grounds

until the warm sunlight reappears and sends us back to our eternal stands.

 

We are one with the Land.