Eyo, The People

NOHA’S DREAM Polar cold in the mountain’s bowels. Black strokes his eyes as the Spirit of Darkness steals Noha’s sight. Bumps rise in his flesh and he gasps though there is air enough in the stone corridor. He almost reaches out for his father but forces his hand down. Black changes with lesser blacks taking shape and Noha sees granite walls bending, curving. Crevices. And his father’ s bulk. Noha’s breathing eases. A sudden chasm forces him to slide along the cave wall, his toes gripping the precipice edge. Noha shrinks from the confining granite and then emptiness presses him back into its safety. Why does his body betray him? He fears nothing. Nothing! He passes the chasm and moves through the final rock corridor. He smells fire. Hurry, Father. They approach the deepest cave of all, Boog the Shaman’s lair. A sucking sound from Noha. His father, Kiconce, says, “No need to announce yourself. Boog know’s we are here.” Noha’s calves tremble; his feet ache to run forward. Boog must listen. Noha is Spirit chosen. Noha has dreamed. He must tell his dream. If the shaman is wise enough to listen, the rest of the People will listen! His calves tingle as he steps into a volcanic cavity stretched in front, around, and above them. Sparse flames flicker in the rock floor’s center. Trapped smoke stings Noha’s hazel coloured eyes. Flame sends orange snaking and sliding along the walls, making leap the things represented there. The shaman, Boog, presents his back to Noha and his father. Boog paints on the cave wall. At his side a thin cub wrapped in hare-skins holds a lamp filled with animal fat which spits and sparkles. The shaman wields a chewed aspen wand. Shells containing coloured mineral pastes are scattered at his feet. He dips into blacks, yellows, ochres, browns, and reds. He outlines a dancing reindeer, hooves flashing and many-branched horns and musculature outlined in charcoal. A black spear pierces the deer’s side just above its distended abdomen. Above the figure, Boog has silhouetted his ancient hand, fingers splayed and outlined in spattered red hematite powder blown from a hollowed-out bone. Noha peers hungrily at the sacred drawings. His father has told him that there are more pictures in the shadows. A gigantic cave bear, brown as Mother Earth’s clay, displays its belly from which a spear protrudes. There are mammoths, mastodons, aurochs, galloping steppe horses, fleeing hinds, and bison crayoned in black. In places, red ochre deer are superimposed on ibex and bison, the whole surrounded by strange geometric symbols. In the darkest corner, Boog had once shown Noha’s father a cavorting creature with the body of a man, a reindeer’s face, a bison’s hooves, and a horse’s mane. Noha tosses back his long, brown hair, straightens his spine. To hunt such a creature! The apprentice peers at the intruders. Boog’s arm drops to his side. He is as emaciated as a starvling hawk because he eats only roots and herbs which his apprentice gathers from the sparse forests. Boog’s naked shoulders stoop under a grey hare-skin mantle. Similar skins wrap his feet, snail shells wreath his head and beads carved from mammoth tusks and sharpened animals’teeth hang against his sunken chest. A musty smell encases him. “Why have you come?” Boog’s voice is frail and hoarse. “My youngest son has dreamed,” Kiconce says. Noha pushes past his father. “The reindeer will not come. The Fox Spirit first told me this but the foolish hunters would not listen? Now I ...” Kiconce growls deep in his throat and Noha bites down hard on his tongue and moves aside. Show disrespect for Kiconce, the greatest of all hunters? Never. And he must not anger the shaman. Boog turns. “Come closer.” Noha moves into the firelight, careful not to step on his father’s shadow. “Speak.” Noha stares at the shaman. “The reindeer have not come. They are not going to come.” Boog’s eyes flash. “The Dream!” “I ... I was wandering on the mountain. I was thirsty and I went to a stream which flowed from the glacier’s edge. I stooped to drink.” Memory rushes into Noha’s knowing place ... The air was soft against his skin and he shed his hides to roam naked but for his spear among the violet gentians and multi-hued rocks. The sun became hotter, sheened him with acrid sweat. He sniffed. Water nearby. A ravine where a cold stream churned cobalt against moss robed rocks and grass spread a rich duck feather green coverlet. He had argued with the elder hunters since sunrise and he was weary. Sleep would help. He lay in the sun, soft grass soothing his back, his spear close to his right hand. Dozed through the afternoon. The shadow fell across his eyes. He slowly gripped his spear, carefully parted his eyelids. His innards twisted. A reindeer with horns like forest branches loomed over him. Do not be afraid. I have come to speak with you. Noha took a deep, trembling breath, got to his knees. I’m not afraid. At these words, the reindeer lay aside his grey garment and stood before Noha as a tall hunter draped in robes as bright as the afternoon sky. Awaskesh, the Reindeer Spirit! Noha had always known he would come. He has come to me! Me! He forced himself to wait in silence. Awaskesh spoke. The Greatest Spirit, Manitou, has seen your trouble and He has sent me to reassure you. Take heed of the signs He has given. The Eyo must follow the eastern game trails along the Endless Lake. In time, the Eyo shall cross a spirit bridge and come to a new land of mountains where no man-creature dwells and they shall claim it and the people shall eat its many animals, and travel far. There shall be wonders, lakes wider than the eye can see and grassy plains thick with bison. One day, the Eyo shall find a hidden valley and there they shall dwell forever! Do not hesitate! Manitou speaks! But what if my heedless People won’t listen? Manitou speaks! Noha rubbed his forehead into the grass. I obey. When he looked up, Awaskesh had disappeared. Boog puts down his wand, approaches the fire, hunkers beside it and gazes into its depths. Bronze light examines the grooves of his face. After much time has passed, he says, “You must speak at the council fire.” Noha quickly controls the grin pulling at his lips. The apprentice bends toward his master and whispers. Noha has always thought him a strange cub who was given to the shaman when very young but had not once journeyed to the Land of the Great Spirit. However, he is a docile, willing worker, instinctively knowledgeable about plants and content only when serving the shaman or gathering their food. Boog seems fond of him though he must be worried about whom Manitou would choose as his successor. Boog twitches his bony fingers and the cub glides to a dark corner and takes a large roll of ibex skins from a stone shelf. He brings it to Boog who carefully unwraps the skins and places them before the fire. Some are ancient and some new. All are covered with drawings. Unlike the masterful paintings on the cave walls, these are cartoon-like figures inked in black. Boog follows a line of figures with his finger and reads disjointedly: