Ononharóia ‘The Festival of Dreams’ thgordon ©2014 1 Ononharóia ‘The Festival of Dreams’1 thgordon Freydís Eirík [the Red]’s daughter…then asked [the merchants Helgi and Finnbogi] to go to Vinland with her expedition and split everything they got there fifty-fifty.2 Greenland Saga They say there is an island overflowing with gold that is bigger than Hispaniola…3 Christopher Columbus Head high, tail recurved, a long snake slithers into the narrowing mouth of the Skonéhtati Kahónta4 ‘Hudson River’, the estuary5 currently misnamed for a misadventurer.6 Seen from where the World Trade Center will rise and fall, the snake pulses rhythmically across the wind-teased surface which extends forever into the Oiikhatákeka ‘Atlantic’. Teiohninhaohakará:when’s fingertips pull a gleaming black sheet off her left eye, which is wide with fear, surprise or both. The eerie, rippling coordination of oars turn the long snake into a giant centipede as it silhouettes against the marshes of what will be called Paulus Hook in Jersey City. Her features relax into a smile. Kén:tho ne otkonkahonwé:ia é:so iah iah teskénnen, kwah í:kehre'. ’Incoming UFOs with superior technology tend to strike a raw nerve.’7 Ononharóia ‘The Festival of Dreams’ thgordon ©2014 2 The smile fades into a calm so extreme it teeters on the brink of arrogance, while she treads water. Act wisely or look brave? Tey waves the water around her, descends and swims8 till her cheeks puff. Her surfacing splash speeds four water striders on their way and swamps two. Finding her feet in the voluptuous ooze, Tey presses up the bank onto the shore, which bounces as she staggers slightly. Clingy, gritty sand muddies into a tidy but gap-toothed field of Áhsen Akhtsí:’a 9 ‘Three Sisters’ ‘corn, squash and beans’. Silhouetted against nodding, vine-wrapped stalks, Kanéntia the Little Owl presents a delicate, sinuously braided reed basket. Her flint cut bangs sway over eyes which flicker between intent and astonished. Tey empties whelks10 11 12 from her sweetgrass waist bag into the basket while a cool wind paints her back. Past the sun-streaked crown of Kanéntia’s head, a rustic, smoky elm bark longhouse blocks ragged coastal pines. The whelks click gratingly, hollowly. Kanéntia hands her an iron-tipped arrow, which Tey tests with two blanching fingertips. Its dripping serrations bleed sunlight. She turns to see Landherjuðar’s ‘Land Harrier’s finely wrought, clinker-built13 hull flying at her on its oars, riding up out of the water and skimming along in a semi-planing posture, almost like a power boat.14 Freydís Eiríksdóttir inn rauða ‘Freydís, Eirík the Red’s daughter’ critiques 32 badly sunburned vikings15 in salt bleached rags, who present their rowing stroke to her twenty times a minute. Numbers three and eight are late, nineteen, four and sixteen aren’t pulling their weight, and the whole crew looks stale. Who’s going to mutiny next? A tasty south wind licks a yellowish red tendril over her forehead. In the distance to the east, oaks coalesce into the grey-green and rounded mountains of Manhattan.16 Ononharóia ‘The Festival of Dreams’ thgordon ©2014 3 Better coaxe him out into the open and squash him before he makes too many friends. Steering dexterously, Freydís fights a stretching withy17 to wrestle the ship starboard,18 towards the screamer 19 girls. She refuses to tell the starboard oars to lighten. Every breeze trades the familiar shipboard smell (half bracing pine tar, half bilge skank) for cool, salty ocean weather, and occasional, then not so occasional, hints of growing green things, sweating grass, dank mud, sweet violets. How many fathoms are we in? How long will the trunnels hold out? So many potential disasters competing to happen. Freydís is 25, heavily freckled, not quite five feet tall, flame-haired, all sinew. Her clothes are a mélange of what was once fashionable in Baghdad, what still is in Constantinople and what soon will be in Aachen—making her absurdly chic by Greenlandic standards. Mercian, Irish and Caliphate necklaces, bracelets, rings and anklets jingle, along with a conspicuous belt of keys.20 Motley Chinese silk ribbons bunch her hair. The relatively long and heavy head of a small war axe sways above a kind of scabbard or gilded leather stirrup. Kol, the sketchily bearded stroke, ships his oar, nocks an arrow and smiles at Ulfstan, the number 31. Landherjuðar is marching straight for Kanéntia, long oars stepping double-quick. Thirty-two blades slide into the catch with curt backsplashes. They wing smoothly through the water, springing the longboat forward and sending thirty-two whorls wandering. Kanéntia’s calloused feet squirm deeper in the sand. All those long, disturbingly synchronized oars pull the distance away with terrible speed. Surreal whispers, dark growls and the slush and scud of water whirl closer. Kanéntia bites her lip to stop herself from trembling. Death-pale and blood-red people with fallen leaf hair want to take her with them back to the land of the dead, apparently. A Cree,21 maybe, waves an arm from the stern. MESSAMOTT (IN WRETCHED LENAPE22) Ononharóia ‘The Festival of Dreams’ thgordon ©2014 4 Kuwatu hàch kèku? Hey.23 He’s good looking, with long, girly hair, and seems friendly enough. Kanéntia feels ashamed of herself. Maybe the Unidentified Floating Object is harmless, even friendly. Why shouldn’t it be? She examines Tey carefully. You’ll have a body like that soon. Exactly like that. Better. KANÉNTIA (TO TEY IN KANIEN’KÉHA ‘MOHAWK’) Shé’kon ratá:ti ne rón:kwe. Dude says whassup. 24 A ghost of a smile rises at the corners of Tey’s mouth. Also. All the guys will want you. A handsome beaded and quilled bearskin cape beside Kanéntia smells of hearth fire: smoky, a little musty and familiar. She presents it to Tey, who takes it matter-of-factly, a rotiiáne ‘lady, noble’ receiving attendance. Kanéntia wants to talk about getting shot at by the fallen leaf people on the crazy big wooden boat, but holds her tongue. Scared little chatterbox. Don’t be a. A vixen-woman, evidently the ship’s grandmother25 by her fine, strange clothes, rises above the gunwale beside Girly Hair in the stern, holding three bows26 to show they’re well armed. No shit. 27 Or else she’s promising they won’t shoot. Ononharóia ‘The Festival of Dreams’ thgordon ©2014 5 Tey lopes towards the water, speeds up to a sprint theatrically, KANÉNTIA AKHTSÍ:’A!28 TÓHSA ATÁ:WENS— BIG SISTER! DON’T SWIM-- plunges in and races towards the ship, swimming one-handed while holding the cape aloft with the other. KANÉNTIA NÓN:WA SASÁHKET! COME BACK, NOW! As she swims,29 Tey remembers Kanéntia’s wide eyes. She’d looked at older kids like that once. Across the water, two or three bows aim forshortened arrows at her. Well, the one thing stupider than keeping right on going would be turning back. Idle curiosity might make them hold their shot. Swimming away I’d definitely be target practice. Hope the arrow hits my shoulder…something meaty. Hate that flint-into-bone impact. Tey’s dripping fingers grasp the gunwale, while Pretty Boy regards her gravely. Mantling with some difficulty because the gunwale curves upward toward the stern, she edges her right foot onto the cusp of a strange world. The wooden husk of the boat holds 32 paddlers sitting in orderly files. Glimmering copper kettles, iron blades, battered wooden chests and an assortment of weird crap clutter a marvelously smooth wooden floor. Everything dances around a very long tent pole carrying a kind of huge cape stretched by fifty ropes. It catches the Fawn Wind.30 Ononharóia ‘The Festival of Dreams’ thgordon ©2014 6 The grandmother strides forward, fire and bone with spots. Now that’s a great look. How do you paint those spots on your skin? How do you get your skin so white, and your hair so red? Tey extends the bearskin cape31 32 with uncurling hands in a kind of gift giving salaam, the effect, she thinks, ruined somewhat by one soaked and dribbling corner of the cape. The grandmother’s eyes hold the sky. Fire grandmother lifts a gold ring off her finger and places it precisely in the middle of Tey’s extending and opening palm, then raises a red wool cape from a sea chest. Six raised fingers say: pretty snazzy, eh? The bear-faced paddlers watch them intently. I’ll be telling people about this for years. FREYDÍS (IN NORSE TO MESSAMOTT AKA ‘GIRLY HAIR’ ‘PRETTY BOY’) Ek vil kaupar gull fyrir rautt skrúð. Er er gullrinn eða mikill fe i Þessum landr? I’m looking to trade red cloth33 for gold.34 Where’s the gold or fe “money, sheep, cattle or other object of value” in these parts? MESSAMOTT (IN LENAPE, TO TEY) …Undachqui hàch yuli sukachsin wisaweu? Allum’sin. Winhattakuwagan. Angellowi. …Wheresoever are these yellow iron thingies, or big little deer?35 Go away, danger, deadly. Tey widens her eyes to say, “I don’t understand,” and smirks to add, “Fool.” Learn the language, why don’t ya, buddy? Ononharóia ‘The Festival of Dreams’ thgordon ©2014 7 Messamott watches the sun walk towards them on the water, slipping on the waves. A canoe slides across its path. KANÉNTIA (FROM THE CANOE, IN KANIEN’KÉHA) Ohwísta ne ki ken kén:tho? Tánon atená:ti’ ken kén’en? Akhsóh’ta osténha iontáti. The fire grandmother is asking you if there is any of this metal around, or any elk. She sees three beautiful people before her and again feels like a skinny kid.