Arrival Of The ‘Reindeer’ In Horseshoe Bay. By Sandy Clark and Lea Goward. There’s in introduction to The Cape posted in the Intoit blog.
The great white sails of the ship bellied out. It heeled over slightly, cutting through the calm waters of Stuart Channel, making for the place called Horseshoe Bay by the white people. The weaver didn’t like their ships, the way they moved without any paddlers on board. At least this was a sailing vessel, not one of the steam powered contraptions that churned through the water like sea monsters made of wood and metal, their dark smoke smudging the sky.
She imagined a cedar canoe in the gunship’s stead, the men chanting as they dug into the surface of the sea with their paddles, their boat gliding through the water, powered by muscle and spirit, the identity of its house proudly announced by the carving on its bow: Eagle, Otter, Raven.
That was a sight she would have welcomed.
Most of all, she didn’t like the British ships because she didn’t know anything about the places they came from. She had never visited the villages where the Haida canoes were launched either, and the fear of those fierce northern tribes stirred in her breast just thinking about them. But at least she knew them as enemies, who came from villages that would in many respects be similar to her own – they were not aliens in that sense, even if she hated them.
But the white man? She snugged her cape around her shoulders, felt its weight hanging down to her ankles. It no longer shocked her to see people of her own village wearing shirts, pants, dresses, shoes like the settlers. But it did sadden her. Will I do the same someday? she wondered.
She couldn’t imagine it – putting garments so utterly anonymous and devoid of meaning on her back.
Her brother and uncle had helped collect the cedar bark that had been used to weave the cape she wore. She remembered the exact trees they had chosen, the trunks tall and straight with no branches until you looked up very high. Her uncle had notched grooves about a quarter way round these trunks, and split the bark up from the ends of the incisions. Then he levered the blade of his axe under the woody rinds, peeling open tongues down to the cross cuts. These he’d grasped from both sides and tugged sharply, the bark coming cleanly away from the trees in long strips that went up almost to branches, before they fell, dropping like gigantic snakes to the forest floor.
She had sliced these ribbons into lengths and stripped the bark off the soft inner layers. Then she’d bundled the harvest to take back to the village, where it would be cleaned and pounded until it was pliable and ready for weaving.
The goat’s wool woven into cape’s edging and designs had been traded for, reaching the Coast from the Interior – again, from places she’d never been but were known to her through stories. On some capes she attached a fur trim, usually sea otter. These were hunted by the men of her village or acquired through trade.
Will any of that be possible in the future?
The weaver didn’t want to think about it. The white-men never asked, they took, not thanking the tree for its bark, or the forest for the tree that was to be hollowed out and adzed into the sleek shape of a canoe. They did not think themselves blessed when the spirit Otter allowed itself to be taken. They parceled up the land with fences, and cut down swaths of trees, which they didn’t carve, revealing the shape that had always been within, but sawed into squared lengths to build their houses or load into their ships.
And they didn’t move with the seasons, from summer to winter grounds, in harmony with the abundance of Mother Earth. They stayed put, their farms, mills, mines and towns like patches on a giant, smothering quilt spreading across the land. How long until we cannot get to the place where the best trees live? the weaver asked. You could ask the same about hunting, fishing, gathering herbs and berries, oysters and clams. More and more of them will come, she thought, until they have driven the spirits of our world out of reach.
It wasn’t right to think that way, but she couldn’t help it.
“They will never drive the spirit out of here,” her uncle scolded, thumping his chest with his fist.
“That may be true,” she agreed. “But they will try.”
“We won’t let them.”
“What can we do to stop them?” she wanted to know. “What can I do?”
“You’re a weaver,” he said. “Weave!”
He refused to explain this when she asked, but she knew that he meant what he’d said.
Later, working at her frame, a vision came to her in the form of a cedar twig. Looking closely at its leaves, she wondered at how much they appeared to have been woven in a pattern that reminded her of the things she’d woven from the cedar’s bark. Closely examining a real cedar leaf, the weaver confirmed this notion, and marveled that she hadn’t noticed it before. You, she said of the leaf, are woven out of the air nature breathes, nutrients in the soil, water that flows underground, sunlight that warms you.
Then she thought of the cedar cones and seeds. They could be stored away for a long time, she imagined, then if they were given air, soil, water and sunlight, they would germinate and grow. That’s what Uncle means, she thought – that the spirit of cedar and of the cedar cape lived on in the hearts of her people and would not be extinguished. The conditions of renewal and revival would be achieved.
“Weave!” he had urged her, and so she would.
From that day, and for two-years after, she worked on the last cape she would ever weave. She and her uncle set out to find the choicest trees within their territory. He traded for the best goat’s wool that could be found, and the finest sea otter pelts. And the craftsman of their village built a magnificent bent cedar box to store the cape in.
“This cape shall not be worn until the box is opened and it is discovered by our descendants,” the weaver said when she was finished.
“It will be worn once,” her uncle corrected. “And you shall be the one to dance this cape and bring the energy and spirit of our people into it.”
And so she did. She danced for the assembled families of her village; danced as they watched in wonder; as the spirit of drumming, music and singing drenched the cedar, goat’s wool and otter’s fur that made up the cape.
“I have become an ancestor,” the weaver said, when she was done.
“We are all ancestors,” her uncle agreed.
And the cape was put away for the day when it would be danced again by their descendants.
A Nootka woman, wearing a cedar woven blanket.
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