Lyydia
crouched on the icepack alone, eyes closed, her weapon arm hanging
limp at her side, and asked the earth to speak of others on her path.
The River sang beneath the ice far to her left, and Lyydia spoke
softly once — a word of command — to quiet the ice water music so
that the ears of her mind could hear the distance.
She
thanked Bear for the warmth of his skin on her bones, and for its
sight. She visioned her children and grandchildren home in her
Saariselkä village, swathed in Bear’s sister skins, safe and fed.
She rocked, calling the vision, seeing Bear when it gave its life to
her family. Lyydia was Noaidi, and as shaman, she had returned the
bones to the den, singing the Bear joik, asking for the skill to use
Bear eyes.
With
Bear wisdom, Lyydia touched her damaged arm with her other furred
hand, sending healing breath from her mind through her blood to the
injury. The pain eased. Lyydia let go of her children grandchildren
vision from Bear eyes and retuned her mind and sight to her
surroundings.
Her
eyes walked the dark blue horizon, unbroken waves of snow and ice
reflecting the northern lights that wavered overhead. Beyond the
great frost-rimed lake, the forest huddled in the distance to her
right. Past the forest, another half day’s journey away, her people
slept, ate, sewed, hunted and waited.
The
reindeer herd snapped attentive. The many hoof sounds ceased, the
frozen lake sending tiny drum rim cracks into the dancing light of
the night sky.
Something
was quietly approaching. Something she could not yet see on the land.
No
Bear or Wolf spirit showed itself to her inner sight. The deer would
be stamping, snorting, anxious to be away and prone to flight if a
big animal was nearby. The animal coming toward them and her was
alone and smaller.
Lyydia
should not be here. She was a grandmother and her tribe’s shaman,
and she had broken the thread of the village garment by following the
desire of her selfish heart to journey afar and ask the underworld
spirits to send Ringed Seal meat for her people. The crevasse had
almost eaten her life, but she had stopped her fall and clambered out
with only an injured arm. She had been a fool twice on this quest. A
three-time fool seldom returned home.
Now
she was a wounded and tired fool. There were many stanzas of her
lifesong already told, and she was weary with shame and age. Perhaps
Beivve, the sun goddess, was angry with her for being absent on
Beivve’s festival night.
“Ah,”
Lyydia said aloud. Her mind sight revealed the other animal that
followed her trail. Lyydia fingered the tooth on the leather thong
attached to the drum on her back. It was hot to her touch. It was one
of the molars special to Wolverine. At the back of its upper jaw, on
either side, these teeth were turned 90 degrees. The molars allowed
the predatory carnivore to tear frozen carrion and to crush bones to
extract the marrow.
The
reindeer were not in calving season, so there were no young deer. The
herd was healthy and no frail old ones would hamper retreat. A
wolverine could take down an unprotected adult reindeer that did not
run fast enough.
On
this night Lyydia was the slowest of the animals on the tundra.
Holding
the tooth in one hand over her head, she prayed to the tooth that, if
the underworld required another toll for this journey, she alone
would make the offering, and that her village would remain healthy
and strong; that her children’s lifesongs would be sung long and
with joy. Her grandson was a man now; a good hunter. He would take a
wife in the spring, and this is what had sent her on the quest to ask
for Ringed Seal to come to the people. His wedding cloak might be
made from seal skins, bringing seal hunter magic to their home fire.
Her
granddaughter had learned much of Noaidi ways from Lyydia, who had
witnessed her gifts as a baby. Anu would be a gifted shaman for her
village. Whether she would be a mother, Lyydia did not know. She had
not found reason to look into that future. The next Noaidi revealed
herself to her teacher. That was the way. Lyydia had lost herself in
self enough for this day, perhaps enough to end a lifetime.
Face
raised to the sky, the old shaman sang her joik and felt her spirit
mingle with herd spirit and dance on the breast of the earth. Deer
dancing, she rose into the stringed light of the sky, bringing
northern light strength into her body until she could move her hurt
weapon arm high.
Lyydia
unstrung the wolverine tooth from its leather tie and placed it on
her drum. She sat flat on the earth, holding the antler drumstick,
visualizing her lifesong, and began to chant. She struck the rim of
the drum once with the other side of the antler. The tooth would leap
on the drum skin among the runes of Lyydia’s life drawn there;
revealing her fate when it stopped dancing on the skin.
The
club she used to hunt had fallen into the crevasse, along with one of
her snowshoes. Slowly she unstrapped the remaining shoe from her
foot. Using her teeth to save her arm further hurt, she untied the
bindings, separating the long curved edge from the weave in the
center. She set the bindings on the earth and the drum on her back.
The hot tooth she put into her own mouth. She gripped the antler
drummer in her weapon hand and the splintered snowshoe bow in the
other.
Lyydia
stood. She waited for the wolverine to come.
