The first three days of the Green Corn Festival had gone well. People had become acquainted with distant neighbors, and socialized in various ways. Ta-mi and Ma-Lu, our camping neighbors, had shared his bed every night since the first one, but they had not repeated their sexual intercourse since the first night, as far as I knew. People took the fasting tradition seriously, but I did notice that couples were forming attachments where none had existed previously. In most cases these seemed to be male-female infatuations, but occasionally I saw male-male and female-female interactions, and no one seemed to find this at all unusual.
Tse-ni-sa seemed to have formed a bond with Ka-li-na, a muscular heavy-set young woman with a glorious mane of jet-black hair that fell to her knees. They spent a great deal of time combing and braiding each other's hair or just sitting quietly, holding hands and talking in whispers. Ka-li-na's husband, Yo-na, was a bear-like individual, nearly as wide as he was tall. We spent some time sitting together and talking and watching our wives when we weren't involved in preparations for the final ceremonies.
"Those two have plans for us, you can be sure of that," Yo-na told me as we sat in the shade of a large Catalpa tree after working in the hot sun all afternoon. We had been re-thatching clan arbors, and it was sweaty work, but it had to be done as a part of the custom of renewing everything for the beginning of a new year.
"Seems to me they are more interested in each other," I said, brushing sweat from my forehead.
"That too, but watch them and you'll see...they keep looking this way and laughing. I know my wife. And I've seen the way she has been looking at you. I expect she wants to borrow you for the night after the last ceremony. What do you think of that?"
"Hmmm..." I reflected, watching him out of the corner of my eye. He didn't seem to be disturbed by the idea. "I think there's not much we can do about it if that's what they decide they want. We might as well just relax and enjoy it."
"You have a good attitude," he grinned, clapping me on the shoulder. "Your wife has trained you well."
"They're calling for the Green Corn dance again," I noted. "I guess we better get our rattles."
The men lined up double-file at the entrance to the sacred Grounds with the Assistant Chief leading the procession. Each of us carried a gourd or buffalo-horn rattle. The Chief was standing near the sacred fire-mound, beating a hand-drum as the women began to circle the fire in the sun-wise, or counterclockwise, direction, their turtle-shell shackles swishing softly.
We began our slow procession with the Assistant Chief singing the lead and the rest of us singing the responses to the ancient song of purification and renewal. The meanings of the words had been lost to us over the millennia, but we all felt their power as we chanted in the language of the Ancient Ones, shaking our rattles in unison. We made a wide circle around the entire Grounds, detouring to make a trip around the stick-ball court, gradually spiraling in to pass the seven clan arbors and then into the wide open circle surrounding the central fire where the women danced in single file. As we approached them our song competed with that of the Chief until we began, one by one, to integrate our dance with the women's dance one by one, the Chief taking the lead and elder dance-leaders falling into place so that a single-file procession of male-female-male was formed, elders closest to the fire and the rest of the line spiraling out to form additional circles as necessary. Our song faded away as balance was achieved, and the Chief began another song, the women keeping time with their leg-shackle rattles. The effect was truly hair-raising, and I shivered as I danced despite the heat. "Ha-na-wi ye-ha!" the Chief wailed, holding out his right hand to the fire, and we imitated him, responding, "Ha-na-we-i-ye!" as the women's rattles went "Swish! Rat-a-tat, Swish! Rat-a tat," in perfect synchronicity.
"Hiiiii!" the Chief shrieked with a salute to the fire as he ended the song and prepared to segue into another. The rhythm of the Da-ga-si rattles changed to a "Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!" until he began another song. "He-ga-yu Wa-li-ha!" he began, and we responded, "Yu Wa-li-ha!" and the shuffling stomp dance began again. I concentrated on the wide haunches of the woman ahead of me, writhing rhythmically under her long, colorful skirt as she shook the shells strapped to her calves. After several more songs we were all perspiring heavily, and when the women began to tire he ended the dance with a final "Hiiiiii!" The dancers responded in kind, and then intoned "Ho-wahhhh..." as he paused to clasp the head-woman's hand and exited the circle toward the Long-Hair Clan arbor north of the fire. We trooped along toward our own clan arbors and sat there in the shade, fanning ourselves with our hands.
Later some of us dug a deep pit where the corn would be steamed overnight, others brought in sheaves of cornstalks lush with fat ears, and the women prepared the corn for the pit as we piled billets of wood in the bottom of it, lighting it with coals from the sacred fire. When it had burned down to a thick bed of glowing coals we added a layer of rocks and began arranging chopped green corn stalks, then the ears of corn and more stalks, finally covering it all with a layer of wet clay. The steamed corn would be the food we first consumed upon breaking our fast at noon the next day.
As the sun began to fall toward the Darkening Land, we danced the Green Corn dance again, then had a Beaver Dance which was popular with the younger people. A stuffed beaver hide was dragged back and forth by two men holding long thongs attached to it on either side, while the dancers, holding cane switches, circled around, two of their number, male and female, separated from the circle and pretended to hunt for the beaver. They searched in the most unlikely places, often under the skirts of female dancers, to the great hilarity of all while the Chief beat a drum and sang "Wi-gi, wi-gi hi-ya-we, and when the Chief sang, "Do-yi! Do-yi! He-no-o he-no!" they pretended to suddenly notice the stuffed beaver dancing between the thongs, and went after it with their switches, the men with the thongs doing their best to keep the beaver from being battered, but in the end they killed it and rejoined the dancers while another couple went searching for the beaver.
After all who cared to bash the beaver had their chances, we prepared for a social stick-ball game, men versus women. Protective medicine was administered by the Chief to all players, and applied to their ball-sticks as well, before the game began. Men were only allowed to touch the ball with their lacrosse-racquet-like sticks, while women were allowed to use their hands to attempt to hit the carved fish at the top of the tall pole at the center of the circular ball-court. It really didn't give them much of an advantage, because the fish was a long way up there and most of them couldn't throw the light deer hide ball that far. Their major advantage, however, was the right to do absolutely anything to the men in order to prevent them from scoring, while the men were ethically obliged to avoid injuring the women through unnecessary roughness. Other than this, there were practically no rules, with such a crowd on the field that it would have been impossible to enforce them even if there were any. Serious games between male members of disputing clans frequently resulted in broken bones and sometimes fatalities, and was known as "the little brother of war," but in the social game injuries to anything other than pride were rare. My personal strategy was to avoid the ball, or if I did accidentally acquire it, to pass it to someone else before I ended up on the bottom of a pile of scratching, kicking women. I did enjoy, however, embracing women in possession of the ball, pinioning their arms as I lifted them off their feet, although this sometimes resulted in being assaulted viciously by their team-mates, who were wont to wrest the sticks from a man's hands and flog him thoroughly with his own weapons.
After the ball-game most of us limped to the river, where we bathed and played in the cool water. Jennifer swam to me and I took her slippery naked body in my arms. She brushed back my wet hair and examined a bruise around my eye. "Poor Tse-k'," she sympathized, kissing me. "He has been taught a hard lesson by female warriors." She slipped a slender hand between us and grasped my cock. "But tomorrow night I have arranged a special surprise for him which will make him feel much better."
"Like what?"
"You'll see. I know you'll like it. And I'm sure I will too."
"Does it have anything to do with your friend Ka-li-na?"
"Never mind. You'll find out tomorrow night." She stroked my cock, which was stiffening despite the chilly water of the mountain stream. "But keep this. You'll need it."
That evening, as the nearly full moon began to rise, we crawled, hungry and exhausted into our bed. We were shivering because despite the heat of the day temperatures had fallen quickly as the sun set. We would have a full day on the morrow, the women preparing the feast that would break our fast, and hunters would bring in deer after a pre-dawn hunt to provide the meat. We would rest during the afternoon hours and then dance through the night, going to water when the sun made its first appearance.
I held Tse-ni-sa close to me, sharing warmth. "So what will we be doing at this time the night after the last dance?" I asked her.
"No hints, Husband. You will see. Now sleep, because that is one thing you will NOT be doing tomorrow night or the night after that either."
We slept clasped in each other's arms but had a restless night filled with dreams of a strange, alien land where beasts and trees were few, hostile crowds of people in odd clothing swarmed everywhere and enormous stinking monstrosities with shining chitinous carapaces careened snarling along paths of solid stone. The air was foul and the water worse, and I was aware that danger lurked everywhere. Yet as horrifying as it was, I had an odd feeling that I had been there before and in fact felt that I should be quite familiar with it. My sleep-fogged brain struggled to understand this frightful world, and once or twice I thought my memories were coming clear, but then I lost it again.
