N'gwa was unknown among the seven villages. A young woman gained prestige by her size. She was very small. When the kids talked about who would marry whom or who would achieve what, they always made fun of her. They called her the ant keeper because her babies would be as small as ants. They told her that nobody from their village would marry her. Her father would sell her to the Ral'bagwa village. Everyone looked down on that village because they had nothing. Every other village had a pride. The pride of their village was the desert, for they lived at the edge of the desert.
Aside from her size, she was prettier than all the other young women her age. The features of her face were curved and delicate. Her eyes could look exotic when the light reflected in her brown iris. The priestess called the brown glow a touch of opal. The prophecy was that a woman thus blessed would in old age be able to see through the hills and forests to the four ends of the world. When one looked into her eyes up close, the kindness melted one's heart. Perhaps, that's why the other kids so mercilessly taunted her height because it was her only flaw.
The great flower hunt was the most prestigious challenge for the women to prove their prowess. Every seven years, the spring winds flowed from where the sun sets to where it rises. Rather than dry, hot air, the inverted winds brought heavy, cold rain clouds. The rain continued for days. The hills first drank up the water hungrily. Then the slopes turned slippery. On the final day, avalanches of brown water ran down everywhere. For seven days, the families stayed in their huts. The fathers would brave the rain to reinforce the walls running around their compounds against the streams that hungrily chewed on everything.
When the rain stopped, the fields were to wet to be worked yet. However, the desert had turned a faint green. As the sun returned, the green spread over the desert hills. The green was faint because the plants were working hard to grow fast. The scorching sun would soon devour them. By the second morning, the hills had turned yellow and red. Tiny flowers bloomed. Often a particular hillside was covered with the same flower and another with a different flower. That made the hills colored in pure color.
Legend said that the god of the sky had dropped the flowers for the goddess of the earth would come to the surface. In their encounter, they would make children gods that would go into all the plants on the field and the trees of the forest. Like every year, the whole village gathered in the ritual ground. The priestess cleared a circle in the center and called the young women. She drummed a two-tone beat. The first tone was a big boom on a heavy drum. That tone was the masculine calling. The second tone was a high-pitched snap from a tightly stretched deer leather drum. Bells on the second drum added a melodic twang. That was the response of the feminine. The young women gathered in the center of about two hundred people.
N'gwa's mother Rin'ta stood with her neighbor. They discussed the new fabric dye from the jungle village Tar'unga. The jungle village had the pride of a tar pit. The tar pit gave a sticky black substance that the village turned into a black dye. Black fabric gave better sun protection. For the people of Ral'bagwa, sun protection was critical. The hot desert sun was lethal. Even the men dressed in flowing robes. The robes flowed loosely over their bodies so that the air could touch the skin and evaporate the sweat. Every little bit of water against the skin provided a treasured cooling. The robe flared wide like a tent around the legs. The shade that it threw on the ground was enough to cool the ground a bit. If one stood for a while, the cold was comfortable to no longer burn the soles of the feet. If one was stalking a desert rabbit that sneakily stole cabbage patches, one had to stand quiet for a long time with the bow stretched at the ready.
The robe covered the head and face as well. Only the eyes were visible. Most people knew each other only by the eyes. To reveal the face to someone required to bond with them over the friendship ritual first. If two neighbors decided to like each other, one would bring a red hummingbird flower as a gift. If the other reciprocated, the other would bring a yellow spider flower. With a pestle, they would grind the two flowers into a thick paste, occasionally adding water. They would drink the paste. The paste was a poison that would kill them within a day.
Putting themselves in a compromised position tested their friendship. The green stinging nettle was the antidote. The plant is rare near Ral'bagwa because it grows next to big rivers, of which there was none near the desert. There was no shame in keeping the antidote for yourself and letting your neighbor die. In fact, the village rules said that the property of the dead would go to the living. Thus sharing the antidote was the true test of friendship.
Rin'ta had formed three friendship bonds with neighbors. When they visited each other in their huts, they would remove the face portion of the dress. When N'gwa grew up, she saw the faces of three families with all the marvels of nose, mouth, lips, cheeks, and ears. The most wondrous part of these family visits was to see emotions on people's faces. The laughter that erupted when one person laughed and the laugh spread to the two big families was wondrous. N'gwa also saw the sadness on the mother's faces when the lost another child to famine, a disease, or a wicked spirit.
The tribe believed that seeing someone's emotions allows one to control the other person. That's why outside of close friendship bonds, the village people never revealed their faces. It was too vulnerable. They hid their emotions. When Rin'ta was called ant keeper, she didn't respond. She didn't let the other kids see how much she was hurt, shamed, and felt ostracized.
Thus gathered, the whole tribe stood on the ceremonial grounds. They were figures that looked like ghosts with their robes. The priestess stopped drumming. She raised her stuff with the feathers of the vulture high for everyone to quiet. She approached the young women at the center.
"Have you bled?" she called across the ritual ground.
Half the young women raised their arms and walked to their mothers.
