Raven's Cry. Christie Harris
the high prows of the sleekest canoes his father’s skilled hands had fashioned. Yatz sighed, only once more and very softly, for his lost Raven home and for the affection of his father’s family. A Haida child belonged to his mother’s family, and his mother was a Sdast’a•aas Saang gaahl Eagle. He belonged with her uncle, Head Chief Gannyaa, and with her brother, Chief 7idansuu. Hiellen was his proper home!
Haiias touched Yatz’s arm, startling him from his thoughts. “You saw that flash of white?” His voice was eager.
“White?” Yatz peered along the other’s pointing finger. “The breakers, you mean? The seagulls?”
Haiias shook his head mysteriously. He parted his lips and seemed to consider speaking.
“What else would be white out there?” Yatz asked him in sudden concern. An uneasy excitement stirred him.
“You have heard of the sightings, Yatz?”
The younger boy nodded, speechless. He scanned the sea with redoubled interest. Rumors had reached his village, rumors that had passed along from village to village with copper and mountain goat horns. But the rumors were too fantastic.
“Flying canoes!” he protested. “Bigger than our canoes!” It was ridiculous. Nowhere in the world were there bigger trees than Haida Gwaii cedars. So how could there be bigger canoes?
“They could be supernatural,” Haiias suggested.
“They would have to be supernatural,” Yatz agreed with vigor. There could be no canoes bigger than those his father hewed and steamed, each from a single felled cedar tree.
Sea rovers that they were, the Haida knew the whole world of real men and real canoes. They ranged north to the islands of Alaska, and southward for days and days! They knew their ships were unmatched for size and swiftness. This was why they could snatch people from lesser nations along the coast to serve them as slaves.
“With . . . blue men?” Yatz suggested lightly, shrugging off fantastic craft from another world to show Haiias his manly boldness.
But he could not dismiss the notion.
It chipped away at his mind all summer, while his adze chipped away at a Hawk dance mask, and then at a miniature canoe designed to hold whipped berries for the guests at Head Chief Gannyaa’s coming potlatch.
Most gifted of the young Sdast’a•aas princes, Yatz worked closely with his uncle Chief 7idansuu, preparing for the winter ceremonies. Sometimes the stone edge of his adze blade broke, and he turned envious eyes on his uncle’s carving tool, which was set with a piece of iron. Bits of iron, like rumors, passed along from village to village, and nobody knew where they had started.
Then his dance mask was finished, ready for paint. His canoe was almost carved too. And as he polished it to sleekness with a piece of dried sharkskin, Yatz’s eyes caressed its graceful lines and measured its prow for the placing of his Eagle design. He must emphasize the large, curved beak, the Eagle’s identifying symbol. And he must fill the space beautifully and precisely with the abstracted elements of the Eagle: wing, eye, tail, feathers. Otherwise, he could do what he liked; and the challenge was exhilarating. He ran his finger along the wood. Smooth as the inner mother-of-pearl of a seashell. He wished he could show his father. Then swiftly he hid his unseemly pride in his own work as two old, old men approached him.
Alert to fine craftsmanship and jealous for Haida reputation, the two old men examined this new boy’s work with critical care before they nodded approval. Even a prince, especially a prince, must be worthy of his good fortune in being a Haida.
The village was almost empty; villagers were camped at their ancient family summer stations, harvesting the endless bounty of the sea and the forest and the berry patches. They were gathering and preserving foods with the surging vigor of a healthy, northern people, and with the special enthusiasm of hosts preparing for prolonged feasting.
Head Chief Gannyaa’s potlatch was to be the most magnificent gathering the world had ever seen. Along with the conduct of important public affairs, there would be songs, dances, and stories, all brilliantly costumed and lavishly presented. There would be feasting, gourmet feasting; for the Haida had over two hundred ways of preparing just one of their sea foods, salmon. At this potlatch, there would be intriguing new dishes, elegantly served. And there would be gift-giving, hundreds of gifts worthy of the mighty Sdast’a•aas Saang gaahl Eagles. The family must display its glory.
Involved in his own special sphere, Yatz felt his excitement mounting. He almost forgot the flying ship stories in his pride in the preparations.
Yatz and Chief 7idansuu were so busy they could not even go salmon fishing. But they did have to tear themselves away from their paintbrushes long enough to attend a ceremony on the big Alaskan island that lay north of Haida Gwaii, across fifty miles of open ocean.
About twenty-five years earlier, the Haida had driven a Tlingit tribe from the southern part of that island. Still in the process of occupying it, they were building houses on the new sites, and raising totem poles, and inviting relatives from Haida Gwaii to participate in attendant ceremonies.
Yatz and his uncle’s family witnessed the raising of a totem pole on the Alaskan island. Then, as quickly as etiquette allowed, they left the new village to hurry homeward.
It was a still, lovely morning; and they were ready to make the dash across the open sea when they saw the swift-moving cloud. “A storm,” Chief 7idansuu predicted. “We’ll camp here and wait.” No Haida ever willingly risked riding out a storm on that treacherous piece of water.
They had not even finished setting up the camp when a small canoe rounded a point and shot towards them. Before it reached them, they had identified it as Haida.
“Chief!” the paddler gasped, leaping out. “A flying canoe!” He pointed northward, beyond the point of land, and his finger trembled. “It is not of this world. We had better hide in the forest.”
Chief 7idansuu glanced at his nephew.
Yatz swallowed cold fear, but he nodded in instant understanding. A Sdast’a•aas chief did not hide. His dignity demanded boldness.
Nevertheless, the boy at least felt a drumming in his ears as he and his uncle readied themselves for a voyage to the strange craft. Fringes of dried puffin beaks seemed to clatter like chattering teeth as he lifted regalia from a canoe chest. And he tripped on the fur cloak he carried as he rushed to the chief’s sixty-foot state canoe.
Slave paddlers shivered with more obvious panic, but they dared not disobey. The family watched with dismay, yet made not the slightest protesting murmur as a ceremonial plank was laid across the canoe, well back of the bow. In tense silence they saw the Eagle prow slice through the water.
Yatz was also tense and silent.
The canoe rounded the rocky point. Ahead, a sailing ship lay becalmed.
“A flying canoe!”
It stunned them.
“Paddle!” the chief commanded. He himself stepped up onto the ceremonial plank, and his shoulders began to sway under his patterned Chilkat blanket. His head began to move under an Eagle headdress that was hung with many ermine skins and encircled by a tall ring of sea lion bristles.
“A flying canoe!” Yatz only breathed it, again and again, wondering if he were dreaming. His blood chilled in spite of his sea otter cloak, but his steering hand did not falter. His head stayed high under its wooden Eagle.
“Paddle!” he commanded, squeaking the word. “Paddle!” he repeated firmly.
How could this be? There were no trees in the world big enough to make the canoe he saw before his eyes. It might even be a supernatural monster disguised as a canoe for some dreadful purpose. It might even be the spirit of Kali Koustli, from the Land of Pestilence.
“Sing!” he commanded; and once more his voice came out high pitched. “Sing!” he repeated, deeply.
His uncle was already