Dance of White Swan

It was spring, but the mornings were still cold, and her breath escaped her lips in soft, white puffs in the pre-dawn glow. She left behind her a cluster of earth lodges, pausing a moment to look across the vast sweep of plains that lay beyond the village. Soon the women and children would begin the planting, and the men would dress in buffalo skins and hunt among the great herds that roamed in the plains, and she would once again eat fresh meat.

She looked away and crept by herself to the edge of a dark, placid lake, carrying a clay pot that had been carefully shaped by gentle hands. She gazed into the mist that hovered above the water. White Swan was never alone; she surrounded herself with the laughter and chatter of the other girls in her clan, with the banter and attention of the young hunters, so this stillness was new to her. She had also been the first to rise, and this too was unusual for her. She liked to sleep past dawn, and the mothers of her clan chided her for this, but last night she could not sleep. She could think only of the feast that would celebrate the end of winter, and the beginning of the great hunt. Fish caught in thawed streams would be smoked. Corn flour would be baked into bread. And maple water would be boiled in clay pots to make sweet syrup.

              The mist parted as a swan landed on the surface of the water. The soft golds and pinks of the dawn softly lit up its white feathers. Her mother once sat here, watching the swans return in the spring. Her mother had named her for those birds she had loved so much, in those moments after a difficult birth, when she had died with White Swan in her arms.

              Her father was Chief, Wise One Above, which meant White Swan was special. He often told her about her mother’s beauty, her quiet ways. “Swans mate for life,” he said, and his eyes were sad when he spoke. He had never chosen another wife, and White Swan had been cared for by the mothers of her clan. The clan of the bear. The protectors. The guardians and healers.

              White Swan had never mourned her mother. “You have not learned to weep,” her father said. “You prefer to laugh. And to dance, like your mother danced.”

              White Swan loved to dance. Something happened to her in the dark, when the bonfires burned, when the skin drums were beaten, when the flutes were played. When Gray Wolf looked at her. The music had power over her. It burned like fire in her blood, and she moved without thought, her small feet pounding a rhythm into the earth.  

She knelt by the water, the coolness of the damp earth seeping through her deerskin dress into her knees. She looked at the clay pot in her hands. Small Owl had shaped if from the clay he gathered, smoothing out the pockets of air as he worked the clay into its shape, before hardening it in the fire. If she turned it over, she would see the symbol of Turtle on the base of it. Turtle was a lonely animal, slow and unappealing. So was Small Owl. His face was plain, and his eyes did not shine like Gray Owl’s did.

Wise One Above would not approve of her thoughts. “Turtle is the earth. Steady, peaceful, nurturing. Small Owl may not be like the noisy, brazen hunters you admire so much,” he would tell her, “But he tans hides, weaves bright blankets, and shapes beautiful clay pots because that is his gift, just like dancing is your gift.”

But White Swan did not care what he said. She thought of Gray Wolf, brawny and bare-chested, red ochre smeared across his skin, as he danced around the bonfires. She thought of his full mouth twisted in a crooked smile, his black hair falling like a river to his waist, his eyes burning like dark fire. She loved to watch him dance, his feet pounding the earth, his daring leaps over the fire. She wanted Gray Wolf to look at her the way Small Owl did.

“You are my youngest,” her father told her. “And my only daughter. Gray Wolf is not a good choice for you. He is still young, and he is not yet a good man. He does not respect the animals we hunt. He takes too much pleasure in the killing. He may change in time. When he learns to listen to the earth. To the stories of the stars.”

She watched Gray Wolf, and Small Owl watched her. Small Owl left the deerskin of her dresses unsmoked, so they were still bright when he stitched them together for her. They made her stand out from the other girls. It made her easier for him to watch her when she gathered colourful pebbles and made patterns in the dirt with her friends, when she collected firewood that cooked the meals for her clan, when she pounded the dried buffalo meat into the animal fat, berries, and pine nuts. And he watched her when the bonfires burned, the firelight glowing in his dark, thoughtful eyes.

“You should not accept his gifts if you do not think of him,” Wise One Above told her. But White Swan accepted them anyway. She couldn’t say no. She dipped her fingers in the lake, felt the cold shoot up her arm. She dipped the pot into the water, then stood and returned to the village as the sun rose above her.

              That night, she ate corn sweetened with syrup. And fresh meat, deer, rabbit, and moose, also sweetened with the sap. Dried saskatoons and blueberries. Dried chokecherries made into a tangy paste. She had eaten so much her stomach hurt. She drank cups of the sweet syrup, licking her sticky lips greedily.

              “The sweet drink is a gift,” Wise One Above told her. “The sap only flows once a year so we should appreciate it. Otherwise, we would become greedy if we did not work hard for the things we love. We would become lazy and useless.” White Swan flushed with guilt. She knew that she was greedy. Did he know that she had been missing from the cook fires? She was older now, and she had more chores, but she had found the younger girls, and they had held small foot races, running until they were breathless. They had made feather darts and seen who could throw them the farthest. She knew that she had not earned her food, but tonight she would dance, and her father would smile at her once more, and today’s mistakes would be forgotten.

              When the sun had finally set, the bonfires were lit, and a hush fell over her people. White Swan knew that the stillness would soon be broken by the sound of the skin drums and the flutes. But first, there would be the stories. Wise One Above was their chief, the keeper of their legends. His voice began to rise in a steady rhythm as he began to weave the magic of his words. He spoke of the stars, which hung like quartz in the soft dark of the night sky. He spoke of Bear, who was slain in Sky Country as she hunted for food.  “There she still is,” he said, pointing to the stars that marked where her skeleton hung. “Her blood still spills out and turns the leaves red each autumn.”

              He spoke of how First Man and First Woman worked together to decorate the stars and place them carefully in the heavens. “First woman did not write our laws on water, which is ever changing, or on the sand, where the wind can carry them away. She wrote them across the stars of the night sky, where we can look up and remember them forever.” White Swan sat next to Wise One Above, leaning her head against his chest as he spoke, the rumble of his voice gentle to her ear. Gradually, he stopped speaking, and the quiet settled once more.

              The music began softly. Someone raised a flute to his lips, and the notes rose above the firelight. Another flute joined, and another. As the music grew louder, hands began to beat against the skin drums. White Swan felt the familiar stir of excitement as the music grew. She smiled softly to herself, kept her eyes closed and pretended not to notice the other girls as they began to stand, to pound the earth with their feet, to spread their arms and dance around the flames. Wise One Above was patient. He knew White Swan would not be able to keep still for much longer. He knew the spirit of the dance was in her blood. She would be drawn into the dance, so he began to sing in his sure and steady voice, until she could no longer pretend that she did not feel the music. Slowly she stood, and all eyes were drawn to her. She kept her eyes closed, her arms spread wide, her small feet pounding a rhythm into the earth.

              There was only the music now. And the heat of the bonfires. She dipped and swirled and circled among the other girls. She thought of Gray Wolf, of the times they had spent talking in the doorway of her lodge, their heads bent together, their long hair a curtain around their faces, their lips brushing as they whispered to each other, enjoying each other’s nearness. He whispered of the white star of twilight, the roving of the moon, the hunter coming home through the star-shine. She was White Swan, beautiful as she danced in the silver moonlight, in the light of the golden fires.

              The drums grew more insistent, the music of the flutes intensified, and the young hunters joined in the dance. They were wild and bare-chested, and they leaped in the air, rolling and diving, landing smoothly on their feet. They whooped as they catapulted through the air, leaping over the bonfires, sparks flying up beneath their feet. The old men cheered, the old women held their hands over their mouths and laughed. The other girls left the dance, but White Swan could not stop. Her eyes fixed on Gray Wolf as he leapt over the flames. He was the bravest, the most reckless, and as she watched him, she felt the pull of the fire, the wildness in her own heart, and she followed him, leaping over the flames.

              She felt the heat of the sparks beneath her feet, the moonlight on her outstretched arms, and she imagined she was flying. She felt only the exhilaration of the air around her, until her feet landed smoothly on the ground. She was driven by the dance, and she leapt again, following Gray Wolf over the flames, feeling the freedom of the air. She tried to twist about the way Gray Wolf did, but she was not a wild swan, and the feeling of exhilaration left her body as she fell awkwardly from the sky, as she tumbled into flames. She felt only heat and pain until she was snatched from the fire. She looked up confused at the many faces looking down at her, and then the darkness swept her away.

*****

              A fire burned in the earth lodge, soft tendrils of smoke curling up toward the smoke hole in the roof. Rain softly pattered outside, but White Swan barely heard it. She knew only the pain of fire. It burned within her, consumed her while she slept. It made her lips dry and cracked, her tongue darting out greedily when water was squeezed out between them, cool and refreshing before she slipped back into dark, dreamless sleep. She felt liquid smeared across the side of her face, across her body. It helped soothe her, broke the heat of the fire. When she didn’t’ burn, the fire was broken by the cold, achy chills that racked her body.

              After many nights her fever finally broke. She sat up, her dress soaked with her perspiration. She felt weak and shaky. Her face and the side of her torso felt tender and sore, and she was afraid to run her fingers along the tight skin, so instead she looked for food. Corn bread and roasted meat had been left by her bed, and she ate hungrily. The fire in the lodge had died down, and the night air was cool. It must have been late, because the others were sleeping. She finished eating and drew a blanket around her and stood, creeping quietly outside.

              Wise One Above sat by the doorway of the lodge. She sat next to him as he held a pipe to his lips, pulling on the smoke of the sacred tobacco. After a few quiet moments, he set the pipe aside, and gently took White Swan’s face in his hands.

              “You will always have your mother’s beautiful spirit,” he said sadly. “You will always shine brightly in our village, and you will always be beautiful in the moonlight.”

              White Swan felt a moment of dread, and she pulled away from her father as her hands flew to her face, the touch of her fingertips burning her skin as they swept across the tender, puckered skin of her cheek. Her fingers swept downwards leaving a trail of pain on the sensitive skin on the side of her scarred body. She lowered her head into her hands, and she began to weep.

*****

Summer settled on her village, but White Swan would not leave the shelter of her earth lodge. The mothers of her clan fussed over her, smearing an ointment of goldenseal on her burns. Eventually the fire in her skin died down, and it tightened into ragged scars. Once her burns healed, she was finally coaxed into the sweet, summer air, but she kept her head down, letting her long hair cover over the marks on her face.

              Gray Wolf had lingered outside her earth lodge, and when she saw him, she brightened into a brief smile, and smile that faded when he frowned and turned away. She felt a painful knot in her stomach when she realized Gray Wolf would not smile at her again, would not play his flute outside her earth lodge, would not dance with her under a harvest moon. She had run back into the lodge, dodging the caring arms that reached for her, and she had wept better tears into the blankets on her bed.

              Rainy autumn swept summer away. Sometimes, during long, dark, tear-soaked nights, she would hear a flute playing. She imagined the flute player, sitting cross-legged in smoked breeches, lips pressed to the flute, long hair brushing against brown skin, and she would pretend the music was played for her, but she knew no one would play for her now. She no longer laughed with the girls of the clan. She no longer slept past dawn. The mothers of her clan were proud of her. She woke early to draw water. She tended her crops carefully. They knew that tonight she would help prepare the harvest feast. But they were sad too, because they saw that the music had left her heart, and she would not dance.

              That night, when the food had been eaten, when the stories had been spoken, when the music began to play, White Swan slipped away from the bonfires to sit quietly by the dark lake. The harvest moon was bright and full, and two swans glided across the lake, before stretching out their long necks and flying into the night sky.

              “Swans cannot fly in the summer,” a voice said quietly. White Swan did not turn to look at Small Owl, who had also left the fires to seek out the quiet dark. “But their feathers grow back, and they fly into Sky Country once summer ends.” Something shone in his hands, and she knew it was another gift. A pair of moccasins, fringed and beaded with seashells and turquoise. She thought of the fires, of the music, and she shook her head.

              “I do not remember how to dance,” she said, but Small Owl laid the moccasins by her feet. She had never turned away one of his gifts.

              “If you wear these, you will dance again,” he said. He sat back, and he began to play his flute. He did not look small and unappealing in the dark. And White Swan was still beautiful in the moonlight. She knew his song. It was the music that had soothed her during the long, summer nights. His music ebbed and flowed in her veins, soft and sad, and her fingers crept out to pull on the moccasins. She closed her eyes and let herself be drawn into his song. She stood, and began to move, graceful and light. She was White Swan, with the moonlight on her wings. She stretched out her arms, her feet small against the earth. Small Owl’s music becoming a fire in her veins, and in the dark of that autumn night, White Swan began to dance.