Sacred Ground Read Online Free PDF

and the rivers to celebrate the Oneness of All Things. A time of great joy, a good night, a special night, Marimi thought.
    Except that Marimi’s joy on this night of celebration was laced with unexpected fear.
    Across the great circle around which the families watched the dancers, a pair of hard black eyes were fixed on her— Old Opaka, clan shaman-woman, magnificent in her buckskins and beads and precious eagle feathers. Marimi shivered beneath the piercing gaze and felt bumps of fear sprout on her skin. Opaka terrified everyone, including the chiefs and the hunters, with her vast and mysterious knowledge of magic and because she spoke to the gods, because she alone out of all the clan knew the secret of communing with the sun and the moon and all the earth’s spirits and how to invoke their powers.
    Ordinary persons were unable to speak to the gods. If a clan member wished a favor of the gods, the intercession of a shaman was required: a barren wife wishing for a child, a homely virgin desperate for a husband, an aging hunter whose skills were fading, a grandmother whose fingers could no longer weave baskets, a pregnant woman seeking protection from the evil eye, a father wondering if the dried-up creek beside his family’s shelter would ever run with water again— they shyly and with great reverence approached the shaman of the clan and humbly presented their case. Each petition was accompanied by payment, which was why the shamans were so wealthy, their huts the most richly adorned, their buckskins the softest, their beads the most elegant. The poorest families could offer only seeds while the richest brought sheep’s horn and elk hides. But all were allowed to approach the shaman, and all received an answer from the gods through the shaman’s mouth. In this case she was Opaka, the most powerful figure in Marimi’s clan. Marimi had once seen the old woman make a man sicken and die, simply by pointing at him; Opaka was that powerful.
    But why was she now watching Marimi especially, out of all the people, her eyes like pinpoints of black fire?
    Trying not to let her fear show, the young wife returned her attention to her basketry, reminding herself again that tonight was a special night.
    This was the time of the annual gathering, when once a year all the families of the People— who called themselves Topaa— came from the four points of the world, from as far away as where the earth supports the sky, leaving their summer homes to meet in the mountains for the pine nut harvest— a gathering of some five hundred families, each with its own round grass shelter and campfire. Using long poles to remove the cones from the trees, they roasted the nuts and ate them, or ground them into a meal which they mixed with deer meat and gravy, and then they stored what was left over for the coming winter months. While the women gathered the nuts, the men conducted a communal hunt for rabbits, driving them into nets and clubbing what they needed for winter food supply.
    Marriages were arranged at this time, no simple matter since the rules governing who could marry whom were complex— the lineages had to be examined and considered, the gods must be invoked, the omens read. Although the Topaa were all of the same tribe, they were members of different clans, which in turn were divided into families, second and first. The clans had an animal totem: Cougar, Hawk, Tortoise. The second family, comprised of grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins, called themselves after their lineage: People From Cold River, People In Salt Desert. The first family consisted of mother and father and siblings, and the family’s name was based on their local food source, occupation, or geographic feature— “eaters of buffalo berry,” “creek dwellers,” or “white knives” because they made cutting tools from a local white rock quarry. Marimi was of the Red-Tailed Hawk Clan, her second family were People From the Black Mesa, her first family