The Acorn-Planter | Page 2

the roots and withered.?Built are the fires for the meat.?Laid are the boughs for sleep,?Yet thy people cannot sleep.?Red Cloud, thy people hunger.
{Red Cloud}?_(Still descending.)_?Good hunting! Good hunting!
{Hunters}?Good hunting! Good hunting!
_(Completing the descent, Red Cloud?motions to the meat-bearers. They throw?down their burdens before the women,?who greedily inspect the spoils.)_
MEAT SONG OF THE NISHINAM
Meat that is good to eat,?Tender for old teeth,?Gristle for young teeth,?Big deer and fat deer,?Lean meat and fat meat,?Haunch-meat and knuckle-bone,?Liver and heart.?Food for the old men,?Life for all men,?For women and babes.?Easement of hunger-pangs,?Sorrow destroying,?Laughter provoking,?Joy invoking,?In the smell of its smoking?And its sweet in the mouth.
_(The younger women take charge of the meat,?and the older women resume their acorn-pounding.)_
_(Red Cloud approaches the acorn-pounders?and watches them with pleasure.?All group about him, the Shaman to the?fore, and hang upon his every action, his?every utterance.)_
{Red Cloud}?The heart of the acorn is good?
{First Old Woman}?_(Nodding.)_?It is good food.
{Red Cloud}?When you have pounded and winnowed and?washed away the bitter.
{Second Old Woman}?As thou taught'st us, Red Cloud, when the?world was very young and thou wast the first man.
{Red Cloud}?It is a fat food. It makes life, and life is good.
{Shaman}?It was thou, Red Cloud, gathering the acorns?and teaching the storing, who gavest life to the?Nishinam in the lean years aforetime, when the?tribes not of the Nishinam passed like the dew?of the morning.
_(He nods a signal to the Old Man.)_
{Old Man}?In the famine in the old time,?When the old man was a young man,?When the heavens ceased from raining,?When the grasslands parched and withered,?When the fishes left the river,?And the wild meat died of sickness,?In the tribes that knew not acorns,?All their women went dry-breasted,?All their younglings chewed the deer-hides,?All their old men sighed and perished,?And the young men died beside them,?Till they died by tribe and totem,?And o'er all was death upon them.?Yet the Nishinam unvanquished,?Did not perish by the famine.?Oh, the acorns Red Cloud gave them!?Oh, the acorns Red Cloud taught them?How to store in willow baskets?'Gainst the time and need of famine!
{Shaman}?_(Who, throughout the Old Man's recital, has?nodded approbation, turning to Red?Cloud.)_
Sing to thy people, Red Cloud, the song of?life which is the song of the acorn.
{Red Cloud}?_(Making ready to begin)_?And which is the song of woman, O Shaman.
{Shaman}?_(Hushing the people to listen, solemnly)_?He sings with his father's lips, and with the?lips of his father's fathers to the beginning of time?and men.
SONG OF THE FIRST MAN
{Red Cloud}?I am Red Cloud,?The first man of the Nishinam.?My father was the Coyote.?My mother was the Moon.?The Coyote danced with the stars,?And wedded the Moon on a mid-summer night?The Coyote is very wise,?The Moon is very old,?Mine is his wisdom,?Mine is her age.?I am the first man.?I am the life-maker and the father of life.?I am the fire-bringer.?The Nishinam were the first men,?And they were without fire,?And knew the bite of the frost of bitter nights.?The panther stole the fire from the East,?The fox stole the fire from the panther,?The ground squirrel stole the fire from the fox,?And I, Red Cloud, stole the fire from the ground squirrel. I, Red Cloud, stole the fire for the Nishinam,?And hid it in the heart of the wood.?To this day is the fire there in the heart of the wood. I am the Acorn-Planter.?I brought down the acorns from heaven.?I planted the short acorns in the valley.?I planted the long acorns in the valley.?I planted the black-oak acorns that sprout, that sprout! I planted the _sho-kum_ and all the roots of the ground. I planted the oat and the barley, the beaver-tail grass-nut, The tar-weed and crow-foot, rock lettuce and ground lettuce, And I taught the virtue of clover in the season of blossom, The yellow-flowered clover, ball-rolled in its yellow dust. I taught the cooking in baskets by hot stones from the fire, Took the bite from the buckeye and soap-root?By ground-roasting and washing in the sweetness of water, And of the manzanita the berry I made into flour,?Taught the way of its cooking with hot stones in sand pools, And the way of its eating with the knobbed tail of the deer. Taught I likewise the gathering and storing,?The parching and pounding?Of the seeds from the grasses and grass-roots;?And taught I the planting of seeds in the Nishinam home-camps, In the Nishinam hills and their valleys,?In the due times and seasons,?To sprout in the spring rains and grow ripe in the sun.
{Shaman}?Hail, Red Cloud, the first man!
{The People}?Hail, Red Cloud, the first man!
{Shaman}?Who showedst us the way of our feet in the world!
{The People}?Who showedst us the way of our feet in the world!
{Shaman}?Who showedst us the way of our food in the world!
{The People}?Who showedst us the way of our food in the world!
{Shaman}?Who showedst us the way of our hearts in the world!
{The People}?Who showedst us the way of our hearts in