Chapter One
A Basket of Clams
T
|
he boundaries of our reservation, Poospatuck, do not extend far. They
enclose only a few acres of land on the southern coast of Paumanok, the Great Fish—what
the English unimaginatively dubbed Long Island long ago. Of course, these
boundaries I speak of are not real. No fences encircle Poospatuck. No lattice
of wooden posts and rails separate us Unkechaugs from the lands beyond. But the
boundaries are there all the same. Drawn up on a piece of paper by the English
and filed away in a government office. And worse: embedded in the sandy soil of
our minds. Over the years, these invisible boundaries have grown nearly
impossible to budge.
It
wasn’t always that way. Not for Indians at least. Grandma and Grandpa said,
once upon a time, we didn’t know about limitations. We Unkechaug moved around.
We moved with the animals, we moved with the seasons, we moved when it was
right. Even the sea was no barrier. Land ended but the world did not. Unkechaug
hunters of old transformed at the sandy edges, becoming like fish, breathing
water and wind, riding the waves into the blue, where there was neither tree,
nor rock, nor windswept dune to mark the beginning or end of anything.
But I was not born into
a limitless world. I was born in the Year of Our Lord, 1834, when all things
were sharply defined by fences of all kinds, seen and unseen, some low to the
ground, some soaring, some easily traversed, some impenetrable. But for fourteen
years I didn’t think about fences. They were of no concern to me. Not until the
day the posts and rails of my enclosure grew so high they blocked the sun. Then
I felt their closeness; I breathed the stale, heavy air; my mind spun in place.
Yet that day had begun
like any other. Grandma stood at the table by the fireplace. I sat on a chair,
struggling to put on my shoes. Kneeling on the floor beside me, my little
cousin, Liza, played with a cornhusk doll. My parents and Liza’s were gone by
then. They’d died in a great sickness that had swept through our reservation four
years earlier, when Liza was but a baby.
My eyes fell upon the
large bowl of cornmeal dough in front of Grandma as she added molasses. Long thick streams formed smooth ribbons of
brown across the sticky yellowness. Grandma plunged her hands in and began
working it. Her fingers moved in a steady rhythm, up and down, as she rubbed
and pressed the brown streaks, blending them into the golden mounds until they
disappeared completely.
“Samp,”
said Grandma as she placed the balls of cornmeal into a small tin oven.
Grandma’s speech was sprinkled with the occasional Unkechaug word, like “rungcump,” which
she sometimes called me, pinching my cheek. But the truth was Grandma couldn’t
speak the language anymore. “How could I?” she asked once, not waiting for a
reply. “I was indentured to the Smiths when I was a little one, a yúnksquas, of only seven. How I cried on
that day. What child doesn’t miss her mother? But like all the others, I
learned English fast,” she said, with her familiar tranquility. “Fourteen years
I lived with the Smiths. Fourteen long years. I only went home for June
meetings.”
She placed her tin oven, a gift from Mrs. Smith
at the conclusion of her indenture, on the hearth over the glowing mix of twig
and ash. Few other homes in the village had a fireplace inside the house. Of
this Grandma was proud. Most people had fire pits outside, but Grandpa knew how
to build a good sturdy hearth of brick, with a tall chimney to take the smoke
away. In the winter, the fire kept the house warm, our sturdy wood frame house,
with two rooms for four people—me, Grandma, Grandpa, and Liza.
The door burst open and in the doorway stood
Grandpa. His eyes sought Grandma’s. She shook her head. Grandpa swallowed and
took a deep breath. Both sets of eyes then fell upon me. But as I looked from
Grandma to Grandpa, they in turn looked away. Grandma picked up a jar of lard
and placed it in the cupboard alongside containers of beach plum jam and wild
grape preserves. Grandpa stepped into the house and took a seat at the table.
They exchanged glances again, but said nothing to each other.
“Solomon.” Grandpa turned to me as I stood by
the fire enjoying the warmth and the scent of the baking cornmeal and molasses.
“It was a full moon last night.”
“I know.”
“Tide’s low.”
“I know.”
I already had my shoes on, leather brogans that
pinched my toes so much Grandpa had cut slits at the ends, allowing my big toes
to peek out. We waited for Grandma to remove the hot journey cakes from the
oven. She wrapped them in cloths and placed them in a woven bag with a long
strap that I slung over my shoulder. Grandpa and I picked up two baskets by the
door and set off. The path led us through a pine wood and past the earthen
remains of an old sweat lodge nobody used anymore. When we emerged from the
woods, a long mud flat stretched in front of us. Low tide had sucked the water
out of Terrell River, exposing clumps of brown seaweed and stray horseshoe
crabs that lumbered out towards the sea.
Digging for clams was one of my favorite
activities: searching for the telltale bubbles, thrusting my spade into the
soft mud, and unearthing the hidden treasures—large poquahocs tinged with purple. The shells have always been highly
valued by the Unkechaug because we use them to make small beads: wampum. Some
people in my village still make wampum by hand and string it to make belts,
necklaces, and other jewelry. But I loved the poquahocs most not for their shells but for their slippery
contents, the delicious flesh of the clam.
Grandpa
and I always ate a few while we worked, so when our baskets were nearly full I
took out a knife and pried open one of the shells. But when I scooped out the
meat and offered it to Grandpa, he declined.
“Solomon. I have something to say.”
“What
Grandpa?”
He picked up his basket, nodding for me to
follow, and headed towards the shore, across the tidal flats, which were now
covered in a thin layer of water. He stopped at a large rock and leaned against
it. I remembered the mysterious look he and Grandma had exchanged that morning.
“What Grandpa?” I asked again, putting my
basket by the rock.
“You know what it means to be indentured,
right?”
“Like Grandma was to the Smiths?”
“Yes, and I too, to the Gibbs.”
“Am I going to be indentured?”
Grandpa was silent. His eyes dampened. Turning
away from me, he gazed off across the mud flats to the distant barrier beach.
Then, with a deep breath, he turned back to me. “You know, Solomon, I’m getting
old. I borrowed money to repair the roof on the house, to build the hearth, and
I’m not as quick as I used to be. I get hired to do a job, to build a wall, or
some other brick-laying work, but I can’t do it as fast as I used to. I can’t
earn enough money to feed us all. And your grandma’s fingers are too stiff to
make the baskets she once sold. She can still sell her herbal medicines, but
white folks have less faith in them than they used to. Mistress Smith was the
last one who believed in all your grandma’s treatments. Now, only the old folks
here at Poospatuck call upon her, but they can’t offer anything in return. The
white folks turn to Dr. Hardy these days.”
He looked at me to make sure I understood. I
nodded to let him know I did.
“The Daytons offered us one hundred dollars up
front, and some new clothes and shoes for you,” he said, eyeing my sliced brogans.
“When you turn twenty-one you’ll be free to go and you’ll get an entire trunk of
nice clothes, and another pair of new shoes, and maybe more. Grandma got that
oven and—”
“Tin cups and a tea canister,” I mumbled.
Twenty-one. Seven years of work for a white
family, seven years of being away from the reservation, being away from Grandma
and Grandpa, seven years when I would have to live according to other people’s
ways and could hardly feel and act like myself. But one hundred dollars would
mean a lot to Grandma and Grandpa. It was more than most families gave for an
indentured servant. My heart began to pound. Far more than families gave for
one servant, but they might give that much for …
“And Liza?” I asked, turning to Grandpa.
He looked away again.
“Liza, too?” I repeated.
Grandpa’s voice shook. “Now, look here,
Solomon. It’s not so bad. Liza won’t have to enter service for three years.
That’s what we agreed on with the Daytons. Then they’ll teach her to read and
write. She’ll get new clothes, too, and learn the white ways.”
“Three years? When she’s seven you mean? Liza
will leave you and Grandma when she’s still little and live with strangers and
have to be at their beck and call, and have to clean up their messes?”
“Solomon, what do you suggest? Your grandmother
did it. I did it.”
“No,” I spluttered angrily, certain it was too
late, knowing the papers had already been signed. I kicked aside my basket of
clams and ran into the woods as fast as I could over the ground I knew so well.
I ran and ran and ran until I could run no more, for I’d hit the limits, the
barrier I couldn’t get beyond. I did it.
Your grandmother did it. And so it would be for me. My world shrunk to the
tiny space in and around me; the recesses of my heart and mind collapsed; the
word indenture became the wood and the nails of the fence that enclosed me.
Panting, I made my way back to the tidal flats. Grandpa was gone. He’d
lugged the two baskets of clams back to the house by himself. He’d expected my help, and I’d let him down.Buy the book!
No comments:
Post a Comment