ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

CHAPTER 8 ~ Exploring the Makah Viillage

For almost an hour, Jon Max and Laura walked along a well-worn path through the green woods, following the stream as they headed towards the Makah village. The young fishermen talked and joked and laughed with each other as they followed the group of women who carried the baskets filled with fresh salmon.

As they walked along, Jon Max and Laura noticed an unexpected noise ahead of them. It was singing! They heard the voices of a group of children singing a strange song. Gidget and Gazmo were not translating it, and even though the two 5th graders from the future couldn't understand the words, the song had a happy sound that made both Laura and Jon Max smile.

Finally the two time travelers and their Makah escorts emerged from the trees and into a large grassy area that sloped gently downward. Far ahead of them they could see the ocean. The afternoon sun sparkled on the blue water. Between the edge of the forest and the ocean, occupying the other side of grassy area near the beach, was the Makah village -- and it was an amazing sight.

Ten or twelve large wooden buildings with flat roofs were lined up near the beach. In front of each building stood a tall wooden pole that had strange faces and weird shapes carved into it. The poles were painted in many bright colors.

Along the beach, dozens of wooden canoes were pulled up onto the sand above the water line. Laura remembered that Gazmo had said the larger Makah whaling canoes could hold 60 people!







The Makah village was a busy place. Everywhere Laura looked, she saw adults working, children playing, and dogs moving about among everyone else. The singing children which the 5th grades had heard from the forest were sitting on the ground near a group of women who were busily weaving baskets out of strips of some kind of plant. Bundles of the plant strips were all around their feet. Each bundle of strips was a different color, and the women were weaving beautiful and complex patterns into the baskets.

The clothing worn by the village people were just as colorful as their baskets and the brightly painted poles in front of their huge houses. Most of the adults were wearing loose, knee-length garments that wrapped around their bodies and were held in place by belts. They reminded Laura of bathrobes.

Other people wore pieces of cloth wrapped around their hips, like a person wrapping a towel around their waist after getting out of the shower. Along with these "robes" and "towels", some people also wore long capes that tied around their necks and hung down their backs almost to the ground. Many of the garments, especially the capes, were decorated with a fringe along the bottom.

All of the garments were made of some woven material that looked a bit like wool. Every garment had colorful patterns and shapes woven into the material, just like the baskets and mats Laura had seen.

Very few of the Makah wore shoes. A few had on simple sandals, but most were barefooted.

Hats, on the other hand, seemed to be very popular among the Makah. And these, too, were made from woven material. Most of the hats had the wonderful woven patterns which the Makah were so good at making. The hats were tall and pointed, and they made the people wearing them look a little like 4th of July rockets that were about to take off!

The strangely shaped hats looked funny to Laura, and she glanced over at Jon Max to see if he had noticed them. Apparently Jon Max thought the hats were funny too, because he giggled a few times as he gazed at the amazing Makah village and its people. They were getting close to the village, and everywhere they looked there was something interesting to see.

"Wow, this place is cool!" Jon Max said with his usual enthusiasm.

"You are so right," Laura agreed. It was very different from what she had expected! Laura had thought there would be tee-pees and horses and chiefs with big feathered headdresses, like the Indians in Western movies. But none of those things were here! Laura realized that she had a lot to learn about the Makah — and she could hardly wait to learn it!

Qua-yuta moved up next to them and smiled when he saw the happy looks on their faces. "I think you like our village, yes? Is it much like the one you are from?"

"No, Qua-yuta, it's is very different. And very impressive! It looks like a wonderful place to take a vacation."

Qua-yuta looked puzzled for a moment, then he said, "I don't know that word — vacation. What does it mean?"

Jon Max realized that Gidget had not translated the word "vacation" for Qua-yuta when he'd spoken it. He wondered why.

"Well, uh . . . it means, a time of fun and relaxation. In my, uh . . . village, we leave our home for a week or two each year and go to a place where we can play and swim and have fun."

Qua-yuta studied Jon Max with a slightly puzzled smile, then he said, "But Nu-konee, we do all that right here, all year long! We don't have to go somewhere else to do these things."

Jon Max smiled at his new Indian friend. "Yes, indeed. I can see how happy everyone is." To himself, Jon-Max silently thought, They don’t have a word for vacation. That’s why Gidget hadn’t translated it!

"Of course we are happy," Qua-yuta said with pride. "That is why we call ourselves Kwih-dich-chuh-ahtx. Do you know what this means?"

"No," Jon Max and Laura said together.

"It means, The people who live near the rocks and seagulls."

"You are very lucky, Qua-yuta," Jon Max said. "We look forward to learning many things from you and your people."

"But you haven't told me yet why you came here, Nu-konee. Is it to barter with us? Many people come here from other villages to visit and barter – and we go to other places to barter with them."

"What kinds of things do you barter for?" said Laura.

"Oh, you know, the same things you barter for in your own village, Sho-karee. Things we have made, such as baskets and mats. Food we have grown or gathered in the forest. We barter for many things. Sometimes people from other places call us the Makah. Is that word new to you?"

Both Jon Max and Laura looked surprised to learn that the name "Makah" was a word given to these people by other tribes, not by themselves!

"Well yes, Qua-yuta, we have heard that word. But I'm not sure we know what it really means."

"It means generous with food. We are famous for feeding our visiting friends well. You will have plenty to eat while you are with us."

As they entered the village, the group of singing children suddenly noticed the returning fishermen and their women helpers. The children leapt up with glad squeals, running to greet their brothers, fathers, mothers, and sisters. Jon Max and Laura were quickly surrounded by an energetic group of noisy, laughing little youngsters who were intensely curious about these new strangers in the village. Unlike the colorfully dressed adults, most of the children wore little or nothing.

The children were making so much noise as they ran among the adults that the women finally scolded them and started taking quick swats at their naked bottoms, shooing them back towards the village. With excited squeals, they all went racing back to the women who had been looking after them.

Jon Max leaned close to Laura and whispered, "Those kids are acting like a bunch of wild Indians, aren't they?"

Laura burst out laughing, but she stopped herself quickly because she didn't want to have to explain the joke to Qua-yuta. He would not have understood it.

Several men were coming to meet the returning fishermen as they entered the village, and they helped the women by taking the baskets full of salmon. The group broke up around Laura and Jon Max as the fishermen and the women headed off towards their own houses.

Qua-yuta led his two new friends towards the largest of the wooden buildings in the village, which were called "longhouses". Laura noticed that the left and right sides of the building seemed to me made of tree bark, laid on in broad strips. The front and back sides (the side facing the ocean and the side facing directly away from it) were made of smooth wooden planks that had been painted with colorful designs. There were no windows, but there was a large round opening in the side that faced the ocean, and Laura decided that this must be the main door.

Laura and Jon Max gazed up at the thirty-foot pole that stood to the left of the longhouse's doorway. Strange faces and animal shapes had been carved into it. About twenty feet up, a pair of wooden bird wings stuck straight out on each side. An eagle head had been carved between the wings. The entire poll was painted in a variety of colors.







"I just remembered what those things are called," Jon-Maxed whispered to Laura. "Those are called totem poles. They show the history of the family. The totem poles also show how important the family who lives in the longhouse is." Jon Max turned and spoke to Qua-yuta, walking a few feet ahead of him. "Hey, Qua-yuta, is this where you live?"

"Yes, this is the house of my family. It is Chief Hontu-qui's house. Our family has the honor of living in the chief's house, with his family, because my father is the master whaler of the tribe. He is very important," Qua-yuta finished with obvious pride.







As they entered the longhouse Laura was impressed by how neat and tidy everything looked. The floor was a layer of clean white sand which had apparently been brought from the beach outside. Several long, low benches ran from one side of the longhouse to the other, and a group of adults were relaxing on these, talking and laughing together.

Overhead, the roof was held up by rafters made from gigantic cedar logs. Between the rafters were poles made from young trees, and between these poles were thin strings from which fish had been hung to dry. There were hundreds of fish, arranged in neat rows, hanging above their heads, waiting to be eaten.





Above the rafters, the roof was made of wide wooden planks, laid across the fat cedar logs. Some of the planks were missing, creating holes through which the smoke could escape as it rose from the small cooking fires that burned inside the longhouse.

Jon Max and Laura noticed that even though they could smell food cooking, there was nothing over any of the fires! Next to the fires there were wooden boxes, and Laura saw one of the women open a box while another women used two sticks to pick up a hot rock from the fire and drop it into the box. Steam floated out of the box until the woman put the lid back on. How curious . . .

Against the wall to their left were two totem poles, shorter than the ones that stood outside, but much wider. Even though they weren't as tall as the ones outside, they still went all the way to the fifteen-foot ceiling. Huge faces had been carved into them, and they were painted in bright colors.

In fact, the entire longhouse was decorated with bright colors. Large woven mats in gorgeous colors hung from ropes stretched tightly between the walls, creating little "rooms" within the hanging mats. More of the mats were laid out neatly like rugs on the sandy floor.





Along the walls, located between clusters of boxes and baskets, were groups of bunk beds similar to those Laura had seen in the cabins at a camp she'd gone to one summer. More of the mats were draped across these bunk beds, obviously serving as both mattresses and blankets.

Qua-yuta lead them over to a pair of these bunk beds and said, "You can sleep here. This area is for our guests. My family and I sleep over there, nearby."

Jon Max and Laura were fascinated by everything they saw in the longhouse. Large wooden boxes of all sizes were stacked in various places along the walls, and on top of many of these were woven baskets of different sizes and shapes, all brightly decorated with the beautiful woven patterns which Laura had seen on everything the Makah made.

"What are all these boxes and baskets for?" Laura asked Qua-yuta.

The young Indian boy looked at Laura with curiosity for a moment. "Truly, Sho-karee, you must be very far from home. So much of what is familiar to us seems new to you."

"Yes, we are very far from home," Jon Max said. "We hope our questions don't offend you."

"No, they're fine. Feel free to ask whatever you wish. The boxes and baskets along the wall hold new matts, tools, baskets, and other things which we are saving until they are needed.”

“Oh, I get it. Thanks.

“Let me ask you a question, now,” said Qua-yuta. “How many days have you spent on your long journey?"

The question caught Jon Max off guard. He wasn't sure how to answer it. Qua-yuta was asking how long they had been traveling. In one sense, it had taken the two 5th graders less than a second to get from the region of the Ice Age village to this region. But in another sense, that village and it's people were ten thousand years in the past!

However, what Qua-yuta really wanted to know was how far they had traveled. The Ice Age Indian village had been located in what would one day be Alaska. And that was almost one thousand miles away!

Jon Max knew that Qua-yuta would never believe him if he told him the truth, so he simply said, "We have traveled very far, my friend. It would take us many, many days to get back." This was absolutely true, so Jon-Max had not lied.

"Is life where you come from so very different from here?"

"Oh, yes. Very different. In the place we left from, the people sleep in houses made of animal skins. These skins are held up by the large tusks from a huge beasts called mammoths, an animal which these people hunt for food and other reasons. Their bones are as big as young trees. The weather is never warm there, the way it is here. It is always cold. We still have the special winter clothes which kept us warm in that cold place of snow and ice."

Qua-yuta looked a little skeptical of what Jon Max was saying. Laura noticed the look on the young Makah's face, so she took off her backpack and untied the leather parka and pants that were lashed to it. Qua-yuta examined the garments with great interest, noticing the thickness of the leather and the fur lining on the insides.

"Yes . . . I understand now," Qua-yuta said slowly. "It must be very cold there if you need clothes like these. And it must be far to the north, towards the beautiful lights we sometimes see in the night sky. These lights wave and float like glowing clouds."

Laura realized that Qua-yuta was talking about the aurora borealis, the northern lights in Alaska and Canada. Sometimes they could be seen in the northern parts of the United States.

"The aurora borealis," Laura said to Jon-Max, who nodded in agreement.

"We have a story about those lights," Qua-yuta said. "My mother told it to me when I was very young, and it frightened me. The story says that far to the north there lives a strange tribe. The people are very short – no more than half the length of a canoe's paddle." He held his hand out, about waist high. "The lights in the sky are from the fires these little people build for boiling whale blubber, to get the oil from it."

"Hey, that's a cool story," Laura said.

"But there's more," Qua-yuta said, wearing an odd expression as he looked at Jon Max and Laura. "Although these people are short, they are so strong they can catch whales with their bare hands!”

He paused for a second, still looking at the two 5th graders in a strange way, almost as if he was suddenly afraid of them.

"You two came from the far north. You are no taller than a young person, like me. And yet you pulled me from the river when all the other young men were two frightened or too slow to help me."

Jon Max suddenly realized what the poor Makah boy was thinking.

"Whoa, hold on a second, old buddy," he said quickly, making his voice sound friendly and reassuring. "We are not those weird guys from your story. We're just regular folks like you — just a couple of curious young people who love to travel and meet new people."

Qua-yuta took a deep breath and let it out quickly, looking suddenly relieved. "Yes, of course," he said quickly. "Only little children believe in such stories. It was just that . . . well, I thought maybe . . . "

"You just let your imagination run away with you for a moment," said Laura. "That happens to me all the time."

"Yes, that's right," Qua-yuta said with an embarrassed smile. "For a moment, I was imagining running away."

Jon Max and Laura were motionless for a second, then they both broke up laughing at Qua-yuta's remark. The young Makah boy wasn't sure why his friends were laughing, but he laughed along with them.

NEXT: CHAPTER 9 ~ The People Who Live by the Rocks and Seagulls
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)