THE LATE WOODLAND PERIOD: 700 A.D. - 1650 A.D. 
THE LATE WOODLAND PERIOD: 700 A.D. - 1650 A.D.
From time to time, all of us yearn for something different in our lives. In this story, which is set at a major fishing village on an island in the river at Sault Ste. Marie, I have described one persons longing to see something beyond the world into which she was born. We know from the archaeological evidence that peaceful trading must have occurred between neighboring peoples on a regular basis. Perhaps, sometimes, more than just furs and food were exchanged....
She looked at the old, giggling women as they worked. Each one had been a beauty once, hiding their shy smiles from the admiring glances of the young men. Now they had their families and their endless chores. From sunrise to sunset they chopped wood, cleaned nets, looked after their numerous children and performed a hundred other duties their men expected of them. In return what did they receive? More jobs, more work. If they were lucky, a word of appreciation or a tender gesture.
She watched the older women softening the leather by chewing on it, hour after hour, their teeth becoming worn down, sore and useless stumps and their mouths dry and painful in the service of their families. She had noticed the quick transition from attractive young woman to unappealing drudge, as each of her older friends gave up the delights of childhood and took on the role expected of her. She was determined to do something different.
From the snatches of conversation she had heard, she gathered that a large party of Huron traders was expected to arrive within a few hours. She had seen them many times before, when they came to exchange their sweet ripe corn and pots full of fleshy beans, for the furs, copper and birch bark her people took from the woods. The Huron were strange looking people, fierce and haughty. Their language was different to hers, but like many of her people, she had learned to understand many of their words; enough at least to know that they thought highly of themselves and looked down on her people. Her villagers, in turn, laughed at them behind their backs, calling them women, for spending so much time planting the land instead of hunting, like real men.
Although many in her village despised the Huron for their arrogance, she had noticed that it had become quite fashionable for the young men to cut their hair in the Huron fashion, and that many of the women were copying the trader's pottery in their own local clays.
Some of the men from the village had travelled south with their trading partners and had returned telling stories of huge villages enclosed by walls of log; of massive lodges stretching the length of her village, and of vast hilltops of waving corn. She found it hard to picture these things, having never travelled from her father's hunting territory, but the idea of such riches fascinated her. Somehow, she thought, I will find a way to see these things for myself. Then, if I grow fat, ugly and toothless like these old women, I will at least have some memories to dream of.
Full darkness had barely descended when the Huron arrived. Their sleek canoes, acquired from the Nipissings the previous year, were painted with designs, unintelligable to her and strangely menacing. As they beached the canoes, a cry of welcome rose above the constant noise of the nearby rapids. The Huron traders, all men in their early twenties, stepped proudly ashore and walked between the eager faces of the assembled people. There would be time enough for trading. Tonight was the time for re-establishing ties and for relaxation after their long journey. The goods would be respectfully ignored until the serious negotiations started in the morning.
The girl had rushed to the shore with the rest of the women to watch the arrival of the strangers. The young Huron paid no attention to the crowd, but walked over to the central fire and quietly seated themselves close to the village elders. Although she felt sure that their curiousity was as keen as her own, nothing in their faces or behaviour betrayed it as they stared silently into the fire. After a while, one of the men reached into a soft leather pouch and pulled out a pipe. In the glow of the fire she could make out the shape of a wolf's muzzle on it's bowl. The man filled it with tobacco from his pouch, lit it with a twig from the fire and drew in a long draft of smoke. This seemed to break the tension, for within a few minutes all the men were smoking and some were beginning to talk quietly with the men from her village.
She had been watching one of the traders especially closely. He was a tall, straight man, with a large hooked nose which gave him a look of great ferocity. She had been surprised to find him looking straight at her, which had made her feel quite nervous. Shortly thereafter she had left the main fire and returned to the women's area to resume cleaning nets. Within a few minutes she had lost herself in the work and the chatter of her companions.
Some time passed before she noticed that the women's conversation had ceased. She could hear the crackling of the flames and the low sounds of men talking above the ever present sound of the rapids. The tall Huron was standing on the far side of the fire, staring at her. In the wavering shadows he looked strange and dangerous and she was frightened under his gaze. Then he smiled. It was as if the sun had suddenly come out from behind a thundercloud. His fierce and alien face was split by a wide, handsome grin, showing a broad expanse of straight, clean teeth. In that instant, she ceased to see him as a dangerous and unpredictable outsider. Here before her was a handsome young man at whom, to her surprise, she found herself smiling happily back. Ignoring the whispers and lewd comments of the other women, he walked over to her and stretched out his hand. She took it, and together they walked away from the fire, and the raucous laughter of the women.
Perhaps, she thought, I will see those fields of corn, those huge villages, and build myself some dreams for my old age after all.
© Nick Adams 2000