The Heart Fountain

Five Days
I am 14.
This is the most important hunt of my life.

There are five of us, all the same age.
We go to the low country to hunt a Vigla.

The Vigla are strong and wild.
Sometimes they walk on four legs, and sometimes on two.
They rise twice the height of a man when they stand on two legs.

Vigla are not afraid of men, and have a tough hide.
It’s difficult to get a spear deep enough to do damage.
They are fast on four legs, and their claws are long and sharp.

It’s rare for 3 or 4 full-grown warriors to kill one.
A pack of five boys hopes to face the Vigla, not kill it.
We plan to draw blood and live!

The honor of the test comes to us, together, when we come back safely.

The biggest of the group leads the others.
Already at 14, I am taller and stronger than the others.

I am skilled and fast with knives and spears.
My friends nickname me Vigla, but no one uses that name on this trip.
I guess they think it is bad luck.

The trip alone takes a day and a half in each direction.
We start hunting on the morning of the third day, and we must leave early morning of the fourth.
We must return by sunset at the end of the fifh day.

Return after the sun sets, and there is no honor in the trip, even with Vigla blood.
We must carry five spears or knives with Vigla blood when we return.
Five boys, five days, five strikes of blood.

We each carry a pack as we travel with dried meat and roots for the trip.
There is no time to hunt for food, but water is easy to find along the way.

All of us carry spears and short knives.
I also carry two of the driga (the long knives) in my pack.
They are not popular among my people, but chiefs are expected to be skillful with them.

 
Chiefs
My father taught me to use the driga.
He is a quiet man, and a skillful hunter.

My mothers are very proud of him.
He is the elder brother of the current chief.

Perhaps he is too quiet to be a chief.

“Did he ever want to be chief?” I once asked Elder mother.
“Once,” she said quietly, “but then his brother killed the old, mad chief in combat.”

“Your father would not challenge his younger brother for the right to be chief.”

Sometimes a chief dies in battle with our enemies, and the council picks a new chief.
Often a chief gets the madness at 50 or so, and is challenged in combat.
A chief at 50 has lost none of his strength, and the madness makes him even stronger.

A chief has many privileges, but striking women and children are not among them.
A mad chief will often hurt his women, his children, or lead his people into ruin.

It is dishonorable for many to attack him, or one to attack him from behind.
Someone must challenge him in open, fair combat.

It is rare, but if none can defeat him, the fire dreamers pray for his death.

 
The Low Country
The five of us go quickly to the low country, arriving a few hours before sunset on the second day.
We stop at a friendly village, and give the greetings of our chief, and small presents that we carry.

My people are friendly with the people of the low country.
Once a year the groups meet to trade and celebrate and take mates.

Their chief invites us to a meal.
This chief has at least a dozen wives and too many children to count.

Some of his older daughters serve us.
It will not be long before we will take a mate, and several of his daughters are beautiful and strong.

In the morning we rise early and paint our faces and upper bodies in the old ways.
Then we take some dried meat, and our weapons.

We have leather on our feet and some cloth at our waists and no other clothes.
This is the way.

The chief’s daughters and many other people from their group watch us as we prepare to go.
The chief yells a war cry and raises his fist high with his favorite spear.

We yell in return and bow to him.

The spears we carry are extra sharp to penetrate the thick hide of the vigla.
Each of us carries a small waist pack with dried meat.

The others carry a knife in a sheath at their waist.
I carry two long knives in sheathes that are tied to each leg.
The others are not happy that I carry the driga (long knives).

“Jaina,” they say, “what good will the driga do you?”
“You won’t get close enough to the vigla to use them.”
“And if you need a knife for something else, the short knife is faster and lighter.”

“I’m as fast with mine as you are with yours,” I answer.
“True,” one says, “but you’d be faster with the short knife.”

There are not so many Vigla in this forest.
Some men will dig pits and line them with sharp sticks to kill a Vigla.
This is an easy way to kill a Vigla, if you are lucky to have it fall in your pit.

The honor of this test comes when we face the Vigla, no farther away than the length of a spear.

We will wait by the river where they must come to drink.
The Vigla are not swimmers, so if necessary, we can escape it easily, by entering the river.

We cannot simply strike it and jump into the river with our spears.
The blood will be washed away.
We need to return with our weapons bloody.

Hunting Strength
We form a prayer circle in preparation.
The four warriors stand to the four sides of me, and I raise my right hand high.
(I have some talent for fire dreaming, Elder mother says, but that will not be my path.)

I bring forth a little green fire around this hand as she has showed me.
I touch the heads of each of my brother warriors with this fire, as I turn in a circle.

“We call upon the world to hear us!”
“We hunt the Vigla not for our pleasure, but because we need to be strong for our people.”

We wait for hours by the river, until the Vigla walks slowly to the water to drink.
My four friends cover their skin with mud to block their smell.
Two each on two sides of the path that leads to the water.

This is the plan.
At my signal, the four of them will strike the Vigla with their spears in the lower part of the 4 legs.
Before it can rise up to attack them, I will strike it on its front from the riverbank to distract it.

This will give the four time to throw their spears into the bushes and jump into the river.
I am at the edge of the river, and the Vigla are poor swimmers.
I will toss my spear into the bushes, and escape the Vigla.

We will wait for a safe moment to return and collect our bloodied spears.

We see the great beast moving toward the river.
It’s smell is strong and we see blood all over it’s claws and mouth.
Ah. It has eaten recently. This will make it slower.

I do not fear easily, but when the beast growls a great sound as it approaches the river,
a deep taste of fear passes through me.

I let the fear come, and go.
The fear does not weaken, unless we hold on to it.

The Vigla may be slower than usual, but we knew that it is still fast and deadly.

The four strike with their spears, and I strike a moment later.

Yes, my spear distracts it, for a split second, from the attacks on its sides.
But then it tosses its head and flicks away my spear, knocking it into the river!

It moves sideways knocking over one of the warriors on its right.
The Vigla then turns its head to find what attacks its legs from the right side, and see if there is something still there to kill.

The warrior is not hurt, but he will not be able to get up in time to escape it.

I do the only thing I can.
I pull the long knives out of their sheaths and leap at the creature, striking it in the underside of the neck, and taking one of its eyes.

The angle of its head at the time is perfect for me.
It opens a soft part of the neck which cuts easily and deeply.

But the Vigla is a warrior.
It does not stop until it dies.

It bleeds quickly, but I still must escape its claws.
I use my long knives to block its claws, and I keep slashing at its head.
My warriors attack its legs from the sides with their short knives.

The wound in its neck is larger now, and too much of its blood is upon the ground.
It falls.

It twitches, but it will not rise again.

For a moment we look at each other, shocked that we have killed it.
Then I scream the cry of victory, and the others join in.

Blood and Blessings
When the screams are done, we sing a song honoring the spirit of the dead animal.
A few moments later, many warriors and the chief of the low country come into view.

“What is this?” I ask confused.
I wonder if they are watching to see if we need help.

To help us in our test would dishonor us.
Even planning to help us would shame us.

The chief comes up to us.
“Wash off the mud,” he says to the four warriors still covered in mud.”
“You need to be painted in blood.”

After they wash off, the chief dips his own knife in the Vigla’s blood.
He spreads the blood on our faces with the flat side of the knife.
I am first for I am the leader.

He answers my unspoken question.
“We watch you not to help.”
“I felt that blessings were with you today, and your day would be full of honor.”
“I wanted to see it myself.”

“And what a sight!”
“Have you ever heard of a Vigla being killed during the test?!”

“I was right about your good fortune,” he says loudly.
He pounds each of us in the chest lightly, a sign of affection.
There are tales about this chief and his ways of expecting both the good and the bad.

The warriors cut off the head, and the feet with their great claws, and drag them back to the village, along with some of the meat.
The chief leads us, followed by me, and my four warriors.

When the chief gets within sight of his village, he begins the yell of victory and we all join in.
The people of the village join us.
The ground seems to shake from their yells.

My heart is happy.
I’ve done well today.

The Feast
That night we taste Vigla at a feast in our honor.
The chief chooses five of the unmated girls to feed us our first plate of Vigla.

The five of us wear necklaces that have been made of the Vigla’s claws.
My necklace also has his long teeth, for I met him face to face.

One of the chief’s daughters feeds me, and she unsettles me as she looks me in the eyes.
She is as beautiful as any, maybe more so, but there is something else.
A fire in her eyes.

Later when she moves away she pretends to ignore me, but I catch her looking at me.

Elder mother says “look for beauty and strength and fire in a mate.
You will get more pleasure from the beauty if there is strength and fire behind it.”

“You like her?” asks the chief noticing my gaze.

“She is beautiful,” I answer.

“Of course she is beautiful,” he says loudly.
“Beautiful wives do not produce ugly daughters.”

“She is the oldest girl from my first wife,” he says.
“She has a strong spirit, but she is loyal.”
“If she accepts you as a mate, she will do anything for you.”

“She has my skill at feeling when it’s going to be a good day or bad.”
“And,” he adds.

“Nanik is the finest of all of my daughters.”
“I will accept no ordinary man to marry her.”

The time of mating for me is a year away.
There is a saying: “The first wife is chosen by the mother.”
Elder mother must approve my first mate.

But I know then.
Nanik will be the first of my wives, and the heart of my family.