Shell Shaker

Yanàbi Town, Eastern District of the Choctaws

September 22, 1738

Autumnal Equinox

This first chapter is written in first-person, narrated by “Shakbatina, a Shell Shaker” and “an Inholahta woman, born into the tradition of [their] grandmother, the first Shell Shaker of our people,” the “peacemakers for the Choctaws” (loc 74). According to tradition, before the Spanish explorers arrived in the 16th century, there were no wars, hunger, or disease. Men played stickball, and women “tended their children and drank from gourds filled with sweet peach juice. Life was a series of games and dances” (loc 82). One night, they receive word that “a very different kind of Osano, bloodsucker” has “arrived on our shores with weapons of fire” (loc 82). This Osano is the conquistador Hispano de Soto. The village leader, Tuscalusa or Black Warrior, prepares to fight and his woman, Grandmother, dances a ritual dance, wearing “the empty shells of turtles around each ankle” (loc 94). Grandmother is also the name the Choctaw use for Earth itself.

Grandmother dances for four days without stopping, and her prayers are observed with fascination by Miko Luak, “fire’s spirit,” who carried her prayers to Itilauichi, “the Autumnal Equinox,” who, impressed by her sacrifice and dedication, gives her a prayer to sing whenever she needs his help: “Itilauichi, Autumnal Equinox, on your day when I sing this song you will make things even” (loc 94).