He grunted and growled a little more and then the child came out.
He was already walking like his sisters he was already crawling on the ground.
They couldn’t just grab the child They couldn’t simply take him back because he would be in between forever and probably he would die.
They had to call him step by step the medicine man brought the child back.
So, long time ago they got him back again but he wasn’t quite the same after that not like the other children.
Tayo stood up and moved around the fire uneasily; the boy took some ribs and disappeared again behind the hogan. The old man put some wood on the fire. “You don’t have to be afraid of him. Some people act like witchery is responsible for everything that happens, when actually witchery only manipulates a small portion.” He pointed in the direction the boy had gone. “Accidents happen, and there’s little we can do. But don’t be so quick to call something good or bad. There are balances and harmonies always shifting, always necessary to maintain. It is very peaceful with the bears; the people say that’s the reason human beings seldom return. It is a matter of transitions, you see; the changing, the becoming must be cared for closely. You would do as much for the seedlings as they become plants in the field.”
NOTE ON BEAR PEOPLE AND WITCHES
Don’t confuse those who go to the bears with the witch people. Human beings who live with the bears do not wear bear skins. They are naked and not conscious of being different from their bear relatives. Witches crawl into skins of dead animals, but they can do nothing but play around with objects and bodies. Living animals are terrified of witches. They smell the death. That’s why witches can’t get close to them. That’s why people keep dogs around their hogans. Dogs howl with fear when witch animals come around.
The wind came up and fanned the fire. Tayo watched a red flame crawl out from under the white coals; he reached down for a piece of juniper and tossed it in. The fire caught. He rubbed pitch from the wood between his fingers and looked down at Gallup.
“I never told you about Emo,” he said, “I never told you what happened to Rocky.” He pointed at the lights below. “Something about the lights down there, something about the cars and the neon signs which reminds me of both of them.”
“Yes,” the old man said, “my grandmother would not leave this hill. She said the whole world could be seen from here.”
“Rocky wanted to get away from the reservation; he wanted to make something of himself. In a city somewhere.”
“They are down there. Ones like your brother. They are down there.”
“He didn’t make it though. I was supposed to help him, so he’d make it back. They were counting on him. They were proud of him. I owed them that much. After everything that happened. I owed it to them.” He looked at the old man, but he was staring at the lights down below, following the headlights from the west until they were taillights disappearing in the east. He didn’t seem to be listening.
“There are no limits to this thing,” Betonie said. “When it was set loose, it ranged everywhere, from the mountains and plains to the towns and cities; rivers and oceans never stopped it.” The wind was blowing steadily and the old man’s voice was almost lost in it.
“Emo plays with these teeth — human teeth — and he says the Indians have nothing compared to white people. He talks about their cities and all the machines and food they have. He says the land is no good, and we must go after what they have, and take it from them.” Tayo coughed and tried to clear the tightness from his throat. “Well, I don’t know how to say this but it seems that way. All you have to do is look around. And so I wonder,” he said, feeling the tightness in his throat squeeze out the tears, “I wonder what good Indian ceremonies can do against the sickness which comes from their wars, their bombs, their lies?”
The old man shook his head. “That is the trickery of the witchcraft,” he said. “They want us to believe all evil resides with white people. Then we will look no further to see what is really happening. They want us to separate ourselves from white people, to be ignorant and helpless as we watch our own destruction. But white people are only tools that the witchery manipulates; and I tell you, we can deal with white people, with their machines and their beliefs. We can because we invented white people; it was Indian witchery that made white people in the first place.
Long time ago in the beginning there were no white people in this world there was nothing European. And this world might have gone on like that except for one thing: witchery. This world was already complete even without white people. There was everything including witchery.
Then it happened. These witch people got together. Some came from far far away across oceans across mountains. Some had slanty eyes others had black skin. They all got together for a contest the way people have baseball tournaments nowadays except this was a contest in dark things.
So anyway they all got together witch people from all directions witches from all the Pueblos and all the tribes. They had Navajo witches there, some from Hopi, and a few from Zuni. They were having a witches’ conference, that’s what it was Way up in the lava rock hills north of Cañoncito they got together to fool around in caves with their animal skins. Fox, badger, bobcat, and wolf they circled the fire and on the fourth time they jumped into that animal’s skin.
But this time it wasn’t enough and one of them maybe a Sioux or some Eskimos started showing off. “That wasn’t anything, watch this.”
The contest started like that. Then some of them lifted the lids on their big cooking pots, calling the rest of them over to take a look: dead babies simmering in blood circles of skull cut away all the brains sucked out. Witch medicine to dry and grind into powder for new victims.
Others untied skin bundles of disgusting objects: dark flints, cinders from burned hogans where the dead lay Whorls of skin cut from fingertips sliced from the penis end and clitoris tip.
Finally there was only one who hadn’t shown off charms or powers. The witch stood in the shadows beyond the fire and no one ever knew where this witch came from which tribe or if it was a woman or a man. But the important thing was this witch didn’t show off any dark thunder charcoals or red ant-hill beads. This one just told them to listen: “What I have is a story.”
At first they all laughed but this witch said Okay go ahead laugh if you want to but as I tell the story it will begin to happen.
Set in motion now set in motion by our witchery to work for us.
Caves across the ocean in caves of dark hills white skin people like the belly of a fish covered with hair.
Then they grow away from the earth then they grow away from the sun then they grow away from the plants and animals. They see no life When they look they see only objects. The world is a dead thing for them the trees and rivers are not alive the mountains and stones are not alive. The deer and bear are objects They see no life.
They fear They fear the world. They destroy what they fear. They fear themselves. The wind will blow them across the ocean thousands of them in giant boats swarming like larva out of a crushed ant hill.
They will carry objects which can shoot death faster than the eye can see. They will kill the things they fear all the animals the people will starve.