Shaman Winter

The Spaniards’ relationship to God was imbued with such a purpose. With the help of God only a century before, they had driven the Moors out of Spain, driven out the Jews, and in the few decades that followed, they had conquered the New World. Surely there was divine intervention in those historical events. The finger of God stirring the history of man. This faith in divine guidance had become part of the Spanish character, a driving force that pushed them recklessly and ruthlessly across the New World.

  The Spanish crown now claimed the lands from Tierra del Fuego to this newly established interior province of New Mexico. Riches beyond the imagination flowed to Spain, and the crown thanked God. This belief that God approved their right to reap the rewards of ancient civilizations and to save the souls of los indios had become the manifest destiny of Spain.

  This land to the north has been called the kingdom of the fabled Seven Cities of Cíbola, Oñate continued. I feel in my blood the gold and silver mines of Cíbola will make us all rich beyond expectation. And just as important, thousands of native souls will be baptized and saved.

  He turned to look at Andres. The young woman you marry will be the first native baptized. All bodes well for our adventure.

  I am glad you are pleased, Andres replied.

  He knew other Spanish soldiers had taken Indian women for their wives in Mexico, but the love affair that had developed between Andres and the Indian girl was a surprise to all. The woman was not an Aztec princess, she had no rich father or uncles to provide a dowry; she was a native of the new region, a people the Spaniards had just met.

  Yes, I am pleased, Oñate said. You are one of my finest soldiers, Andres, and if you permit me to say, you have been like a son to me. I have been able to confide in you while we waited for the expedition to be under way, and you have been loyal.

  You do me an honor, Andres replied. My loyalty and my love for you are as deep as my vision to settle in La Nueva México.

  Oñate smiled and placed his hand on Andres’s shoulder.

  It is our vision that brings us to this land, Andres. You are the first of many who will marry the Indian women. I suppose if we could bring more of our women from Spain, it would be different, but if we are to survive, we need to raise families. We need sons who will make good soldiers. And we need to be mindful of our purpose, to baptize the natives. As Father Bartolomé de las Casas has pointed out in his treatises, the Indians do have souls.

  I never doubted that, Andres replied, thinking that in thousands of masses he had attended as a good Catholic, he had never felt his soul come alive as it did when he was with Owl Woman.

  The captain general nodded. We also will need farmers. Men who can feed our colony. This is the beginning, and it is a stroke of luck. You gain a wife, and I cement friendly relations with these people. Our caravans returning to México with the gold of La Nueva México will have a friendly outpost here.

  They were interrupted by someone hurrying toward them and calling Andres. They turned to see a soldier, one of the guards stationed at the Indian camp.

  Someone has stolen the girl, he cried in Castilian Spanish.

  Qué dices? Oñate responded.

  It’s true, General. Owl Woman is gone!

  Worry clouded Andres’s forehead. He realized why he had shivered in the river breeze. Evil was in the air, something that had haunted him in the tranquil village of Alburquerque in Spain long before he had decided to sail to the New World. Even in the pristine desert, at the edge of this new province to the north, the evil presence had finally caught up with him.

  Stolen the woman? Oñate questioned. He looked at Andres. It’s a game. Perhaps some of your friends have stolen the bride as is the custom. Or perhaps it’s part of the Indian ceremony of marriage?

  No! the soldier replied. The Indian women came out of the jacal where they had been all day with the girl. They were crying in the most terrible way, and when I went into the hut, the girl wasn’t there! The fear in the eyes of the women assures me it’s no joke.

  We must go quickly, Oñate commanded, and he and Andres hurried after the guard toward the Indian camp.

  In his heart, Andres felt his dreams collapsing.

  The expedition from Nueva Viscaya had come this far. Here they were met by a friendly tribe of Indians, men who appeared with bows, long hair cut to resemble little Milan caps, and colored with red paint. Manxo, they said, greeting the Spaniards in peace.

  Here, while the expedition rested and reorganized itself for the final trek northward, Capitán Andres Vaca had fallen in love with a young woman of the tribe. He had admired the beauty of the Aztec women in México-Tenochtitlán, and like the other soldiers he had bedded with his share. But he had never felt the certainty of true love.

  That’s what he had felt when he saw the young woman the elders called Owl Woman. He had gone with Oñate to negotiate with the Indians; Owl Woman sat with the chiefs and the shaman. It was clear that even at her young age she was their equal. They turned to her for advice, and she interpreted for them. She had returned Andres’s gaze, letting him know that she was interested in him.

  He was surprised at the affection he felt, and more surprised when he realized she was returning the interest. But he knew the young woman was special. She was the daughter of a shaman, and she had been sent to the land of the Aztecs to study. While in México-Tenochtitlán, she had learned the language of the Spaniards. The elders treated her with great respect, for about her were whispered the stories of a special destiny.

  Andres learned from the tribal warriors that she was called a person of peace, one who carries dreams. She had in her possession a beautiful black bowl that was carved from obsidian.

  One evening while the camp was finishing its supper, Andres had walked upriver to bathe. He entered the cool water and quickly and vigorously washed away the day’s sweat and dust. When he looked up, he saw three women on the sandy riverbank, two older women and Owl Woman. The older women spread a blanket on the sand, then disappeared. The young woman disrobed and entered the water.

  Andres stood transfixed by her beauty. The women had seen him bathing, which meant they had chosen to be there. She was coming to him, her full beauty revealed in her nakedness, holding in her hands the black bowl he had seen.

  Instinctively he covered himself. He felt like Adam looking at Eve in the Garden of Eden. Yes, this was truly Eden. This great river that flowed from el norte was the holy river that flowed through the garden. The pristine desert around them was still warm with the heat of the day. Birds warbled in the mesquite bushes and sang joyously in the cottonwoods along the riverbank.

  Eden, Andres Vaca thought, I have come to the gate of Eden.

  Owl Woman walked calmly to him, and they stood looking at each other without fear or guilt. In her eyes Andres saw an innocence he had never seen before. That attraction in his heart mixed with the sweet desert perfume of the evening dusk and blossomed into love.

  Me llamo Mujer del Tecolote, she said. Her Spanish was faltering but understandable. She dipped the bowl in the water and raised it above her head, then let the water wash over her jet-black hair.

  Baptism? Andres thought. She calls herself Owl Woman.

  Me llamo Andres Vaca, he replied, and she dipped the bowl again and stepped forward to raise it over his head. She stood so close to him he could feel the curves of her breasts touch his chest. When the water splashed on his head, he felt a shudder go through him.

  Dios mío, he thought, this must be a dream. No joy on earth could equal what I feel.

  Three more times she filled the bowl and washed him, and he stood still, enraptured by her touch, hardly daring to breathe for fear of breaking the spell.

  Con esta agua bendita, tu eres mi esposo, she said as she washed him.

  It was more than a baptism; it was a marriage ceremony! She was becoming his wife, he her husband.

  She handed the bowl to him. Los días del sueño nuevo, she said.

  Sí, Andres replied, taking the bowl and filling i
t with water. He washed her as she had washed him, four times, allowing the water to splash over her head.

  Tu eres mi mujer, he said, whispering the words, believing any moment the bubble of the dream would burst, his hands shaking from the silkiness of her skin.

  When the ceremony was over, she took his hand and he went with her to the blanket on the bank.

  Andres shivered, not from the water evaporating on his skin, but from the incredible lightness he felt from the young woman’s touch.

  She beckoned him to lie by her, encouraging him to touch her, smiling when he kissed her. She drew him close, and he entered her, feeling a consummation of the marriage bed in the warmth of her embrace. Her moans of love blended into the murmur of the river, the drone of insects in the bushes, the swirl of the end of day.

  He felt fulfillment. The woman had given herself freely to him, picking time and place. He remembered the woman in his vision who told him to go north, and now he knew why.

  Here on the bank of the river at the start of a great adventure, thousands of miles from his home in Spain, he had met his destiny, and it brought great clarity of purpose.

  Voy con usted, Andres, she said.

  Sí, he replied, accepting her. Te vas conmigo.

  She smiled. Mi amor. Tu corazón.

  She was giving her heart to him.

  Niños, she said.

  Sí. He nodded. Suddenly the thought of children was natural. It was part of her plan, and she was sharing it with him.

  Aquí, she said, and reached for the dark tripod bowl and handed it to him.

  He took the bowl and held it up in the light of dusk. It was the kind of bowl he remembered seeing somewhere, perhaps in one of the many mercados he had wandered through in México. Ah, but this bowl was special. He felt the energy of life pulse in the black clay. She was saying the bowl held their children, their future.

  Sí, niños.

  Nuestro destino. She nodded, searching for the words to convey the meaning of the gift.

  Sí, nuestro destino. He smiled. Ah, the bowl held the dream. Their dream. Dreams of things to come.

  She pointed north. Nuestra tierra.

  Sí. La Nueva México.

  Then she pointed south. Tula.

  Ah, Tula, he repeated. He had been to Tula a few years earlier. It was the sacred city of the Toltecs, that civilization of ancient México that preceded the Aztecs. In dreams he often saw the ruins of Tula, and now he had met and fallen in love with a woman who carried a sacred bowl from there.

  He looked at the symbols engraved on the outside of the bowl. There was a pattern there, he was sure, but he couldn’t read the glyphs. He was sure that it must be a bowl the priests of Tula had once used in their ceremonies. A peaceful feeling emanated from the bowl.

  He gazed on Owl Woman’s lovely face, a classic face of Indian beauty. Was real love between a man and woman always like this? He felt he had entered her and remained in her. Perhaps it was the blood, the seed deposited, the soul of him already growing into hers. Now both were contained in this magic bowl. Perhaps it was her magic, the sureness in the way she had come to him and given herself to him. The way she spoke of their life together as if they had known each other a long time.

  Mujer del Tecolote, he said. Owl Woman. The bird of wisdom of the ancient Greeks. For the Indians of México, the owl was the bird of the shaman. Only the shaman dared speak to the owl. The shaman could take the form of a coyote, jaguar, or owl. This is the way they traveled, the way they came to power. The owl crying in the bosque could be a shaman.

  Sí, she replied and pointed at the glyph of an owl on the side of the bowl. She moved her finger. Next to the owl, the horns of a bull.

  Tu eres Vaca.

  Andres laughed. Sí, Vaca! This was incredible!

  Long before the Spaniards reached the New World the Toltec priests who carved this bowl had known he would come to join his blood to the blood of this woman. The bowl held their dream and destiny. Andres Vaca was destined to be here in 1598 on the banks of the Río del Norte, waiting with the expedition of don Juan de Oñate to travel north, joining his destiny to that of Owl Woman’s.

  But there were no bulls or cows in the New World before the Spaniards came, he thought. How could the priests, the ancient carvers of this calendar of dreams, have known?

  Es un sueño, she said, reading his thoughts.

  La vida es un sueño, he repeated.

  Dónde aprendiste hablar español? he asked her.

  Hablo sueños. I speak dreams, she replied, smiling and leaning close to him, touching her forehead to his. A current passed through them, a current as exciting as the physical love they had just shared.

  What a gifted woman, Capitán Andres marveled as Owl Woman rose and slipped into her soft buckskin dress.

  Calendario de Sueños y de Paz, she said. Together they held the bowl, their fingers touching.

  She spoke dreams, she passed the dream to him; she was the keeper of the Bowl of Dreams, visions of the peace to come over the land and its people.

  Her dark eyes carried a message of love as she leaned and kissed his lips softly, a kiss as warm and sweet as the juice of ripe prickly pears.

  The bowl spoke, a silent language from the past, a dream of the ancients. Its artistry was as complete as the story it held. The finely polished Calendar of Dreams was a heart throbbing in his hands, a new time being born.

  Then a vision of the vast land to the north swept over him. He saw the weary colonists following the Río Grande to La Nueva México, and he saw himself, a sad and disillusioned man riding across the vast desert, alone. Why alone? he thought, and clung to Owl Woman.

  No me dejes, he whispered, sensing something wrong.

  Voy a preparar, she replied.

  She was going to her people to prepare. The marriage ceremony had to be completed within the circle of her people.

  Esta Olla de Sueños es nuestra, she said, and disappeared into the brush of the river, taking the bowl with her, the bowl holding the seed and promise of their dreams.

  Andres felt a shiver as the sun set. A warning cry from a coyote cut the air. But he shook off the bad feeling. This was a time for celebrating. He had met and made love to a beautiful young woman, an enchanting woman. Something magical had happened between them.

  I have a wife! he shouted. Niños to raise in La Nueva México! He dressed quickly and hurried back to the camp.

  Early the next morning Andres Vaca sought out one of the Tarascan guides who had come with them from México. Juan Diego knew many of the languages of the Valley of México, and he had quickly added Spanish to his repertoire. He could converse with these natives of El Paso del Norte.

  Juan Diego would help interpret for him. Together they went to the girl’s pueblo, and Andres Vaca spoke through the guide to the girl’s parents. There was no need to explain, the pueblo had already begun preparations for the wedding feast. All knew that Owl Woman had chosen the young captain as her husband.

  The elders told Andres Owl Woman’s story. When she was only a girl, Owl Woman had journeyed south with a shaman to the land of the Aztecs. She had visited Tula, the ancestral holy place. When she returned, she brought with her the bowl the ancients called the Calendar of Dreams.

  The priests of Tula knew their time on earth was coming to an end and that their way of life would be ruthlessly obliterated. Their temples were desecrated, the ceremonies abolished by the Spanish friars.

  The dream of peace was dying, but the elders of Tula knew a new dream could be born. Owl Woman was chosen to carry the Calendar of Dreams north. She was instructed to wait for the man who could take her north to the old pueblos. There among the descendants of the Anasazis a new dream was to flourish. There she would give birth to a new people, and she would deliver the bowl to the priests of the pueblos.

  So Andres Vaca learned that his destiny became part of Owl Woman’s fate, and the two in turn were part of a greater destiny yet to be fulfilled in La Nueva México.
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  When he reported the proposed marriage between him and the young woman to Oñate, the entire Spanish expedition was glad to have something to celebrate. The journey to the banks of the Río Grande had been long and tiring. The Chihuahua desert especially had been cruel to man and beast. Already the colonists complained of the suffering they had endured, and there was still la Jornada del Muerto to cross before they arrived in the northern mountains.

  Now we have allies! Oñate told his soldiers. Guides to lead us, men of this tribe to speak to the northern tribes on our behalf. Capitán Andres Vaca has done us all a great service. We will prepare a feast to celebrate his wedding. Like Cortes before him, he will wed an Indian woman and deliver sons and daughters to the lands of the north.

  The wedding plans rippled like a fresh breeze across the tired camp. The women warmed water and bathed, and they removed gowns and shoes from their trunks.

  Somewhere a fiddler tuned his fiddle, and the excitement of the coming fiesta filled the air.

  The men went upriver to bathe and wash their clothes in the river. The barber trimmed beards, and the cooks baked corn tortillas from the corn flour the Indians brought as a gift. Even the blacksmith sang as he replaced worn-out horseshoes.

  In the afternoon the Spaniards hunted along the river, and with their harquebuses they killed many ducks, geese, and cranes. The Indians brought large fish they caught in the deep pools of the river, and a feast was prepared. Cooked in mesquite wood, the fish and fowl were savory, and the Spaniards gorged themselves.

  The Indians also brought honey, piñon nuts, and bread made from the paste of a desert plant. The cautiously guarded store of Spanish wine was consumed in great quantities.

  All day the food arrived, delivered by the Indian women, and all day the Spaniards ate, sang, and danced. At the evening wedding they would give thanks to the Almighty for having delivered them to these kind people who lived on the banks of the river.

  Oñate had given a speech during the meal. He asked the friars to bless the momentous event, then he spoke.

  This is a day of thanksgiving, he said. We who come north to settle the kingdom of La Nueva México have endured a long journey. Our provisions are low, our feet are sore from walking. Some have allowed their spirits to sag, and I have heard there is talk of turning back. And yet the good Lord has answered our prayers and brought us to these natives who live on the banks of this great river. They plant corn, which they have shared with us. They fish the river for these succulent fish and feed us. In a few days we will leave this blessed spot that we call Los Puertos, El Paso del Norte, for here indeed we take our first step into La Nueva México. But we will never forget these vecinos, los Manxos, who, though they are heathens, have shared the bounty of their land with us. Some will travel north with us and guide us, for they know the land. And the young woman who is to wed Capitán Vaca will also come with us. For this we give thanks.