Reading the Bones by Gina McMurchy-Barber Page A

illness.”
    Just the thought made me wince and rub my forehead.
    â€œIt’s quite possible the case of mastoiditis we discovered may have caused an excess of fluid in the brain — quite painful I’d imagine. I need to record this before I do anything else, then follow up with some photographs. How about handing me a caliper from my tool kit?”
    I picked up the small metal tool with its two curved needle-like pincers and gave it to her.
    Eddy opened the caliper and began measuring the hole. She determined the width and length from inside the opening, then calculated the thickness of the bone and the area of bone that had healed. Finally, she filled out three data forms, writing lots of paragraphs and making tiny diagrams.
    â€œHow would they have cut an opening like this?” I asked, locked in a stare with the empty eye sockets below the hole. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know the answer.
    â€œI imagine they used a very sharp stone blade, or maybe even the sharpened edge of a clamshell, to cut and scrape a small hole into the skull. It would’ve been a slow process, and there’s nothing to indicate they hadthe means to numb the pain. Once the built-up fluid drained out, they would’ve covered the wound with some traditional plant medicine to help it heal.”
    All I could think of to say was “gross,” but Eddy didn’t seem to hear.
    â€œThere isn’t a lot of information on these operations because they’re so rare. But from what we know, most of the patients didn’t survive. On the other hand, our friend here appears to have fared quite well.”
    â€œHow can you tell, Eddy?”
    â€œBy looking at the rounding of the edges and the form of the hole, I can see there was a period of healing. The skin probably grew over, and there was even some new growth in the bone, though obviously not enough to close up the hole. At the moment everything I see tells me this fellow went on to live for quite a while.”
    Eddy placed the skull on the grass and laid her ruler beside it as a scale for size. Then she started taking photographs. As the camera shutter clicked rapidly, I stared at the small hole just big enough for a nickel to slip through.
    On the beach below Shuksi’em, the men are piling the day’s catch. A boy yanks the tail of a small woolly dog trying to make off with a fish almost the same size. Other children dance in the sand, shouting at the squawking seabirds hovering in the sky.
    Soon the women come down to prepare the salmon. Each carries her own tools — a bone abrader for scraping scales and a flaked flint knife for gutting. Today’s catch will be smoked and stored in the cache boxes for winter.
    Shuksi’em can see that the days are getting shorter and feels the nights becoming cooler. He hates the damp cold
    He thinks this land would be paradise if it were not for the rain and many days of black clouds. These past few winters he would go for two or three weeks easily without so much as poking his head out from the clan house to see the sky.
    He remembers one winter long ago that he thought would be his last. A terrible pain behind his ear moved up to his head and hurt so badly he thought he was caught in the jaws of a black bear. Then his uncle, the village healer, said he would cure his pain.
    All his relatives and friends gathered in the big house and watched as the healer cut into his head. The scraping sound coming from the sharp stone blade made the inside of his head shiver. He can still remember Talusip’s voice quavering as she and the other women chanted songs. Soon a black wall went up, and he slept for many days.
    For a long time after that Shuksi’em was afraid to lie down. He worried that everything inside his head would fall out — his memories, thoughts, and fears lying on the dirt floor for all to see and trample on. For a long while the clan teased him about his hole, saying it was