Wild Sorrow by SANDI AULT

Anna had adopted me as her student almost immediately after meeting me at an art show, and had begun instructing me in the ways of her people, which she called “Indun Way.” Initially, when I came to visit her, she talked to me very casually about the customs of her people as she cooked or made pottery or jewelry. She often enlisted my help in many of the labor-intensive tasks that she and the other women of her clan performed, such as collecting clay for making pots, making jerky, and large-scale cooking and baking for feasts. And she included me in family gatherings and some rituals, when it was not forbidden to do so by the tribe.
    When I visited her alone at her house, I often took notes in a notebook. Momma Anna had told me one time that writing things down was my way of learning. When I let her know that I had tried once before to write a book, she astonished me by encouraging me to record the stories, the recipes, and the customs she shared with me for a book about her people. This was especially surprising since she had told me about another author who had written a book about the people from three Tiwa pueblos. His book had been driven out of print, his house burned, and the Puebloans who shared information with him had been banned from their tribes. When I asked Momma Anna about this contradiction, she told me that she feared that the old ways were dying out and that many of the rites and traditions she still practiced would pass away with the elders, gradually eroding the culture and homogenizing it. The Tanoah children were torn between the world outside the pueblo and the tribal ways, and the result was that much of the life Anna Santana had once known was vanishing. Since I loved to write, my job was to attend, watch, listen, and take notes.
    But Momma Anna had also warned me that the book I was preparing was not to be published until after she had passed beyond the ridge, as the Tanoah were fiercely secretive about their culture, and there would be repercussions to anyone who shared these things with an outsider. In the past few months, Momma Anna seemed to have developed a sense of urgency about my training, encouraging me to participate more often in the feast days and customs.
    The holidays at Tanoah Pueblo involved days of elaborate preparation. Momma Anna had insisted I must come with her this day at sundown to the home of a friend. The modest apartment was on the Summer, or south, side of the village, and its door faced onto the central plaza. Here inside the wall, there was no electricity or running water, as the tribe insisted on keeping life in the old ways in this historic part of the pueblo. The only heat in this tiny dwelling came from a fire in the corner fireplace and a wood-burning kitchen stove in an adjoining room. Two gas lanterns hung from heavy spikes driven into the vigas that spanned the ceiling. The lamps hissed and radiated amber pools of light. When Momma Anna’s friend invited us into her home, she cast a plump shadow on the whitewashed wall that seemed to be welcoming us a second time once we’d stepped inside.
    Anna spoke to our hostess in Tiwa and gestured to me, saying, “Ja-mai-ca.”
    The auntie held out her hand to me and permitted me to take it. I bowed slightly, but did not speak, which was the formal salutation from a young woman first meeting an elder at Tanoah Pueblo.
    â€œMy name Sica. Sica Gallegos,” she said in a deep, smoky voice. “My Indun name Blue Cloud.”
    Once we had finished the greetings and introductions, Sica said she would bring us tea. She turned and limped toward the kitchen with such a hobble that I worried each time she stepped on her left leg that she might tumble over. She returned holding two cups, and the liquid sloshed over the rim each time she limped on the shorter leg. She gave us each a half cup of tea. Momma Anna opened a plastic grocery bag and pulled out a bundle of cream-colored wool cloth, smoothly woven