Wild Sorrow by SANDI AULT Page A

with bright red and green designs along the hem edge. It reminded me of the ceremonial kiltlike wraps the Tanoah men wore when they danced the deer and buffalo dance. “This special made for Holy Family,” Momma Anna said.
    The two women took the cloth to a square folding table that had been set up under the only window in Sica Blue Cloud’s home. They arranged the fabric such that the red and green pattern design showed prominently across the front and two sides. Momma Anna asked me to stand back and help them assure that it hung evenly. “Holy Family come here,” she said, sweeping her hand across the plane of the table, “before the solstice. Stay until Day of Kings.”
    Sica Blue Cloud nodded, smiling. “My family give them home.”
    â€œNext other time, maybe my family,” Momma Anna said.
    One of the aunties had explained this tradition to me the night we had made the Christmas baskets. A group of bultos— carved wooden statues of the Nativity, including the Holy Family—were moved from the pueblo church to one of the family homes at Tanoah Pueblo, and the bultos would reside there until the Epiphany. This was a great honor for the chosen family. Food and drink were left for the bultos each night, prayers offered, and many visits to the home made by members of the tribe who wished to pay their respects to the shepherds, the three wise men, and especially Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus.
    While they were adding elements to the table, such as straw for the stable and cotton to represent snow for the surrounding landscape, the two old women gossiped in Tiwa.
    Sica turned from her fussing over the table and looked at me. I had been studying a few framed photos on an adobe ledge in the otherwise-spare room. Sica wobbled to a basket in the corner and picked up a folded blanket and handed it to me. To many of the elders at Tanoah Pueblo, this was the same gesture of hospitality as the offer of a seat on the sofa in a contemporary home. Momma Anna often taught me lessons as she did handwork on her jewelry or dreamcatchers while seated on a blanket in her front room. It was an old custom to keep a house without furniture, and few of the elders at Tanoah Pueblo adhered to it anymore. Momma Anna had told me that when she grew up, her family ate their meals, told their stories, and played winter games on a blanket in their home and never wanted for more.
    I unfurled the blanket and sat down cross-legged on one corner. Sica Blue Cloud looked at Momma Anna and smiled approvingly, and they returned to their chatter. I heard the word “schoolteacher”—the only bit of English in a steady stream of Tiwa—and I knew they were talking about Cassie Morgan and the news of the former school matron’s death. After a few minutes, the two women came to join me on the blanket. Sica brought a little stool from the kitchen, then leaned against the wall and slid down carefully, using the stool as a place to put her hands as she supported herself on the way down. When she sat down, her left leg extended at an angle, straight out from her hip across the floor. I could see a huge knob below her knee through the fabric of her dress. Both women were quiet for a moment, and then Sica began speaking to me. “You know I am old, but I still remember that one who died. She was a long time coming in my dreams, long time.”
    Momma Anna grunted, “Unh.”
    Sica went on: “One time, two Apache boy come to that school, they are wild as jackrabbit, get in lot of trouble. One bite the teacher ear, make her bleed. The next one jump on a teacher back and pull her hair and she scream, run around like a horse try to buck him off.” Sica put fingers over her lips to suppress a giggle, remembering the sight. But then she sobered, and she pursed her lips and looked down. “They whip those boy in front of everybody, make us watch. They beat them many different time, sometime one,