Two Spirit(Phil Whitley) Everything had to be perfect this year. There had been dreams—there may not be a Two Spirit to tell the stories next year. This year marked seventy summers of life, and the bones and joints were feeling it. It hardly showed in the gracefulness of the tall, slim figure, clad in a beautiful white deerskin dress, and layers of turquoise and silver necklaces. The flickering light from the huge bonfire illuminated the inside of the kiva and reflected in the silver combs that held the white, waist length hair in place.

Old Two Spirit was preparing for the annual Shalako, the Zuni Kachina Dance that celebrated the end of the old season and the beginning of the new. The old Healer knew that after every celebration, the tired young ones would gather around the fire to listen to the Telling of Stories.

Two Spirit also knew that only those capable of becoming a "Rememberer" would stay awake after dancing into the early morning hours. Those who slept were either too young, or too disinterested to listen and remember the tales.

The old one gave a row of suspended herb bundles a brush of the hand and set them swinging, then sat down on the stone bench. Gazing through the window opening at several young children who were playing around the fire, Two Spirit thought back to the events of a tormented childhood. It had not been the torment of physical abuse, but rather the mental and spiritual anguish of being… different.

On the day that Two Spirit was born, the midwife warned the new mother that the child would be different.

“It is entering the world on the very day that the moon swallows the sun,” she said as the baby slid into her hands.

In the Zuni legend, the female moon goddess consumes the male sun god, but Father Sun always burns himself free. Now he lives with the spirit of the female goddess combined within him.

“So it will be with Two Spirit – as I name this boy child,” the midwife proclaimed, holding the newborn child up for all to see.

When they thought he was not listening, his mother and father discussed his two natures with old Cloud Blower, the shaman of the pueblo. They were not troubled talks, but rather of planning and decision-making for his future. Two Spirit knew that he was different, and that the other children sensed his differences, but he felt perfectly normal.

Why should it matter if he wanted to learn the art of beading from Grandmother, or quilling from his mother, Dragonfly? He was just as likely to accompany his father and uncles to the prairie, where they hunted small game with bow and arrow. He wanted to learn all the skills and talents that he saw around him.

“Why are there man-jobs and woman-jobs?” he asked Cloud Blower. “What does it matter if I want to bead my own shirt?”

The old shaman just smiled and said, “It does not matter, young Two Spirit. How do you think you got your name?”

In the first week of his thirteenth summer, his father took him to a newly constructed grass dwelling outside the village.

“Go inside and wait until I call for you,” his father said.

It is a birthday joke, he thought as he slipped through the door flap of the small structure. There was no one inside as he looked around the room, but on one wall was a rawhide chest full of women’s tools—blades, spindles, awls, scrapers and other daily-used items. Leaning against the opposite wall was a beautiful bow with a full quiver of arrows.

Growing tired of waiting on his father’s call, he lay down on a tempting bed of dried grass and closed his eyes, trying to guess what his family had planned for him.

He was startled awake by the smell of smoke. Choking, and with eyes burning, he jumped to his feet and looked for the source of the thick smoke that filled the room. Then the fire erupted all around him. Realizing his danger, he quickly scanned the room. Grabbing the chest of tools, he ran out the doorway just as the entire structure burst into flame.

“The spirits of Two Spirit have spoken,” announced Cloud Blower, who was standing outside the burning hut with Two Spirit’s father, mother and several of the tribal elders.

“Why did you save the woman tools instead of the bow and arrows, Two Spirit?”

“I do not know, Elder… uhhh, the bow and arrows can be replaced much easier than the tools, and with the tools another bow can be fashioned.”

This was the test of the berdache or, in the language of the Zuni, the Lhamana. There was no social stigma placed upon the two-spirited person. Instead, it was their belief that such a person possessed great spiritual powers and deserved respect. Usually apprenticed to the tribal shaman at an early age, they did the heavier work of the women, but often accompanied the men on hunting trips.

They walked back to the center of the village, where all the villagers had gathered to surprise him with his coming-of-age celebration. His new status in the clan was apparent as his friends came and touched him, leaving small gifts. The adult members, both men and women, embraced him openly and shamelessly. He was, from that day forth, a man-woman and became the apprentice to the old shaman, Cloud Blower.

Two Spirit left his mother’s kiva that same day, and moved into Cloud Blower’s dwelling at the base of the towering mesa that overlooked the village. He spent three days fasting on its peak for his vision quest. On the night of the third day, just as he was about ready to give up in failure, an owl swooped at him from the darkening sky.

“There are no mice here for you, Brother Owl,” he said, thinking that he was hungry enough to eat the mouse himself if there was one.

“I do not seek food tonight, Shaman. I am answering your call. Come, fly with me.”

Before he could react to the owl speaking to him with the voice of a man, it carried him up, up into the night sky above the mesa. He looked down and saw his own body—still seated beside the small fire. Then he was high above his village, seeing it through the eyes of the owl. Though it was dark, he could see even the tiniest detail with crystal clarity. An old man dressed in woman’s clothes looked up at him from his parent’s kiva and waved.

“That is you in your future, Shaman. This is your path if you choose to follow it,” the owl said.

“And if I do not choose this path… what then?”

The owl circled again and Two Spirit looked down at a desolate village with no fires or people, and saw only the crumbling walls of empty kivas and rolling tumbleweed. The desert had reclaimed its territory.

He awoke just before dawn still sitting at his now-dead fire. Shivering from the cold and with stiff joints, he rose to his feet to sing his morning prayers and greet Father Sun. As he did, a single owl feather floated from his lap. He picked it up, remembering the dream from the night before.

“So it was no dream,” he said to the sky. “And I now know the path I must take,” he added as he gently placed the feather into the amulet bag he always wore around his neck. After his prayers, he made his way slowly down the mesa to old Cloud Blower’s kiva, and to his destiny.

He was anxious to tell the shaman about his vision and seeing through the eyes of the owl. Cloud Blower was waiting for him outside the kiva, but before Two Spirit could speak, the shaman said, “I saw you last night in a dream. Owl has chosen you, has he not?”

“Yes, Elder… at least I think so. I looked through his eyes as he flew over the village and… I found this when I woke this morning.” He pulled the feather out of his bag and showed it to Cloud Blower. He had long ago learned to accept the old shaman’s foreknowledge of events as normal.

“Owl is a very powerful spirit animal, young shaman. For one who worships Father Sun to have a creature of the night as a guide will be very rewarding… if you honor him. Remember though that Owl can also be the harbinger of death.”

Cloud Blower went into his kiva and began looking through his old chest. After much searching, he pulled out a beautifully carved figure made from bison horn. It was a perfect replica of an owl. He gave it to Two Spirit and said, “Carry it with you always, and use it when you wish to summon Brother Owl. It is very old and contains great Power.”

Two Spirit thanked him and solemnly placed it into his medicine pouch along with the feather.

Over the next few years, Cloud Blower taught him the secrets of the plants, the healing arts, the spells of animal calling and the reading of signs. He learned of the Shaman’s Path of spirit travel and the language of the spirit world. All the stories of the People became his to remember—to pass on to the next generation.

Old Cloud Blower died in his sleep when Two Spirit was in his twentieth summer. He had awakened before the old shaman and had begun preparing their morning meal. When it was almost ready, he went to the pile of robes that covered his mentor.

“Wake up, Elder,” he said, as he pulled the robes away from Cloud Blower. “Can you not smell the stew?”

He looked down at the figure on the sleeping mat. Cloud Blower lay with his eyes open and unblinking. Two Spirit tried to sit the old man up, but he was stiff with death. Gently closing the old man’s eyes, he said the prayer for the dead—then said his personal farewell to his teacher, friend and companion of seven years.

He was now Shaman. The cleaning and dressing of Cloud Blower’s body was his to perform. After the customary four days of keeping the vigil for the dead, he supervised the building of the funeral pyre that held the body of his mentor. He had prepared old Cloud Blower for the journey to the spirit world just as he had seen the old Shaman do many times for others of the pueblo. He lit the fire at the four sacred corners and led the somber ghost dance around the roaring inferno as the smoke carried the souls of Cloud Blower up into the domain of the Sky Father.

That was fifty summers ago and now here I am, dancing what may be my last Shalako, he thought as he recalled the recent dreams. He stood and began making his preparations for the night’s ceremony.

After leading the evening celebration and Shalako dance, he returned to his kiva for the ceremonial drum and wolf mask that he would wear at the Telling of Stories. The young children were already gathering around the glowing coals of the fire to hear the stories.

As he approached the fire from the shadows of his kiva, he overheard one of the boys saying to the others, “I hope he tells the story of Crow and Macaw tonight. That one is my favorite. You know the one… it was when Crow and Macaw each gave First Woman an egg. She had to choose only one of them…”

As the boy continued the story, Two Spirit sat down out of sight and listened to the boy. He had it just right. The old shaman mouthed the words in harmony just as he had told the same story countless times.

This may be the one, he thought as he saw that the boy now had the attention of the group. He is a natural storyteller, and he uses the proper hand and body movements to emphasize the story.

Two Spirit sat and listened, smiling as he wondered which of the stories he would now tell, since the boy had stolen the one he was going to begin with.

They found him later that night after he failed to show up for the Telling of Stories. He was still sitting with his back to the rock wall with a peaceful smile frozen on his face.

His successor had shown himself. His dream premonition fulfilled, he danced his last Shalako and his spirits returned to Sky Father.

All was as it should be.

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