Free Pocahontas by Joseph Bruchac

he did so it would make the people too poor and it would be hard for families to clothe themselves. But the men must bring those skins and lay them before him so that he can choose to take as many as he wishes. It reminds everyone of his power and of how strongly our alliance is bound together. If any village behaves badly, my father may increase the number of skins he takes to punish its people.
    ***
    That story of Great Hare had come to me and made me go so deep into my thoughts that I forgot what I was supposed to
do. It is that way when you are in the Moon Lodge, for it is a place that is meant to allow you to go deep into your thoughts.
    "Pocahontas," Green Reed called from the other side of the Moon Lodge, "I am still waiting for you to bring me that deerskin to place over my lap."
    I carefully chose a soft, smoke-tanned skin from the pile and brought it back to my elder mother.
    I am not old enough to have my own moon time yet, but on this day I was being honored by those women who invited me to help them. They need such help, for when a woman spends her time in the Moon House each month—usually during those days and nights when Grandmother Moon is largest in the sky—that woman does no work herself. She does not cook or tan skins, she does not gather useful plants from the forest, or hoe in the gardens, or do any of the many, many things women must do so that the people can live well. At this time others must do the work, and she comes to stay here with her moon sisters in the special house at the edge of the village. She has nothing to do other than relax, and think, and talk. The younger women who do not yet have their moons bring food for her and do whatever small chores she asks them to do, whether it is to comb her hair or keep the fires burning.
    I usually do much talking—some say too much. In the Moon Lodge, though, I mostly listen. So many things are always talked about by the women in the Moon Lodge. This day, many of those things had to do with the Coatmen.
    Many of the things talked about in the Moon House become advice to reach the ears of Powhatan. It is true that my father is the Great Chief of our alliance, but his power does not just come from himself. It comes from his making the right decisions for the good of the people. It comes from the support and the advice of the women. Whenever he calls the people together in council, there are always women sitting beside him and behind him. We women often say that we know what a man will do long before he does it. After all, we are the ones who make up his mind for him.
    "Are the Coatmen truly men?" Pemminawsqua motioned to me with her chin as she asked her question of the other women, who were gathered beside her in a circle.
    I hurried over to hand her the scratching stick that she pointed at with her lips. When a woman is in her moon, she does not even scratch herself with her hands, but uses a special stick. Pemminawsqua is a very good-looking woman. Her arms and legs are round, her hips broad. She has four children and is a very good mother. I think my own birth mother would now look like her if she had lived. Pemminawsqua's face is also attractively round, round as Grandmother Moon, and it shines with health, smooth and lovely as the silk grass she is named for. She has a low, pleasant voice, and it seems as if she is close to a laugh whenever she speaks.
    "I ask this," Pemminawsqua continued, "because they do not do the things that men are supposed to do."
    "Or if they do them, they do them very poorly," Wighsakan agreed. "They are very poor hunters, they do not know how to find their way through the forest without becoming lost, and many of them seem to be cowards."
    "This is true," Green Reed said. The way she said it meant she wanted to hear what the other, younger women had to say.
    "They also do the things that women do," Atamasku, a thin woman with a high voice, said quickly. Of all the women who were in the Moon Lodge, Atamasku was