Free Liar by Joanna Gosse Page A

Syndrome.
    Sam had explained it to her before. About the white guy and the aboriginal walking down the road, each with a bucket of crabs. The white guy’s crabs kept hopping out of the bucket and he had to keep catching them and putting them back in. The aboriginal’s crabs all behaved and stayed in the bucket. Whitey asks, “How come your crabs don’t hop out of the bucket?” The aboriginal says, “Oh that’s because they’re Indian crabs. If one tries to hop out, the others drag him back.”
    She’d heard enough about tradition and the old ways and the forgetting about how it should be done. These people were living in a modern world and if they wanted to keep tradition they’d first have to agree on exactly what the tradition was.

    Oct. 6/96

    I feel so bad for Sam and his family. They all thought that because Sam’s grandmother was so highly respected, they would respect her wishes. They said yes to her face, and said no behind her back. What should have been a beautiful ceremony became public humiliation for all concerned. Even the naysayers were humiliated.

    Crows

    A black cloud of crows
    descended without honour
    they left respect at the door;
    There is no respect
    in hearts that are weak
    There is no belief
    in the heart of a thief.

    ~ ~

    The next day Sam told China that Dan Black and his henchmen were being shunned by the rest of the Grimshaws.
    “Well, I’m glad,” said China with satisfaction. “I guess Black Eagle won’t be Chief after all. Will you have to do another ceremony now?”
    “China, Dan Black has enough money to buy this whole island. His son will be Chief. This will all be forgotten in a week and the villagers will be cheering and stuffing their bellies and opening their gifts as Black Eagle becomes the Chief of our Clan. My dear mother has once again ruined my life. She just wouldn’t wait for me to straighten things out. She couldn’t wait to be the mother of the Chief,” said Sam bitterly.
    China held her tongue. Like mother, like son. If only Sam had taken charge of the situation. Perhaps he would never have been Chief of his Clan, but he could have saved himself great humiliation. Maybe if he had talked to his family and campaigned to be Chief, he would have had more people on his side. Ifs and useless maybes.

    ~ ~

    Two days later, when Anita and May and family had unhappily departed, Marisa knocked on China’s door and handed her a bag.
    “It’s Sam’s blanket,” she stated bluntly.
    “Thank you Marisa,” said China. “Would you like to come in?”
    “No, I gotta go,” said Marisa as she ran down the front steps.
    China closed the door and took the blanket out of the bag. Buttons and shells fell all over the floor. Sam’s blanket was still unfinished. China wondered, not for the first time, just whose side Marisa was on.

    The good news was that the ancient head-dress had been found. It had appeared miraculously on Marisa’s kitchen table one day after the aborted Thunder Ceremony. Marisa said that a lot of people had been in the house and anyone could have taken it, and returned it, without her knowledge.
    Sam’s belief was that Marisa’s son had been unable to sell it because Sam had issued a detailed description of the artifact to the RCMP. China believed that Marisa had just wanted to add another obstacle to the Thunder Ceremony, for what inscrutable reason China would probably never know. Nor did she want to.

    ~ ~

    One month later, on the full moon, Black Eagle became Chief of the Eagle Clan. Just about the whole population, including Sam’s supporters, attended the Thunder Ceremony. The villagers had to eat in shifts and the celebrating and dancing and drumming carried on for two days. Black Eagle, erected the biggest totem in the village, one that he’d been carving for two years. It was quite a show. One that China and Sam didn’t see. They stayed quietly in their house. Sam watched television and slept, and China sculpted as though her life