The first-born daughter is
just a few hours old, and
the gold-foil fish used to
decorate a horse's bridle
are hundreds of years old,
found by Bronwen in a
Scythian horse's grave in
Siberia.

Bronwen immediately
answers to the loss of
the signature dog species
of the Yukon dog salmon.

"I saw baby Winonah in
the oracle bones!  They
said Child of her People
will go on a far journey
with the four-leggeds. 
We must all go!  The
cradle, the maternal
grandmothers Willa
and Rue, baby Winonah,
Sarah, myself, and the
Buckskin Skirt Oar
Traveler.  We must listen
to the oracle bones!  We
must go on this soul
journey.  Shaw, my son,
bring the gold foil fish!"

Modern-day mothers would think it unsafe to travel with a newborn, but Buffalo Bird Woman gave birth to her son at midnight in the winter of 1870.  On the following morning, an older woman bathed the newborn baby with the water she had warmed in her own mouth, and then wrapped him in a sack fashioned from a piece of tent cover.  She packed him in soft down from cattails and put sand at his feet, then bundled him up in a wildcat skin.  Later that day, mother and child crossed the icy river with the rest of the band.

from The Buckskin Skirt Oar Traveler...

Copyright 2006 Sage Sweetwater, firebrand lesbian novelist, brainchild of Sage Sweetwater Creative Properties, flagship of Stone Creek Woman