Table Of ContentL e A n n e H o w e
Shell Shaker
aunt lute books
San Francisco
Copyright © 2001 by LeAnne Howe
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any
form without written permission from the publisher.
First Edition
Aunt Lute Books
P.O. Box 410687
San Francisco, CA 94141
Front cover art: Jamie Quick-to-See Smith, War Shirt, 1992, Oil and mixed
media collage on canvas diptych, 60 x 84 in. Museum purchase; funds
provided by Tamar and Emil Weiss and prior gifts of Roland B. Swart,
1993.27 A-B The Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey.
Back cover art: Mickey Howley (photographer and co-creator), Brad Cushman
(owner and co-creator), “The Big Peanutmobile.”
Cover and text design and typography: Kajun Design
Senior Editor: Joan Pinkvoss
Managing Editor: Shay Brawn
Production: Gina Gemello, Shahara Godfrey, Marielle Gomez, Tasha Marks,
Tamara Martinez, Laura Reizman, Golda Sargento
This book was funded in part by grants from the
LEF Foundation, the California Arts Council, and ai
the National Endowment for the Arts. NATIONAL
ENDOWMENT
FOR THE ARTS
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either
the product of the authoris imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishment, events,
or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Howe, LeAnne.
Shell shaker / by LeAnne Howe.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 1-879960-61-3
1. United States—History—Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775—Fiction. 2.
Choctaw Indians—Fiction. 3. Organized crime—Fiction. 4. Casinos—fiction. I.
Title.
PS3608.O95 S48 2001
8131.6—dc21
2001046250
Printed in the United States of America
10 98765432
For Joseph, Randall, Chelsey, Alyssa, and April,
And especially for Jim Wilson,
with love
Portions of this book appeared in slightly altered form in the following publica
tions:
“Blood Sacrifice,” Through The Eye Of The Deer, Aunt Lute Books, 1999.
“Shell Shakers” Story, F & W Publications, Volume 44.3.
“Danse de 1’amour, Danse de mort,” Earth Song, Sky Spirit: An Anthology of Native
American Writers, Doubleday & Co., 1992.
“Dance of the Dead,” Looking Glass, San Diego University Press, 1991.
“The Bone Picker,” Fiction International #20, 1991.
Songs lyrics that appear in the chapter “Funerals By Delores” are from Arrah
Wanna, An Irish Indian Matrimonial Venture. Music by Theodore Morse, words
by Jack Drislane, published by F. B. Haviland Publishing Company, 1906.
Acknowledgments
For the generous support while researching and writing this book, I want to
thank the National Endowment for the Humanities; Smithsonian Institution’s
Native American Community Scholar Program at the National Museum of
American History, Washington D.C.; MacDowell Colony; Ragdale Foundation;
Atlantic Center for the Arts; and D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian
History, Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois.
Sincere thanks go to my editor, Joan Pinkvoss, and Gina Gemello and all the staff
at Aunt Lute Books for their patience with me and for their meticulous efforts in
bringing Shell Shaker to life.
For their encouragement while I was an MFA candidate at Vermont College of
Norwich University, I am indebted to: Christopher Noel, Mary Grimm, Ellen
Lesser, Pamela Painter, Doug Glover, and Lois Rosenthal, editor of Story, who
published an early chapter of the novel.
I am thankful for the friends who’ve supported me over the years and never lost
faith in my ability to finish the book: Lisa Kepple, Mary BlackBonnet, Jeanne
Claire van Ryzin, Dean Rader, Spencer Smith, Wendy Botham, Alan Velie, Robert
Clinton, Linda Farve, Gwen and Brantley Willis, Carol Miller, Jean M. O’Brien,
Carla McDonald, Brenda Child, Patricia K. Galloway, Helen Tanner, Harvey
Markowitz, Rayna Green, Theda Perdue, Mike Green (and all the members of the
NEH Summer Seminar in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1991), Professor Ray
McCullars, and the late Professor Clinton Keeler, who said, “you can write.” A
very special thanks to professor, author, and friend Geary Hobson, and to my dear
friends the late Roxy Gordon and Judy Gordon of Wowapi Press, who published
my first collection of short stories in 1985.
I say yakoke, yakoke, many thanks, to my beloved relatives, those who are related
by blood, and those who are related the Indian way: Izola Hoeh and the late
Richard Hoeh; Kevin Lynch; the late Christine Poyor; Billy Poynor; Gayle Goomda;
Kathy Poynor; Justin Data and the late Scott Morrison; and for Iva Zenorda Cecil,
who taught me to tell stories. For my extended Sioux family: Susan Power; Susan
Power Sr.; Ken Bordeaux, family, friend, and mentor; and Craig Howe.
And finally, for Bruce Fry, who still believed in me after I lost a million dollars.
Blood Sacrifice
1
Yanäbi Town, Eastern District of the Choctaws
September 22,1738
Autumnal Equinox
A no ma Chahta sia hoke o\c. Call me Shakbatina, a Shell Shaker. I am
an Inholahta woman, bom into the tradition of our grandmother,
the first Shell Shaker of our people. We are the peacemakers for the
Choctaws.
The story of the Inholahta begins a long time ago when Grandmother
was very young. The town where she lived was far away and near a river.
Food was plentiful. Even Grandmother’s cabin was dripping with beans.
Made of green canes and lashed together with vines that had crawled
out of the earth, her cabin continually sprouted new growth.
In the middle of the town’s square grounds, where all the celebra
tions occurred, everything was wide open. Like a party. Every day the
men sang with a drum in the square grounds while the women tended
their children and drank from gourds filled with sweet peach juice. Life
was a series of games and dances. The town champion of toli, the stick-
ball game, was our grandfather. His name was Tuscalusa, Black Warrior,
and he was a great leader, robust and dynamic. After the stickball games,
which took many days and nights to play out, Tuscalusa would dance
with only one woman, our grandmother. They were so beautiful
together. Their skin was smooth, and their teeth were white and
straight. They sounded alike, so potent their voices could call the light
ning. We are watery versions of them.
There was once a road, an ancient trade route that began in the east.
Like the wind gathering, receding, returning, it went through hundreds
1 I LeAnne Howe
of towns until it reached the middle of the square grounds where
Grandfather played stickball. Down this road came a terrible story. It
said:
A dangerous enemy has arrived on our shores with weapons of fire. He is
camped a few days away in the town ofTalisi. He will devour your family.
Soon he will he on the move again. He’s a very different hind of Osano,
bloodsucker, he always hungers for more.
When Tuscalusa heard this, he and his warriors began to make plans
to save the people from the invader. Because he was a well-known stick-
ball player, he would be the one to lead the enemy into a trap. He real
ized he would probably have to die in order to lure the Osano away.
It was then our grandmother did an extraordinary thing. She built a
fire and she strapped the empty shells of turtles around each ankle. She
didn’t sing aloud because she was afraid the children would hear sorrow
in her voice, so she only moved her lips in silent prayers. For four days
and nights she never stopped dancing around the fire, extolling the
heroics of the man she loved. Amazingly, the fire did not go out. Miko
Luak, fire’s spirit, was so spellbound by her story that he would not leave
for fear of missing important details of Tuscalusa’s courage.
On the fourth night, Grandmother’s ankles were swollen and bloody
where the shells and leather twine had cut into them. The ground
around the fire was red with her blood, but still she danced, and it was
then Miko Luak took pity on her. He carried her prayers up to Itilauichi,
the Autumnal Equinox, who listened with compassion. Itilauichi learned
that Grandmother had begun her ceremony on his special day of the
year.
“What you have endured confirms that you are sincere,” he said.
“Through your sacrifice of blood you have proven yourself worthy. The
things you desire for the people will be given.” Then he gave her this
song and told her to sing it when she needed his help.
Itilauichi, Autumnal Equinox, on your day when I sing this song you will
make things even.
After learning that Itilauichi had given his word to Grandmother, our
ancestors prepared for what was coming. The next twelve days were
spent in ceremony. Tuscalusa and his stickball players drank black drink
and prayed around the fire. Grandmother taught her sisters the Snake
Dance and how to imitate the movements of a coiling and uncoiling
2 | SHELL SHAKER
snake, a sign of power. She also showed the women how to tie on the
turtle shells without cutting their legs.
On the thirteenth day all ceremonies stopped. It was time for good
byes. Tuscalusa put a tiny black stone in our grandmother’s mouth and
told her to swallow it. He said it represented his spirit. She presented
him with a kasmo, a feathered shawl with locks of her hair woven
through it. She told him the kasmo represented her spirit and if he wore
it they would never be parted. That was what Itilauichi had promised
her.
The next morning, Tuscalusa wrapped the kasmo around his shoul
ders and left to meet the invader, Hispano de Soto. His plan was to pre
tend to be captured by the enemy. Tuscalusa allowed himself to be put in
chains, and he bowed his head like a pitiful child. De Soto, the most
greedy Osano, was unable to reason that Tuscalusa was leading him into
a trap. He believed our grandfather was a coward who had surrendered
without a fight. Unbeknownst to de Soto, the man standing before him
was only a shell. All that Grandfather had been, his essence, was held
inside of Grandmother for safekeeping. It was part of their sacred plan.
For seven more days in the month of Hash Bissa, October, Hispano de
Soto marched Grandfather to the town of Mabila. All along the way,
Grandfather’s iksa, group, surrendered to the Hispanos. But the
Mabilians, our clever cousins, were in on the plan to drive de Soto out
of the region and they entertained the invaders with a bountiful feast.
Tuscalusa and his stickball players waited for the signal to begin fight
ing. At the appointed time Grandfather’s shell reunited with his body,
and the battle began. The stickball players fought bravely against the
foreigners. The Hispanos attacked the walls of the Mabilian fort, cutting
them down and setting fire to the houses within. The whole town was
burned. Unspeakable acts were then committed by Hispano Osano. They
fell into a barbaric blood lust and cut off the heads and hands of the
stickball players, and the Mabilians. Later, the Hispanos displayed them
wherever they went as souvenirs of their courage.
Grandmother instantly knew something was wrong. The stone
churned in her stomach and she vomited it into her hands. It had changed
color from black to gray and had holes in it like a skull, and she knew
Tuscalusa was dead. Instead of crying for her husband, which was her
duty, she gathered her six younger sisters and made a powerful speech.
She said Tuscalusa and his iksa brothers gave their lives so the women
and children would not become the slaves of foreigners. She told her
3 I LeAnne Howe
sisters they would mourn their husbands after they were safely away
from the invaders.
All agreed. The women put away their sorrow until the time was
right and they could properly mourn for the dead. Our grandmother
sang the song Itilauichi taught her—and that’s when it happened. A
moment opened. A flurry of color took flight. Lips opened in awe, then
transformed into multicolored beaks and wings. Voices thinned out, and
tangled in throats that turned into other voices. A song of birds.
Grandmother and her sisters soared over the heads of the Hispanos and
dropped excrement on them. Then they flew away. For many days and
nights, people from other clans said that they saw a flock of strange birds
crisscrossing the Ahepatanichi, the river that caused all life to rise up.
When these variegated creatures reached our present homelands, their
wings fell off. The sisters went back to living according to customs. They
built our seven original Choctaw towns. Yanahi Town is one of them.
After living through the horrors of warfare, Grandmother decided
she would become a peacemaker. She taught her sisters the art of nego
tiation and how to find solutions to disputes. She became well-known
as a leader who spoke for peace and the fair exchange of goods between
towns.
When Grandmother’s life came to an end many years later, Itilauichi
kept his promise to her. She was strapped on her burial scaffold and
released by the bone-picking ceremony to join Tuscalusa. Together they
reside high on Holy Spirits Bluff. Sometimes they appear as eagles, or the
kettling hawks suspended in the sky. Other times they are the mated
swans we see along the rivers and bayous. They have never left us.
Because Grandmother shed blood for the people’s survival, our women
continue to honor Itilauichi by shaking shells.
I am a Shell Shaker. I know when it is time to return to the earth.
Today, I will tear myself from the arms of my family and stand in for my
first daughter, Anoleta, who has been wrongly accused of the murder of
a Chickasaw woman from the Red Fox village. I will sacrifice myself,
knowing that peace will follow between our two tribes.
I study the expressions of the Inholahta gathered in my yard. They
seem cold, and indifferent to the fact that the Red Fox people are wait
ing outside of our town to conduct my execution. Everyone knows what
must happen now; my death will avert war between the Choctaws and
the Chickasaws. I can see uncertainty spreading across Anoleta’s face
4 I SHELL SHAKER
