Loved Bayou Essay
Preface:
Hello!
Thank You for taking the time to engage with Loved Bayou; a body of work which engages the intersections of Blackness, Indigeneity, Queerness, Culture Bearing, Environmentalism, and Theater/Performance Work.
My name is Keyshia-Pearl DeGruy, pronouns; she/her. I am a 27 year old Black-Indigenous Trans-Femme and culture bearer of Bulbancha’s/New Orleans’ Seventh Ward. I write stories, illustrate, dance, and conduct zoological research in my homeland. I have manifested Loved Bayou with the support of LOUD Queer Youth Theater and Bulbancha BeHolders.
LOUD Queer Youth Theater is a collective of Black and Black-Indigenous queer and trans artists and performers working to serve local youth ages 16-24 to devise original theater! LOUD’s mission is to utilize ensemble theatre to cultivate tools for self-expression, develop an intersectional analysis of oppression and build community through devising and producing original theater. LOUD is guided by four core values: undoing oppression, youth leadership, solidarity and a commitment to devised theater. Our members are outspoken, unapologetic queer and trans* youth who come together in solidarity to build community and control the narratives shared about their lives. In a city with limited access to queer safe space, LOUD’s ensemble creates a much needed community in New Orleans. LOUD is a year-long program divided into two semesters. Through devising theater apprentices and ensemble members develop skills through a rigorous, youth-led process, highlighting themes such as police violence, intersectional identity, combating injustice and building solidarity. Our inaugural ensemble, formed in January 2013, premiered Beyond Acceptance to sold out audiences and instigated a rich and ongoing dialogue about LGBTQIA+ identities and experiences. In the past year, LOUD has produced two shows : Generation Zeitgeist and Hello Neighbor. Currently, due to the political and social climate, LOUD has made a commitment to provide support, services, and aid to the community through collective aid and workshops. Which include: backpack dispersals, hurricane kits, gardening kits, and monetary assistance. We hope to continue this system in perpetuity as a collective commitment to stand in solidarity with all oppressed peoples.
Bulbancha BeHolders is a collective of Black, Indigenous, Trans, and Queer artists dedicated to cultivating creative fertility, ancestral remembrance, and cultural preservation within our ecosystem. Rooted in New Orleans, the ancestral home of many Indigenous people, we embrace Bulbancha, meaning “Land of Many Tongues” in the Choctaw language. We honor the original name of the land to affirm our belief that liberation begins when many voices, especially those historically silenced, are honored, uplifted, and preserved.
Bulbancha BeHolders’ mission is to witness, hold space for, and nurture artistic expression while fostering a community-driven environment that empowers Black, Indigenous, Trans, and Queer people, particularly youth, to thrive through creative, cultural, and spiritual practices. We use performance, storytelling, visual art, and ritual to reimagine preservation as an act of collective healing and reclamation.
We embrace the BeHolder pillars;
To Behold; as in, to witness.
To BE-Hold; as in, to hold being/ To BE.
To Bee-Hold; to reflect on the keeping of bees toward a greater practice and consideration of environmentalism, land stewardship, and conservation.
BIG SHOUT OUT to our funders like Black Trans Fund, Queer Mobilization Fund, and National Performance Network as well as LOUD’s fiscal sponsor; Transform Network Inc.
Lastly; Thank You soooo much to our local and national community of support! We could not do this work without YOU!
Loved Bayou
By Keyshia-Pearl DeGruy
There was more than we remember,
Bulbancha; a network of trade routes and seasonal settlements and gathering sites maintained along the ridges of several ancient bayous which connected Okwata; Lake Pontchartrain to the Atchafalaya and the Southern Mississippi River and its delta. Bulbancha; Land of Many Tongues/Languages was named so by the Choctaw because it was a precolonial mecca for many ethnic groups from across North, Central, and South America and the islands of the Carribean. New Orleans’ foundations as a colonial settlement were laid along the ridged banks of water ways like Bayou Choupic, Bayou Coupicatcha, and Bayou Chantilly. The Indigenous people who dwelled and traveled across this landscape and neighboring regions were the Natchez, the Taensa, Avoyel, Washa, Chawasha, Okelousa, Tangipahoa, Bayougoula, Acolapissa, Houma, Tunica, Karoa, Yazoo, Choctaw, Atakapa Ishak, Opelousas, Tchoupitoulas, and Chitimacha. Centuries of colonialization and genocide saw many of these tribal groups reduced in numbers, displaced from their ancestral lands, or all together wiped out. To reflect on displacement, brings me to memory of Hurricane Katrina; my family, as many others, evacuated and settled in places beyond our homeland.
My mama migrated us to Houston, and across 12 years of living there, my experience was characterized by a proximity to water ways and the wild spaces tucked into urban sprawl which existed near them. For eight of those twelve years, we lived on this street called Angel Lane; an island of New Orleans migrants nestled at the back of this massive subdivision that bordered a thicketed cattle ranch and oiling property and a long freshwater canal. I used to go to the canal and catch turtles and snakes, bird watch hawks and super flocks of turkey and black vultures, investigate feral hog and deer tracks, and whatever else I could find. As an adult, I’ve learned that the canal I used to travel, drained into Sim’s Bayou. Sims Bayou was once in danger of being made into a concrete water channel, but apparently these folks of the community around the bayou fought to preserve it as a green way in the 1980’s. More interestingly, I learned that Sim’s Bayou is a tributary of Buffalo Bayou; the foundational water body of the Greater Houston area. These river and bayou systems had been home to the Akokisa; a very Southern Bison hunting tribe, who persists today in close relation to the Atakapas. I was not conscious then, of the significant history of these waterways, as I was not always aware of those from my own place of birth.
I returned to New Orleans in 2017 to go to college, and for the first three years I’d say I navigated academia as any other young American might; toward goals of success in career and business, and, more specifically as an english major; success in publishing my creative writing work. Everything was on track, I had this book in the works to publish on Amazon and i was selling my first sets of 504 beanies and hoodies… things made sense…until the plague of Covid 19 grasped us in 2020, and all of our lives changed…For me, the most significant shift the pandemic spurred in my life was a more conscious and deliberate relationship to paying attention to the consequences of my actions to nature; especially after the passing of Hurricane Ida in 2021. After about two weeks, I finally returned home after evacuating, and I remember sitting on the steps of my grandmother’s porch, and being overwhelmed with gratitude that my home and its surroundings were preserved… The birds were singing, and I was grateful for them too. During the pandemic, I started developing a much more intentional relationship to spirituality, and I resonated deeply with the Yoruba figures Yemaya, Oya, and Oshun. I am not initiated into any Yoruba, Ifa, Santeria, Lucumi, or Candomble practices and I do not assume the privileges and authorities of a priestess. Personally though, I maintain a complex relationship to the research I find on these energies, specifically in relation to their associations with water bodies and natural phenomena. At some point, I was blessed to learn the historical foundations of the Gentilly Ridge, and the ancient water way of Bayou Chantilly that used to flow across the 7th and 8th ward landscape. I’ve been told that the duck pond at Dillard University is not a man-made habitat, but the last remnant of that ancient waterway. This was fascinating to me, because my family home of half a century is mere blocks from the pond which was very significant to me as a child. As an adult I've observed significant populations of terrapins, ibises, red shouldered and coopers hawks, whistling ducks, egrets, and green tree frogs that keep the little cypress shrouded lagoon.
As I've learned about the history of my ancestral lineages and the wildernesses and natural waterbodies which supported them, I've been shaped to integrate a responsibility for that knowledge into my present cultural and ethnic reality. Presently, I am Keyshia-Pearl, a Black Indigenous Trans-Femme of the 7th Ward. I am blessed to hold many stories in my body. These stories guide me through my relationships to Family, friends, community, land, and water systems of New Orleans, though I do prefer to call her Bulbancha. The Land of Many Tongues has been defined by a complex human history, from Indigenous beginnings, to African passages, to modern evolutions. I find myself compelled to another layer of our civilization’s development and persistence however; the many matters beyond humanity, which contribute to the privilege of our existences; The great parallel to our human history, present, and future, is the endurance of the wilderness around us.
Sometimes, I gaze into the sky of New Orleans, and I imagine…or maybe remember, a Bulbanchan atmosphere; A flock of Passenger pigeons (Ectopistes migratorius) arrives from the north in such vast numbers they blacken the sky for miles. Brown and White Pelicans soar in formations along the lakeshore. Eagles make their nests in massive cypresses. Waterfowl are everywhere; whistling ducks squeak their ruckus, and a pair of wood ducks streak color across the vision…The passenger pigeons are gone now though; wiped out by the early 20th century by overhunting. There are other animals of our region who were either wiped out, or brought to the very brink of extinction. There were vast forests of elder and giant trees that were cut down. The Mississippi River’s free flow was shackled. I imagine a Bulbanchan Sky, as I witness the reality of a New Orleans atmosphere, and I am whelmed with grief for all that has been lost. Still, there is much that persists; though the bayous have been drained; concrete canals do foster shielded ecosystems. The Passenger Pigeons are extinct, but the bald eagles are on the rebound. The old cypresses are dead, but we may still support their offspring across generations; reconcile what has been lost, to preserve what remains, and foster what will be. I work to organize a functional synthesis of the intersections of my Blackness, Indigeneity, queerness, culture bearing, and creative practices to execute effective conservation work in my community and region. I will reflect on the history of South Eastern Louisiana’s Indigenous people, their relationship to the victims of The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and their descendants, the natural history of extinct and extant megafauna in Louisiana, and the significance of Black Indigineity to my purpose and practice. I hope to inspire my community toward the integration of wildlife conservation into our cultural practices as a means toward sovereignty and survival through and beyond colonization and environmental crisis.
Precolonial South East Louisiana was inhabited and traveled by different ethnicities with different languages, customs, religions, agricultures, hunting practices, gender dynamics etc. The Atakapa (Ishak) were southernmost nomadic buffalo hunters, the Choctaw were from the Pine Forests to the North East, the Natchez were a sun worshipping monarchy from upriver, and the Chitimacha inhabited the Atchafalaya Basin and Mississippi River Delta year round; this context is important, as we reflect on the distinction of sovereignty as more than just ruler ship but as biological connection and practice to land, water, and animals. The Chitimacha were a people of many interconnected water bodies; rivers, bayous, lakes, the Delta, and the Gulf Coast. When the French initiated their conquest of the region, they campaigned a 12 year war against the Chitimacha through cross tribal manipulations. Chitimacha war captives at one point comprised the majority of the enslaved population of South East Louisiana, however, they were not so easy to subject to bondage because they were so familiar with the swamps that surrounded colonial settlements and plantations. As the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade then ensued, African people of many ethnicities were brought over to work on those same plantations. I have strong personal intuitions and resonances on the significance of the Yoruba presence; as their pantheon holds a number of water deities associated with rivers, the sea, the rain and hurricanes with reflection to the significance of water bodies to Chitimacha, Tchoupitoulas, and other Indigenous groups, though I am still developing that research.
Further back than even our recorded Indigenous Human History in Louisiana, is the natural history of our continent’s flora and fauna. I am fascinated by the Ice Age and the vast populations of animals that inhabited the world we are in today.
Mega Fauna; Fauna (animals) that weigh 50-100 pounds; or, simply animals who can be seen with the naked eye. Examples of Ice Age mega-fauna that lived in what is now Louisiana, but died out as recently as 10,000 years ago, when our coast line was further south and the climate was cooler; Mammoths, mastodons, horses, camels, ground sloths, giant armadillos, sabertooth cats, shortfaced bears and American Lions. Examples of present day Louisiana mega-fauna which survived the Ice Age are the black bear, white tailed deer, and alligator. Other Ice Age surviving mega-fauna species which are still extent (existing) in other places presently, but historically were native to Louisiana; The American Bison, Florida panther, and jaguar; the last documented jaguar in Louisiana was killed in Ascension Parish in 1886. I deduce that our cypress swamps were filled with gator hunting jaguars, as they are caiman-hunters in the Amazon. Now, as I reflect on animals who weren’t wiped out, I'd like to note some species who are abundant in our (Bulbancha/New Orleans) lives today, who were once in danger of extinction. American alligators, white tailed deer, bald eagles, and white egrets are examples of animals who were most recently near extinct in the 20th century (1900’s) but thanks to conservation efforts, have rebounded to the point where you may witness these animals within our own neighborhoods of the Orleans/St. Bernard/Jefferson Parish Metropolitan complex. An example of an animal native to Louisiana, to go fully extinct across its entire range, most recently, without proof of survival is the Ivory Billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) which depended on the cypress forests of the American South.
Since the arrival of Europeans to Turtle Island (North America) there has been significant deforestation of our continent's virgin forests, especially in the South. Of the great forested regions to be cut down, the old growth bald cypress forests of Louisiana and East Texas were some of the last. These ecosystems had been spared for so long from deforestation because their density and nature made them impenetrable to industrial logging. The elder cypresses used to reach as high as 200 feet tall. They purified oxygen and buffered storms and flooding with their trunks and roots. By the mid 20th century though, innovations in industrial logging technology saw the cypress forests cut down with little to no consideration for preservation or long term consequences. We now know that our southern and coastal civilizations are critically dependent on the presence of large, healthy, and abundant trees and forests…but they are in constant peril from pollution, logging, and human interference with the natural historical flooding of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers. I note the impenetrability of those old cypress forests, because it was integral to the survival of my last species to remember, which today is critically endangered. The Red Wolf (Canis rufus).
The Red Wolf is distinct from the Grey Wolf (Canis lupus) which are historically native to western and northern Turtle Island. The red wolf range once spanned from the Atlantic Coast in the Carolinas, across the Appalachians, to the Southern forests of the Gulf Coast, from East Texas to the South of Florida. They were between the size of a western grey wolf and a pure-bred coyote. Tragically, this species was extirpated; as the eastern Cougar, Florida Panther, and Jaguar, from most of its range by colonial settlers who viewed predators as pests; though, modern science affirms that the presence of native predators is essential to the stability of all ecosystems. One of the last refuges of the red wolf was the network of cypress forests along the Red and Sabine Rivers of Louisiana and Eastern Texas. The inaccessibility of these forests allowed the red wolves to persist well into the mid 20th century long after much of their species was wiped out. There is remarkable documentation of even melanistic (Black) red wolves who once inhabited the swamp forests of Louisiana. Sadly, these wolves were wiped out by hunting and deforestation by the 1950’s, to the point where a barely functional population may persist in the Sabine River region, and a critically endangered population lives in North Carolina (a group descended from wolves captured from the Sabine River region of Louisiana and Texas). However, there is something deeply fascinating to me, about the red wolf’s story; a layer of context, closer to home than I’d ever imagined. Today, the presence of coyotes across the Southern and Eastern United States is normal to us, but, coyotes are recent additions to our landscapes. Coyotes were historically a western and northern animal; their migrations south were usually blocked by populations of larger predators; Mexican wolves, panthers, jaguars, bears, and of course, the red wolves. But as so many predators were extirpated, western coyotes began to migrate unchallenged across our continent. As they reached Texas and Louisiana, they began to breed with what remained of the fragmented red wolf populations. The coyotes we know today in South Eastern Louisiana, are significantly hybridized in their genetics with the red wolf, and you can literally see the difference between some southern coyotes and their purebred western cousins. So, though the Red Wolf no longer exists in its pure blooded form, its lineage persists through hybrid descendants who fulfill similar niches and survive. The significance of these revelations are of a profound spiritual significance to me. I recall a day, two autumns ago, where I was informed of the existence of a small strip of protected wilderness, right in the heart of the 7th ward, bordering the London Avenue Canal which is preserved by Dillard University. I went to find this forest, and my first steps into the trees put me face to face with one of Gentilly’s own urban coyotes…it amazed me, to know that after all these years, these animals were surviving around my own home, patrolling the nights, hunting opossums, ferals cats, raccoons and rabbits. To understand further that I’m sharing an ecosystem with carriers of red-wolf DNA is invigorating toward their conservation, and the conservation of all the wild animals we share our urban swamp with. I find it so remarkable that these animal lineages are surviving through cross-species merger. It brings me to reflect on the ancestral context of my ethnic dimension; that of the Bulbanchan Black Indigenous.
Black Indigenous, to me, holds a multitude of contexts. Blackness; as a construct related to skin color and African lineage in Louisiana. Indigenous; something we use to refer to Turtle Islanders, but also to global groups, whose cultures are precolonial and nonwestern. I make note that African Americans are largely descended from African people who were stolen from their homelands, and displaced on a different continent; they were not immigrants as they did not leave their cultures and ecosystems by choice. Enslaved African people were indigenous people; indigenous to where they’d been stolen from, and they brought indigenous practices, spiritualities, languages, and memories. It so happens that these Indigenous African people formed profound relationships with Indigenous people of Turtle Island. When African people were brought to South East Louisiana’s plantations, enslaved tribes like the Chitimacha were who they would’ve been bondaged with. In Bulbancha/New Orleans, the black community has a deeply intrinsic lore surrounding the aid that our Turtle Island ancestors gave our African ones to survive either under oppression or in the rebellion of marronage out in the swamps. Bloodlines merged, and histories and cultures were intertwined. Black people, as we came to be known, were at once African and Turtle Island Indigenous. As Indigenous Turtle Islanders suffered the pressures of further eradication and displacement from their homelands across the South (For context, you may look into the Dawes Act and the Trail of Tears) descendants of Turtle Islanders and Africans were indistinguishable to such a degree, that they remained, without tribal recognition or legal inheritance, within the caste degree of Blackness, in their ancestral homes; along the banks of Choupic and Chantilly, Atchafalaya, Teche and the Mississippi, the Okwata and the Gulf. It is not lost on me that the Chitimacha are one of very few tribal groups in the United States who maintain a reservation on their ancestral land; whereas many others maintain reservations on lands that they were not connected to ancestrally; as the Choctaw; from Mississippi, who live in Oklahoma. I am profoundly grateful and proud to be Black Indigenous, and though the world is plagued by the horrors of colonization and displacement, I am so grateful to live where my ancestors are from; where the water, the trees, and the animals are familiar.
I have always lived in a Black Indigenous reality, though I did not always have that word to describe it, and I did not always know the significant context of my existence within a Black Indigenous Culture. Illumination began after Katrina; I was in first grade at this Catholic School in Houston and we were on the topic of Christopher Columbus and my pawpaw was certain to establish that Christopher Columbus did not discover the New World rather, he’d come upon it by accident and had set to murdering, raping, and pillaging the Indigenous people there. I grew up witnessing my brother, his father, and my grandmother’s husband fishing; My brother with great talent, as if the animals of the waters are drawn to him. The men of my ethnicity cover themselves in black ink skulls, alligators and number sevens. The women do the same, with golds in their mouths, rings on nailed fingers, and golden jewelry mantles. The Chitimacha were described by French explorers as being covered with black, white, and red ink tattoos, adorned with gold, and having different gender and relational dynamics than those of the Catholic West. My half Louisiana Choctaw Great-Grandmother used to make File Gumbo; File coming from the Choctaw people. In Mississippi, lives my family of Mississippi Choctaw descent.
My Black Indigeneity influences my queerness, as it influences my perception of beauty standards, gender roles, and femininity. I am a product of the Bulbanchan High Femme. I internalize personal beauty as rebelliously long black hair, tattooed skin, gold jewelry, and a mighty attitude. I never aspired to be a baby doll or in the image of the orthodoxically beauty endowed. I always wanted to look like and be as my own mother. Her skin is tattooed with the images and prayers of our ancestral stories. My femininity establishes itself in warcraft and ferocity tempered by generational survival. I judge myself on the impact of my actions toward the well-being of my people and ecosystem. My queer gender identity has been affirmed by historical and present accounts of the purposeful existences of many queer people across the Turtle Island Indigenous, African Indigenous, and Globally indigenous diaspora. These queer figures may have been griots, shamans, healers, masqueraders, story tellers, spiritualists, hunters, agriculturalists, builders, etc. Many Indigenous people maintain gender structures which were/are nonbinary and expansive beyond man and woman, having words for queer, transgender and intersex people integrated into their languages. For myself, I resonate as a trans-feminine culture bearer whose purpose is not the reproduction of my own children, but the maintenance of fertility across my community; humans, animals, plants, and elements. I prioritize spiritual directions for my physical actions which foster a sense of equilibrium and functionality, true to my beliefs and standards. I do my best to present femme within my means. Every once in a while I'm able to doll myself up or adorn regalia which makes me feel whole and integrated in body and spirit. I enjoy non-eurocentric shapes, aesthetics, and functions in both my art and my personal fashion. Fashion and design are extremely sacred avenues of culture-bearing for me.
Culture Bearing in my life manifests as a multitude of work, actions, and decisions which are for the long term betterment of my culture as a whole, and in solidarity with cultures close to us in relation. I do my best to think seven generations ahead of my present moment; not with fear, but with effective reckoning. Climate Change is terrifying, and I am doing my best to prioritize the earth with will beyond the fear of what beckons me to devalue it and organize it as an afterthought to what feels like security, but is at times fickle and temporary. All we are and all that is depends on the stability of our ecosystems.
I know that it is not easy or simple to care for the earth beneath the weight of colonial indoctrinations and conditioning. I send empathy to everyone who is doing their best to figure out how to survive in this changing world. I personally struggle with guilt complexes and anxieties and paranoias surrounding the consequences of success within a capitalistic system. I feel gridlocked at times; decisions become difficult, income as unpredictable as my future. But how can I ignore the needs of the planet? I don’t want to manifest in dissociation. I don’t want to strive toward survival and progress with disregard for the endurance of the wilderness. I want to live in the best interest of my homeland. I don’t want to submit myself to a paradigm that is self-destructive and dependent upon the suffering of my own people and the consumption of my environment. Ecocide must not be the way; there must be alternatives, strategies, and developments we can be present with as a community. I know there are others in New Orleans, South East Louisiana, The Gulf Coast and beyond who are well developed into their environmental practices and efforts, and I pray toward collaborations with those individuals and organizations.
I want to live in a world where my people are inherent to the neighborhoods they are indigenous to. I want to live in a world where we are preserved on behalf of our niche practices and the necessity of our engagement toward ecological equilibrium. I want my culture to be as equally, or more, preserved than it is exploited. It is against my personal values to claim indigeneity and resonance for nature, and then disassociate from the consequences of my creative decisions as they relate to my social, economic, and climate reality. I am praying toward different realities. I want my people to see the value of the nature that is around them, and create on behalf of its preservation. I want culture bearing in Bulbancha to be synonymous with conservation work.
I sit often, in veneration of birds. I love Mockingbirds most deeply. They are fierce, intelligent, and emotional. They sing beautiful and complex songs. I know the mockingbirds know me, and as I know them I am knowing myself. What if the preservation of our nature is the preservation of our culture? What if our sovereignty is the survival of the wilderness, in balance, rather than ostracism from our own dimensions of civilization.
I hope these words invigorate you toward incorporating more conservation and natural sciences, and historical studies into your daily lives and creative practices.
With Love,
Keyshia Pearl XoXo
Questions/Thought prompts
What is a cultural practice that you resonate with?
What aspect of this practice or phenomenon connects to or relies on the natural world?
What organisms are essential to the sustenance of these practices etc.
Are you consciously or intentionally considerate of the survival of a species or
species(plural) while sustaining your creative, cultural/ economic practice?
5. Do you have a niche in Human Society?
6. Do you have an ecological niche as an organism?
7. Do those niches intersect?
PROMPT:
Find a local/or extinct native species and establish its niche(s), and unpack how those niches mirror or support your own human niches.
Sneak Peak at the next installment of my Fictional Anthology; BloodMoon
Blood Moon
By Keyshia-Pearl DeGruy
When: Generations after the War of the Fallen
Where: Bloodmoon territory; the vast swamps, forests, and prairies west of the Atchafalaya Basin. Specifically, a community in New Silver City; a metropolis criss-crossed by canals, bayous, woodland, farm land, and urban settlement. A community exists near a woodland, near a canal, which flows into Sim’s Bayou, which itself is a tributary of Buffalo Bayou, which flows out to the brackish, and then into the gulf.
Characters:
Sam BlackBird (he/him); Sam Blackbird is a prominent young war captain of the BlackBirds; a lineage known for incarnating Thunderbirds.
Quil BlackBird (he/him); A younger cousin of Sam BlackBird.
RakShah BloodMoon (she/her); Eldest of the wolf women, over 100 years old. Her hair is silvery white, her eyes are blue and black, and she wears deep crimson.
Shaa-Staa BloodMoon (he/him); Chief of the BloodMoons
Silver Lynx (they/them); A water woman and scorpion healer residing with the BloodMoons of Sim’s Bayou.
Shonii Blood Moon (she/her); The Blood Moon Princess and a wolf woman.
Naanii Khaalii (she/her); The 444 Phoenix of Protection.
Sabaa Lusaa (she/her); The current Black Wolf and 777 Phoenix of Polarities.
Gong Kasaii (they/them) ; The Muddy Salamander, a warden of Naas Durell (The Dead City) as well as the closest friend and second of Prince Nooka.
Prince Nooka (he/him); The current SkyFire Prince, the Pitch Black Wild Cat.
Khaalikii Yaaknii (they/them); The Seven Feather Shaman and keeper of the Star Swords of Niikanaatkin.
Scene One:
Sam assumed the world’s favor as he rode with his war party toward the lodge of Shaahstaa BloodMoon. He wore armor of ivory, indigo, silver and jet. He was adorned with cowries and gold pieces. He wore the sword of his ancestors at his hip. His mount was a prized grey appaloosa stallion of his hundred strong herd of broken and trained mustangs. He was a proud man, head held high in the company of the warriors who were so loyal to him; his brothers and cousins and comrades. They were the Oba Shaahs, a warrior faction descended from warriors who’d fought during the buffalo wars, generations ago. They maintained their own territory, Northwest of BloodMoon lands, and were steadfast allies of the persisting BloodMoon Dynasty; reduced from its former glory, but still contended with. The Oba Shaahs had groomed their horses, polished their steel, and wore their finest war regalia to present themselves to the High Chief of the BloodMoons; a revered warrior, respected and feared across the Southern Plains and coastal forests west of the Atchafalaya.
Shaahstaa would be expecting Sam, as word had been sent by a messenger crow that the Oba Shaah war captain was ready to propose to Shaahstaa’s daughter; Shonii. Since they were children, Shonii and Sam’s families had maintained an active alliance toward the eventual betrothal of their clan heirs, but even so, Shonii’s hand in marriage was coveted by many warriors from different families, clans, tribes, and nations. Sam could not simply have Shonii, he needed to develop his strength and his wealth, secure territory, accumulate many horses, and establish his dominance as a war lord. At twenty-six years old, Sam had achieved all those things. He maintained a reputation as the fiercest warrior of his region, and he and his team had won many war games. He felt worthy of Shonii, certain he could provide for her, and protect her and their children, and further the great legacy of both of their lineages.
Sam journeyed along the natural waterways of New Silver City, following a bayou tributary until he reached the Great BloodMoon Lodge which sat near the waterway, winding through Lusatongaa; The Black Forest; a corridor of protected wilderness that stretched from the edge of the Southern Plains all the way to the Delta, South of Bulbancha. The BloodMoons were guardians of the entry point to this corridor from the west. Their community raised buffalo, and their wolf women still maintained the tradition of walking the buffalo across their ancient migration routes. Sam and his troop were intercepted by BloodMoon soldiers, dressed in crimson, black, and ivory. They demanded Sam’s weapons before he came up to the lodge…that was strange. It was common practice to take the weapons of enemies before they entered your house, but Sam had been raised up with the BloodMoons. Shaastaa was like a godfather to him. He did not understand either, why Shaastaa’s soldiers also halted the procession of his war party and their horses, which he’d intended to present to Shonii in offering. Sam was told that he could follow them up to the lodge, but his warriors and their familiars would have to stay a distance from the lodge. He asked for clarity, but the soldiers didn’t explain themselves.
Sam followed the BloodMoons up to the lodge, which stood at the height of a mound that was raised by the indigenous people who’d lived there before the StarFall conquest, almost a thousand years ago. He saw his first hint of trouble at the Lodge’s porch…there was a warrior, waiting diligently outside. They were tall and dark haired, wearing armor fashioned with diamondback rattler skin. Their amber eyes and light skin and black ink tattoos revealed their nature as a Teshiikaana. The Teshiikaana were an ancient class of incarnation; most common across the swamps of the coast and the jungles of the south. They were born with the ability to transform into snakes. This warrior, named Kasaii, was half Sun Tribe, and Starfallen on their mother’s side. Kasaii was a powerful warrior; but also, loathed by the blood moons, as their ancestors had been sworn enemies for ages, hence Kasaii’s restriction to the porch of the lodge. Kasaii and Sam exchanged glances, saying nothing with words which was loud in the contempt of their silence. At the best of times, Teshiikaana were sworn enemies of the BloodMoons and their vassals, but Kasaii had long been a nemesis of Sam Blacknird, particularly. We will learn why in time. Sam knew there could only be one reason for Kasaii’s presence…he breathed out his nerves as he walked up to the lodge, a great conical structure, with an entrance kept by statues of snarling silver wolves. Above the door was the BloodMoon Banner; a bleeding Black bison, surrounded by White wolves against a crimson field. Sam breathed out his nerves as he was led inside. The lodge was a gathering place, and so the inside was a great open hall, circled by fire braziers. The floor was covered by sitting pelts of bison and cattle. The walls were mounted with many slain animals; for the BloodMoons held game hunting as a cultural practice in high esteem. There was a walkway toward a raised dais, where Shaastaa BloodMoon was waiting, sitting cross legged with incense burning smoke across his form.
Lower ranking BloodMoon chiefs and warlords were also gathered, as well as spiritualists and medicine people of all genders, seated ahead of the dais. Sam was led to right before Shaastaa BloodMoon, dressed in a skillfully patterned white, red, and black robe. He wore a high hat, adorned by jewels and feathers. He wore thick gold, silver, and cowrie jewelry. Sam bowed his head in respect, and glanced to his right; There was Shonii BloodMoon, the gravity of Sam’s compass. She sat with her great grandmother, Rakshah BloodMoon; a legendary warrior in her youth, the centenarian was now a revered medicine woman and mystic of the region. Shonii met his eyes briefly, before leaning over to whisper something private to her great grandmother.
To Sam’s left; there sat a warrior, stark and stoic, dressed in deep black, wearing gold pieces. Only his hands and face were exposed by his simple but fitting black tang suit. His eyes were amber, like Kasaii’s, though his skin was browner, and further, etched by patterned black ink. He was Nooka, the Sky Fire Prince of the Sun Tribe of Bulbancha. His totem and commitment to jet attire had earned him the nickname; the pitch black wildcat. Nooka was a Lomaasii. The Lomaasiis were a long standing dynastic house of the Sun Tribe whose jurisdiction was the Atchafalaya Basin and the ridged land of Bulbancha where they ruled the delta from a palace built atop a high mound, thrice as large as the one the BloodMoon lodge sat upon. The Sun Tribe’s territory was the eastern border of the BloodMoon’s, and their people had engaged since the time of the last ice age when mastodons were still seen across the South. Prince Nooka was a Skyfire Prince; a second son of the Great Sun Chief. His purpose was to serve as captain of the demonslayers. He carried a garfish handled sword; a most ancient inheritance, passed down through the lineage of Hellottah and Nahinii. He and Sam had crossed paths, at various war games held overtime, but they’d never battled. The Skyfires (demonslayers) of Bulbancha were fearsome and mystical, adept at healing and rootwork; some wielded magic of shadow and the elements. Kasaii, who waited at the base of the mound, was Nooka’s second in command.
Chief Shaastaa greeted Sam Blackbird. Sam announced his intentions to propose to Shonii, as he’d communicated to the chief in advance, as their families had deliberated across two decades. But Shaastaa, with the resolve of a sovereign, who does not owe his vassals apology, just truth, communicated that, to his own profound surprise, The Sun Tribe had sent Prince Nooka to delegate on behalf of marriage to Shonii. It was suggested as a path to a stronger alliance between the Lomaasii’s of Bulbancha and the Blood Moons of Bayou Sim…a union of two great and powerful territories, and a potential for many years of peace and strength. The Sun Tribe would claim jurisdiction over the Narrow Land beyond the Atchafalaya Basin, all the way to and through the plains, to the edge of the Great Mountains of the North. They could secure both land and martial support.
The BloodMoons would know the benefit of the Lomaasii’s support in gold, and trade, of which was stimulated by the migrations of two continents from Northern to Southern tips. Shaasta acknowledged that Sam had been groomed to become Shonii’s husband, but this proposal was not expected…and it could not be ignored in wisdom. The Sun Tribe possessed wealth through the possession of Gold, situated near the great river, the Okwaata, and the gulf, the vastness of the Atchafalaya Basin. They maintained one of the most powerful armies in the South. A Skyfire prince like Nooka could afford a different world for Shonii; the promise of not only a comfortable life, but a powerful and purposeful one. But Sam could not accept this…he’d given himself totally to the mission of marriage to Shonii BloodMoon, the diamond of their people… he challenged the BloodMoon chief and his council outrightly, protesting without restraint or fear.
Raak Shaah whispered to her great granddaughter that Nooka was the better option of the two, but Shonii does not let on to her own favor. She watches and listens, as the Lodge erupts in uproar. Sam BlackBird bristles toward war and retribution for his efforts, and the efforts of his warriors; years of campaigning and enforcing and conquering and herding and serving and waiting and listening and trusting their leaders and elders… unceremoniously disregarded…And it is important to note that the other warlords who served Shaastaa, were not unanimous either. Many of them resonated with Sam Blackbird, who was more loyal to the culture and legacies they respected and understood. Nooka was distant to them, dark and brooding; customarily strange…Nooka was not a war horseman, he was not a buffalo hunter, he did not know the plains, he was not of them…and marriage to Shonii would result in his eventual rulership of these warriors and their peoples… they were uneasy to consider the passing of their treasured princess, to a warrior from a very different and unrelated tribe.
Shonii could sense the inevitability of conflict. Men had been fighting and dying over her all her life, but it had always happened within mediated containers of ritual and standards of war between factions of all her own people. This would be far more complex though, as the Oba Shaahs were the strongest war faction aside from the BloodMoons, and if they forfeited their loyalty to her father, and took up arms, and rallied other chiefs to Sam’s cause, civil war might ensue. And if the Sun Tribe involved themselves, the calamities might be more severe. Visions coursed her intuition, of division among her own people, sorrow for the land, strife and blood feuds between dynasties. She engaged her wit, for her people and the ecosystems that were her dowry, to remain in equilibrium. She stood. It was a simple movement, but it was enough to silence the roaring of the attendees. Shonii did not speak often, but when she did, her people stilled themselves to listen. Shonii said that she did not wish to see war, that if she were forced to endure it, her grief would leave her irreparably sorrowful, and she would be no good wife, nor daughter, nor heir. She said that her marriage should not be decided by the opinions of her elders, nor by the outcome of an unnecessary war between people who she prayed to remain united. Her dowry should be claimed by fate. She proposed that Sam and Nooka go back to their homesteads, and prepare themselves across a year’s time. A year, to that very day, they would return to the Blood Moon Lodge, and battle, one on one. The victor would rightfully claim her hand in marriage, and the subsequent rights to her dowry. Nooka and Sam agreed to these terms, and promised Shonii that there would be an unbroken peace across the entirety of the year leading up to the duel. She would not stand for foul play in the meantime. She advised both warriors to remain out of each other’s territories to avoid any incitement of violence. She swore to honor the fair and true victor. Satisfied with these terms, the two warriors agreed.
Sources:
https://www.southerncultures.org/article/hunting-memories-of-the-grass-things/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caiKsY3CfnQ&t=9s
Lawal, Babtunde. The Gelede Spectacle; Art, Gender, and Social Harmony in an African Culture. University of Washington Press, 1996.
Macfarlene, Robert. Is a River Alive. W.W.Norton & Company Inc., 2025
Swanton, John Reed. Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and Adjacent Coast of the Gulf of Mexico.Washington Government Printing Office, 1911.
