The Golden Mast, page 1
By Shirley Bear Fedorak
Rainbow Warriors series
The Caretaker’s Quest, prequel
Rainbow Warriors, Book I
The Golden Mast, Book 2
Academic Books
Anthropology Matters
Global Issues. A Cross-Cultural Perspective
Pop Culture. An Anthropological Perspective
Cultural Anthropology
Windows on the World. Case Studies in Anthropology
Human Evolution and Prehistory
Canadian Perspectives in Biological Anthropology and Archaeology
Copyright © 2021 Shirley Bear Fedorak
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be stored or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews without written permission from the publisher or author.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
YuJu Publishing
Penang, Malaysia
To comment or ask questions:
shirley.fedorak5@gmail.com
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Cover designed by Miblart.com
Dedication
To my father, Walter Bear.
He blessed me with curiosity
and a desire to travel the world
When the earth is ravaged and the animals are dying, a new tribe of people shall come unto the earth from many colors, classes, creeds, and who by their actions and deeds shall make the earth green again. They will be known as the warriors of the Rainbow.
Ancient Hopi Prophecy1
1 Taken from https://allpoetry.com/poem/4277671-Rainbow-Warriors-by-superkurd13.
Contents
Foreword
Part One: Water
Chapter 1 The Sunken Island
Chapter 2 By The Light of the Sea
Chapter 3 The Forbidden Island
Chapter 4 My Babies
Chapter 5 The Black Tower
Chapter 6 The Golden Mast
Chapter 7 The Lonely Village
Chapter 8 The Angry Sea Wall
Chapter 9 Isle of Cats
Chapter 10 The Mother of All Storms
Chapter 11 The Lost Ones
Chapter 12 Temple Hideaway
Chapter 13 Rescue on the High Seas
Chapter 14 Tumala
Chapter 15 A Texas Barbecue
Chapter 16 McGuigley Style
Chapter 17 Ali the Brave
Chapter 18 Water World
Chapter 19 Jacroc
Chapter 20 Sweet Justice
Chapter 21 Viringili’s Thinking
Chapter 22 The Secret Vedic
Chapter 23 Rohit
Part Two: Land
Chapter 1 Land of Milk and Honey
Chapter 2 The Holy Makers
Chapter 3 The Lost Land
Chapter 4 The Angry Waters
Chapter 5 The Silver Bullet
Chapter 6 Princess Belani
Chapter 7 The Scourge of Paris
Chapter 8 Loki
Chapter 9 The Sea Shelf
Chapter 10 The Yellow Submarine
Chapter 11 The White Desert
Chapter 12 Matwau, the Caretaker
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Foreword
I began writing the outline for Rainbow Warriors and the six other books in the series when I was teaching anthropology courses at the University of Saskatchewan. The idea for these books evolved out of my experiences with those who considered people who were different from them as lesser or strange, and indeed, the other.
The concept of ‘other’ has always bothered me. All people, no matter where they come from, what they look like, or who or what they believe in, have the same needs—to be loved, to feel safe, and to live good lives. The young people in this series share these needs, though they have been placed in unconscionable situations through no fault of their own. I wrapped their lives in the collapse of earth’s ecosystems that we are facing in the near future to show how their struggles will be our struggles.
Over the years, and through countless hours of research, I have embraced the strength and wisdom I found in each of the four cultural groups featured in this series, but make no mistake, this is a futuristic, fictionalized account of these cultures and the unique ways they might react to Turmoil. I do not claim to know or understand all there is to know about the Siksiká Blackfoot, Malikun, Ju/’hoansi, or Yanomami as they are today. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy these stories and come away with an appreciation for how humans are so alike in all the ways that matter.
Shirley Bear Fedorak
2021
Part One
Water
Chapter One
The Sunken Island
Maliku Island (Minicoy), Maldives
2130
The lazy waves rode up the narrow shore and dropped Beforetimes debris on my island. When I was a boy, I chased the waves and collected the washed-up relics, but the Elders refused to tell me where the strange objects came from, or what they were used for. I gave up collecting, though the desire to learn more about the mysterious Outside world still burned within me.
But the world beyond Maliku would have to wait. My simple, if boring, life was about to become way more complicated, and one of the reasons was climbing my ladder now.
“Good day, my son. I have come to help you prepare for your betrothal.” Amina held up a ceremonial sarong the color of sea water. “I have finished your wedding lungi.”
The last of our yellow sea hibiscus had drowned months ago, but the soothing scent of hibiscus drifted from Amina and settled in my hut. I breathed in her scent, and it gave me the courage to speak from my heart. “I beg your forgiveness, my mother, but I cannot marry Belani.”
She blinked and set down my new sarong. “Don’t be silly, Maumoon. Of course, you’ll marry Belani.”
I flopped down on my sleeping mat and gazed through cracks in the floor boards. A yellow butterfly fish the size of my hand swam in the blue-green water below my hut. Fish sure had it good. If I was a fish, the rising sea would not bother me, I would have enough to eat, and I would not be living in a hut perched on rickety stilts. If I was a fish, I could swim away from the doomed island of Maliku, and I would not have to marry the Island Chief’s daughter.
“No, I can’t marry Belani or anyone else right now.”
My mother sank to her knees beside my mat. “But you must, it is our way. The Island Chief will not tolerate such an insult. If you refuse to marry Belani, Fatima will banish you.”
I tried not to hear her words nor look into her beautiful, but troubled, brown eyes. I hated upsetting her when our lives were so hard. “I have other plans for my life,” I said in a gentler voice.
Amina ignored my words as she straightened my ragged coverings and brushed away the baby gecko crawling down the wall. She picked up my spare sarong and t-shirt and hung them on a hook in the wall. “Belani is the perfect choice for a bride. She’s your cousin, and she is the daughter of the most powerful woman on the island.”
I gazed out the window. “Former island, you mean.”
“Don’t be smart, it isn’t becoming.”
I rescued my fishing pole from her cleaning spree and leaned it against a wall. “I love Belani, but I cannot marry her because I’m leaving Maliku.” Even as I said the words, they became true.
My mother stopped straightening my hut and wrinkled her brow. “Leaving Maliku? But why? Where would you go?”
I had not worked out that part of my plan yet. I said the first thing that popped into my head. “India, to start.”
“What? They won’t take you.”
“I’ll find a way.”
How could I explain my longings to a woman who had never left our isolated little island and had no desire to do so? “I feel blind here. What’s happening Outside? The traders stopped coming three seasons ago. That must mean something.”
“It means they don’t make enough profit from us.”
I tried again. “A mysterious and wonderful world is waiting out there, and I want to explore it.”
She snorted. “From what I’ve heard of this world, it’s no longer such a wonderful place. Famines, fires, and floods. Everyone is dying, and you will, too, if you venture off Maliku.”
Her words might hold truth, but I had to find out for myself. “Our People used to be sailors. They left Maliku, and some of them travelled all over the world. Why did they stop?”
“That was Before.”
She straightened her white headscarf and smoothed her long red robe. The conversation was over in her mind. “Enough of this foolishness, the betrothal celebration is tonight. Then we will begin planning your wedding ceremony.”
She thrust a handwoven basket into my hands. “For now, make yourself useful. Get some greens from Auntie before the tide sweeps in, or we shall have no supper tonight.”
I bit back a groan. Greens. I hated greens, and I didn’t much like Auntie, either. But the fish did not always come, and I was hungry. I was always hungry. Steamed water cucumbers tasted better than nothing. “Perhaps father will catch a fish today.”
A faint hope and we both knew it.
When the Indian government refused to recognize Malikuns as legal climate refugees, my father lost his will to live, my mother lost her devoted husband, and I lost my strong and fun-loving father.
“Oh, and for the betrothal, wear your red sarong and white shirt.”
No one would care what I was wearing once I refused Belani.
I waded through the warm, waist-high water to Auntie’s hut, pushing aside green seaweed, and skirting yellowing plants and prickly bushes peeking out of the water. The plants were drowning, and the sharp odor of rotting vegetation drifted in the air.
Pieces of flotsam, what Auntie called plastic bags, brushed against my legs as I pushed through the gentle waves. Belani’s grandmother told stories of the early days when the beach was wide and sandy, and fish swam along the shoreline in large schools. But those days were long gone. Now the waves brought in debris from the Outside world. The best we could do was gather the trash and throw it in our dump.
A puff of dirty air floated in front of my face. I batted it away. The clouds in our sky had changed from fluffy white to pink and green strips of poison that would soon sink to the ground Even now, the air no longer smelled clean, and on bad days we struggled to breathe.
The sea bottom quivered, and the water rippled. Sand shifted under my feet, and I spread my legs to keep my balance until the shaking stopped. The sleepy little island of Maliku was growing restless, more so every day.
A sharp cry pierced the hot morning air, and a tiny bird swooped down from the sky. “Loki! Where have you been, boy?”
The little hoopoe landed on my shoulder and began cleaning his black and gold feathers.
I stroked his speckled crown. “Nice to see you, but you smell like an over-ripe fish.”
Loki squawked at the insult and nibbled my ear. Oop-oop-oop. He flew away in search of insects hiding in the coconut fronds. What would happen to Loki when the coconut palms died?
I turned at laughter behind me.
Belani paddled her dugout canoe across my path. Her brown eyes twinkled. “You’ve spoiled that bird of yours, you know.”
Her black hair hung loose down her back, and a white flower was tucked behind her ear. Belani had forsaken the white head scarf older women on Maliku wore, and she favored a short, red sari instead of long, flowing robes. All of which scandalized her elderly grandmother. “It’s too hot,” she said whenever they argued, and she stuck to it.
Her full red lips smiled invitingly, and she arched a perfect eyebrow at me. “Well Maumoon, are you not speaking today?”
A hot flush crept up my neck. I wanted to dive under the water to cool my face, but that was cowardly. Besides, she would know. “Good morning, Belani.”
She flicked water at me with her paddle. “Just because we’ll soon be betrothed does not mean I like you any more than when we were kids.”
A cheeky grin took the sting out of her words.
She drew closer, and the heady smell of jasmine brought back memories of our childhood, when we were still allowed to play together. She smelled of jasmine even when we were covered in mud.
She wrinkled her pert nose at my ragged shorts. “I hope you’re planning on dressing a bit better for the ceremony, or I might be tempted to toss you into the sea with all the other flotsam.”
My stiff shoulders relaxed. Belani might be sixteen, but she was still the little brat who dropped coconuts on my head when we were seven, and told my mother I pulled her hair. I got a switching for that one. And I fell in love with her on that day.
“Belani …”
She fluttered her eyelashes and paddled her canoe up against me. “Yes, Maumoon?”
I gulped. She was too close. “No matter what happens tonight, I want you to know I care about you more than any other, and I will for the rest of my days.”
A frown wrinkled her perfect brow at my strange words, and she touched my cheek with her soft hand. “And I for you.”
The call to prayer rolled over the island, and the moment was lost. “I-I have to go.”
Belani waved and paddled away. “I’ll see you tonight.” Her eyes and her smile held a secret promise.
I swallowed and willed my heart to stop hammering against my chest like a lovesick puppy. In a few hours, Belani would never speak to me again, but she was so fine, and I loved her.
A rush of hot air and a mighty roar streaked across the sky. I caught a glimpse of black wings larger than any I had ever seen. The air snapped, and the giant bird disappeared into the poison clouds. A sense of disquiet settled over me, but I pushed my worry away as I climbed the ladder and greeted Auntie.
Auntie was as gruff as ever. The world no longer held much interest for her, and she seldom left her faded pink hut. She spent her days staring at the lighthouse on the tip of the island and smacking her gums as she recited prayers. Her son filled her food basket every day, but she had little appetite and gave most of the food away.
I tiptoed through the jumble of clay pots and bric-a-brac scattered across her hut. And my mother thought I kept a messy hut. “Good morning, Auntie.”
Auntie stretched slowly, like a gecko disturbed from a nap in the sun, and fixed her bleary eyes on me. “Maumoon?”
I opened her shutters in the hopes of refreshing the musty, stale air. “Yes, Auntie. I’ve come to fetch some greens, but first we must pray.”
She grunted.
I took that as a yes.
Auntie lived in a dream world, but she was astute enough to read my glum mood. After prayers, she clasped my head between her withered hands and stared at me with clear eyes. “What ails you, sonny?”
“I love Belani, but I can’t marry her. I thirst for knowledge of the Outside world, and she is duty-bound to this island. I must leave here soon, never to return.” My dilemma and my dream in a nutshell.
Auntie’s mind had already wandered, but she managed to mumble, “Ah well, follow your heart. That’s all we have left in this misbegotten time.”
I was floating in the air. No water, but not the gentle, warm water surrounding Maliku. This water was dark and cold, and hinted of danger. Glowing lights, the color of spring leaves, floated alongside me, like guides leading me deeper and deeper into the abyss.
A gray sting ray, larger than my hut, swam by, its flat mouth opening and closing. The ray’s massive wings sucked me into its wake and pulled me along. “Wait! Where are we going?”
The water shimmered, and the sting ray morphed into a beautiful mermaid with black hair waving along her golden tail. The mermaid smiled a teasing smile and became Belani.
I called to her, but she darted away and disappeared in the murky water. I tried following her, but a glass bubble larger than Maliku and taller than the tallest coconut tree blocked my way. Dozens of giant bubbles nestled on the sea floor beside a yawning void. Closer now, I peered through the see-through walls. People inside the bubble gathered in small groups or moved from one place to another in strange gliding crafts.
Tears burned my cheeks as I pounded on the glass, but no one looked my way. Who were they? Where was Belani?
“Come to us,” a voice said.
“No, I must find Belani.”
A young woman dressed in flowing green robes, her black hair piled high on her head, walked to the edge of the bubble and pressed her face against the glass. The glass wall dissolved, and sea sprites pulled me into the bubble, laughing and whispering my name. The woman smiled at me, but before my eyes she turned into a ghoulish spirit with empty eye sockets and rotting flesh.
I screamed and jumped back. “No, leave me alone!” I struggled against the sea sprites’ grip. “Let me go! I have to leave! I have to be free!”
“You will never leave. You will never be free,” the voice said.
“No-o-o!”
I bolted upright on my mat and gasped for air in my tight lungs. My skin was soaked in sweat, and my thin coverings were tangled in knots around my feet.
