mystic reveries's Blog

Crazy Woman

by S. A. Adams

I would like to tell you the story of Crazy Woman.  A long time ago, about 200 years or more, there lived an old woman who belonged to my mother’s ancestral lodge.  My mother is Iroquois.  The old woman was different in that she could have no children and her husband had died many years before of disease.

The sons of the other women would bring home game and skins to her from the hunt as they did to everyone in the lodge.  They wished to give her her share.  But this woman, who was about 70, said to them: No, no.  I will only take a little, because tomorrow I die.

When the old woman went to fetch water from the brook, she would say to the brook, which offered to fill up her pot:  No, no.  I will only take a little, because tomorrow I die.

This story is true.  She would say:  No, no.  I will only take a little because tomorrow I die.

When the old woman went to pick berries from a certain patch in the wood, the berries practically fell into her basket as her skirt brushed against the tiny leaves.  But she said to the bush:  No. no.  I will only take a little because tomorrow I die.

She continued in that way for many more years.  The other woman in the village thought she was crazy and foolish because she never did die on the morrow.  That’s when they began to call her Crazy Woman and no longer brought their infants and children to her to tend.  She no longer sat with the other woman to make baskets and pottery.  She no longer tilled the soil with them, or tanned and sewed hides.

In the Season of the Leaves Falling she followed the woman to the corn field.  Since she only picked a couple ears, they offered her some of what they had in order to fill up her sack, but she said:  No, no.  I will only take a little because tomorrow I die.

One day she said to the sachem, the chief, that she wanted to go up to the big mountain called White Face.  Because tomorrow I die, she said.

But many of the warriors said it was too far and that the white settlers were too frequent over the land.  The sachem considered this, and said no to the old woman.

That evening the old woman left the stockade when all were asleep and walked silently through the maple, oaks, and pines to the river alone.  It is tomorrow,  she said, and lay down.

The sachem and two warriors followed her in order to protect her dignity and safety.  As they left the stockade not even a dog barked that night.

They crouched quietly at a distance watching Crazy Woman lie at the river bank.  A frost was forming on the leaves where they sat.  But they watched and waited.

Suddenly they heard the Great Voice of the Mysterious Creator come out of the night sky.  It said:  Crazy Woman.  Be still, and I will only take a little.

And next they saw her whole body engulfed in a white light.  The light then condensed into a tiny holy spark, as bright as the moon, yet as little as an acorn.  It rose up from her face, higher and higher, only to disappear into the evening stars.

The sachem took Crazy Woman to a place in the woods for burial.  He took his bear skin cloak from his back and laid it carefully over her body.  Then the people covered her with the black soil of the earth.

In the evening the sachem visited the old shaman, the spiritual guide of the people.  He sat at his camp fire and asked about the light he and the other two warriors saw.  The sachem asked for the meaning.

The shaman listened to the concerns of the sachem.  He focused his eyes on the bowl of water set before him.  As he gently swirled the water in the bowl, his mind soared high like an eagle.

The shaman then spoke.  He said: It was a great boon for the sachem and the two warriors to hear this Voice of the Mysterious Creator and to see this tiny holy spark.  The League of the Iroquois is friends with the Great Spirit.  This wondrous earth is His, yet He takes but a little from it.  Now hear these words, I can see the ancestors welcoming us.

The sachem considered the old shaman’s words carefully.  He met with many other sachems; Cayuga,Onondaga, Seneca, Oneida, Mohawk.  They talked and made preparations.  Eventually some moved north and some west as the white settlers took the land.  They hunted with sacred ritual and traded with honor.  They fought bravely.  But soon very few were left to dwell on the earth.

One hundred and fifty years later, the white settlers uncovered the bones of Crazy Woman and the skull of the bear skin cloak.  They were put under glass in a museum.  They admired and possessed them and called them their own for a very long time; until the day came that they, too, would hear and see.

This is the story of Crazy Woman.  I speak true words.