Before Pigs (The linebreaks reflected here are only approximations.)

A LONG time ago,
so long ago
it was
In the Beginning
(beginning of this world)
the Fifth
World
a LONG time ago

two brothers were placed
upon this earth. (Placed)

First landed in Somane but
cd not make a living there,
(no salmon) then
headed south.

Brother One to Melexat.
Brother Two (Swetan) to
San Juan Island, to
make a home.

They’d each go their way
with the gifts w/ which
Xelas
(Transformer’d)
bless’d them:

Salmon.
Reef-net.
Spear.
Fire.
Suin
(magic)
.

Lonely Swetan’d amuse himself
shape a hunk of
rotten wood into
a human.
Tell her about cliff winds
in what’d someday be Abuela Cala
how January sunbeams
wd illuminate the sea we’d say
was Salish someday
where Otter’d bob
Orca’d leap
Thunderbird’d be brighter
than noon sun. Or how Flicker’d
rest on lichen cover’d
fir branches, or
the old home in an
obsolete constellation.

Transformer: Why make people out of wood?
Swetan:          I hate being lonely.
Transformer:     I will change this that you may enjoy yourself.

& w/ a sprinkle of water the wood
became woman

& from them sprang the tribe they’d
call  Taleqamec.

Brother One tried to propagate a
strong people, finally
did w/ a worn mat.

Much later the Taleqamec
damn near wiped out by
a great plague.

(Fever, body aches, headaches, chills & backache. Vomiting,
confusion. A rash appears & scabs over. The virus moves into mucous membranes & virus particles get released via sneezes; infectious for three weeks.                                   Scars remain.)

One of the survivors
gave a stetlenaq (potlatch)
feasted
& gave gifts to distinguished
guests.

One (Qokwaltxw) refused gift offer after
gift offer &
when all had gotten their gifts
save this one
(Qokwaltxw)
he (one of the last survivors) sd:

I don’t know what to do. I am left alone of all my people and I care for nothing that I possess. But all that I have offered to this man does not suit him. I would like to know what he wd take. I am willing to give all I have, even my house, if it will please him.

Qokwaltxw took the house.
Tore it down.
Moved it to Isla de Gonzalo Lopez
de Haro. (Lopez Island,
we’d later say.) Sandy Point,
we’d later say.

There he arranged the house
in line w/ village buildings
but too cramped.
Then   on an angle   an L shape
made it the home of his
daughter. They called this
part of the village
Twlolames (Facing
one another.)

From this we get the name Lummi.

Qokwaltxw let his daughter marry
a man from a rich Lummi
Island family to love one another.
To love one another.

W/ bravery & strength
salmon & fire
reef-nets & suin
spears & ceremonies
more suin & songs
lifted from the First World

they’d follow life’s
restrictions
they’d beget leaders and warriors
like Sehenep

who moved the people to Gooseberry Point
build their house in the
shape of an L

never forgetting
the First World
& how the word for song
was the word for cry

how some people
had two legs
some four.
Some two wings
some destined to be meat.
Some people want
yr house
yr daughter
yr land
yr culture
but can’t steal the suin
of the gleam in yr eyes
when sunbeams hit
a spot of silver water on the sacred
sacred
Salish Sea.

12:46P – 1.22.12
Whitely Center #7
SJI

from the work-in-progress, Pig War,
a continuation of the serial poem in verse
which started with A Time Before Slaughter.