This is a story of two newly weds...
Yellow Feathers loved his wife very much even though she wasn’t much good at the usual things women are supposed to be good at, like putting up the tepee for instance: the uprights were too steep so that the hide was inches short of the ground, and the smoke-hole at the top was so small it didn’t let the smoke out fast enough so that the fire which was built with green wood and fanned by the draught under the too short tepee, filled the inside with a thick brown smog. The only way to stay inside the tepee was to lie with your face at the gap; so one side of you was cold and the other roasted.
But there was one thing the chief’s new wife was good at, one thing she could do better than any other woman in the village. She was ridiculed for her inability to make a proper tepee, laughed at for her smoky lodge fire, scorned for her unappetising meals. Heads would shake. But when Yellow Feathers wore his head-dress of eagle feathers that had been made by Yimyam, all would marvel at how fine it looked, how regal and grand it made him look, and the chief would notice this admiration and great pride was his in his beautiful and clever bride.
One night, in the middle of a storm the tepee blew over. There was no chance of putting it back up in that gale, so they had to go stay with relatives until the storm blew itself out. As it was the middle of winter it was six weeks before they had a chance to put the tepee up again; but when the weather changed for the better, big chief Yellow Feathers set to with a will and organised his wife to set about the erection of the tepee with a few suggestions here and there as he sat huddled under a tough old buffalo hide. The tepee started to take shape.
By the end of the day it was ready and looked slightly more comfortable than the last effort, if a bit lop-sided, still the chief congratulated Yimyam on her achievement and they both moved back in, but not for long, for without the gap at the bottom, as on the last tepee, the fire, still built out of green wood, drove them gasping and coughing outside again.
They stood in the snow, Yellow Feathers wrapped in the hide looking at the moon, Yimyam apologising most profusely.
After an age, Yellow Feathers addressed his wife. With a straight face and arms folded he told her to find some dry kindling and lots of dry wood and remake the fire, and perhaps then a good night’s sleep could be had.
Yimyam looked at her husband with awe and thought him very wise and understanding but she could not keep a little snigger of laughter at his pomposity to herself.
The chief glanced at Yimyam then quickly turned his face to the moon again, more to conceal a smile than anything else.
Yimyam ran off through the moonlight giggling. The chief tried his hardest not to laugh, but he couldn’t do it so throwing his arms wide he burst forth in might hah! at the moon, then ran after his wife.
He caught up with her in the pine forest, both of them warm with the exertion of running. Yimyam turned as her husband came to her, and falling to the pine they became one with each other under the big moon.
After, when the first talk came it was Yimyam who gave voice to the feeling.
“My husband, I love you very much and I am so happy. Are you pleased with me?”
“My little Yimyam, I am very pleased with you, and to show how pleased I am, tomorrow, I will build the tepee.”
“Oh my husband, you are so good and kind,” said Yimyam and pulled her husband to her. The rest of the night was spent in love.
True to his word, the chief built her a tepee, and though it was his first, indeed the first ever a man of his tribe had built as it was thought of as woman’s work, it was a good one.
As the chief was building the tepee the whole of the village came to watch the unheard-of spectacle of a man doing the work of a woman. The chief tried to shoo them away but they wouldn’t go, instead they just sat there, looking, wondering, and making funny remarks. The chief had to ignore them and build the tepee.
Wide was its base as a chief’s tepee should be, and the smoke hole was sufficient to let out the smoke but not too much of the heat, and the entrance flap was big enough to allow passage through with only a slight stoop, instead of having to crawl through as Yimyam had made. And the fire was of wood from the pine forest, shown to Yimyam by the chief in the morning of the night before.
When it was finished the chief stood back to admire his work. And it was a fine piece of building at that. From the crowd there came grudging remarks, and here and there a nod of approval.
Eventually everyone wandered off, back to whatever they were doing before. Yellow Feathers and Yimyam stood hand in hand silently looking at the tepee, both with a feeling of pride: Yimyam in her strong and good husband, Yellow Feathers in his achievement.
Suddenly Yimyam gave a squeal and dashed off. A few moments later she came back with the smoking remains of the chief’s dinner, left too long over the heat of the fire. Yimyam started to cry. The chief, ready to fling his arms up in disgust and stomp away in a huff was moved by how dejected his wife looked, so he went to her and taking her face in his hands he kissed away her tears and told her he really wasn’t hungry and not to worry about it.
The chief’s second in command who was coming to speak to the chief at that moment, seeing all this, decided he didn’t have anything important to speak of that couldn’t wait until a more opportune moment, and diverting his course towards the horses he went to see how they were doing, muttering under his breath about how much trouble women were; being a newly married himself, to Yimyam’s sister in fact. Maybe it ran in the family he thought. Ah well, tomorrow, I’ll see the chief about how to build the tepee.
Image from Pixabay
