Kitzia Esteva

Mixe’s Feather

In my flock, everyone contributed. Everyone chose a role when arriving at the life-giving age. My flock debated whether I had shed my vulnerable age because I never bled. One day, a flock from across the water sang messages to us. Their language was different; we could not understand. Still, I learned to sing like them and my mind deciphered their content. 

Their lake-crosser had been captured by the warring people along with their birth woman. They needed us to send our birthwoman for a life to begin. 

With my capacities as a lake-crosser revealed, there was no doubt that I had reached adulthood. I could finally receive my name and choose my role. My flock named me Mixe—one who isn’t a woman or a man and offers no reproductive purpose. 

We have other Thirds in the flock who also aren’t men or women but something entirely different, each with their role to play. The other Thirds bear children, which makes for abundant togetherness in their lives. 

I had no limitations in my choices for my role because my body was strong and limber. I decided to join the Feather of the Traders; we traveled for medicines and seeds. To join them, I had to clothe my chest and wear a textile with plumes that wrap around my barren parts, as men wear. 

Being the only lake-crosser in my flock was to be singular. A sacred duty. I was the only one who saw with my mind’s eye more than one way to celebrate death and the passage to the life-giving age. I experienced gliding into unexpected concepts plucked by the wisdom of the flocks nearby. I ached to become a teacher of connection among the flocks. To recreate and expand the capacity to unite flocks in understanding, dissolve the bewilderment between us, and avoid discord and disharmonies among the birder peoples. 

I lived in the valley of the Birder people. Our siblings, the birds, taught us how to live, and we emulated them and hoped for our future wings. When I climbed the cypresses atop the mountain where our habitat ends, I could see our home. I often took off alone between trader trips. No one missed me, but the horizon kept me company. The many shades of green wooing the winds. They dissipated the smoke from the eight fires, sustaining the eight sister flocks. The great green kept us alive. If I kept my eagle eye focused, I could see the thousand multicolored fish swimming in the transparent green waters of the lake. Near the lake’s edge, the clearing where our palapa was built blended in with the canopy. The colorful lulunatas, buzzard herb, and chinchin fed the nonshe, the butterflies, and the fireflies. We kept our vegetable and sacred herbal crops at the lake’s cradle, where the soil is soft. Wild fruit grew on vines and trees; our sibling birds fed and left us an allowance. I wandered around visiting the other flooks to learn their language.

So for a time I was alone, with my thoughts and songs, ever since the courtship ritual when my youngest sister chose her mate.

She went to live in the palapa with the women who gave their breasts to the young to suckle. They lived and nourished each other in the time of tender growth. The fathers entered the palapa at nightfall to let the women rest in their metates. Men took turns holding the tender young in their arms and gave them their pinky fingers to suck as consolation. After the young started growing teeth, the fathers chewed on ripe fruits and deposited them in their mouths. 

My older sisters belong to the Nourishment Feather. When they went to the lake’s edge to fish and wash our clothes, I stayed behind to nurture their children with curiosity and laughter. Unless we had to weave, sort beans, or break apart the corn kernels from the husks, we had much time for idleness and leisure. I decided to teach my niblings to lake-cross coo like the nearby flocks. The niblings pick up other flock voices quickly. They are brave, unencumbered by the stubbornness of adulthood, and have flexible tongues. I only teach them youth-speak. 

“ Anshel means to grow without trade or work. To relish only curiosity and discovery until the life-giving age. As far as I know, only the young of the Lank flock practice Anshel.” Beyond that, I was careful not to burden them with talks of reproduction or duty. 

“Is what we are doing now, anshel, Mixe?” my nibbling said. 

 My sisters had returned from the lake. Fish overflowed from their baskets. They heard my youngest nibling, speaking a distant tongue.

They walked me aside to the fire circle to grill me along with the fish.

“I won’t allow  you to transfer your tongue knowledge to the children,” said my sister Nebka. 

Naelii joins, “It is possible that you can shape the children to a Mixe existence before their bodies have the time to choose their roles in the flock.”  

“You can’t teach them the names of distant herbs or special practices we haven’t decided yet to adopt. They have not yet matured. They must come to their names untainted.”

“I hear you sisters, I only wanted to pass down my knowledge. I think our children can learn lake-crossing because their shapes are still open.” I said, hoping they could see with my eyes. 

“Lake crossing is not like fishing, Mixe. It's contained within your spirit. You can’t as easily pass it down. Let their spirits mature and find their own path.” said Nekba. Nashi! I couldn’t carve my mind onto the niblings.

* * *

I had to leave with my Feather to visit a group that didn’t call themselves a flock. The people of Tenochca, beyond our valley. A warring group. I’ve never traveled as far.

“A song has been intonated to the flocks of the valley, that pale people have arrived from the seas. They come with harrowing sickness. Many people have died. We must travel to unfriendly lands to harvest the needle bush that has worked as treatment.” said Janai, our eldest in the trader’s feather. 

Our Feather of Eight swam across the lake with our supplies atop our backs. Across the lake, we meet Anaxal, another lake-crosser whose tongue glided with warring songs, his eyes aged from trapped memories. His arms were marked with many scars from lacerations by obsidian knives. Still, he walked with the stride of someone who has earned reverence. He learned warring songs from the people of Tenochca when he was captured harvesting seeds outside the valley.  We offered a tribute in exchange for Anaxal. Dried fish, metates, sacred feathers, secret medicinal herbs along with their seeds, baskets full of fruit, and we even taught one of their women how to weave. The warring people were astute and vigilant, but they weren’t good at observing the subtleties of the Birder people of the valley. Anaxal was undetected as a lake-crosser. Once the warriors received a tribute for someone, they could never capture that person again. Anaxal became our lake-crosser and our beyond-the-valley traveler. 

On our hike away from the valley into hostile lands, Anaxal taught me warring songs. I tryed to intonate them. The voice of the warring people requires faster movement of the tongue. Is as if I am learning to flap my tongue like a nonshe, a flower-sucking bird. Traveling with Anaxal, I got to speak many voices at once. My mind was recognized. I quickly grew masne how one holds their togetherness with a father or a brother or the togetherness of childbearing. A togetherness I will never know. 

“Suck your cheeks in to flatten your face,” Anaxal recommended. “The warring people have flat cheeks; it will help you intonate better.”

I drew my cheeks in, using my molars to hold them. But then I couldn’t speak through my teeth. Anaxal burst into laughter. His aged eyes joined the full moon with their light. He braced my round cheeks between his callused hands. “Try speaking now,” he demanded of me. 

“Tlacochtli yacahuitztic,” I sang, my tongue tripping over itself. Saliva dropped from the corner of my mouth. My face was flushed and warm despite the coarse coldness of Anaxal’s hands holding it. My heart reverberated in my ears. A thousand birds murmured across the edges of my body. Manse. 

We made it to Tenochca at the crescent moon. We arrived singing truce at the edge of the lake. A stronghold of living quarters in the distance was in ruins. A thick smoke inhabited the air. It strangled and impeded us from continuing our song. The majestic floating village we expected to see was ravaged—the lake of White Herons was tainted red with blood. Bodies of muscular warriors floated in the lake.

 We deposited the baskets full of gifts at the lake’s edge. Hoped someone would greet us. We braced ourselves for danger but were relentless because our people’s survival depended on the needle bush medicine. Anaxal shouted for a healer who once tended to his torture wounds. “Nameztli, Nameztli, its Anaxal,” no one responded. The air was unbreathable. We had to return to the grove, where the pines cleared the air. 

We saw shadows moving furtively as we got closer to the pine trees.  Wounded warriors pointed their obsidian arrows at us. We crooned our truce song. They recognized Anaxal. Let us get closer to them. We offered to aid them. The bereaved warriors accepted our care in exchange for knowledge of the medicine that would save us from the pestilence of the pale men who arrived from the ocean. They taught us sounds from the voice of the pale men, which we struggled to learn because of the lack of melody. We invited the warriors to come with us to the valley to join the birder people. Nashi! It was their duty to remain in the shambles of their once-striking village. To protect the legacy of what they had built with their Gods.

Anaxal and I practiced our ocean-crossing voice. Imitating the guttural sounds of the pale men wasn’t easy. Our sounds were opaque. We sounded like a grieving land beast. Our throats were raspy for days. We had to rest our voices most of the way back to the valley.

* * *

The day the pale men came near my flock, I was ready. I tried to communicate, but it wasn’t simple, as my voice resembled a dying deer. Worse, I couldn’t breathe through my nose because the pungent smell of the pale men annoyed my nostrils. They came clothed in heavy garments and strange wear atop their heads. Nine of them, I counted. I heard a salute, and I understood. Then, more motley noise. I tried to integrate their sounds to the meaning of body movements. While their strident language confused me, their uncleanliness, their aggression, and lack of tact were clear. 

I told them they weren’t invited inside our home. But they were welcome to make a temporary camp at the outskirts of the valley. My Feather and I guided them away with metates and baskets full of dried fruit. As we walked, they showed me shiny yellow rocks. They kept repeating the word “want.” This was a bizarre concept for the Birder peoples. In our voices, we only hoped, needed or marveled at unexpected resources. We never knew to want. The pale men crazed after the yellow rocks even though their shimmer was useless at nightfall. They could have better joy sitting at the lake’s edge on a moonless night watching the fireflies. 

We knew the pale men would come back.  Now they knew where our home was. They could destroy us more quickly than the warring people, yet we hoped our capacity to hide in plain sight would protect us.  

The pale men quickly understood my capacities as a lake-crosser and an apprentice to ocean-crossing. They captured me from my home while helping my sisters harvest fruits. They placed me in a contraption they called a cage. I had to make myself small inside the cage and couldn’t keep my posture. My body ached. I felt myself losing my wings before I could ever grow them. They removed me from the cage only to remove my breast wraps and hang a strange decoration around my neck. I was starved and had to defecate in the same cage. Men clothed in a single garment, shoulders to ankles, calling themselves priests, came to speak to me. Taught  me pale men language. After a few moons, their language integrated into my mind. They showed me an image of a bleeding man on a stake. They said he died because of sins. Another concept I didn’t know but found quite vile and unharmonious. I couldn’t hope better from a people that warred, destroyed, and tortured.

 “We will give you clothes to return your modesty as soon as you pledge loyalty to the lord.” one of the priests said.

Nashi! I didn’t need clothes. Modesty, like want, was a needless concept to me. I quickly realized dignity was unsubstantial for them.

We wandered around for a while until we came to the home of the Lock flock. They took me out of the cage to pretend they weren’t as sadistic. The pale men demanded I speak across languages. I refused to speak. Pretending not to know how to talk with this group. I was mute. Dehydrated. Defeated. But I would not give in to their demands. I would not be a messenger to their hateful God! 

They lined up the youngest boys of the flock. Made them get on their knees. They hit them with woven metal until they screeched and cried in pain. The boy’s bodies shook, snot and saliva dripping down their faces. I saw my niblings in them.  

“A warning,” the alpha pale man said. 

But our people get warnings before misfortune happens. Before cruelty arrives. I believed I didn’t understand their meaning of the word warning. 

We made it to the third home of a flock on our side of the lake. The Mananxen flock. Again, they made me speak to the group. Nashi! I didn’t communicate their threats. Instead, I talked to their Tracker Feather with candor and honor. 

“Listen carefully; the pale men crave the yellow rock they call gold. ” I said, trying to express an approximation of want. 

“To want is to expect and search for something without productive use. It seems they gather and hoard the yellow rock. If you know where they can find it, you will benefit from telling them.”

Anaan spoke first. “I observe you are weak and stiff. Lacking the usual springiness and levity of our people. How can we help you, dear sibling?”

Noanii followed, “Are you helping them in your auspiciousness?” 

“What are they saying?” interrupted Fernando,  the alpha of the pale men. “Want, want,” He insisted. Shaking the yellow stone on their faces.

“They are trying to remember where they last saw this rock.” I deceived him to gain time. 

“Cahuea, time isn’t abundant. They have a judgeful God who punishes them. They seek to make us venerate this god. The God punishes what they call sin. To sin is to have much shame for an action. Their God has judgment over actions that aren’t shameful or dishonorable to us, like our women not covering their breasts. This God seems to accept many other behaviors that we would find revolting.” 

“Nashi! The birder people will not accept a god. Only the counsel of our bird siblings,” said Kereng. 

“They need to believe you are taking them to the yellow rocks. Please move with the deceiving security of a pauraque,” I instructed the trackers. 

* * *

The pale men bring me to my flock. They carry me in the cage. I refrain from hoping for kindness. As we approach, I don’t hear the songs of my flock. The air is thick with stillness. No smoke emanates from our central fire. 

We arrive, and I see it. My flock, oh my flock! The lifeless bodies of fourteen people are bloodied, piled up on top of each other. My sister Nebka and our elder Janai are among them. They bring more bodies out from the palapa—tender young and mothers who didn’t escape the massacre. They pile them on each other like corn cobs set out to dry. I can’t avert my eyes; I must recognize and honor them. Birder people are rarely murdered. All the death celebration songs jumble in my head. I panic. My chest is exploding. I take deep breaths and bring to memory the resignation songs we ritualize after a murder. As I shed tears, my voice crackles, yet I sing.

“Ahe birds of prey will you come near, consume our flesh and let us free. 

Ahe magic nonshe will you agree to let us hover with dearing wings…” 

And I cannot finish my song. As I am taken out of the cage, lashes burn my flesh. I see my blood flying toward my siblings, and I am grateful a part of me has taken flight to join them. The slashes tores my flesh, but my mind glides the valley. I keep singing inside my head as the pale men disturb the soil with picks and shovels to bury the bodies of my people. In my mind's eye, I weave the nesting baskets where my siblings will rest. I deposit each of them inside. I lead my flock in the procession toward the mountains where the sun will rise again. There, we carefully hang the nesting baskets on high branches of oaks. There, their flesh will transform. They will get a second chance at life as birds. 

The pale men make camp on top of the land that holds the bodies of my massacred flock. They celebrate with ihibriating drinks and fall asleep. It appears their bodies or spirits aren’t weighted down by remorse. Their snores travel through the horizon. 

 I wish for death to come. I am starved, my body stinging and spasming all over.  I recognized I had not felt true loneliness until this moment. From the cage, I can see the waning moon visiting the water of the green lake. Fireflies bring the stars into proximity. In this light, I can see a dagger lying right by the cage. I extend my atrophied leg to reach it. I secure it with my toes and bring it to me. I am not at peace, but there is some consolation in my contorted chest. I lift the dagger toward my throat.

Round brown eyes with yellow irises shine from across the clearing. I see a young gray-barred owl perching from the bloody palapa. I hope he is here to rip me apart and take me to my death. The owl holds something in its beak. He flies toward me. I feel the gust of wind created by the extension of its wings. I cut my palm open and try to extend my arm outside the cage as far as it goes. My hand drips blood in reverence. The owl deposits on my palm crickets he has collected for me to eat. 

“You must protect your mind and save energy,” says the owl. 

“How?.. I understand you! Thank you. Please forgive me, sibling. I was ready to die,” I reply, in disbelief and remorseful for wishing for my end.

“Please! You must live. I have seen what the pale man does to the land. They create destruction wherever they go. We need our human siblings to help us defy this catastrophe before we all perish.” said the owl. 

“I understand why I am still alive.  And I know what they want.  Can you help me? Will you cross the lake and alert Anaxal from the Nemeil flock that the pale men are coming? Will you make sure they can hide before we arrive at their home? Then Anaxal can tell the rest of the people of the valley and beyond.” I ask with all my hope.

“I will go to my sisters and have them bring the message to all the lake crossers of the valley, including Anaxal. From now on, you must pay attention to the pale men’s plans. We will be your feather. We will transport your voice across the valley,” said the owl. He flew away, crossing the lake while the stars fell across the sky.