A Fisherman of the Inland Sea: Stories
“To eat food prepared by a Tanner would entail a year’s purification to a Tinker or a Sculptor, and even low-power castes such as the Traders had to be cleansed by a night’s ablutions after dealing for leather goods. Chumo had been a Tanner since she was five years old and had heard the willows whisper all night long at the Singing Sands. She had had her proving day, and since then had worn a Tanner’s madder-red and blue shirt and doublet, woven of linen on a willowwood loom. She had made her ma...sterpiece, and since then had worn the Master Tanner’s neckband of dried vauti-tuber incised with the double line and double circles. So clothed and so ornamented she stood among the willows by the burying ground, waiting for the funeral procession of her brother, who had broken the law and betrayed his caste. She stood erect and silent, gazing towards the village by the river and listening for the drum.
She did not think; she did not want to think. But she saw her brother Kwatewa in the reeds down by the river, running ahead of her, a little boy too young to have caste, too young to be polluted by the sacred, a crazy little boy pouncing on her out of the tall reeds shouting, “I’m a mountain lion!”MoreLess
She did not think; she did not want to think. But she saw her brother Kwatewa in the reeds down by the river, running ahead of her, a little boy too young to have caste, too young to be polluted by the sacred, a crazy little boy pouncing on her out of the tall reeds shouting, “I’m a mountain lion!”MoreLess
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