Glispa, A Tale of Navajoland

Glispa, a Tale of Navajoland
By Digital Circe

(woman to snake transformation)

Glispa was a girl of sixteen summers, blossoming proudly into a fitting example of Navajo womanhood.  Her eyes and hair were of the deepest black, like a pool that a man could become lost in.  It was in the early days of Navajoland, and many things which are had not yet come to pass.  

Glispa was the daughter of a hunter, a brave who provided plenty for his family, and for those in the village who were infirm.  This generosity made Glispa’s family respected, and her hand in marriage was sought by many suitors.  Glispa herself was graced with strong hands and strong eyes, and her art sang with the insight with which she imbued it.  

It was the time of the festival, and she brought maize, a fitting sacrifice to the White Shell Woman, who embraced the Earth with her seasons.  The youth of the village were assembling, bringing their gifts and talking idly one to another, and telling stories of things that were old even in those days.  The elders looked on, seeing the flower of their harvest in their strong youth as much as in the fruit of the land.  And they were proud, for people did not live as long in those days, and life was more precious for being briefer.  

The festival lasted through the afternoon and into the late hours of the day, when the sun was low and shadows were long.  And it was in this fading light that Glispa was dancing, swaying to a clapped beat made by her brother.  The light shone against her thick dark hair, and her skirts twirled.  

But suddenly, the earth began to shake and a pit opened under the unfortunate girl.  And Glispa fell, sucked into the sand as though through a vortex or whirlpool, but the hole she fell through was the coils of serpents.  Her family and friends cried out as she disappeared, covered over with earth as quickly as she had vanished.  And all at once the tremors ceased.  And down she fell, down, down, far below the Earth and out of the embrace of the four mountains.  And at last, she came to the bottom, and found herself in the Lake of Emergence, in the underworld.

She was surrounded in that dark place, and slowly her eyes adjusted to the light.  There were many forms there, coiled bodies surrounding her as if she were a storyteller, and they waiting for her to speak.  As her eyes adjusted, she looked harder, and was much amazed.  All were serpents, but serpents with human eyes, although they were eyes that showed the weight of time and experience.  And Glispa was struck with fear.  

She was separated from her home and her family and her friends, surrounded by snakes in a wet and strangely lit place beyond her comprehension.  And Glispa sat down, overwhelmed and sore afraid, and began to cry.  

But one of the serpent-men, Haloke, took her and asked, “Why are you crying?  Do you not know that you have been chosen, for your great capacity for wisdom, to do such things as need to be done?  And when your apprenticeship here is complete, you will be returned to your peoples and your land.”

At this, Glispa dried her tears, and wondered at the talking snake and what he said.  Another, a snake-woman called Ashkii, consoled her, saying, “You have been predestined to become a healer, and to teach mortal man between the mountains the ways of medicine.  Your hands are strong, and your eyes are strong, and you have much insight in the arts of mortal man.  We can help you, transform that insight, to an immortal art.  Because of you, mortals can expect to live longer, and better, and survive those things which as yet they have not survived.”  And Glispa wondered at her words.  

The serpent men were called the Klesh, and they took the girl and showed her to common but yet glorious quarters, and saw that she had some food.  She watched amazed as the serpents glided by silently on their strong tails, their powerful coils twining, their scales shining like polished metal.  Haloke and Ashkii took her, and prepared her, providing her clothing appropriate to the Lake of Emergence.  

She supped alone, taking in all those things which had happened to her.  She did not view herself as special, and wondered why she might have been singled out for such a thing.  She missed her family and her land terribly, longing for her own clothes and her own bed, and food she had helped prepare with her own careful hands.

In that deep place, Glispa was with others, but she was also alone.  Thereafter she had two faces – the brave face that she displayed to the Klesh, and the crying face she held inside herself.  The snake people were strange, both wonderful and monstrous, inspiring both awe and fear.  At meals they spoke of lofty things beyond Glispa’s comprehension, weighing hidden factors of even simple things that the girl did not understand.  Eventually, their words turned to the matters of the healing arts, and how to care for both sick and wounded.  Glispa wondered at this, that there was so much distinction between the needs of the sick, the weak, the injured, the elderly, and the dying.  

The serpent people began to train Glispa in the ways of healing, and she wondered greatly at their art.  The practices and remedies which they showed seemed to her like fantasy, and yet these things worked and bore fruit.  She marveled that such things were possible, and that she would know them.  To imagine, herself able to heal that which was broken, or fatal!

She adjusted gradually to the strange place, away from the mighty protection of her people, and slowly became happy again.  The Klesh received her warmly, but with some sadness, and their leader, the great healer Naalnish, took interest in her, and she became his lover.

Her days were filled with learning, with songs and chants and herbs and blood and heat, and all the other elements of a healer’s art.  They taught her of the sweat-lodge, and the blackroot, and the leech.  They taught her the charms and prayers.  They taught her the songs, the words from the creation of the earth, and how to save a man.  They taught her what was inside a man, in the secret places, and what could be removed and what could not be.  They taught her how to sew up the place she had entered a sick man so that he would not die from it.  They taught her the art, and how to make it an instinct rather than a thought.

But still, in all things, the eyes of the Klesh were heavy, and even in cheer they were grave.  Glispa wondered at what sadness the snake people harbored, but they would not speak to her of such things.  It surprised the girl, since they were so free with all other matters.  At times, she thought the Klesh felt they were punishing her by sharing their great gifts of knowledge, but she could not understand why that would be.

The Klesh taught Glispa all the advanced healing arts, and how to care and touch and preserve life.  Naalnish himself taught her the Hozoni, the healing songs, and how to sing them, and she loved him.

One day, Naalnish revealed part of himself to Glispa.  “We were all once like you, human and fair, and earned our snake forms through our labors,” he said.  

“When shall I become like a snake, and how?” Glispa asked, but the serpent people shook their heads, and looked down, world-weariness in their eyes, and would not answer.  And she marveled at this, because she had grown to find their snake forms fair and desirable.  

Glispa’s training passed from one summer to the next, but so engaged with her studies was she that she scarcely noticed the passage of time.  There were no seasons in that deep place, and time became less concrete, freeing her to learn.  Each Hozoni challenged her, and she surmounted each one with growing understanding, as the art of her hands changed from mortal to lasting.  

The last Hozoni was the longest and the most difficult.  That song could restore life to a dead man, and Glispa marveled at the power.  But Naalnish cautioned her, telling her not to use it rashly.  For the scales are balanced, and when a man comes to his appointed time, a man must die, and if it is not the man appointed, another must fill his place.  That was the cost of the last Hozoni – to keep one life, another must be taken.  When Naalnish finished speaking, Glispa grew ashen and didn’t want to learn the song, but the snake king insisted, saying that a refusal to be responsible with knowledge was worse than no knowledge at all.  Privately, Glispa vowed never to use the Hozoni, never to make the terrible choice.

Naalnish did not question her decision, but nor did he affirm it, looking away and turning to other matters.  The girl’s mind was keen, but he made it sharp as the razor, so that what was therein might flow out on the wounds of mankind.  

She was two years in that place, until finally they had taught her all that she was ready to know.  And there was sadness among the snake people, for they had grown fond of Glispa, and wished for her to remain.  But she had not been trained for her own sake, but rather for that of all mankind.  So with heavy hearts, they took her back to the mouth of the Lake of Emergence, and returned to her her own clothes, and then in a great vortex, she was gone.

And Glispa found herself again in Navajoland, where she had first been.  She blinked in the great sunlight, for her eyes were unaccustomed to such brightness.  Then a boy of the village saw her, and began calling out, and the people came forward to see the girl returned to them, more beautiful even than when she had left.  

Glispa was again disoriented, as she had been when she had descended into the dark, remembering her old life as though through a dark glass.  But her friends and family came back to her, and she found her place again.  She told all of the people of the wonders she had seen, and of what she learned.  Some of the elders scoffed at this, saying, “Does this girl now know that all our ways are wrong?  Some things are beyond the power of man, and it is not for us to alter the ways of nature.  The sick and injured die or they do not, and there is little we can do to influence this.”

But Glispa said “Look!  I will show you something new, if you will but trust me.”  And she built a sweat-lodge outside the village, and gathered herbs and linen, and a pot for boiling water.  She carved the symbols on the floor and the doorposts, and put the appropriate furs inside the lodge.

Soon, two warriors were injured on a hunting party, one mauled by Bear and one shot through the thigh with a friend’s arrow.  And Glispa took both, whom the elders pronounced in their last days, and treated their wounds.  She cleaned and prepared them, muttering her prayers and singing her songs, and treated them both according to their wounds.  Removing the arrow, she packed herbs against the hole, after sewing up the place with boiled sinew from Bison.  Then, she wrapped the leg in clean linen, which she changed several times each day.  The brave injured by Bear was more difficult, but she cleaned these wounds too, removing earth and saliva from the body, and choosing different herbs as suited his injuries.  Some of these she put on the wounds, and some she mixed in a broth for the brave to drink.  She sewed the wounds up in the deepest places, wrapping the injuries and slowly sewing outward in the later days, allowing the injury to heal backwards, from the secret place to the skin.  After a week, both braves were still alive, and the one injured by an arrow was much improved.  Both had fallen into fevers, which Glispa controlled with the sweat-lodge.  After a month, the one could walk almost as fast as he had before, and the other was lucid and capable of caring for himself, and clearly on the path to recovery.  And the people were amazed.

A woman of the village was pregnant at this time, and she was swollen with her baby.  She had miscarried three times previously, as the child in her womb became tangled in the birth-cord.  She came to Glispa as her pains started, begging for the healer to save her child, for she longed to be a mother.  Glispa had the squaw lie back, and started the labors of birthing, and waited until her opening widened for the baby.  Quickly she reached in, causing the woman to scream in louder pain.  Glispa felt around, and deftly untangled the birth-cord, freeing the baby’s neck.  Within hours, the new mother was weeping in joy as she cradled her newborn son.  And again, the people were amazed.

After this, many people began to bring the sick and the injured and the dying to Glispa, and her hands healed them or eased their sufferings; granting lucidity to the witless, and dignity to the afflicted.  The elders embraced the arts of the young woman, and her reputation began to spread – here was a healer who could do impossible things!  Many villages between the four mountains heard of the Medicine Woman, and made pilgrimages to see her or obtain her help or their own infirm.  She could be heard singing her songs from sunrise to long after sunset, as she helped each person brought to her for comfort and healing.  

Eventually, Glispa felt smothered, as people from all around came to her for her touch.  All her waking hours were consumed with care, and she had no time for friends or family or lovers.  She was alone, and her gift had become in part a curse.  Was this why the eyes of the Klesh had looked so heavy?  Had they been worn out in body and soul, like Glispa was?  As the months turned into years, the young healer wondered at her ability to continue.

The Medicine Woman decided she must train others, so that many could heal, and not just one.  And she taught them all her art, save for the last Hozoni, which she kept privately in her heart.  And one of these that she taught was her brother.  Other villages sent their wisest youth to her, and she showed them all her manner of care, and what details required attention and what could be dismissed.  

Soon, the art of healing began to spread among the children of man.  But still, the skill of Glispa was the greatest of all, and other healers would come to her for advice and council.  Her hands could cure what even other healers could not, and she healed all manner of infirmity save death.  Then, Glispa found happiness, able to practice her craft, but not overwhelmed by it.  Still, she did not take a lover, as her heart belonged to the twin masters of her art and Naalnish.  Many who sought her hand went away disappointed, and after ten years as a Medicine Woman, the people realized and respected that she would never marry.  She continued to sing her Hozonis, and tend the infirm, and help those who were beyond help find peace, for sometimes death is itself a healing.  

One morning, Glispa was working in the sweat-lodge, when she heard braves calling her name.  She came to the door of the tent to see what was the matter, and saw them carrying an ashen body.  She recognized the fallen man as the chieftain, who had been negotiating a truce with a tribe beyond the four mountains, outside Navajoland.  Whether he had fallen through treachery or ill fortune was not immediately obvious, and Glispa hurried out to meet the party.  “Please,” a brave cried, “heal him with your hands!”

The braves laid the chieftain out on the ground, and Glispa examined him.  He had taken ill from a toxic thing, whether food or pestilence, and his skin was pale and yellowed.  The healer knew that she could have saved him had she seen him the first day, but the party had been four days’ travel from her sweat-lodge.  And the Medicine Woman could see clearly that there was now no hope.  He had reached his appointed time, and would go to his ancestors, in whose company he could stand tall.

“Can you not help him?” a brave asked.  “If he dies, all hope for truce dies with him.  For those young, and old, and not yet born, can you not help him finish his work?”  And Glispa’s eyes filled with tears.  She looked him over, hoping to see some small thing which she had missed, that would allow her to prolong his life.  But she had missed nothing.  The chieftain was a dead man.

Other villagers came out of their tents to see what was the matter, as word spread of what had happened.  Soon, a crowd had formed around the party, and Glispa felt all eyes upon her.  She could work miracles – would she work one now?  The Medicine Woman’s mind churned with the weight of the choice thrust upon her.

And she thought, this is a line I should never cross, for I cannot be the judge of who lives if another must die instead.  And she thought, surely saving one life that will benefit many is the greater good.  And she thought, but who is to say that is what would come to pass?  And she thought, there are some situations where clearly a great man is of greater good than ten others.  And she thought, but who am I to say, and what do I decide in cases less clear than this one?  And she thought, surely the heart knows what the mind does not, and surely I was given this talent for just such a time as this.  And she thought, the heart can deceive, but the mind sees rationally.  And she looked into the eyes of her people, gathered to see what she would do.  And she said, “I will save him.”

With tears, Glispa sang the One Song, the last Hozoni, the one that could give life.  And with those words, the man would live, but another man would die.  For one life cannot be taken out of the balance without another replacing it.  It was not a man she knew, but he had family too, and friends, and a lover.  Glispa cried, as she learned what it was to choose who had to live and who had to die.

“In beauty may I travel, in beauty may I see.  In beauty, at last, may we all be,” she whispered, her eyes still wet with the tears of decision.  And her brother put his hand on her shoulder, knowing now at last what was to be asked of a Medicine Man.  And the others listened to her sing the Hozoni, but it was too complex, and none could learn it from one singing.  Then the chieftain opened his eyes, drinking in breath like a drowning man suddenly surfacing.  And a cheer rose from the assembled people, as a man who was dead became alive again, and their hope was restored.  

And there came a great rushing, and Glispa the Healer felt herself being swept away from her land and her brother, and she felt her body began to change.  Down, down, down, she swept through the darkness, down far below the Earth and out of the embrace of the four mountains.  Her body stretched and tightened, as smooth scales formed over soft flesh, shining like polished metal.  He tongue divided, lengthening, as she tasted the cold damp around her.  Her coccyx extended into a long, coiled tail, radiant in color and strong with muscle.  Breasts and belly and limbs pulled into the roundness of her body, and rich black hair faded into her head.  Long before Glispa reached the bottom, her body had changed entirely into the form of the Klesh, and she was a strong serpent woman like those she had seen long ago.  And at last, she came to rest again in the Lake of Emergence.  

Glispa looked around at the other serpent people, and saw the weight in their eyes, and knew what it was from.  For one cannot become a serpent until one has been forced to hold the balance of life in their own hands, and make the impossible choice of life for one and death for another.  She was now worthy to join them, and to help pass down her perfected art to those who were ready to hear it, those who could handle taking on the choice themselves when they reached the appointed hour.  

Naalnish and Haloke and Ashkii came to her, and coiled around her, now not as mentors but as equals.  For Glispa the Healer had herself gone from mortal to immortal, just as her art had.  And her eyes were heavy, but her heart was full, for she had done that which had been given to her to do.  And this is the way that the people of Navajoland lost Glispa, the gifted healer, but she is not really lost at all but waits beyond the mountains to guide the hand of those who are worthy of the great art she brought to her people.