Holds the Door Open reached into the fire and pulled out one of the ears of corn that had been roasting there. He handed it to Carries. “Here,” he said. “Sharing food with you proves that you are welcome here as a guest.”

“Or that we want to fatten you up before we eat you,” Burnt Hair added.

Carries held up the ear of corn, its husk blackened from the hot coals. “I thank this corn for giving its gift of life to us all.”

The other men nodded at his words. Giving thanks was always the right way. He peeled back the husk, picked free a few kernels and ate them. Then he placed the ear of corn in his lap.

“I will say more about how that man I have described came to us,” he said.

He spoke then of how that canoe had beached itself into the sand. How that man, a tall straight-standing person with a gentle smile on his face, had stepped out of it.

“I am Skennerahowi, the Peacemaker,” the tall stranger then told them. “I have come with a message from our Creator. The message I bring is that of peace.”

“We could understand his words,” Carries said. “Even though he was Wendat and spoke our language with a strange accent. There was something about him that made him seem different from other men. You could feel the presence of orenda, spiritual power, flowing from him. It was like a wave that washed over us. It touched something inside each of us. We listened as he continued to speak, telling us about his birth.”

chapter nine

THE BIRTH OF SKENNERAHOWI

The Peacemaker’s mother lived with her grandmother in a small lodge removed from their main village on the other side of the Beautiful Lake from the lands of the Longhouse Nations. Even there, though, there was no such thing as peace. All around them, the women and children and elders lived in constant fear. Any moment the terrible war cry might be heard and enemies would sweep into the village, killing people and taking captives.

Because the men of that village thought of nothing but war and revenge, and her granddaughter’s parents were dead, the grandmother decided to move them to a new place, a hidden cove by the side of the lake, a place where no one else ever went. The two of them lived alone there, safe from the danger of enemy raids.

The grandmother kept a close eye on her granddaughter. Even though she had come of child-bearing age, she was not yet married. However, it became obvious that she was expecting a child.

Tell me who the father is, her grandmother asked.

I do not know, her granddaughter replied. I have never been with a man.

The grandmother refused to believe her granddaughter. She kept asking and asking, but the answer was always the same.

I do not know. I have never been with a man.