RP: The Madodoswan
Date: 25 February 2005
Characters: Cedric Diggory, [Jeff Whitecalf], Hermione Granger, Ernie MacMillan, Ron Weasley
Location: Cedric's cottage
Status: semi-private (they're outside, talking and singing and can be heard)
Summary: Jeff is building. A sweatlodge.
Status: Complete
It took Jeff several days to find enough willow.
Now that Cedric was healing, he felt able to leave his friend for a few hours at a time, and had taken to prowling the English countryside, so domesticated and tame. But he'd found a copse of willow by the pond on Cedric's land so he'd prayed to the trees and taken what he needed, carrying it back to the area outside Cedric's cabin. He'd considered making this on Cedric's own family land, but here was where his friend was living for now, so here it would be. He could always move it later.
Thus with drum and rattlebone and knife, tobacco and song, Jeff set about constructing a Madodoswan, a sweat lodge. First he smudged the land itself with tobacco and sage, the purifiers, using a cedar branch to waft the smoke. "Saemauh beendae, aeshkaugae. Saemauh beeninaendumishkaugae. Saemauh bizaundae, aeshkaugae." (Tobacco cleanses the mind and heart and calms the soul.) Then he dug a pit for the stones. Cedric came outside while he was working, and seeing what he was up to, beat an impromptu heartbeat rhythm on the side of the wooden rail leading up to the sliding glass door. He might not be a singer, but he could hold a beat well enough. It made the work go easier, even if Jeff wasn't about to let him pick up a shovel.
When the pit was ready, Jeff cut and bent the willow saplings over it, lashing them together until they made a circular building about 6 feet by 6 with four doorways for the four directions. The main path led in from the east. The skeleton ready, he turned his attention to building the firepit where the rocks would be heated before taking them into the lodge itself. He'd found rocks in Stoatshead itself, granite from the rubble of destroyed buildings. He left these by the pit.
"Think you can manage a little response if I call?" Jeff asked Cedric, grinning.
"If you don't care how off pitch it is."
"The spirits hear the heart, not the voice," Jeff replied, which he'd told Cedric numerous times before. Setting aside the shovel, he went into the house to fetch his hand drum, a mitigwakik daywaygun or water drum. No mediwinini, no meda priest, traveled without it just as a British wizard wouldn't dream of leaving home without his wand.
They sat down under the lodge skeleton and Jeff set up a simple heartbeat rhythm like a round dance. "Mino-dae, wee-hah, wee-hah, aeshowishinaung ..."
"Mino-dae, wee-hah, wee-hah, aeshowishinaung," Cedric sang back, managing (more or less) to come within the ballpark of the pitch. Jeff had often wondered how somebody could be that tonedeaf, but Cedric was so atonal that it grated less than if he'd been flat or sharp.
"Hey-ya, tchi mino-inaudiziwinaungaen."
"Hey-ya, tchi mino-inaudiziwinaungaen."
"Nanaukinumowidauh, wee-hah, wee-hah, matchi-dae aewin, ha!"
"Nanaukinumowidauh, wee-hah, wee-hah, matchi-dae aewin, ha!"
"Hey-ya, hey-ya, zhaugootchitumowidauh, ha, matchi-dodumowin."
"Hey-ya, hey-ya, zhaugootchitumowidauh, ha, matchi-dodumowin."
(Fill our spirits with good, upright then may be our lives. Defend our hearts against evil, against evil prevail.)
Purified and hallowed, the lodge was almost ready, but the last part wasn't something Jeff could do, nor Cedric either. Only a woman's hand could build the altar. There had been plenty of women orbiting Cedric in the last week, Jeff just wasn't sure yet which one to ask, which one saw him as ogwisisan, beloved, or at least as awema, a brother. It was that hand who should build the altar.
Characters: Cedric Diggory, [Jeff Whitecalf], Hermione Granger, Ernie MacMillan, Ron Weasley
Location: Cedric's cottage
Status: semi-private (they're outside, talking and singing and can be heard)
Summary: Jeff is building. A sweatlodge.
Status: Complete
It took Jeff several days to find enough willow.
Now that Cedric was healing, he felt able to leave his friend for a few hours at a time, and had taken to prowling the English countryside, so domesticated and tame. But he'd found a copse of willow by the pond on Cedric's land so he'd prayed to the trees and taken what he needed, carrying it back to the area outside Cedric's cabin. He'd considered making this on Cedric's own family land, but here was where his friend was living for now, so here it would be. He could always move it later.
Thus with drum and rattlebone and knife, tobacco and song, Jeff set about constructing a Madodoswan, a sweat lodge. First he smudged the land itself with tobacco and sage, the purifiers, using a cedar branch to waft the smoke. "Saemauh beendae, aeshkaugae. Saemauh beeninaendumishkaugae. Saemauh bizaundae, aeshkaugae." (Tobacco cleanses the mind and heart and calms the soul.) Then he dug a pit for the stones. Cedric came outside while he was working, and seeing what he was up to, beat an impromptu heartbeat rhythm on the side of the wooden rail leading up to the sliding glass door. He might not be a singer, but he could hold a beat well enough. It made the work go easier, even if Jeff wasn't about to let him pick up a shovel.
When the pit was ready, Jeff cut and bent the willow saplings over it, lashing them together until they made a circular building about 6 feet by 6 with four doorways for the four directions. The main path led in from the east. The skeleton ready, he turned his attention to building the firepit where the rocks would be heated before taking them into the lodge itself. He'd found rocks in Stoatshead itself, granite from the rubble of destroyed buildings. He left these by the pit.
"Think you can manage a little response if I call?" Jeff asked Cedric, grinning.
"If you don't care how off pitch it is."
"The spirits hear the heart, not the voice," Jeff replied, which he'd told Cedric numerous times before. Setting aside the shovel, he went into the house to fetch his hand drum, a mitigwakik daywaygun or water drum. No mediwinini, no meda priest, traveled without it just as a British wizard wouldn't dream of leaving home without his wand.
They sat down under the lodge skeleton and Jeff set up a simple heartbeat rhythm like a round dance. "Mino-dae, wee-hah, wee-hah, aeshowishinaung ..."
"Mino-dae, wee-hah, wee-hah, aeshowishinaung," Cedric sang back, managing (more or less) to come within the ballpark of the pitch. Jeff had often wondered how somebody could be that tonedeaf, but Cedric was so atonal that it grated less than if he'd been flat or sharp.
"Hey-ya, tchi mino-inaudiziwinaungaen."
"Hey-ya, tchi mino-inaudiziwinaungaen."
"Nanaukinumowidauh, wee-hah, wee-hah, matchi-dae aewin, ha!"
"Nanaukinumowidauh, wee-hah, wee-hah, matchi-dae aewin, ha!"
"Hey-ya, hey-ya, zhaugootchitumowidauh, ha, matchi-dodumowin."
"Hey-ya, hey-ya, zhaugootchitumowidauh, ha, matchi-dodumowin."
(Fill our spirits with good, upright then may be our lives. Defend our hearts against evil, against evil prevail.)
Purified and hallowed, the lodge was almost ready, but the last part wasn't something Jeff could do, nor Cedric either. Only a woman's hand could build the altar. There had been plenty of women orbiting Cedric in the last week, Jeff just wasn't sure yet which one to ask, which one saw him as ogwisisan, beloved, or at least as awema, a brother. It was that hand who should build the altar.