APH: Regina below
Title: Regina below
Author: grosse_averse
Rating: PG-13 for thematic stuff?
Characters: Canada
Summary: About the buffalo hunts. Canada is caught between.
Notes: I wanted to try this out.
And Canada thinks, there is nothing more beautiful than the buffalo that roam across him, and thank you for giving us - me, my people, their children - life, so we may hunt you another day. For now we are satisfied and we leave you as we ask you to leave us
And Canada thinks, there is nothing more beautiful than their bones, gleaming white on white high above his head, jaws and rounded skulls and devil horns and the smooth rounded edges bleached dry in the prairie sunlight.
And Canada sometimes wonders if he can remember the time when they were all over, these buffalo, dotting his plains with dark masses against the sunlight. He can barely remember the time when the blood of a buffalo signaled joyful reverence, the promise of survival.
And Canada does not want to think of himself, on horseback and stung alive with the freedom of the plains and bringing down these buffalo like paper targets at a shooting range. The rifle leaps back to meet his shoulder, hard, as a beast goes down on its knees, lowing with pain, but Canada (Matthew?) does not bruise.
So, too, does he not want to remember a time before that, laying out the corpse with his tribesmen and thanking his ancestors for this great gift; then cleaving and separating and flaying and following the curve of muscles with his knife. Every part of the buffalo has a purpose to them - every part can be put to use. The hide will serve for warmth; meat that is not eaten now will be dried and preserved for later; the grizzle, the sinews, the bones, the grease, the hooves, the parts these new people of Canada scorn and pick away with disdainful fingers, will all be put to use as well. Nothing goes to waste, here.
And Canada stares at his tower of bones and wonders what he could use them for, now. Maybe he will build a house, he decides with a tinge of maddening hysteria (as something quiet and cool and as old as his own bones inside him bellows, "This is not the way!"), stack femurs on femurs, build a door of skulls to frighten off wendigos,
spread jaws wide til they crack marrow against the chimney; hang sinews on his walls like one hangs a portrait.
Then Canada is seized and carried away by the thrill of plenty - of progress and betterment and the immigrants coming to his shores, and this is sweeter than anything he has ever tasted. They no longer need to hand him a gun; now Canada takes it without hesitation.
For a moment, everything seems golden, and everything is possible for him, for them, the land, the people.
Nothing gold can stay
Canada only bruises when they are gone - the dreams of buffalo bone houses linger far longer than their flesh ever could.
--
Notes:
-Buffalo hunting in the United States and Canada was adopted from the native people by hunters. In the 19th century the buffalo were hunted almost to extinction.
-the Native Americans used almost every part of the buffalo, and I mean every part. Sinews were used for bows, grease was used for fire, and sometimes even the hooves were boiled down for glue. The bison were sought by American hunters for the pelts; the rest of the body was left to rot, and once only their bones were left they would be disposed of.
-wendigos are fabled giants from the Algonquian people, who feed on human flesh.
-the title is from a line in the poem "Trans Canada" by F.R. Scott - "We sprang upwards on a wider prairie/And dropped Regina below like a pile of bones" - Scott is referring here to the piles of bones left from bison hunting.
Author: grosse_averse
Rating: PG-13 for thematic stuff?
Characters: Canada
Summary: About the buffalo hunts. Canada is caught between.
Notes: I wanted to try this out.
And Canada thinks, there is nothing more beautiful than the buffalo that roam across him, and thank you for giving us - me, my people, their children - life, so we may hunt you another day. For now we are satisfied and we leave you as we ask you to leave us
And Canada thinks, there is nothing more beautiful than their bones, gleaming white on white high above his head, jaws and rounded skulls and devil horns and the smooth rounded edges bleached dry in the prairie sunlight.
And Canada sometimes wonders if he can remember the time when they were all over, these buffalo, dotting his plains with dark masses against the sunlight. He can barely remember the time when the blood of a buffalo signaled joyful reverence, the promise of survival.
And Canada does not want to think of himself, on horseback and stung alive with the freedom of the plains and bringing down these buffalo like paper targets at a shooting range. The rifle leaps back to meet his shoulder, hard, as a beast goes down on its knees, lowing with pain, but Canada (Matthew?) does not bruise.
So, too, does he not want to remember a time before that, laying out the corpse with his tribesmen and thanking his ancestors for this great gift; then cleaving and separating and flaying and following the curve of muscles with his knife. Every part of the buffalo has a purpose to them - every part can be put to use. The hide will serve for warmth; meat that is not eaten now will be dried and preserved for later; the grizzle, the sinews, the bones, the grease, the hooves, the parts these new people of Canada scorn and pick away with disdainful fingers, will all be put to use as well. Nothing goes to waste, here.
And Canada stares at his tower of bones and wonders what he could use them for, now. Maybe he will build a house, he decides with a tinge of maddening hysteria (as something quiet and cool and as old as his own bones inside him bellows, "This is not the way!"), stack femurs on femurs, build a door of skulls to frighten off wendigos,
spread jaws wide til they crack marrow against the chimney; hang sinews on his walls like one hangs a portrait.
Then Canada is seized and carried away by the thrill of plenty - of progress and betterment and the immigrants coming to his shores, and this is sweeter than anything he has ever tasted. They no longer need to hand him a gun; now Canada takes it without hesitation.
For a moment, everything seems golden, and everything is possible for him, for them, the land, the people.
Nothing gold can stay
Canada only bruises when they are gone - the dreams of buffalo bone houses linger far longer than their flesh ever could.
--
Notes:
-Buffalo hunting in the United States and Canada was adopted from the native people by hunters. In the 19th century the buffalo were hunted almost to extinction.
-the Native Americans used almost every part of the buffalo, and I mean every part. Sinews were used for bows, grease was used for fire, and sometimes even the hooves were boiled down for glue. The bison were sought by American hunters for the pelts; the rest of the body was left to rot, and once only their bones were left they would be disposed of.
-wendigos are fabled giants from the Algonquian people, who feed on human flesh.
-the title is from a line in the poem "Trans Canada" by F.R. Scott - "We sprang upwards on a wider prairie/And dropped Regina below like a pile of bones" - Scott is referring here to the piles of bones left from bison hunting.