Field Trip

By Simahoyo

( Maura gets invited along on a field trip to some Adena archeology sites with Sarah and Granny Harjo. How well does she mix with this odd pair of Native American women?)

Maura was feeling left out. Jane was out of town on a case. Angela was in Atlantic City, and her parents had gone to New Zealand to look at filming locations. Yoshima was hardly a close enough friend to ask over. She berated herself for not getting to know her co-workers better.

As if in answer to her needs, her phone rang. When she answered she was quite surprised to hear the voice of Sarah Harjo's grandmother.

"Sarah and I are goin' out to Brookfield to look at something real old they found out there, and I just wanted to ask if you want to come on along."

"Considering who I'm speaking with, what is your definition of, 'old'?"

"I'd say about 3,000 years or so."

"I would be delighted. When do you plan to leave?"

"We think maybe this Saturday, if you can go."

"That sounds good. Where would you like to meet?"

"If you don' mind, we kin pick you up."

"What time?"

"We should git on the road about 10 in the mornin'. How do we git thar?"

Maura gave directions, and smiled at the invitation. She had no idea what this might be like, but was fairly certain she would learn more about Sarah and her grandmother. She felt far more cheerful as she googled the area they would be going to.

Granny Harjo and Sarah cooked that night, making fry bread, peach jam, BBQ ribs, greens, corn bread, fried chicken and stewed summer squash with green tomatoes. They got up early to put the hot foods , covered in aluminum foil into an insulated container wrapped in news paper. The cold items went into a cooler with ice. Nobody starved in their presence.

They stuffed the food into the trunk of their old station wagon, along with blankets and some tarps. Weather changed, and they knew it, having come originally from Oklahoma. Sarah took a google map with her along with directions to Maura's house, while Granny relaxed in the roomy passenger's seat. Their books were already under the seat.

It was one of those spring days that could turn from cool and breezy to cold and wet in seconds. The station wagon pulled into Maura's drive and waited. No one came up to the door, so she popped her head out, while Sarah and her Granny waved at her. She shrugged, figuring it was some sort of rural manners, and came out to join them. Sarah pushed the back door open for her.

"Hi. Good to see you. You got enough room back thar?"

"I'm fine. Thank you."

"Good. Where we're goin' is about an hour away, even as slow as Sarah drives."

"Granny, if you had seen some of the accident victims we have, you'd slow down too."

"Is that right?"

"Yes, it is. Jane is always complaining when I ask her to slow down."

"Well, I spose it's because you got so many other cars on the road here. You ever been to Oklahoma?"

"No. I haven't."

"We just got miles and miles of miles and miles."

Maura laughed, imaging roads that empty. "Where are were going?"

"They have what they call an Adena site up there. Actually, it seems to me it's some sorta pre-Toltec town. It don't fit all the thangs with Tula or some variation in thar name."

Maura sat up straighter. Accent aside, Granny sounded extremely well educated in archeology.

"So you believe the Toltecs made it how far north?"

"Wisconsin, I would say. The site fits their pattern. But we have access to records some archeologists don't have.", said Sarah.

"Are you talking about the Wallum Olum?", asked Maura.

Granny and Sarah both gave a little jump. Granny elbowed Sarah.

"Din't I tell ya."

"What?"

Sarah's voice was calm, with an undercurrent of excitement.

"Granny and I had a little bet. She said because you have deep set eyes, and high cheekbones.."

"And them eye folds like we got."

"Yes, I know, Granny. Maura, do you have shovel shaped incisors?"

"Only one."

"See, I tol' you."

"Do you have Native American Ancestors?"

"I think nearly every French Canadian has. Why do you ask?"

"Cause we think you're gonna really love this."

Granny slid a heavy book out from under Sarah's seat and handed it to Mara.

"Rightcher is our Migration story. After you read about ten pages of insults, you get to the real story. Them Anthropologists don't know their landmarks, so they missed that we start out in Anasazi country. We cross from there over the Little Colorado River, inta Texas, and cross the Mississipi, probably in canoes or on rafts, then we meet up with the White Towns, that's a political division, and the Yuchees, and become one people."

Maura followed her finger on the map, which traced a different route than shown in the printed version. She nodded, interested in this different version.

"Now our word for town is Tula. The capitol of the Toltec Empire in Mexico was Tula. So we have all these variations of that word in our town names, like Tulsa, Tahola, Tallasee..you need to know the language to see the pattern. And here..."

She paged to a different part of the book with a drawing of an Indian town.

"See how they have two pyramids, one at each end of the town."

"Yes. There appears to be an important building on each pyramid."

"Yes. One's the Temple, the other's the Micco's house. He's the head man."

"And this is the basic configuration of all the places named a variation of Tula?"

"I told you she'd get it fast, Granny."

"You're right. It's why she's a teacher."

"A teacher?"

"It's a bigger deal than you know. It's a position of honor. Higher than Chief

Medical Examiner.", said Sarah.

"Oh, well then thank you."

"So why we think these Adena folks are pre-Toltec, is that their places are configured different than ours. And their languages have a real different base. They gotta be thar before the Lenape and they was after us, so, them Algonquins gotta be real early. "

"And you base this on how the towns were constructed and the languages?"

"Yes." Granny put the migration book back under the seat and pulled a small notebook and pen out of her voluminous purse. She drew a series of pictographs. "See, these here are from the Wallum Olum. And these here are Micmac, from Quebec. See how they seem to be based on a common use of pictographs, but not the same language or symbols?"

"That's very interesting. What did your writing look like?"

"Now you'll never get her to stop. " laughed Sarah.

"When you know how to read morn two sentences, you kin mock me." Then she drew a man facing to the left as a river of snakes flowed past him. "That's someone seein' the future. The other way, he's seeing the past. Snakes represent time."

"So the pictures are concepts?"

"Yes. So, if someone spoke something as different from Muskogee as Miccasukee, they could still read everything.. If they did it by the sound, they would never have been able to send messages along such long trade routes.", added Sarah.

"Trade routes. Can you give me an example?"

"Down the St Lawrence, through the Great Lakes, goin' around the Niagra Falls, of course, down the Mississippi, and all over the Gulf of Mexico, then back up the Atlantic. That was one."

"I'm impressed. I hadn't thought of water routes."

"That's why the canoe was king. Kin you picture takin' off on one of them journeys to trade, oh, copper and quahog shells or furs for obsidian and bird feathers, maybe shark's teeth?"

"How else did they communicate?"

"Sign language. It ain't just in the movies."

"That makes sense."

"Look, we made it to Brookfield.', Sarah nodded at the sign.

They spotted the sign for the Adena site a few yards after, and followed the signs to an open field, bordered by a brick building and a parking lot. The building was a museum. They went into the museum first, looking around casually at signs and charts. When they came to a case with the skulls in it, Maura and Sarah came to a standstill.

Sarah looked at Maura, who gave her a questioning glance.

"Female, here on the left. Native American. It looks healthy, considering. No signs of malnutrition. I wish I could see the dentation." The last sounded like a lament.

"Good, now the center.", Maura urged.

"Male, robust, also Native American." Sarah stood on her toes, glancing at the suture joints on the top. "Fairly young, but old enough the suture joints are closed."

"And the final one..."

"A child, who may have died from a blow to the head. The spider webbing on the left side appears to be from a hard, rounded object, like a stone..."

"Or a tomahawk, a traditional one, not the bladed kind.", added Granny.

Someone cleared his throat, and they turned to see a heavy limbed White man standing behind them.

"You seem to know quite a bit about these skulls."

"I'm chief medical examiner for the Boston police, Dr. Maura Isles. This is my colleague, Sarah Harjo, and her grandmother, Mary Harjo, who studies archeology."

"I'm Dr. Ourada, museum anthropologist/curator. I think you might enjoy a visit to our back room."

Eyes wide, they followed him.

End chapter one.