Ancestor Approved Read online

  Aiden’s heart started to thump. He checked his iPod for the time. “That’s right after the Grand Entry!”

  “Yeah, but the Grand Entry takes a long time. It starts at noon. You won’t be so worried. Give it time,” she said.

  “Plus going first, it’s like ripping off a bandage!” his foster father said.

  “You’re telling me two different things!” Aiden said.

  “Aiden,” she said. “Look, once it’s over, you can just relax.”

  “I’m not relaxed.”

  “I know you’re not, but—”

  “Vince will be in the Grand Entry, so you can watch for him from the stands,” his foster father added. “That’ll help pass the time. Oh, wait . . .”

  “Stop trying to make me feel better. You guys suck at it.”

  “I thought you wanted to come,” his foster mother said.

  “I did. I do. It’s just . . .” Aiden took a deep breath. He’d seen videos of Grand Entries, too. They were long, and looked cool. There was a drum group playing songs, flags at the front, and so many dancers after that. So many dancers in so many different types of regalia. Finding Vince among the dancers in all those colorful outfits would be like playing Where’s Waldo? So maybe his foster father was right. Just watching for Vince in the stands, trying to spot him, might be fun, and a good distraction. And his foster father wasn’t always the best judge of what was fun. In the car, he’d wanted to play I Spy with Aiden. That was early on in the trip. There was so much of the same thing on the prairies, and no colors, and that would have been super boring. This would be at least more fun than that.

  The vendor floor felt like an event all its own. Aiden had been to career fairs before, with big rooms filled with lots of tables arranged in what felt like a maze. This room was like that. There were gray tables, side by side, aligned in row after row, and as he and his foster parents walked along the side of the vendor floor, the rows looked like they went on forever. With all the tables and all the vendors selling their merchandise at those tables, there were so many different things to look at.

  There were tables with bracelets and necklaces and dream catchers. There were tables with clothes, like sweaters and shirts and vests and jackets. There was a dog modeling a shirt that read Ancestor Approved. There were pendants and blankets and staffs and hats and masks, and it all made Aiden feel dizzy. What he noticed most of all were the beads on almost every table, and he thought, as they walked by table after table, that there were probably as many beads in the room as there were stars in the sky.

  There was one table, near the end of their long, zigzag trip through the vendor floor on the way to the gymnasium, that Aiden stopped at. Before then he’d just window-shopped like you do at the mall, and slowed down once because he came across a big group in the aisle: Elders walking with a young woman, a middle-aged guy, and a kid. The table he stopped at was full of regalia; the same sort of outfits he’d seen on YouTube and, in particular, for the dance that he was learning to do. The dance Vince did. The Grass Dance.

  The regalia for Grass Dancers was different, because it didn’t have feathers. Instead, the outfits were bright and colorful, with fringes made of yarn or ribbons. Aiden looked over all the outfits on display at the table until he found one that he thought was perfect. One that he might even dance in, no matter who was watching him, no matter how shy he felt. He picked it up and turned it around in his hands, admiring the yellows and blues and greens and reds. His foster parents had given him money to buy something on the vendor floor, and this was the only thing that he wanted.

  “Can I get this?” he asked.

  “Oh . . .” His foster mother sighed and shook her head.

  “Do you know how expensive these are?” his foster father asked him, what felt like rhetorically.

  Aiden really didn’t know. He hadn’t priced out the regalia on the internet, just looked at the dances and the outfits, and he hadn’t looked at pricing here either.

  “We gave you enough for maybe one of those dream catchers, Aiden. We just don’t have money for that.”

  “What am I supposed to dance in, these sweats?” Aiden asked.

  “I’m sure we can figure something out,” his foster mother said.

  “Like what?”

  “You just never know,” was all his foster father said.

  Aiden looked at the price then, and that, too, made him feel nauseated. They were right, but he was still furious. All that practicing and nothing to wear. He put the regalia back on the table and stormed off toward the gym.

  “I’m not dancing!” he shouted en route, with his foster parents trailing behind.

  As mad as he was, Aiden felt confident in this decision. He might not have even danced in the beautiful outfit he’d picked out. Now he wasn’t going to dance at all. Sitting in the stands suited him just fine.

  Aiden forgot how mad he was for a moment when he walked into the gym just before noon. The stands, which had been pulled out from the sides of the gym, were packed. It was like there was a big basketball game happening. He’d never considered powwows a spectator sport, but he guessed he’d watched tons of them on YouTube over the past month and not because anybody made him. Wouldn’t it be even better in person?

  “Do you want to sit?” his foster father asked.

  At his voice, Aiden remembered that he was mad. Begrudgingly, arms crossed, he followed his foster parents up the stands to one of the few spots left available.

  There were people from all cultural backgrounds in the stands. It wasn’t just an Indigenous event for an Indigenous crowd. Aiden people-watched, while everybody waited for the Grand Entry to begin. There was a hum of excitement in the crowd. There were even people selling stuff here, away from the vendor floor. He could see a few musicians hawking their CDs, and in a sectioned-off area right near Aiden, there was a girl about his age and a woman.

  The girl was selling raffle tickets, and it didn’t take long to see what they were raffling off: a beautiful turquoise belt buckle and a blue shawl with intricate yellow ribbon work. The belt buckle was all kinds of awesome. Aiden didn’t even have a belt for a buckle; he just wanted to put it on the shelf in his bedroom beside his Star Wars action figures. Before the girl and woman approached them, he’d decided to buy a ticket. He knew he could afford at least that.

  The girl and woman were a team. Mabel (Aiden heard the woman introduce herself) concentrated on his foster parents, gave them what she said was a mental health screening.

  The girl, who looked about twelve like Aiden, sat beside him.

  “Hey,” she said, “I’m Maggie.”

  “I’m Aiden,” he said.

  “Where are you from? Who’s your family?” she asked.

  “Uhhh . . . Winnipeg?” He pointed at his foster parents to indicate his family. “But my brother’s in the Grand Entry.”

  “No, I meant your home community. Like, where are you from, what tribe?”

  “Oh, Cree.” He felt flushed. He’d never told anybody at school that he was First Nations. “And my brother . . . my family . . . is from Norway House Cree Nation.”

  “Cool,” she said.

  “What about you?”

  “Cherokee,” she said. “Not the jeep.”

  “Funny.”

  “So, wanna buy a ticket?”

  “Yeah, for the buckle. It’s awesome.”

  Aiden bought a raffle ticket, and the kids waited while Mabel finished doing her screening with his foster parents. When they were done, Maggie and Mabel kept moving through the crowd.

  “See you around, Aiden,” Maggie said before leaving.

  “Yeah, see you.”

  Not long after Aiden had bought the raffle ticket, the Grand Entry started, and the crowd, which had been murmuring constantly like white noise, settled down. The drum pounded like a heartbeat, breaking the silence with three heavy thuds. Aiden could feel it resonate through the room, right through his feet and up across the rest of his body. Then, with a ste
ady beat and singing, the Grand Entry began.

  An announcer named Sheldon Sundown—over the rhythmic song that Aiden could feel in his chest—started telling the crowd who was coming in. But Aiden, rather than try to listen to Sheldon over the beat of the drum and the power of the singers, just watched.

  The eagle staff came in first, and after that, a series of flags, followed by dignitaries and Elders. Everybody’s feet were shuffling to the song, and even the oldest Elders showed a well-timed movement. The younger dancers were really moving, dancing like they were already involved in the competitions.

  When the Grass Dancers stepped onto the waxed hardwood floor, Aiden paid special attention to them, appreciating how intricate and colorful their outfits were and lamenting that he hadn’t gotten to buy regalia like theirs. The delicate beadwork that must’ve taken weeks, the ribbons that hung and swayed in the air as though caught in a breeze, and how even the headbands were amazing.

  In the middle of this line of dancers, Aiden caught eyes with Vince. Aiden waved. Vince waved back without breaking stride. They both smiled broadly at each other. Just dancing in the line, he looked better than Aiden had ever danced in the lessons he’d been taking when he’d felt brave enough to actually try, and not stand to the side. Vince looked powerful and beautiful and confident. How was Aiden going to look in his baggy, viciously ugly gray sweats, in the middle of the gym, with everybody staring at him?

  Before they could do much more than wave at each other, Vince had moved on, more dancers kept coming in with the Grand Entry, and Aiden felt alone. More than that, as time went on, he felt panicked. His pulse was racing, and he felt sweaty and shaky. He could hear his foster mother telling him that he was supposed to dance right after the Grand Entry. No way.

  “I’ve got to go to the bathroom, okay?” he said.

  “You don’t really have to go to the bathroom, do you?” his foster father asked.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “It’s okay to be nervous,” his foster mother said. “Really. I know this is difficult and weird.”

  “But we know how hard you’ve been working, and you’ll do great,” his foster father said.

  “I told you,” Aiden said while he walked away, “I’m not dancing.”

  He didn’t go to the bathroom at all. Instead, he found a good place to hide until after the intertribal dance took place. He’d miss his turn, but he wouldn’t embarrass himself. Some Cree kid who’d never really been or felt Cree, trying to act Cree in front of a million people. That was how Aiden felt, anyway.

  There was nobody else under the stands. Just some litter that had fallen through the cracks. Drink cups and chip bags and things like that. Aiden found a spot in the middle of the empty space, where he’d be out of sight but would still see some of the Grand Entry, and could feel the song through his body. He did like that feeling. It made him feel less panicked. Like the drums were working hard to keep his heartbeat steady.

  Aiden figured that he’d only have to wait until the intertribal dance started, until it was too late for him to join in. Then he’d return to the stands, say he got lost or something (the school was big; getting lost would be easy), and oh well, they could just watch for the rest of the time and have supper with Vince later.

  The Grand Entry gave way to a welcome address, and Aiden kept hiding. It was just after one p.m. and there wasn’t much to see now, so he turned around, sat on the floor, and buried his head and waited.

  “Tansi,” a voice said, not more than a few minutes after he’d made like an ostrich.

  Aiden felt a nudge on his shoulder. He looked up to find Vince standing over him, his regalia still on, a suit bag slung over his shoulder.

  “Oh, hey.” Aiden stood.

  They’d texted almost every day, had video-chatted too, but this was the first time he’d seen Vince face-to-face, up close.

  “That’s ‘hi’ in Cree,” Vince said. “Tansi.”

  “Yeah, I figured.”

  “How’s it going?” Vince gave Aiden a hug, patted him on the back. “It’s good to see you.”

  “You too,” Aiden said. “How’d you”—he looked around at the barren space underneath the stands—“find me?”

  “I went up to see you, and your foster parents said they saw you duck under here,” Vince explained.

  “Oh, they did?”

  “Stage fright?”

  “I don’t know,” Aiden said. “I guess.”

  “What else do you guess?”

  “It’s just . . . I thought when I came here maybe I’d feel more at home or something, but I feel just as different here as I do at school in Winnipeg. It’s like I don’t belong anywhere.”

  “What do you mean that you feel different? What’s wrong with that?”

  “I just want to feel like I belong.”

  “But Aiden, you do belong. And everybody’s different. It’s not on you to feel the same, it’s on others to accept you because you’re not,” Vince said. “It’s on you to be okay with being different.”

  “That’s super confusing,” Aiden said.

  “We’re all a community, that’s what I mean. And everybody’s here from all over, and they all come together to do this as a big family.”

  “I just wanted to see my real family.”

  “Me too,” Vince said. “But you’ll find out, if you keep coming to things like this, that your family’s even bigger than you think.”

  “What about them?”

  “Your foster parents?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They’re family, too, aren’t they? They hooked us up together, right? They’d be welcome in our circle.”

  Aiden felt the anger pressing up into his chest again. “Maybe. But they wouldn’t even get me an outfit to dance in. That’s mostly why I’m hiding.”

  “They didn’t get you an outfit”—Vince brought out the suit bag he’d been carrying over his shoulder—“because they knew I was going to give you this.”

  Vince handed Aiden the suit bag. Aiden just stared at it at first, like the gift was the bag.

  “Well, go ahead and open it.” Vince laughed.

  Aiden unzipped the bag to reveal a Grass Dance outfit. It was bright lime green, with blue, black, green, red, orange, and yellow ribbons connected to the arms and legs and chest. On the legs and arms and chest were designs that looked like flames. They were outlined in black and layered with colors: orange, then yellow, then red at the center of each design.

  “This is amazing!” Aiden said. “The flames are so cool.”

  “Look closer at them,” Vince said. “They look like flames, but they’re animals.”

  Aiden did look closer and saw that Vince was right. He could see an eagle on each leg, its wings rising upward and turning into flames. On the chest, the flames were squirrels, Aiden thought, the tails becoming flames, like the eagles’ wings.

  “Is this really for me?” Aiden asked.

  “I mean, it’s too small for me,” Vince said. “Yeah, of course it is, brother.”

  The drums, which had fallen silent since the Grand Entry had ended, started up again.

  “That’s us!” Vince said.

  Minutes later, Vince and Aiden were standing in the middle of the gym, Aiden’s feet pressed against the hardwood floor. In the middle of the dancers, in the middle of the huge crowd of onlookers, Aiden felt like everybody was watching him. He was nervous, but with the regalia on that Vince had gifted him, he was proud, too. The song was playing, and Vince was moving his feet, trying to encourage Aiden into movement.

  “Come on,” Vince said, “you can do it. This is where you should be, trust me.”

  Where he should be. He looked into the stands, at the crowd, and found his foster mother and father. Then he kept moving his gaze closer and closer, until he found himself scanning the gym floor carefully, just like when he’d stared out the window of the car. This would have been the best view.

  Vince was right. All the outfits were so different
, from one dancer to the next, and even their movements were different. Each person danced to the song in their own way, with their own passion, even though it was the same song. They were a big community, and each one of them in the community was their own person. They dipped and swayed and moved to the song, dancing with grace and power and pride.

  Maybe, after all, this was somewhere he could belong.

  Maybe it was somewhere he did belong.

  He looked at Vince, the brother he’d just met, and saw him moving more now, his legs stomping on the ground, then rising, his heels kicking back into the air, his body lunging and straightening, his arms keeping balance, extended out from his body. Aiden started to move his feet, then his knees, then his body.

  Aiden started to dance.

  Rez Dog Rules

  Rebecca Roanhorse

  While there were many things that Ozzie appreciated about being a Rez dog, there were exactly three that were the absolute best:

  1. No masters. It was a provable fact that Rez dogs, by definition, had no masters. In fact, one of the defining qualities of the Canis Liberatus Reservatus (as he and his kin were known in Latin) was a lack of human-imposed rules. Ozzie was his own dog, and the only laws he followed were those of nature, who told him to when to eat, when to sleep, and when to lift his leg on a convenient tree. Ozzie was as free as any living creature could be. Sure, it was lonely sometimes, especially on rainy nights when all the humans and their pets were warm and cozy inside and Ozzie was stuck outside, making do with whatever shelter he could find. And he sometimes wondered what his life would be like if he lived in one of those houses with four walls and a roof and warm cuddles from a human child. But overall, he was content, because he knew nothing was as warm and comforting as freedom. He was a canine majestic and untamed, and he preferred it that way.

  2. No leashes. It would logically follow that a dog who would abide no master would also not tolerate a leash. Ozzie was proud to say that he had never succumbed to the tyranny of wearing a leash, a harness, a gentle lead, or any other human-created restricting device. He firmly believed in unencumbered movement. Ozzie went where he wanted, when he wanted. Mostly on four feet, but it was not unheard of for him to catch a ride in the bed of an old pickup truck when he had to get across town in a hurry. He imagined himself roaming the mesas like his ancestor, the wolf, and he felt proud of his heritage.