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“Both Night Horse and I are proud to give you another grandchild,” Dancing Butterfly said. She tossed her head back and forth and gritted her teeth when another pain slammed through her.
“There is one more thing I can do for you,” Pure Heart said. She reached over and grabbed a small jug. She held it to Dancing Butterfly’s lips with one hand as she slowly lifted her head with the other. “Drink it slowly. This will hasten the birth.”
Dancing Butterfly swallowed the liquid in small sips. When she was finished, Pure Heart set the empty jug aside and moved to Dancing Butterfly’s side. She held her tightly above her swollen abdomen. “Push,” she said, her eyes watching as Mary Beth moved closer to Dancing Butterfly’s outspread legs. “Mary Beth, reach inside her. Help the child. Help the child now.”
Mary Beth blanched at the thought, but nodded weakly. When Dancing Butterfly screamed and gave another hard push, Mary Beth reached slightly inside her just as the head of the baby slid down into her hands.
Soon the child was in Mary Beth’s arms, its first cries filling the small space of the hut.
Pure Heart came to her, her eyes shining with happy tears and waited for the afterbirth to slide free, which it did in a matter of seconds.
Pure Heart placed it in a wooden basin, then gazed at length at the child.
“It is a wiyanna, a girl child,” Pure Heart said, sighing as she slowly took the baby from Mary Beth and cradled it in her own arms.
“My granddaughter,” Pure Heart said as Mary Beth measured off three fingers on the wet unbilical cord and sliced it with a knife, cutting the navel cord.
Since the child was a girl, Mary Beth rolled the cord up in a piece of cloth and put it into a beaded sack that would be fastened to her cradleboard.
When the child was old enough to wear an elktooth dress, this bag would be tied to its back.
Mary Beth knew of the other procedures which followed childbirth. Two days from now, Dancing Butterfly would heat a steel awl and pierce her child’s earlobes with it. She would then stick a greased stick through the perforations. When the wounds healed, tiny earrings would be inserted.
Four days after the child’s birth, Dancing Butterfly would cover the baby’s face with a sacred red paint and lift her four times while the village shaman, Many Clouds, held smoking bear root to the child’s wincing eyes. Then he would name her.
Now that Mary Beth had completed the first chores, she was able to stop and take a longer look at the tiny thing in Pure Heart’s arms. Dancing Butterfly leaned up on an elbow, finally free of pain, and her eyes were filled with love as she gazed at her newborn.
Ah, the child, Mary Beth marveled to herself. She was so pure and so beautiful, it made tears come to her eyes, for she had always wanted a daughter so that David would have a sister.
Now Mary Beth didn’t have a son or a daughter, but she could, she would enjoy her best friend’s child to the fullest. She was anxious to see the newborn placed in the cradleboard that Mary Beth had made for her. She had lined it with beautiful white rabbit fur and decorated it with pretty beads for the baby to look at and play with.
She looked forward to helping feed the baby when she was old enough to be fed stew of boiled corn and crushed berries.
“She is so tiny,” Mary Beth said, reaching over to take one of her hands and marveling over how little the fingers were.
Her gaze shifted to the feet. She smiled at the tiny, curled-up toes.
Then she moved her eyes slowly over the naked baby, seeing her beautiful smooth copper skin, the darkness of her eyes as she peered up at her grandmother for the first time, and the shock of black hair on her head, almost enough already to braid!
When the baby smiled that first time, it was pure heaven for all who witnessed it.
“We must cleanse her and then give her to her mother for feeding,” Pure Heart said, slipping the child into Mary Beth’s arms. She reached for a wooden basin of water that had been prepa
red what seemed to Mary Beth hours and hours ago. “Mary Beth, you hold her. I will wash her.”
Mary Beth didn’t take her eyes off the child as she was washed. She smiled as Pure Heart wrapped the clean child in a soft doeskin blanket and placed her in her mother’s waiting arms.
Mary Beth almost turned away as the child was placed at her mother’s breast for the first time. It was almost too much for Mary Beth as she recalled the first time her David had suckled from her own breast. At this moment, her longing for her son was twofold.
But she knew that she must get hold of herself. She wanted to be happy for Dancing Butterfly and Night Horse, not envious!
She watched as Pure Heart took a bowl to Dancing Butterfly. While the child suckled, Pure Heart helped Dancing Butterfly eat what was required of her after having just given birth to her child . . . a piece of broiled buffalo hump which had been dipped in fat. Dancing Butterfly would eat it just once. Then she would be made to abstain from any cooked meat for several days.
“And now it is time to get the proud ahte, the father,” Mary Beth said, crawling toward the small entranceway. The birthing hut was not tall enough for anyone to walk within it.
She hurried outside, where both Brave Wolf and Night Horse stood, their eyes anxious.
“I heard my baby’s first cry,” Night Horse said, glancing from the entranceway to Mary Beth. “Tell me. Is it a micinksi, a son? Or a wiyanna, a daughter?”
