We knew we were in trouble – there were just four of us and twelve of them had gathered. They were Makah – they had the bodies of humans but the face and head of a cow. The had the minds of humans, except sometimes they were very irrational and unable to reason, so they would do bizarre and unpredictable things.
We had had a conflict with these Makah over property, so now they were assembling for battle. They knew no other way to resolve conflict.
It was time for the battle. We all gathered in a large tent, the four of us surrounded by dozens of them. The battle followed traditional Makah rules – it was to begin with speeches made by the leaders of each side, this informal address should be full of witty remarks, back-handed compliments, boasting, and story telling of brave warriors and battles from the past. As jovial as the beginning of the battle was, these stories could sometimes become “blood stories”, and the Makah would engage in bizarre savagery.
We started with jesting, which escalated to loud boasting, which became passionate tales of legendary heroes. The Makah leader got so carried away, he wanted to tell a story that would demonstrate his strength and frighten us with brutal reality – a blood story. He told the story of “The Princess.” The forbidden Makah legend was the story of a kidnapped princess and the vengeance of the king. As he described how the king killed one of his enemies, he approached one of his own men and killed him. Then he killed another, and another, and another of his own men. On and on through the story, until he had killed fifteen men and the story ended. His men, who had been numbly hypnotized by the poetic rhythem of the story, snapped out of their trance in an excited frenzy. Now for our story. We chose another deadly blood story – “cigar`ate”
Nate pulled a beat-up metal tube from his pocket, held it to the sky, and shouted “CIGAR`ATE!” And all of the Makah raised a fist and echoed, “CIGAR`ATE!”
Inside the tube, Nate had three cigars. The Makah loved tobacco, but it was very rare and extremely valuable in this country.
Nate lit the cigar and told the story of a Makah who had received a precious tobacco ‘cigar`ate’, but had it stolen. As he told the story, he would walk up to a Makah and give him a puff on the cigar and let him participate in the story.
“… and there was the man who had stolen his cigar`ate, standing across the room, calmly smoking. He approached the man and asked for it back, and the man said…..NO,” and as he said NO, Nate drew his pistol and shot the Makah, “ so he slew him.”
Then Nate would pass the cigar to me and I would continue, but we would sometimes say YES, and take the cigar back without killing the Makah. For them, it was like playing a deadly roulette game, if you win, you get to smoke a tobacco cigar for free, but if you lose, you die. The Makah were so interested in the chance to smoke the cigar, they did not even notice how their numbers dwindled until none were left. And so we won the battle with the Makah with a cigar`ate.
