“But what of our Anigusa, Anistata or Anita cousins?” Timpoochee shouted as several more behind him grumbled.
“They know the medicine but they are being devoured by Yonega. Their land is becoming his.”
“Just as some of the knowledge of the medicine contains poison if not treating the proper disease so does only some knowledge of the white man contain a fatal poison - loss of a people’s pride and history. Perhaps our cousins are learning only some knowledge. If one refuses to use the Medicine it cannot help.”
Yufala started out the door, stopped, returned.
“Be careful as leaders of our next generation you do not fall victim to the same half-knowledge of the Medicine,” he said. “Our people are few compared to the other great nations. To survive the threat of Yonega we must know our own Medicine - all of it - and not fall victim to others’ ways.”
He turned and disappeared through the door into the bright sunshine of the afternoon.
“Yonega has the blood of a buzzard,” cried Cornstalk from the back of the room. “He soars overhead until he can dip down to earth and take from us whatever he can carry away.”
All eyes shifted to the elder son of the chief, teacher.
“Our own leaders, my own father, tell us to use our ways to fight Yonega. But that does not work for our cousins in the low lands. It will not work for the people of Shaconage.
“When I am leader we will fight Yonega with our weapons! Keep him from our land!