The Storytellers Goddess Part 14

"We have enough things," they said. But they allowed Bochica to stay in the village with his clock and to make a home there. Every time the people called to their G.o.ddess Huitaca, Bochica shook his head.

"Huitaca with Her bangles and bananas," he muttered.

"What good is all this music when there is work to do?"

Time pa.s.sed, and Bochica continued to tell the people how fine it would be to sell and buy. For a long time, the people didn't listen to Bochica.

"With Huitaca, we have all we need," they told him.

"We're afraid your clock would make us forget that."

After a while, though, the people began to listen. They listened so much, in fact, that they did begin to forget Huitaca. They stopped putting oils and perfumes on their skins, and they didn't remember that every day was someone's birthday.

On the day the people decided to make Bochica their leader, Huitaca let out a cry.

"Whoooooo?" She called out, and it sounded like a moan. When no one heard Her, She turned Herself into an Owl and flew away.

No one noticed, except one little girl.

"Mama, I saw Huitaca turn Herself into an Owl and fly into Bochica's egg," said the little girl to her mother.

"Shhhhh, child," said her mother.

"Besides, that's a clock, not an egg."

"Bochica will make a fine leader," the people told each other.

"He's tall and strong, and his clock will help us make enough things to sell and buy."

The people didn't know how the clock would help make things for them, but they soon found out. The clock told Bochica what time it was, and Bochica told the people when to work and when to stop and when to eat and when to sleep. Bochica walked all day among the people with his clock.

"That wall is taking too long," said Bochica.

"Hurry up."

"But, Bochica, we're painting beautiful pictures on it," said the people.

"While you're wasting time on pictures," he said, "you could be making things to sell in the next village. Time to move on!"

Bochica thought that if every day is a birthday, that just means all the days are alike.

"No need to have a party on an ordinary day, now, is there?" he said.

"Too much work to do." And he strode by, telling people not to dawdle, to get busy, and to wake up.

Bochica never liked it either if someone made something he didn't know the name of.

"We're making things to sell," he'd say.

"Who's going to buy that thing, if they don't even know what it's called?"

Many years went by. For a long time people remembered when they had laughed and danced and made music. Sometimes they even tried to call Huitaca, just like in the old days. But She never came, and Bochica got angry if he heard them calling Her or trying to make music. So after a while the only one who thought a lot about Huitaca was the little girl who'd seen Her change into an Owl. That little girl grew up and told her daughter the story. That daughter grew up and told her little girl the story.

By this time, too, Bochica was old. He looked pinched in the face and very thin. Late one hot afternoon, even Bochica got tired.

"I'll sit down under this tree for just a minute," he said to himself.

He carefully set his clock beside him and then fell asleep. Bochica began to snore.

A little girl picking berries nearby looked up when she heard Bochica snoring. She saw his clock beside him.

Now this was the very same little girl whose mother and grandmother had told her the story of Huitaca the Owl flying into the clock. So she wasn't at all surprised to find, when she crept very close, that the clock looked just like an egg. She touched it with one finger. The egg clock was warm and pretty. The little girl picked up the egg in both hands.

Certainly the little girl meant to take that clock to her mother, to show her how very much like an egg it looked. But in a second, the little girl had dropped that egg clock, and with a whirring of wings and a great "Whooooooooo!" Huitaca Herself flew out of the cracked pieces on the ground.

"Whoooooooo! Whooooooo!" sounded Huitaca.

People were so busy they didn't notice at first. But the little girl began to run.

"Huitaca! That's Who!" she yelled.

"Huitaca!"

"Whoooooooo, whooooooo," said Huitaca as She circled above the village.

People began to look up from their work. Their spines began to tingle.

"Huitaca!" called the little girl.

"Huitaca! It's Your birthday!" Then, just like in the old story her mother had told her, the girl called, "Huitaca! Come with bananas and bangles on Your braids! Huitaca! Come dance with us!"

People stopped working. They looked at their hands and stretched their necks. They arched their backs and began to smile. People began to move. A man broke off a reed and began to blow it. Another turned over a pot and began to beat it. The seeds in gourds began to shake, shake, shake, and a ribbon of color and song began to form under the people's patting feet.

Bochica woke up.

"My clock!" he cried out. He gathered the broken pieces to his chest.

"Back to work!" he yelled. But no one heard in the swirl of music.

A chain of dancers pounded by, and the women scooped up the numbers from the clock to decorate their hair. The stars on the scarf of the sky began to sugar the night. With a great napping of wings, Huitaca took Woman form again, and Her braids stood straight out as She whirled fast as fire at the center of Her people.

After that night, the people of the village never again forgot Huitaca.

They did not forget Bochica, either, with his selling and buying. But once again, they took the time they needed to reflect the beauty of their G.o.ddess in the things they made. No more work without making music. No more eating and sleeping only when it was time to eat and sleep. They ate when they were hungry and rested when they were tired.

The people began to live again as if every day were someone's birthday, which, of course, it was. The people began to live again with feeling under their skins.

Athena (uh-THE EN-uh) Mother of Invention (Greece) Introduction As Athena Parthenia, She Who Comes from Herself, the Holy Virgin of Athens metamorphosed Her form and name in the myths of an array of cultures.

Like Lamia (see story), She rose up in the land the Greeks called Libya, what we know today as all of North Africa, except for Egypt.

Called Neith, Anath, and Athenna, She was the Triple G.o.ddess whose tremendous powers came to hold a special fascination for even patriarchal storytellers. Rather than obliterate Her name, these tellers instead stripped from Her the a.s.sociations of Moon, Snake, and Owl that encapsulated Her Woman mysteries. They invented the tale of Her birth from the male G.o.d Zeus's head, and in dramas of war and strategy they dressed Her in helmet and sword and placed in Her mouth words that scorned women.