Mother Earth, Father Sky

by Sue Harrison

Overview

A young woman comes of age in this epic saga. “Harrison expertly frames dramatic events with depictions of prehistoric life in the Aleutian Islands” (The New York Times Book Review).
 
It’s 7056 BC, a time before history. On the first day that Chagak’s womanhood is acknowledged within her Aleut tribe, she unexpectedly finds herself betrothed to Seal Stalker, the most promising young hunter in the village. A bright future lies ahead of Chagak—but in one violent moment, she loses her entire way of life. Left with her infant brother, Pup, and only a birdskin parka for warmth, Chagak sets out across the icy waters on a quest for survival and revenge.
 
Mother Earth, Father Sky is the first book of the Ivory Carver Trilogy, which also includes My Sister the Moon and Brother Wind.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781504075114
Publisher:	Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
Publication date:	03/15/2022
Series:	The Ivory Carver Trilogy , #1
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Sue Harrison grew up in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and graduated summa cum laude from Lake Superior State University with a bachelor of arts degree in English language and literature. At age twenty-seven, inspired by the forest that surrounded her home, and the outdoor survival skills she had learned from her father and her husband, Harrison began researching the people who understood best how to live in a harsh environment: the North American native peoples. She studied six Native American languages and completed extensive research on culture, geography, archaeology, and anthropology during the nine years she spent writing her first novel, Mother Earth, Father Sky. An international bestseller and selected by the American Library Association as one of the Best Books for Young Adults in 1991, Mother Earth, Father Sky is the first novel in Harrison’s critically acclaimed Ivory Carver Trilogy, which includes My Sister the Moon and Brother Wind. She is the author of the Storyteller Trilogy, also set in prehistoric North America. Her novels have been translated into thirteen languages and published in more than twenty countries. Harrison lives with her family in Michigan.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

Six days. The hunters had been gone six days, and during that time there had been a storm -- rain and a roaring that seemed to come from within the mountains, and waves that swept the beaches bare.

Six days. Too long, Chagak thought. Too long, yet she sat on the low mound of her father's earthen ulaq and waited, watching the sea. She smoothed her hands over the dark feathers of her suk. Her mother had given her the garment that morning to replace the hooded child's parka Chagak had outgrown. The gift was a sign that Chagak was now woman, but she knew it was more than that. It was also her mother's way of speaking to the spirits, a woman's small voice that said, "You see, my daughter wears a new suk. It is time to rejoice. Surely you will not send sorrow to this village."

So Chagak spread her arms in the wind, a silent request for the spirits to see her, to notice the beautiful suk, for her mother had made it carefully, using more than twenty birdskins, and the cormorant feathers still held the rich smell of the oil used to soften the skins.

"See me," Chagak wanted to shout to the spirits, to the great mountain Aka that watched over their village. "This girl is woman now. Surely, in her rejoicing you will bring our hunters back from the sea. Surely you will not let us become a village of women and children." But only men were allowed to call to the spirits. So Chagak stretched out her arms but held back the words that pressed full and tight between her tongue and the roof of her mouth.

A wind blew in from the sea, bringing the smell of fish and a coldness that made Chagak tuck her long hair into the suk's high collarrim. The suk hung past Chagak's knees, so that when she squatted down it was long enough to touch the ground and keep her bare feet warm. She drew her hands up inside the sleeves and squinted at the gray-white line between sky and sea where the black dots of the hunters' ikyan would first come into sight

It was summer, but even in summer the skies were usually gray, the air thick and wet with moisture that rose from the sea. The wind that kept winters warm -- with rain coming as often as snow -- also kept the summers cold. And the wind blew forever; never, never stopped.

Chagak opened her mouth and let the wind fill her cheeks. Did she imagine it or was there the taste of sea lion in that mouthful of wind? She closed her eyes and swallowed. Yes, some taste of sea lion, Chagak thought. And why would sea lions be here, this close to the First Men's island? Again she filled her mouth with the wind, again she tasted sea lion. Yes, yes. And if she tasted sea lion, perhaps the hunters were coming, towing sea lions they had taken during their hunt. But Chagak did not call her mother. Why raise hopes when perhaps it was only a trick of some spirit, making Chagak taste what was not there?

Chagak watched the horizon, holding her eyes open wide, until the wind filled them with tears. She wiped the wetness from her cheeks with her sleeve, and as the softness of the cormorant feathers crossed her face, she saw the first ikyak, a thin black line on the white edge of the sea. Then another and another.

Chagak called down through, the square opening, both entrance and smoke hole, that was cut through the sod roof and driftwood rafters of her father's ulaq. "They come. They come."

As her mother emerged from the ulaq, other women climbed from the dark interiors of nearby ulas, the women blinking and shielding their eyes in the gray brightness of the day.

They waited, quietly, though Chagak heard her mother's soft mumbling as she counted the boats. Ten ikyan had gone out. Ten had returned.

One of the women started a high chant of praise, a song of thankfulness to the sea and honor for the hunters, and from cliffs and ulas young boys and old men hurried to the beach to help the hunters drag ikyan ashore.

The women followed, still singing. Chagak, the newest woman, stayed at the back of the group, behind the women but ahead of the girls.

Sea lions were lashed to the sterns of the first two ikyan, the animals nearly as long as the crafts themselves.

One of the hunters was Red Sun, Chagak's uncle, the other, Seal Stalker, one of the youngest hunters in Chagak's village, but already that summer Seal Stalker had brought in six hair seals and now a sea lion.

When his ikyak was in shallow water, Seal Stalker jumped from the craft and began to pull it ashore. Then he cut the line that held the sea lion.

Chagak tried to keep her eyes on other hunters, to make her song as much for her uncle as for Seal Stalker, but it seemed something was forcing her to watch Seal Stalker, and twice, as he helped drag the animal up the slope of the gravel beach, Seal Stalker's eyes met Chagak's, and each time, though Chagak continued her chant, a chill coursed up from her fingers as if she and not Seal Stalker had brought in the animal, as if she were the one being honored.

Seal Stalker's mother came to take the hunter's share, the sea lion's flippers and the thick layer of fat under the skin. But suddenly Seal Stalker shook his head and instead turned to Chagak's father, handed him a long, stone-bladed hunting knife and said, "I need a wife. Let this animal be first payment on your daughter's bride price."

Editorial Reviews

"Sue Harrison joins the ranks of Jean Auel and Linda Lay Shuler.” —The Houston Post

“Mythic storytelling.” —The Washington Post Book World

“Memorably great . . . in between the satisfying details of an ancient culture, you smell the sweet heather, taste the wind, hear the roaring surf and sense the joy of primeval love.” —Ruth Beebe Hill, author of Hanta Yo

“A book of haunting beauty and emotional power. I became the Aleut girl-woman in Ice Age Alaska, and the carver, the seal hunter, the shaman . . . A remarkable book of passion, tenderness, and the indomitable human spirit, masterfully researched and beautifully written.” —Linda Lay Shuler, author of She Who Remembers

“A moving and credible story . . . Harrison expertly frames dramatic events with depictions of prehistoric life in the Aleutian Islands.” —The New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher

Chagak, a primitive Amerindian woman, survives the massacre of her tribe and family and later challenges gender roles by learning to be both child-bearer and hunter. According to PW , the ``childlike language, slow-paced plot and unsophisticated characterizations'' here are no threat to Jean Auel's novels of the prehistoric wilderness. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Harrison has gone back 9000 years in time to tell the story of Chagak, a young woman who struggles to survive when her family and village are slaughtered by the warlike Short Ones. Her only ally is a crippled recluse who offers her shelter on his island. But what can either of them do when Chagak is demanded in marriage by one of the men who killed her family? Likely to be compared to Jean Auel's ``Earth's Children'' books, Harrison's novel is constructed on a much smaller scale, but her depiction of early American civilizations is nevertheless convincing. Chagak is a believable and appealing heroine; readers will care what happens to her. Given the popularity of fiction set in prehistoric times, this should be in demand in public libraries. Literary Guild main selection; previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 3/1/90.-- Beth Ann Mills, New Rochelle P.L., N. Y.

Library Journal