Yaqui Easter

Every year as Spring and Easter approach, I remember the Yaqui Easter ceremonies, and go back to read the Yaqui deer dance songs. Beth and I were lucky to have traveled to Tucson to see the Easter dances there one year, and now i am thinking of that world, the world of deer dancers, the wilderness world, the enchanted world, the flower world, and that combination of Easter with Jesus, the Romans, death and resurrection, with hummingbirds, flowers, pollen and deer singers. Here is one of those Deer songs ( the deer is talking to the wilderness world, and the brightness is the brightness of the light before dawn)


flower wilderness,
as I want to go out,
flower wilderness.
In the enchanted flower wilderness world
I went out,
flower wilderness.

flower wilderness,
as I want to go out,
flower wilderness.
In the enchanted flower wilderness world
I went out,
flower wilderness.

flower wilderness,
as I want to go out,
flower wilderness.
In the enchanted flower wilderness world
I went out,
flower wilderness.

Over there I,
under the flower-covered brightness,
I see you.
In the enchanted flower wilderness world,
I went out,
flower wilderness.


(from Yaqui Deer Songs - Maso Bwikam, A Native American Poetry , Larry Evers and felipe S. Molina)