The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions

prayed the rain in, Tayo must experience its power personally as
the next step in the ceremony. The rain makes it necessary for
Josiah to miss his date with Night Swan, so he sends Tayo to the
nearby village of Cubero with a message for her. He writes the
message on “blue-lined paper” (p. 96).
Night Swan is a mysterious and powerful woman. We know
that she is associated with Ts’eh by her circumstances and the
colors with which she surrounds herself. Many signs indicate
that she is associated with the ceremony of which Tayo was an
integral (through unknowing) part: the color of her eyes, her
implication in the matter of the spotted (half-breed) cattle,
Auntie’s dislike of her, and her mysterious words to Tayo when
he leaves her. Additionally, her room is filled with blue: a blue
armchair, curtains “feeling colored by the blue flowers painted
in a border around the walls,” blue sheets, a cup made of blue
pottery painted with yellow flowers. She is dressed in a blue
kimono when Tayo enters her room, and she wears blue slippers
(p. 98). Most important, she is associated with a mysterious
power that Tayo associates with whatever is behind the white
curtain:
He could feel something back there, something of her life
which he could not explain. The room pulsed with feeling,
the feeling flowing with the music and the breeze from the
curtains, feeling colored by the blue flowers painted in a
border around the walls. He could feel it everywhere, even
in the blue sheets that were stretched tightly across the bed.
(p. 98)
This woman, who appeared out of the southeast one day and
took up residence in Cubero, on the southern slope of the
mountain, and who disappears as mysteriously after Josiah is
buried, is surrounding with emblems of the mountain rain. She
takes Tayo to bed. This is not an ordinary coupling, for nothing