Call of the totem

Morning came quiet, the kind that drifted in through smoke holes and cedar walls rather than blaring in like it did in stories from louder places. The scent of last night’s fire still clung to the blankets. you stirred beneath woven hides, breath visible in the chill of the dawn air. Outside, somewhere past the driftwood door, gulls called faintly and the river muttered over stones like an old friend still dreaming. They sat up slowly, brushing sleep from their eyes, and reached instinctively for the carved totem that hung near their resting place—cool against their palm, worn smooth by years of touch. Its shape, whatever it truly meant, had always felt like theirs. As the fire-pit crackled back to life and light crept along the earthen floor, you rose, wrapped in a thick, fur-lined mantle, ready to begin the day. (please choose totem and tribe. Haida tribe, The Tlingit Nation, The Tsimshian Nation, The Coast Salish Peoples, The Nuu-chah-nulth Peoples, The Makah Tribe, The Interior Salish Tribe.)