moon wishing ceremony

The tradition that unifies the lunar worship practiced among the villages is the moon wishing ceremony. It is a communal gathering that takes place at the highest point within a village's forage area every month at the rising of the full moon, regardless of weather. The women believe that the moon is Old Tree, who made the world and filled it with water and light before leaving it to prevent harming her creation with the overabundance of her resources. From her place in the sky she is said to turn her face once a month to listen to the women ask favors of her.

History

Moon wishing is the oldest tradition of the women's lunar worship. Lunar worship itself predates the river villages, growing out of the founding culture's belief that the moon led them to a mountain lake after several years of famine. Speaking to the moon was originally a habit of only the highest-ranking women, but had become a general custom by the time they established the seasonal fishing camps that eventually became the women's villages.

Execution

In the late afternoon before the sun sets, everyone currently in the village--women, girls, and boys--gathers in the space around the community fire pit. Woman Woman wears a headdress and cape decorated with feathers from sunfeather birds. She leads the procession up to the village's moon peak, where @spi has been making a mildly psychoactive drink in enough quantity to share among the participants. Each person is served enough to swallow, and when the moon appears above the horizon everyone drinks their share and speaks the thing that they most hope will happen. Woman Woman addresses Old Tree with gratitude for her care of the women and girls of the village, and asks that she favors them by granting their requests. The ceremony ends before the coming of full dark, so that the villagers can walk back with enough light to see by.
On nights when a girl is to celebrate her Feast of First Blood, Spirit-talker prepares a separate drink for boys and children that will cause them to sleep through the mature girls' festivities later that night.
While the pattern of the ceremony is the same village to village, in some larger villages the gathering begins earlier so that women who ordinarily do not cross paths have a chance to meet and talk with each other before the ceremony begins.

Participants

The moon wishing ceremony is one that everyone participates in by presenting their desires to Old Tree. Only Woman Woman and Spirit-talker have specific ceremonial duties: Woman Woman to call Old Tree's attention, and Spirit-talker to distribute the drink to the villagers. The Moon Women do not have particular roles in the ceremony itself, but they assist earlier in the day by carrying Spirit-talker's tools and ingredients to the moon peak and helping her preparing the brew.

Observance

The women believe that the moon is the face of Old Tree, and when it is full she is looking down and listening. At any other phase her darkened edges show that her attention is elsewhere, and she will not hear wishes spoken to her. The ceremony coincides with the rising moon to give her the entirety of the night to think through everything that has been asked of her. Cloudy weather does not prevent the ceremony from taking place because it does not matter whether Old Tree can see the participants, so long as she can hear their wishes. If the conditions of the sky are such that it is impossible to see the rising moon, Woman Woman will declare when Old Tree is ready to listen.

Related Ethnicities

• The Women

View from the future

200 years
The women who were exiled continued to worship the moon in their new home closer to the coast, but the wishing ceremony itself fell out of favor. The recipe for Spirit-talker's drink was lost, and the experience wasn't the same without it.