But it is our custom to welcome strangers, to give them the tobacco leaf, to feast them with the pepper pot, and to trade gifts.

“You are but a child,” our chief said to me. “All children have bad dreams.”

The baby canoes spat out many strange creatures, men but not men. We did not know them as human beings, for they hid their bodies in colors, like parrots. Their feet were hidden, also.

And many of them had hair growing like bushes on their chins. Three of them knelt before their chief and pushed sticks into the sand.

Then I was even more afraid.