Awinita

He crept with the basket over his shoulder in the dead of night, glancing behind himself often, fearfully. Just the evening before last, his dear wife had given birth to a beautiful baby daughter. And ... he shuddered to himself, quietly ... sweetly and silently ... given her soul up to the spirits as a result.

One lone tear dripped down his brown cheek as he remembered, and, as he looked up into the starry night, he remembered her. Chepi had been beautiful and small, perfect for the name that meant 'Fairy' in Algonquin. Her reddish brown skin had been the envy of many, even at an age when she could not understand the jealousy of her peers. Her deep black eyes had often sparkled mischevously, and he had thanked the spirits many times that they had chosen him to marry this upright, dancing young girl. And then ... a year later, this ... he tried to keep down his choking sobs as he lowered the sealed basket that he had made on the sly all of yesterday, down in the little spring next to the Algonquin tribe. He bade the spirits to look after his little girl as the current carried her downstream, away from him and the rest of the Algonquin tribe, and away from the Spirit Man, who had claimed that the gods had said that the poor little helpless infant girl had to die for killing her mother with her disability just that morning. His little daughter had been called voodoo.

"Good-bye, little girl," he whispered softly. "May the spirits take care of you." He turned and walked back to camp, and crawled into his bed of furs. Meanwhile, the spring carried the little day-old newborn girl down the stream, where her new fate would soon come to collect her.