Pukawiss

Pukawiss was the son that Ae-pungishimook didn’t understand. He had no interest in fighting, sports, or any of what Ae-pungishimook thought of as manly attributes. He was squeamish, turned away from killing in general, and couldn’t even look at dead animals. He was instead much more interested in playing, and listening to the world around him, laughing, telling stories. He was distracted with the miracles of life all around him. His father saw none of his interests as practical and he became known as Pukawiss, which translates to “Unwanted” or “Disowned.” Ae-pungishimook actively estranged himself from the boy. Pukawiss’ impulses took him down the road of becoming a dancer, actor, and quite the prankster. His pranks and tendency to tease his very tender brother Nana’b’oozoo caused such a rage in his sibling that Nana’b’oozoo chased Pukawiss under a mountain and tried to kill him by summoning thunder and lightning to destroy the mountain. Using his own magic, Pukawiss escaped death, though he let his brother think he had killed him, watched him mourn and suffer with guilt, then started pranking him again to let him know he was still alive. He’s still doing that, but now has the whole internet to do it with.

Pukawiss has little patience for the self-absorbed or the foolish, so he took little notice of his father’s abandonment of him. Everything else was so much more interesting. As he witnessed the miracles of life, he also spied the drama and lessons inherent in all things around him that went unseen by most. He began to manifest these through pantomiming and acting and dancing out what he saw as the secrets of the birds, and beasts, and insects, and plants. Sometimes he would get so into character that he would walk around pretending to be a squirrel or rooster or snake. Eventually, he became a dancer and entertainer who traveled from place to place bringing lessons and stories to all the people. While his father had disowned him, the people were drawn to him and the things he had to say. He invented many dances (most notably the hoop dance) and imbued them with meanings that served to raise the consciousness of those who viewed him in action.

Scions of Pukawiss are born storytellers and dancers. They find they have an inherent spiritual restlessness that causes them to look at structures, traditions, and nature, see the flaws and flows in them, and then put them into motion through their own body and voice. There is an inherent spiritual, therapeutic quality to what they can do and how it allows them to pull stories out and put them in a place to be examined. While some can be found on the big stage, they more often than not are drawn to places where people gather so they can move them in more intimate spaces. They also have a tendency to want to do things their own way. While they may be attracted to traditional dances, they will invariably mix them with modernity and sudden inventiveness to make new things. This makes them sometimes unpopular among more traditional gatherings, where custom is adhered to like dogma.