The sacred Awa hili…
DOWN YONDER, FL. – It is a still, cloudless late afternoon on the bayou.
A hint of spring hangs in the air and on the bright hue of the day.
Only an occasional mullet jumping happily into the slight breeze disturbs the cool calm of the black bayou surface.
From out of the deep blue ceiling sails a magnificent winged creature, an osprey or “fish eagle,” to alight on the naked branch of a tall dead tree across the way.
The osprey surveys the scene with intense scrutiny and seeing the mullet are too big moves on to some other arena.
Ospreys are more common to the bayou than the even larger creature that surprisingly follows it to the same tree within only a few minutes.
It is late winter and the bald eagle is searching the territory for food and strength to begin its nesting ritual.
The bald eagle, which ancients called “awa hili,” was once plentiful, too. But that was 500 years ago, before the white man arrived on the shore.
The awa hili was the great sacred bird of the people who lived here then. The eagle population was considered to be another entire tribe of people.
But being a cared and revered tribe, the white tail feathers of the bald eagle were also coveted as decoration for only the most solemn and important of rituals.
If the ritual was important enough – and it had to be very important, indeed, an eagle would be killed for its tail feathers.
The killing of an eagle was an event which concerned the entire village. The actual deed was undertaken only by a professional eagle killer, a man regularly chosen by the village for his knowledge of the prescribed prayers and ceremonies needed to seek forgiveness for the sacrilege.
Without the proper invocations, the killing of an eagle would bring misfortune to the entire community.
It is told by the ancients that one man deliberately killed an eagle in defiance of the prescribed ordinances and was forever after haunted by dreams of fierce war eagles swooping down upon him.
According to the prescribed ritual, an eagle could be killed only in the late fall or early winter after the crops were in and the cold-blooded reptile tribes had settled down for the cooler winter.
If an eagle was killed during the hot summer, a frost would surely kill the village’s crops in the late fall and a plague would destroy the shellfish.
When a particular village decided the time and need was right for an eagle ceremony, a professional eagle killer would be called in – usually from a distant town.
After taking some preliminary precautions and saying some preliminary prayers, the eagle killer set out alone into the swamps.
Arriving at the appropriate place, the eagle killer began four days of prayer and fasting. When the ceremonies were complete the eagle killer would kill a deer and leave its carcass in an exposed place. Concealing himself in deep woods, the eagle killer sang songs in a low undertone to draw the eagles from the sky.
The first eagle to alight on the deer’s carcass was the one to be killed. Once the deed was done, the eagle killer stood over the dead creature and immediately began asking for forgiveness and begging it not to seek vengeance over his community.
In later years, after the white man’s arrival, the eagle killer would tell the dead bird the deed had been committed by one of the Spanish people. Having said his prayers, the eagle killer returned immediately to the village leaving the eagle carcass in the spot where it fell.
Not until four days later – time enough for parasites to consume the carcass – would the eagle killer return to the bird and retrieve its tail feathers.
