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The staff work all day to set up the four tipis for Rediscovery Four Corners in the
high Colorado valley, and the Ute elders who oversee the project are satisfied. The tipis
are aligned exactly north, east, south, and west: they each have their proper coloured
prayer flags fluttering from the pole tops, and each tipi rests exactly equal distance
from the others and the central fire pit. But now, as the sun sets on the eve before the
camp opens, the staff find a large red-ant mound inside the east tipi. Obviously the
children cannot bed down on top of fire ants, so the east tipi must be relocated:
therefore the other three tipis will have to be moved accordingly. The staff will have to
work all night to have camp ready for the first arrivals in the morning. "Don't do
anything more tonight," a Pueblo Indian elder and cultural director for the program
says calmly, "I will talk to the ants in the morning." "Talk to the
ants?" someone asks, unbelieving. "Yes, they are our ancestors. They helped us
emerge from the underworld by providing us with food to grow big and strong while they
stayed small. They have helped me find my way many times when I was lost." The Pueblo
man speaks with such conviction that he almost overcomes some of the staff's scepticism.
"Can you talk to them now?" someone asks impatiently. "No, they are still
active and will bite," comes the sensible answer. "I will talk to them in the
morning."
The predawn light has not yet penetrated the eastern tipi when the Pueblo elder places
a pinch of cornmeal beside the ant hole and rests his head on the mound as if it were a
pillow. "Dear ants," he whispers into the tiny hole, "I'm sorry to have
woken you so early, but I've brought you some breakfast and I've come to ask of you a
favour. We have made a mistake and put a tipi over top of your house. I ask this, not for
me, but for the children who arrive today. Could you please move your house?" The
staff erects a tarp under a pinon pine to temporarily house those participants not able to
sleep in the east tipi. The tarp is never used. Hours later, the ants carry the last of
their eggs out from under the tipi edge into a new hole four metres away. The children
move in on schedule.
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