#steps high

Long before Kaya could see the waterfalls on the river ahead, she began to hear their voices. She and her family were riding over hot, dry plans, so the murmur of running water was a sweet promise. But as they rode closer to the river, that murmur grew into a powerful song, like many men drumming.

Kaya made her way through the many villages crowded along the shore. She saw people from the coast trading dried shellfish, shell beads, cedar-root baskets, and canoes. People from the south had brought bowls of black stone and baskets of water-lily seeds to trade.

And the people who lived in the midlands, like Kaya's people, traded elk and buffalo robes, kouse and camas cakes, and horses.

Kaya Shows the Way talks about how in the summer, many bands of Nimiipuu travel to the river to catch salmon and trade with all the other people who are there to do the same. It's where Kaya will reunite with her sister, Speaking Rain, every summer from now on. Speaking Rain has chosen to spend part of the year living with her parents and siblings, and with her adoptive Salish mother White Braids.

So many changes have happened in Kaya's life since the day she earned the nickname Magpie! Friends have come and gone, and Kaya's heart has broken or healed each time. But wherever she goes, and however she grows, home is always close by.

Hard to get a picture of, but this is my favorite piece of jewelry ♥️♥️♥️

(I’m WAY behind on doll posts… heck, I still have to finish writing the one for Evette’s birthday last month! But I unexpectedly had some free time, and since this one’s short I wanted to get it posted while it was still fresh.)

Kaya doesn’t have an official birthday (I’m guessing her people didn’t have an exact calendar to keep track back in the 1750s), but American Girl has designated August 15th as her “Celebration Day,” so on Friday we went to a local nature preserve 🌳 with my friend Nicole to honor the occasion. My gift to Kaya was a surprise reunion with her dog Three Legs 🐕 (from “Kaya and the Injured Dog”)! After that, we shared a meal… Kaya had brought dried salmon 🐟 strips, huckleberries 🫐, and Camas finger cakes in her basket, and I brought salmon jerky and blueberries for Nicole and I.

Three Legs is a custom I’m pretty darn proud of: she started out as an AG brand husky from the late 90’s, and I changed out her eyes and nose, removed the front leg she lost in the bear attack, and added a flexible wire skeleton to make her posable.

I hunted for huckleberries (which I guess is another name for wild blueberries) and Camas bulbs for weeks; I found frozen wild blueberries at Hy-Vee, but they were too mushy when thawed; besides, the juice stained like crazy, and I didn’t want to risk that with Kaya’s lovely white dress. I went to the local farmer’s market, consulted friends and family, searched online, and called garden supply shops in search of Camassia quamash bulbs, but the only local option was individual potted plants, and online they don’t ship the bulbs until September for fall planting, so I finally had to give up completely on that. Still, I’m pretty pleased I found the salmon jerky (which was good but very fishy).

NOTES: I used the Nez Perce spelling for words/phrases in Nimipuutímt, rather than the anglicized phonetic spelling American Girl uses in the books. I do not speak Nimipuutímt myself, so please forgive (and more importantly, correct!) any errors.

I am White. If you are Indigenous and find anything in this post offensive, please let me know and I’ll edit it or take it down!

Steps High strode joyously through the woods; the mare seemed happy for the chance to stretch her legs, and Kaya was glad to be one with her beautiful horse again. She rarely was able to ride living at Marley’s because there weren’t a lot of good horse riding spots nearby. Tatlo weaved around the horse’s hooves, running off a little to sniff at an interesting scent in the brush or mark a tree, then racing back to Kaya again.

Suddenly, they heard another dog’s bark… a very familiar bark to Kaya. “Three Legs?” she asked wonderingly, barely daring to believe it.

It was Three Legs! Kaya swung off her horse to greet her beloved dog. Three Legs leapt up to meet her, grinning a doggy grin. Her mismatched eyes, one yellow and one brown, seemed to speak to Kaya, as if the big dog were saying “I missed you!”

Tatlo and Three Legs sniffed each other curiously, deciding if they should get along; then Three Legs licked Tatlo’s muzzle, and soon the two dogs were jumping all over each other in play, mock-growling. Even with her missing foreleg, Three Legs was able to run and jump as well as her able-bodied companion; Kaya had done well nursing the dog back to health after her fight with the bear.

“Wáaqo’ kíiye hipsíix (Now let’s eat),” Kaya declared. Tatlo gobbled down a salmon strip and ran off to chase squirrels, but Three Legs sat attentively at Kaya’s side while she spread out her meal on the tule mat and ate it slowly, savoring the flavorful salmon, juicy berries, and tasty finger cakes. Marley set out their own food, offering some to Nicole, who first sampled the salmon and then went back for more.

The friends sat and looked out over the lake below, listening to the lapping waves in the distance and the rustling of small animals in the treetops. Steps High cropped grass nearby. It was so peaceful that they never wanted to leave… but all too soon, the sky began to darken into twilight, and it was time to pack everything up again and head back up the trail towards the exit.

“Happy birthday, Kaya,” Marley said softly just before they left.

Kaya enfolded her friend in a warm, grateful embrace. “Qe’ciyéw’yew’ (Thank you),” she breathed. “I am very happy.”

The End

BONUS:

(Our view from the bench where we ate! I’m disappointed I didn’t get a better picture; it was already getting dark when I took this, but in the sunlight it was breathtaking.)

Over the weekend, I went to my family’s Cottage in the Northwoods for the first time since I was a kid! 🌲 I had a fantastic time, and also brought Kaya, Samantha, and Nellie (my mother and stepfather were very patient with me packing three dolls, two doll horses, a teepee, and a bunch of photography equipment 📷 into their van along with my suitcase 😂). I’m going to post the pictures of Sam and Nellie separately later on, but I wanted to share my Kaya photos now.

I’m pretty proud of the teepee: I made it myself!... or, sort of. I bought the first version of Kaya’s Teepee NIB recently on FB Marketplace. When it arrived, it was very clearly unopened… but the faux animal-hide fabric was cracking horribly from sheer age, and I didn’t feel right returning it because of something the seller clearly didn’t know about after opening it when it was NIB; besides which, shipping cost a lot, and it would barely have been worth it to return after shipping it back, even if the seller did accept a return. So I bought some microsuede and faux leather cord and, using the original fabric as a stencil, I made my own. I did everything myself, from sealing the edges so they don’t fray, to dying the flaps at the top with some Rit fabric dye left over from a different project; then I attached it to the original plastic tent sticks. I also changed a few things while I was at it to make the doorway larger so you can actually see inside. It’s not perfect (I messed up and cut both pieces the same, rather than as mirror images, so part of it is actually wrong-side-out; and I burned one side in the dying process, as well as splashing some dye on it) and I plan to re-do it later, but honestly I’m a bit amazed it came out as well as it did!