The Baba Hut

  My Babushka Konani came to America in 1821, through Alaska, and into Washington. That is where she met my many times great grandfather, Wandering Spirit, a native American shaman living among a northern band of Skokomish people. Konani brought with her the ancient traditions of her Moskovite ancestors, including the making of huts for the Golden Baba, her goddess. Our family legend says that Wandering Spirit was out fishing when he spied Konani dancing on a hilltop around the Baba hut, while a full moon was visible in the sky. Enchanted, he went up to the hill and watched my Babushka's rituals. He saw her pouring earth from a basket in a circle around the hut, and then placing the feet of a chicken in the dirt. Later she would explain that this was so that the Baba could find her way to the new land, as Konani had carried the basket full of dirt all the way from her home village. Evidently Wandering Spirit equated the Golden Baba to his own corn goddess, and referred to the Baba as Kokomothena ever after.
  When Babushka Konani had finished her dance, she sat down on her blanket in front of the Baba hut. Then Wandering Spirit stepped out of the shadows and presented himself to her. We don't know what they talked about, or if they talked, considering the language barrier, but the story says that they made love on the ground, with the blanket covering them, and wherever their sweat dropped, mushrooms sprang up. Wandering Spirit gave Konani a necklace of pearly oyster shells, which is still in our family to this day, and they lived together for the rest of their lives as husband and wife.
  The Baba hut remained a tradition in our family for many decades. Wherever they moved, they took dirt and mushrooms with them, and made a new Baba hut just as Konani had. Our tradition says that the huts brought our family good luck, and were capable of warning us whenever disaster was about to strike. Whenever something tragic was about to befall a member of the family, a greenish glow would shine around the door of the Baba hut. Then, the babushka would take a mushroom, wrap it in a piece of cloth with a coin, place this bundle inside the hut, and close the door. Whatever was inside the hut when the door closed could never come out again, but the family member who was in trouble miraculously survived whatever happened.
  The last Baba hut to be built by my family was in 1935, the year I was born. This was in a small town in Indiana, where my parents had a corn farm. My grandma Nell, who I suppose was the last of my babushkas, had recently died. Then my father went away to the war, and he died. My mother didn't believe in the Baba hut, so it never occurred to her to use it. She swore she'd never marry again, but she couldn't run the farm and raise me at the same time. So, she sold all of our property and moved us up to Indianapolis to live with her sister, whose husband was a banker and had the room to spare.
  A few years ago, I went back to the old farm, just to visit my roots, and maybe get a look at that old Baba hut. The man who lived in our old farmhouse told me that the previous owner had torn down the "Old Shack", as they had called it, shortly after taking possession of the land. It seems that they claimed it was a nuisance, and that on certain nights with a full moon, horrible wailing, in a foreign language, could be heard coming from the shack. The noise would disturb all the dogs in the area, and stop the cows from giving milk. So, they tore it down, and burned the remains for good measure. When he showed me the place where the Baba hut had stood, we found the place overgrown with mushrooms. Those mushrooms would not have been fit to eat, though they were huge, because they were foul and weird looking, and gave an impression of ancient malice. I admit that all of this disturbed me somewhat. Before I left, I scooped up a handful of dirt, which I now keep in a small wooden box in the attic of my house, along with a mushroom and a silver dollar wrapped together in a silk handkerchief.