Loma

Loma was born into a small farming hamlet on the dry-forest hills above the Gulf of Fonseca. Her family spoke a Misumalpan tongue. Her father, Tolash, had two wives—Kani, Loma’s mother, and Senku—whose houses stood close enough that smoke from one hearth drifted into the next yard. No chief ruled their daily lives. Older men settled disputes, and planting schedules followed the rains.

Kani carried Loma wrapped in cotton cloth while she ground maize on a stone and turned beans in a clay pot. Senku fetched water and watched the baby when Kani walked out to the milpa to pull weeds or gather squash blossoms. At night Tolash checked the maize stores, mended a digging stick, and listened for owls and dogs.

By the dry season Loma had grown into an alert infant. She turned her head toward voices and grabbed at the bright feathers Kani hung above her sleeping mat. She laughed when Senku clicked her tongue and made faces.

Near the end of the cool season, Loma developed a hard cough. She fed in short bursts and fought sleep. Kani sent for Rimash, the household’s healer. Rimash knelt by the hearth, breathed tobacco smoke over the child, and rubbed her chest with warm water steeped with bitter leaves. She spoke to the spirits that moved through wind and sickness and placed a pinch of ground maize by the doorway as payment.

The cough worsened over several days. Before the next planting, Loma died in her mother’s arms. Kani and Senku washed the body, tied a small cord around her wrist, and buried her in a shallow pit near the house, setting a handful of maize meal beside her.