Miniwashitu

According to Lakota legend, the Miniwashitu, or water monster, is a mysterious being that lives in the Missouri River. Ethnologist Melvin Randolph Gilmore described the creature as being "covered all over with hair like a buffalo, but red in color; that it had only one eye in the middle of its forehead, and above that a single horn. Its backbone stood out notched and jagged like an enormous saw." In springtime, it would move upstream, using its serrated spine to break up the frozen river. This piece follows that narrative: the frozen and static piano part becomes more active and flowing as the lumbering beast awakens and breaks through the ice.