Anuskasha ("Forest Dweller" or "One who stays in Woods") was born into poverty. Raised on the Jena Reservation in central Louisiana, Anu was used to having little. As he grew into a man, Anu exhibited signs of being favored by the Great Spirit, Nanapesa. Anu seemed to be able to feel when the Ancestors were near and was possessed of a great vitality. The tribal shaman at the time, an aged elder named Okwa took it upon himself to train young Anu, a great honor.
As he grew older, Anu excelled, learning many secrets of the tribe at the knee of the elder shaman. He learned the lore of the Spirit World and the place of his people in it. As Anu became a teenager and later a young man, his role as the next great shaman of his people was assured. The Spirit World does not make itself felt in the world of the living in understandable ways though.
When Anu was 17, his mother fell sick from pancreatic cancer that quickly metastasized. Using all their knowledge and healing techniques, Anu and Okwa used their medicine to try and heal her. Eventually, even they had to concede that modern medicine was needed. Unfortunately, not long later, she died. Anu's father, grief-stricken, turned to drink and refused any kind of treatment by the shaman's to cure his heartache. He drank himself to death before the year was out.
Grief and guilt crashed down on Anu, he blamed the spirits and the ancestors for taking his parents from him. Just after his father's funeral, he gathered his things and left the Jena Reservation. The only real remnant of his heritage he brought with him was his Medicine Pouch...the one thing of his old life he could not bear to part with.
Over the years that followed, Anu fell into a harsh life. He became a carnival trickster, a stage magician, a false seer, a pickpocket. He traveled lower Louisiana and New Orleans, hustling gullible tourists during Mardi Gras, or giving bogus tours of sites supposedly inspiring of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles series of books. Anu used his heritage and the reputation of mysticism that surrounds his people and his training to trick people into parting with their money. Perhaps legitimately most of the time...but only by hairs.
When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, everything changed. The rampant destruction...the loss of homes, family and despair felt by so many deeply affected him. Though he wouldn't admit it, he had felt a stirring...a sense of unease before the coming of the great storm. Little did he know that his time was coming. A time delayed perhaps by his rejection of his heritage and training...but the Spirit World and the Ancestors do not stand upon the choices men make, but on their own.
