What Ancient Family Tradition Did You Put A Stop To?

The Weight of Tradition

In my family, every girl’s feet were broken and bound when she turned five. Small feet meant good marriage, higher bride price, proof we were proper daughters.

My oldest sister’s feet were 4 in long. She couldn’t walk without leaning on walls, but my grandmother called her our family’s treasure.

My second sister tried to run the night before her binding. They caught her at the neighbors house and did it anyway while she screamed about wanting to be a teacher.

By morning, she couldn’t stand. The bone breaking sounds still visit my dreams. I was four when I started planning.

Watched how they prepared the bandages, the alum water, the special shoes getting smaller each month. Studied my sister’s wounds when grandmother rewrapped them. The way toes folded under, bones snapped, flesh rotting between the folds, the smell of infection that grandmother masked with perfume.

My second sister’s toes fell off completely.

“Good,” grandmother said. “Makes them smaller.”

But I also watched something else. The foreign doctor who came to our village once a month, Dr. Crimson, who grandmother called a white devil. He’d set up near the market treating people for free.

I saw him argue with families, trying to save girls. Saw him thrown out of houses. Once he treated a girl whose binding had gone septic; she lived but lost her leg. That’s when I knew I had a chance if I could reach him.

Every night I practiced stretching my feet, running in place silently, building strength, hid food under my bed, stole coins when I could, drew maps of our town from memory.

But grandmother was getting suspicious. She’d check my shoes for wear, inspect my feet during baths, even had my cousins follow me.

“This one’s too wild,” she’d tell my mother. “We might need to bind her at 4:00.”

My oldest sister heard this and warned me. “They moved mine up, too,” she whispered while grandmother slept “because I kept dancing.”

They’ll do it on the next lucky day. I checked the calendar. Only 10 days away, 2 weeks before my official fifth birthday, grandmother started preparing anyway, soaking the bandages, filing the special nailing tools.

“Your feet are already too big,” she told me. “We’ll have to break them harder.”

She measured them everyday, frowning. My mother said nothing, just like she’d said nothing for my sisters. That’s when the attack started.

Every morning, grandmother would grab my feet unexpectedly, bending them to prepare the bones. She’d make me walk on the sides of my feet for hours. Had my aunts hold me down while she pressed her thumbs into my arches until I screamed.

“The bones must learn to yield,” she said.

The night before the new date, they made me soak my feet in animal blood and herbs to soften the bones. The whole family gathered to celebrate my becoming a woman.

My sisters couldn’t dance at my party. Could barely stand, but everyone pretended this was beautiful. Grandfather gave a speech about family honor. My uncles toasted my future husband, whoever he’d be.

The local matchmaker was already taking notes about my father’s business, calculating my value. That’s when my second sister slipped me a knife.

“Run,” she whispered. “I can’t, but you can.”

But they were ready for runners now. After my second sister’s attempt, they locked all the girls in during binding week. Boards on windows, guards at doors. My uncle slept outside my room.

At midnight, I used the knife to cut through my bedroom screen. But the moment I touched the ground, dogs started barking.

My uncle grabbed my ankle as I climbed down using sheets I’d been secretly nodding for months.

“Going somewhere, little one.”

I slashed at his hand with the knife. Drew blood. He let go, cursing.

I ran barefoot through the dark streets, my precious unbroken feet carrying me over stones and thorns. Behind me, I could hear shouting, more dogs, my family rousing the neighbors to hunt their wayward daughter.

The Christian mission school was six villages away, but they knew that’s where runners went. I could hear horses on the main road, my grandfather’s voice commanding men to check the mission first, so I went the opposite direction, toward the foreigner’s medical camp at the edge of the district, twice as far, through rice patties that sucked at my feet, forest paths that tore my clothes.

Mrs. Catherine, the mission teacher, found me at dawn, collapsed by the roadside, feet bleeding, delirious from exhaustion. She was traveling to the medical camp herself, loaded me onto her cart, covered me with grain sacks, told me not to make a sound.

At the checkpoint, my uncle searched the cart, but didn’t think to look under the grain. At the medical camp, Doctor Crimson treated my feet while Mrs. Catherine held my hand.

“They’ll come,” I kept saying. “They’ll take me back.”

“Not while I’m here,” she said.