The Story of Hiawatha Part 4

"Long ago, in the days when the heavens were nearer to the earth than they are now, and when the spirits and G.o.ds were better known to all men, there lived a hunter in the Northland who had ten daughters, young and beautiful, and as tall as willow-wands. Oweenee, the youngest of these, was proud and wayward, but even fairer than her sisters. When the brave and wealthy warriors came as suitors, each of the ten sisters had many offers, and all except Oweenee were quickly married; but Oweenee laughed at her handsome lovers and sent them all away. Then she married poor, ugly old Osseo, who was bowed down with age, weak with coughing, and twisted and wrinkled like the roots of an oak-tree. For she saw that the spirit of Osseo was far more beautiful than were the painted figures of her handsome lovers.

"All the suitors whom she had refused to marry, and they were many, came and pointed at her with jeers and laughter, and made fun of her and of her husband; but she said to them: 'I care not for your feathers and your wampum; I am happy with Osseo.'

"It happened that the sisters were all invited to a great feast, and they were walking together through the forest, followed by old Osseo and the fair Oweenee; but while all the others chatted gayly, these two walked in silence. Osseo often stopped to gaze at the Star of Evening, and at last the others heard him murmur: 'Oh, pity me, pity me, my Father!' 'He is praying to his father,' said the eldest sister. 'What a shame that the old man does not stumble in the path and break his neck!'

and the others all laughed so heartily at the wicked joke that the forest rang with merriment.

"On their way through the thicket, lay a hollow oak that had been uprooted by a storm, and when Osseo saw it he gave a cry of anguish, and leaped into the mighty tree. He went in an old man, ugly and bent and hideous with wrinkles. He came out a splendid youth, straight as an arrow, handsome and very strong. But Osseo was not happy in the change that had come over him. Indeed, he was more sorrowful than ever before, because at the same instant that he recovered his lost youth, Oweenee was changed into a tottering old woman, wasted and worn and ugly as a witch. And her nine hard-hearted sisters and their husbands laughed long and loud, until the forest echoed once again with their wicked merriment.

"Osseo, however, did not turn from Oweenee in her trouble, but took her brown and withered hand, called her sweetheart and soothed her with kind words, until they came to the lodge in the forest where the feast was being given. They sat down to the feast, and all were joyous except Osseo, who would taste neither food nor drink, but sat as if in a dream, looking first at the changed Oweenee, then upward at the sky. All at once he heard a voice come out of the empty air and say to him: 'Osseo, my son, the spells that bound you are now broken, and the evil charms that made you old and withered before your time have all been wished away. Taste the food before you, for it is blessed and will change you to a spirit. Your bowls and your kettles shall be changed to silver and to wampum, and shine like scarlet sh.e.l.ls and gleam like the firelight; and all the men and women but Oweenee shall be changed to birds.'

"The voice Osseo heard was taken by the others for the voice of the whippoorwill, singing far off in the lonely forest, and they did not hear a word of what was said. But a sudden tremor ran through the lodge where they sat feasting, and they felt it rise in the air high up above the tree-tops into the starlight. The wooden dishes were changed into scarlet sh.e.l.ls, the earthen kettles were changed into silver bowls, and the bark of the roof glittered like the backs of gorgeous beetles.

"Then Osseo saw that the nine beautiful sisters of Oweenee and their husbands, were changed into all sorts of different birds. There were jays and thrushes and magpies and blackbirds, and they flew about the lodge and sang and twittered in many different keys. Only Oweenee was not changed, but remained as wrinkled and old and ugly as before; and Osseo, in his disappointment, gave a cry of anguish such as he had uttered by the oak tree when lo and behold! all Oweenee's former youth and loveliness returned to her. The old woman's staff on which she had been leaning became a glittering silver feather, and her tattered dress was changed into a snowy robe of softest ermine.

"The wigwam trembled once again and floated through the sky until at last it alighted on the Evening Star as gently as thistledown drops to the water, and the ruler of the Evening Star, the father of Osseo, came forward to greet his son.

"'My son,' he said, 'hang the cage of birds that you bring with you at the doorway of my wigwam, and then do you and Oweenee enter,' and Osseo and Oweenee did as they were told, entered the wigwam and listened to the words of Osseo's father.

"'I have had pity on you, my Osseo,' he began. 'I have given back to you your youth and beauty; and I have changed into birds the sisters of Oweenee and their husbands, because they laughed at you and could not see that your spirit was beautiful. When you were an ugly old man, only Oweenee knew your heart. But you must take heed, for in the little star that you see yonder lives an evil spirit, the Wabeno; and it is he who has brought all this sorrow upon you. Take care that you never stand in the light of that evil star. Its gleams are used by the Wabeno as his arrows, and he sits there hating all the world and darting forth his poisonous beams of baleful light to injure all who stray within his reach.'

"For many years Osseo and his father and Oweenee lived happily together upon the Evening Star. Oweenee bore a son to Osseo, and the boy had beauty and courage. Osseo, to please his son, made little bows and arrows for him, and when the boy had learned to shoot, Osseo opened the door of the silver bird-cage and let out all the birds. They darted through the air, singing for joy at their freedom, until the boy bent his bow and struck one of them with a fatal arrow, so that the bird fell wounded at his feet. But when it touched the ground the bird underwent a great change; and there lay at the boy's feet a beautiful young woman with the arrow in her breast.

"As soon as her blood dripped upon the sacred Evening Star, all the magical charms that Osseo's father had used to keep his son and Oweenee with him in the happy dwelling far above the earth were broken, and the boy hunter with his bow and arrow felt himself held by unseen hands, but sinking downward through the blue sky and the empty air until he rested on a green and gra.s.sy island in the Big-Sea-Water. Falling and fluttering after him came all the bright birds; and the lodge, with Osseo and Oweenee in it, sailed lightly downward and landed on the island.

"When the bright birds touched the earth, another change came over them, and they became men and women once again as they were before; only they remained so small in size--so tiny, that they were called the Little People, the Puk-Wudjies. And on summer nights, when the stars shone brightly above them, they would dance hand in hand about the island, and sometimes in the starlight they dance there even now."

When the story was finished, Iagoo looked about him at the a.s.sembled guests, and added very solemnly: "There are many great men at whom their own people often scoff and jeer. Let these people take warning from the story of Osseo, so that they too may not be changed to birds for laughing at their betters;" and the wedding guests all whispered to each other, "I wonder if he means himself and us." Then Chibiabos sang another sweet and tender love-song, and the guests all went away, leaving Hiawatha alone and happy with Minnehaha.

XIII

BLESSING THE CORNFIELDS

MANY were the pleasant days that followed the wedding of Minnehaha and Hiawatha. All the tribes were at peace with one another, and the hunters roved wherever they chose, built their birch canoes, hunted and fished and trapped the beaver without once hearing the war-cry or the hiss of a hostile arrow. The women made sugar from the sap of the maple-trees, gathered the wild rice and dressed the skins of the deer and beaver, while all around the peaceful village waved green and sunny fields of corn.

Once, when the corn was being planted by the women, the wise and thoughtful Hiawatha said to Minnehaha: "To-night you shall bless the cornfields, and draw around them a magic circle to keep out the mildew and the insects. In the night, when everybody is asleep and none can hear you or see you, rise from your bed, lay aside your clothes and walk in the darkness around the fields of corn that you have planted. Do this and the fields shall be more fruitful and the magic circle of your footsteps cannot be crossed by either worm or insect; for the dragon-fly and the spider, and the gra.s.shopper and the caterpillar all will know that you have walked around the cornfields, and they will not dare to enter."

While Hiawatha spoke, Kahgahgee, King of the Ravens, sat with his band of black robbers in the tree-tops near at hand, and they laughed so loud at the words of Hiawatha that the tree-tops shook and rattled. "Kaw!"

shouted the ravens. "Listen to the wise man! Hear the plots of Hiawatha!

We will fly over the magic circle and eat just as much corn as we can hold."

When night had fallen dark and black over the fields and woodlands, and when all the Indians were sleeping fast, Minnehaha rose from her bed of branches, laid aside her garments and walked safely among the cornfields, drawing the magic circle of her light footsteps closely around them. No one but the midnight saw her, and no one but the whippoorwill heard the panting of her bosom, for the darkness wrapped its cloak closely about her as she walked. And the dragon-fly and the gra.s.shopper, the spider and the caterpillar, all knew that they could not cross the magic circle of Minnehaha's footsteps.

When the morning came, however, Kahgahgee gathered about him all his black and rascally crew of ravens and jays and crows and blackbirds, shrieking with laughter, and with harsh cries and raucous clamor they all left the tree-tops and flapped eagerly down upon the cornfields.

"Kaw! Kaw!" they shrieked, "we will dig up the corn from the soft earth, and we will eat all we can hold, in spite of Minnehaha and her foolish circle!"

But Hiawatha had overheard the ravens as they laughed at him from among the tree-tops. He had risen before daybreak and had covered the cornfields with snares, and at that moment he was hiding in the woods until all the evil birds should alight on the fields and begin their wicked feast.

They came with a rush of wings and hungry cries, settled down upon the cornfields and began to dig and delve and scratch in the earth for the corn that had been planted there, and with all their skill and cunning, they did not see that anything was amiss until their claws were caught in Hiawatha's snares and they were helpless.

Then Hiawatha left his hiding-place among the bushes and strode toward the captive ravens, and his appearance was so awful that the bravest of them hopped and shrieked and flapped their wings in terror. He walked among them, and killed them to the right and left in tens and twenties without mercy; and he hung their dead bodies on poles, to serve as scarecrows and to frighten away all other thieves and robbers from the sacred fields of corn. Only one of the ravens was spared by Hiawatha and that was Kahgahgee, the ruler of them all. Hiawatha tied him with a string and fastened him to the ridge-pole of his wigwam, saying: "Kahgahgee, you are the cause of all this mischief, and I am going to hold you as a warning to all the ravens left alive. If they light upon the cornfields and begin again their wicked thieving, I will kill you and hang your body on a pole as an example." And Hiawatha left Kahgahgee tied fast to the ridge-pole of the wigwam, hopping and tugging angrily at his string and croaking in vain for his friends to come and set him free.

The summer pa.s.sed, and all the air became warm and soft with the haze of early autumn. The corn had grown tall and yellow, and the ears were almost bursting from their sheaths, when old Nokomis said to Minnehaha: "Let us gather the harvest and strip the ripe ears of all their husks and ta.s.sels," and Minnehaha and Nokomis went through the village, calling on the women and the maidens and the young men to come forth and help them with the husking of the corn. All together they went to the cornfields, and the old men and the warriors sat in the shade at the edges of the forest and smoked and looked on in approval, while the young men and maidens stripped the ears of corn and laughed and sang merrily over their labor. Whenever a youth or a maiden found a crooked ear, they all laughed even louder, and crept about the cornfields like weak old men bent almost double with age. But when some lucky maiden found a blood-red ear in the husking, they all cried out: "Ah, Nushka!

You shall have a sweetheart!" And the old men nodded in approval as they smoked beneath the pine-trees.

XIV

PICTURE-WRITING

IN those days, the Indians had no way of writing down what they thought, and could only tell each other their messages and their dreams and wisdom, by spoken words. The deeds of hunters and the thoughts of wise men were remembered for a little while, but soon were talked about less often, and when the old men died there were none left who could tell about what had happened in the past. The grave-posts had no marks on them, nor were the Indians able to tell who were buried in the graves.

All they knew was that some one of their own tribe, some former wise man or hunter, or some beautiful maiden of other days lay buried there. And Hiawatha was much troubled that the Indians did not know the graves of their own fathers, and could not tell the men who should come after them about the wonderful things that had taken place long before they were born.

Hiawatha spent many days alone in the deep forest, trying to invent some way by which the Indians could always know what had happened in the past, and thereby tell secrets to each other and send messages without the risk of having them forgotten by the messenger. And after a great deal of thought, Hiawatha discovered one of the finest things in all the wide world--a secret that has changed the lives of all Indians since his time.

He took his different colored paints, and began to draw strange figures on the bark of the birch-tree, and every figure had some meaning that the red men would always remember. For the great Manito, G.o.d of all the Indians, Hiawatha painted the picture of an egg with different colored points toward the north and the south, the east and the west, to show that the Great Spirit was watching over all the world, and could be found everywhere at once.

For the Evil Spirit, Hiawatha painted the picture of a great serpent to show that the Evil Spirit was as deadly and wicked and treacherous as any snake that crawled in the green marsh gra.s.s. For Life and Death, Hiawatha drew two round spots, and painted one of them white and the other black. The white one was meant for Life, because white is clear and fair to look upon; the black was meant for Death, because black is hideous and dark. And Hiawatha painted the sun and the moon and all the stars of heaven, and he painted forests and mountains, lakes and rivers, animals and birds. For the earth he drew a straight line, like the line of the horizon, and for the sky he drew a curved line like a bow. He filled in the s.p.a.ce between with white paint that was to mean the white light of day; he painted a point at each side, one for sunrise and the other for sunset, and he drew a number of little stars to represent the night. And Hiawatha drew all sorts of pictures of men and wigwams and bows and arrows and canoes, each with its own meaning, until he had drawn different figures for the different thoughts of men.

He called the Indians to come and see what he had painted, and he said to them: "Look and learn the meaning of these different figures; go and paint upon the graves of those whom you remember, some mark that will always show who it is that lies there buried;" and the Indians painted on the grave-posts of the graves they had not yet forgotten, figures of bear and reindeer, and turtles, and cranes, and beavers. Each one of them invented some sign by which he might always know his dead, and from these signs many of the Indians have been remembered to this day. On their birch canoes the Indians drew many different shapes, and the brightest of them all was the figure of Love. It was painted in deep scarlet, because scarlet is the strongest of all colors, and the color meant: "I am greater than all others;" for the Indians believed that love was mightier than life or death, and more dangerous than either war or hunting.

Other figures were also painted there, and by looking at the pictures drawn by an Indian you could tell who he was, and what family he came from, and whether he was stern and cruel or loving and kind-hearted. For the Indians were apt to paint the things they thought about the most.

Many were the gifts that Hiawatha gave his people; but when he taught them how to paint their thoughts, he gave them a better gift than any other.

XV

HIAWATHA'S LAMENTATION

WHEN Hiawatha lived, there were many evil spirits on the earth; and these evil spirits were very jealous of the friendship between Hiawatha and Chibiabos. "If we can only get this Chibiabos in our power," they plotted, "we will kill him, and when he is dead, Hiawatha cannot do so much good to all the tribes of men; for Chibiabos helps him like a brother, and together they are much too strong for us." The evil spirits joined to destroy both Chibiabos and Hiawatha, and they laid many traps and thought of many schemes to catch the two friends off their guard.

Hiawatha was so wise that he knew of all this plotting, and he often said to Chibiabos: "O my brother, stay with me always, for together the evil spirits cannot do us any harm." But Chibiabos was young and heedless and he did not fear the evil spirits. He laughed at Hiawatha, and said to him: "Harm and evil never come near me, my Hiawatha; have no fear on my account." But Hiawatha only shook his head, and feared all the more because Chibiabos feared so little.

Once in the winter time, when the Big-Sea-Water was covered with ice and snow, Chibiabos was hunting a buck with antlers, and the buck ran right across the frozen lake. Wild with excitement of hunting, Chibiabos followed him and ran far out from sh.o.r.e upon the treacherous ice, where the evil spirits were waiting for him. When they saw that he was far enough from land, they broke the ice and Chibiabos fell with a crash and a splash into the freezing water of the lake. Even then he might have saved himself and climbed out upon the ice but the strong, cruel water-G.o.d, the G.o.d of the Dacotahs, wrapped his cold wet arms around the body of Chibiabos and dragged him down, down through the dark black water to the bottom. There the water-G.o.d buried him beneath the mud and sand, so that his dead body might not rise to the surface; and the evil spirits danced for joy at the death of Chibiabos. "We have killed him,"

they shouted gleefully to one another; "we have killed the sweetest singer in the world and the dearest friend of Hiawatha!"

From the headlands on the sh.o.r.e, Hiawatha had seen Chibiabos plunge into the lake, and he heard the wicked shouting of the evil spirits. He gave such a cry of sorrow that the forest trembled, and the wolves on the prairie raised their heads to listen and then howled in answer, while the hoa.r.s.e thunder stirred itself among the mountains and awakened all the echoes to his cry.

Then Hiawatha smeared his face with black paint, the color of sorrow and of death; he covered his head with his robe and sat for seven long weeks in his wigwam, grieving for the murdered Chibiabos. And the fir-trees sadly waved their dark green branches to and fro above his head and sighed as mournfully as Hiawatha.