Traditions of the North American Indians Volume I Part 17

LEGENDS OF THE HAPPY HUNTING-GROUNDS.

I.--AKKEEWAISEE, THE AGED.

Let my brother listen to my words, and ponder deeply. Let him remain mute, and his question shall be answered. He has asked the opinion which the red men of the wilderness entertain of the Country of Souls;--he has asked us whither the spirits of good men repair when the sleep which knows no waking has come over them. Again, I say, let my brother listen deeply, for the words he will hear are concerning the question he has asked. We shall sing in his ears no tale of b.l.o.o.d.y deeds--of scalps taken from stricken warriors, or of victims bound to a naming stake. Our songs shall be songs of a state far happier than that enjoyed by mortals; we shall tell of worlds, the air of which is purer, the sun brighter, the moon milder, and the stars far more glorious--of the Land of the Happy Hunting-Grounds. As my brother will see, each nation has its own beloved place of rest for the soul. It is well. Could the Chippewas dwell with the Hurons, whose blood they have so frequently shed? Could a man of the p.a.w.nee Loups embrace an Omawhaw, who carried at his back the scalps of his wife and his children? No; and, therefore, as they could not on earth dwell in peace together, so each has in the world of souls his separate hunting-grounds, his own rivers, lakes, valleys, mountains, forests, where no envious hunter may intrude, which no b.l.o.o.d.y-minded warrior may invade. An insurmountable and eternal barrier is placed between tribes who had formerly been at war, lest they disturb the peace of the blessed shades by a renewal of the quarrel, and shake the glorious mansions with the violence of wars, like those they wage on earth. My brother asks how, the Dahcotahs know these things. I answer, it was seen by one of them in his sleep; it came in the shape of a dream to a very wise man of our nation.

There was among us, in the days that are gone, a priest who was much beloved by his Master, and was taught by him to know the future as he knew the present, and to see and speak truly of things unseen by other eyes. He had been many years on the earth, and was now called "Akkeewaisee," a name signifying his great age. That he might better converse with, and worship his master he had taken up his abode in a hollow hill, near the great village of the Dahcotahs. Thither the tribe resorted, to be taught those things which were necessary to be known in respect to the proper ordering of the hunt or the war expedition, to the season at which the corn should be planted, or the gathering of the tribe at the chosen waters of the salmon should take place. Having never known any thing predicted by him prove false; having ordered, under his guidance, all their hunting and war expeditions right, and never failed, when relying on his presentiments, to go to the haunts of the salmon, at the proper season, and to return from thence with full bellies and glad hearts, they listened to the words of Akkeewaisee, the Aged, and believed the tale which he told them of the Land of Spirits.

Akkeewaisee, the Aged, was sleeping on his bed of skins and soft gra.s.s, when the Manitou of Dreams came to him, and led him out of the hollow cave towards the Wanare-tebe, or dwelling-place of the souls of the Dahcotahs, and their kindred tribes. Onward they travelled for many suns, over lofty mountains, up whose rocky sides they were obliged to scramble as a wild goat scrambles; now swimming deep rivers, now threading mazy forests, now frozen in the regions of intense cold, and now burnt in those of great heat, till at length they came to a very high rock, the edge of which was as sharp as the sharpest knife.

Waiting, at its. .h.i.ther end, their turn to essay the dangerous test of their good or bad deeds, the unerring trial of their guilt or purity, stood many souls of Dahcotahs, and others whom Akkeewaisee had known on the earth. He stood and beheld the punishment of the bad, and the blessed escape of the good from the dreadful ordeal to which all alike were subjected. He saw a Dahcotah attempt the dangerous pa.s.sage who had been too lazy to hunt, who had lain whole days stretched out upon his mat, while his wife begged food of the husbands of other women, and his children were clothed with skins, the produce of the labours of other men. He saw him precipitated from the dizzy height into the depths below, where the Evil Spirit received him into ids arms, and condemned him to that--to the criminal--hardest of punishments, a life of labour and fatigue. The great stick of wood was placed upon his shoulders, and a great pail of water in each hand, while the evil creature appointed to be his task-master flogged him incessantly to incite to a quicker walk.

Again was the pa.s.sage attempted by another. A Dahcotah came forward, who had dared to paint his cheeks as a warrior paints, and to shave his crown to the scalp-lock, and to prepare a sheaf of arrows, and to strike the painted pole, that stood by the council fire, and to dance the war-dance, and to utter the whoop of a warrior. Yet, when he came to the field where the hostile Tetons were a.s.sembled to do battle with his tribe--when his brothers had rushed like men upon their foes--he wiped the paint from his cheeks, he cut off the scalp-lock, he threw away his sheaf of arrows, he forgot that he had struck the war-pole, or danced, or whooped, and fled from the field as a deer flies from the bark of a dog. Him the master of the fetes of the bad ordained to a ceaseless warfare with the shades of the Tetons, from whom he had fled. He saw a liar attempt the dreadful pa.s.sage--he fared no better than those who had preceded him; a reviler of the priests, and disbeliever in their power, met with the same fate. He saw the son of the aged Tadeus-kund, who had beaten his mother and spat in the face of his father, double chained to a wheel which moved over the floor of the abyss, at the top of the speed of the unnatural son.

Then came the turn of the good to make the trial of the rock. He saw pa.s.s safely over all who had been good to their parents, who had hunted well, fought bravely, told no lies, nor ridiculed, nor doubted, the priests. Having seen them all arrive in safety at the other end of the rode, the spirit conducted Akkeewaisee over also. They had yet a long way to travel, but they were guided by their observation of the encamping places of the souls who had preceded them. At each of these places tents were pitched, and fires always lighted where they could warm themselves, and rest until they had driven away the pains of fatigue, and recovered strength to pursue their journey. After many moons of weary travel, they arrived at the habitation of the Waktan Tanka, or Great Spirit. It was situated in the middle of a flowery vale, watered by cool and refreshing streams, and shaded by groves of larch and cypress. Many villages of the dead were scattered over it; here one, and there one, like single buffaloes feeding on a prairie. Akkeewaisee asked if the souls of his father and mother had reached the happy vale, and was directed to the village in which they dwelt. He found, gathered in this village, the souls of all his race who had pa.s.sed the rock; the joyful reunion had there taken place for a long succession of ages--of fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters: they now composed one great family. Their life--the life of all a.s.sembled in the valley of the Waktan Tanka--was blissful and happy beyond measure. They planted corn, which never failed to grow tall; they hunted the buffalo through flowery vales, till they pierced his side with a never-varying arrow, Akkeewaisee asked the spirits if it was permitted to them to revisit the land of the living. They answered never, except when children were about to die, and then their departed relatives recrossed the rock of judgment to guide their tender feet to their latest home.

Having lain three moons in the trance, the soul of the Aged Man re-animated his body, and he awoke. He related to the people of the tribe his dream of the Land of departed Spirits, and it has travelled down to my time as I have told it to my brother.

II.--THE DELAWARE HEAVEN.

The stranger has been shown the Dahcotah land of souls--let him behold that of the Delawares. The Delawares, who are the grandfather of nations, believe that the habitation of good spirits is beyond the beautiful sky, which forms the part.i.tion between them and those who are doomed yet longer to inhabit the frail, and sickly, and feverish, tenement of flesh. The road to this bright land of spirits leads over a mighty and fearful rock, upon which the sky rolls to and fro with a stupendous sound. I am asked, "How do the Delawares know this?" I will tell you.

There were, once upon a time, in the tribe of the Unamis or Turtles, the most potent and warlike tribe of the Delawares, two valiant warriors, who feared nothing greatly but shame and disgrace. One of them loved and was beloved by a beautiful girl of the same nation, who, in a thoughtless moment, for at no other would she have made her lover incur so great a danger, expressed a wish to know if the soul of her deceased sister remembered the promise she had made her, of feeding with sweet berries, and nursing in her bosom, the spirit of the little bird which dropped dead from the bough of the locust-tree on the evening of her own death. The other warrior had lost his mother, whom he tenderly loved, and he wished to go and see, with his own eyes, if they used her well in the land of spirits, nor bowed her back to heavier burdens than accorded with the faintness of advanced years. They concluded, one to gain a smile from his beloved maiden, and the other to gratify his affectionate regards for his mother, to obtain a view of the Land of departed Souls; but it was not till they had been frequently reminded of their undertaking, and their courage had been repeatedly taxed(1), that, brave as they were, they could make their hearts strong enough to face the spirits of the winds that rove about the sky, or the thunders that leap from the black cloud. They left the village of the Unamis, and travelled for many moons in a path very crooked and difficult to be travelled, till at length they came to a mighty and fearful rock, upon which the sky was rolling to and fro with a tremendous sound, and a motion resembling that of the waves of the Great Lake Superior, when tossed about by a tempest. The winds were gambolling about the pathway, not as upon the earth, invisible to the eye, but in shapes, some of which were the most beautiful ever beheld, and some more frightful than ever entered into the conception of a son of the earth. The stars, which the inhabitants of the world are accustomed to see chained to their allotted bounds, were there floating and dashing about in the thin air, like a boat moving on troubled waters. After travelling with extreme pain and suffering for a long time upon this road, now buffetted by the terrific and angry forms of the north and east winds, and now soothed and comforted by the ministering shapes of the breezes of the west and south--now a.s.sisted by the strength of their own hearts, and by turns a.s.sailed or protected by the stars, they reached the Land of Souls. It was a beautiful country, they said, and the employments to which souls were there subjected, produced to them all the pleasant consequences they produced on earth to those who followed them, while they were unattended by the labour and difficulties attached to them in the earthly stage of existence. The sky was always cloudless, and a perpetual spring reigned throughout those happy regions. The forests were always full of game, and the lakes of fish, which were taken without the laborious pursuit and painful exertion of skill, which were necessary to secure them in the earthly habitation. The embodied forms of their friends retained the same wishes, inclinations, and habits, which had belonged to them while occupying the terrestrial house. So say the Unamis.

Another tribe of Delawares do not believe as the Unamis do--they think that the land of departed souls lies in another part of the sky, and that the path to it is not over mighty and fearful rocks, through the hideous army of embattled winds, and among the bounds and rebounds of unchained stars. There were once, but the time was many ages ago, in the tribe of the Unalachtas, two fearless and prudent hunters, who had one father, but not one mother, who had never offended the Great Spirit, or the inferior spirits, but duly observed in all their actions a full and unceasing remembrance of the Giver of all good gifts, as well as those who take a lesser part in the government of the world; and, whether in their cabins or in the wild forests, had never failed to offer sacrifices to him of the most valued part of all their acquisitions.

When they came to the river or the lake, they threw in a large piece of their tobacco, and cast in birds, whose throats had been cut, and feathers plucked from the tip of the wings, to propitiate and render favourable to their prayers the haughty Michabou, the G.o.d of the Waters.

When the kind and beneficent sun rose, they were careful to throw into the fire, to which he imparts the heat, a portion of every thing they intended to use that day; and when the mistress of bad spirits, the Moon, came out of the far woods, they took great care to propitiate the evil intelligences which sit upon her horns, plotting mischief to mortals, by liberal gifts of _petun_, or collars of beads, or ears of maize, or skins of animals. When their feet stood upon the edge of the mighty cataract, then was the most valued dog precipitated, then was the most valued drink poured into the overwhelming torrent, to appease the angry spirit of the abyss. And thus, performing their duties to the Great Master and their fellow-creatures, lived the two good Unalachta hunters.

But death at length at their request came to them. They wished to see the Country of Souls, and to judge with their own eyes if its situation and its delights had been truly told to them. Much had it been talked of, but who were they that talked? They were mortals--men, who had never quitted the corporeal state, nor stood forth disembodied spirits; things with the feelings which attend human nature. They wished to see if thorns and arrows would not wound the flesh of those who had departed hence; nor fire burn, nor cold freeze, nor hunger pinch, nor repletion distress, nor grief draw tears, nor joy produce excitement. Bending low before the Master of Life, with clay upon their heads, one of them, the elder, thus addressed him:

"Spirit of the Happy Lands! Tamenund, and the son of his father's wife, are on their knees before thee, with clay spread on their hair. It is not required that we name our wishes to thee; if thou art, as we think, the all-pervading and all-knowing spirit, thou knowest what they are before we have uttered them; if thou art not gifted with these attributes, why should we pour our words into the ears of one unable to grant us the boon we ask? We wish to die for a time; we wish that our eyes may be enabled to see the Happy Hunting-Grounds, if there be such grounds, and our ears to drink in the music of the streams which our fathers told us welled softly along beside the village of the dead.

Master of Life, hear us, and grant our request."

Tamenund, and the son of his father's wife, lay down upon their couch of skins and soft gra.s.s, when the dews first began to descend upon the earth, and the deep sleep of death came over them. They found that their prayers had been heard, and themselves released from the thraldom of life and the load of the flesh. The spirit, unchained from the matter that shrivels and becomes dust, danced about like the winds of spring over the bosom of a prairie. It could stand upon the slenderest stalk of gra.s.s without bending it, and ascend and descend upon the sunbeams, as a healthy boy rung up and down a slight hill. Soon they found themselves irresistibly impelled by a wish to rise, and travel towards the bright track in the skies, where the light of innumerable stars is mingled in such confusion. They rose, and as a canoe, moving in the vicinity of the dwelling of Michabou[A], is drawn rapidly towards it by the hands of unseen spirits, so were they hurried towards the road of souls, which our white brother calls the Milky Way. They came to it, and found it thronged by innumerable hosts of spirits of all colours, all bound in the same bright path to the same glorious home. After travelling in this path for two suns, they came to a great city surrounded by the shade of a high wall. Within this wall, which was of immense extent, enclosing rivers and lakes, and forests and prairies, and all the things which are found on earth, dwelt the souls of good men; without, hovering around, as a hawk hovers around a dove's nest, into which he dares not pounce, because he sees near it a bent bow in the hands of a practised archer, were the souls of the bad, debarred entrance, and, as often as they approached very near, driven away by the ministering spirits of the Great Master of ail. Within the wall were all the things which give pleasure to the red man; the river filled with fishes disporting in their loved element, the lakes thronged with glad fowls, wheeling in their devious paths, and the woods with beautiful birds, singing their soft songs of love and joy from the flowery boughs of the tulip-tree and the Osage apple. They saw in the open s.p.a.ce a panther, fangless and powerless, and heard in the thicket the growl of a fat bear, that could neither bite nor scratch. The speed of the bison was outstripped by that of the spirits; the wings of the wild turkey and soland-goose could not convey them out of the reach of the sprightly inhabitants of the City of Souls. Their corn grew up like trees, with two ears upon every stalk, and the produce of their bean-garden was a thousand for one. But while the souls of the good were so happy, and their joys so many, miserable, miserable was the state of the bad who were excluded from the city. They saw the happiness of the good souls, many of whom had been known to them on the earth, and they gnashed their teeth with impotent rage, and uttered a war-whoop, as a leg-broken bear growls or a chained man threatens, at the sight of the bliss of which they were not permitted to partake.

[Footnote A: Many of the Indians suppose that the G.o.d of the Waters (Michabou) resides in the Cataract of St. Anthony.]

When they had remained three suns in the Joyful Abodes, the Great Spirit bade them prepare for their return to the earth. He told them there were human duties for them to perform before they could be permitted to take up their residence for ever in the Happy City. He bade Tamenund remember, that he had not taught his little son how to toughen a young ash bow, nor how to splint a shaken arrow. And he told the son of his father's wife that he had suffered the bird of his cabin to sow more corn than she could gather in, and that he must return to the earth, and see that her shoulders were not bowed by the heavy task of the harvest. "There were other duties for them to perform," he said, "and many must yet be their years on the earth."

In obedience to the orders of the Great Master of all, they returned to the Unalachta village, and again re-animated the bodies they had left.

Tamenund taught his son how to toughen a young ash bow, and splint a shaken arrow; and the son of his father's wife forgot the dignity of an approved hunter, to a.s.sist his beloved woman in harvesting the corn.

They lived long, and acted well, and when their years were many, when their limbs had grown feeble and their eyes dark with the mists of age, when they could no longer bend the bow of their youth, nor run the race of vigorous manhood, they were called from the earth, to enjoy that happiness which they had been permitted to behold with the eyes of humanity.

NOTE.

(1) _Courage had been repeatedly taxed_.--p. 234.

There is nothing which an Indian will not attempt to perform when his courage is taxed, or the honour of his nation called in question. "An Omawhaw," says Long, "being on a visit to the p.a.w.nees, was present at a kind of grand incantation, during which many extraordinary feats were performed. He there saw, for the first time, the mountebank trick of appearing to cut off the tongue, and afterwards replacing the severed portions without a wound. 'There,' said Katterfelto, 'your medicine is not strong enough to enable you to perform this operation. The stranger, jealous of his national honour, and unwilling to be exceeded, unhesitatingly drew forth his knife, and actually cut off nearly the whole of his tongue, and bled to death before their eyes."

III.--THE HUNTING-GROUNDS OF THE BLACKFOOTS.

The Blackfoot believes that his fathers have told him truly, when they told him that the people of his tribe, when released from the load of flesh, come to a steep mountain, up whose huge projecting sides they have to scramble. After many moons of unwearied labour, tired and exhausted, they reach the top, from which they behold the land of the dead. They see stretched out before them an extensive plain, interspersed with new tents, pitched by the sides of beautiful streams, the banks of which resound with the humming of bees and the music of birds, and are shaded from the summer sun by the ever-blooming tree with great white flowers. Some of the tents are pitched upon hills, some in valleys, some to meet the whispering breezes of the Month of Buds, and some the strengthening winds of the Harvest-Moon. While, from the top of the mountain they are absorbed in contemplation of this delightful scene, the inhabitants of the happy land discover them, and come singing and dancing along, clothed in new skins, to meet them, with the blanket of friendship widely spread to the winds (1). Those Indians who have led good lives approach with that fearless step and eye which the recollection of good deeds always inspires, and are received with every demonstration of joy common among Indians; but those who have embrued their hands in the blood of their countrymen, and betray, by their pale cheeks and trembling steps, that they expect and deserve punishment, and those whose foreheads have been in any way blackened by the smoke of the breath of the Spirit of Evil, are told to return whence they came, and without more words are pitched down the sides of the mountain. Women, whose hard hearts have made their feeble hands take the life to which they had given birth, quenching the little spark struck out from the half-burnt brand, never reach the mountain at all, but are compelled by the Master of all to hover around the seats of their crimes, with branches of the mountain pine tied to their legs. The melancholy sounds heard in the still summer evenings, and which ignorant white men think the screams of the goat-sucker, or the groans of the owl, are the moanings of these wicked and unhappy mothers, lamenting the unnatural murder of their helpless little ones. They are trying to recall them to life, that their doom may be revoked, and that they may be permitted to approach the mountain.

In the Blackfoot land of souls, all are treated according as the deeds they have done have been good or evil in their intent or their consequences. If they have truly and faithfully performed those things for which they were sent upon the earth, if they have been good sons, good husbands, good fathers, good friends; if they have fought bravely, hunted well, told no lies, nor spoken evil of the Great Spirit, nor made laugh at his priests, they know neither pain nor sorrow, their time is spent in singing and dancing, and they feed upon mushrooms, which are very abundant and grow without cultivation. They are attended to the Happy Regions by the shades of their dogs and guns, and the shades of their huts and every thing they contained are ready for them the moment they arrive in these happy regions. The souls of bad men, which are not separated from the good save by the different feelings and pursuits which belonged to them in life, wander about, haunted by the phantoms of the persons or things they have injured. If a man has destroyed his neighbour's canoe, or his gun, or his bow and arrows, the phantoms of the wrecks of this property obstruct his pa.s.sage wherever he goes. He sees every where the bow, self-drawn, ready to impel an arrow pointed at his breast, the gun ready poised, the canoe threatening to sink him.

If he has been cruel to his dogs and horses, they also are permitted to torment him, and to hunt him down, as he in his life-time hunted the wolf and the deer. The ghosts of the men whom he injured in life are now permitted to avenge their wrongs, and to inflict on his shade pains commensurate with those he made them suffer. The spirit of the man, from whom he stole the ear of soft maize, now s.n.a.t.c.hes from his hungry lips the red-gilled mushroom, and he, into whose crystal stream he threw impure substances, in revenge, strikes from his lip the gourd of crystal water. The good hunter, whose bowstring he enviously cut, fillips him on the forehead; the warrior whose spear he broke when no human eye beheld him, now, informed of the unmanly deed by the Spirit who sees all, spits in his face, as a coward should be spat upon. The soul of the horse which he overrode, or otherwise maltreated, runs backwards upon him, with elevated heels and a loud neigh; the dog he whipped too much or too often rushes upon him with open mouth, and the growl of bitter and inextinguishable hatred. He steps into the canoe, it sinks beneath him, and, when his chin is level with the water, it rises beyond his reach.

Lo, there is a gun before him, and the shade of a stately stag nipping the phantom of a youthful hazel. He makes the attempt to point the gun towards it, and just as he supposes he has attained the object, and puts forth his hand to give vent to the winged weapon of death, he finds the gun has changed its position--the muzzle is pointed towards his own breast. Thus opposed, thwarted, baffled, by every thing around him, despised by all things, whether gifted with life or not, he pa.s.ses an existence, the horrors of which may be felt but not described.

The soul of the Blackfoot never returns to earth, except to forewarn his friends of their approaching dissolution. When the Great Spirit says to him, "Spirit of a Blackfoot, the son or the daughter of your father is about to leave the green vales of the earth,"--"the foot of your father is shaking off the drowsiness of age, that he may prepare for the long journey of spirits,"--"the babe that was born yesterday will be journeying hither to-day,"--"the heart of your kind mother wants courage to die,"--"the soul of your beloved maiden, much as it longs for the arms of its tender lover, faints at the near prospect of the pang that rends asunder the flesh and the spirit--go, and comfort them,"--then, and then only--always at the bidding of the Great Master, never of its own accord--does the soul revisit the gross and unhappy world it has left. Then does it knock at the ear of the sleeper, whispering, "Take courage, for the Master despises cowards--meet the pang as a brave warrior--as a good hunter--as a wise priest--as a beauteous maiden should meet it, and rejoin the happy souls of thy race, in the valley of the kind and good Waktan Tanka." The sleeper, thus admonished, wakes with the words of the spirit deeply engraved on the green leaf of his memory--that leaf never becomes dry. Is he a warrior, and has he the fate to be taken in the toils of the enemy?--when bound to the stake, and the fire scorches his limbs, and the pincers rend his flesh, and the hot stone sears his eye-b.a.l.l.s, and the other torments are inflicted, that serve to feed the revenge of the conqueror, and test the resolution of the captive, no groan can be forced from him, in the utmost extremity of his anguish; he never stains his death-song with grief, but dies as he lived, a man, because he knows that the Great Spirit despises cowards. Is he a hunter?--he enters boldly the den of the black bear, though surrounded by her cubs, and he laughs at the cry of the catamount, though he crouches for his bound. Is he a priest?--he calls louder and more frequently and joyfully than before upon his familiar spirit; he thanks the Master that his prayers are heard; and he is to be permitted to visit the happy lands. And what if the tears of the bright-eyed maiden do drop on the bosom of those who pillow her head in the Hour of Dread, they are not tears of sorrow, but flow from an eye, by the command of Him who made it the window of the soul, fated to the weakness of tears, and a heart p.r.o.ne to irresolution and trembling. The Great Waktan Tanka knows that he made her with the heart of a dove, that shakes at the fall of a leaf, and the soul of a song-sparrow, that utters its cry of fear at the fall of a flake of snow. He will not number tears and sighs, and tremblings and faintings, among the transgressions of a woman.

This is all I have to say.

NOTE.

(1) _To meet them with the blanket of friendship widely spread to the winds_.--p. 246.

The Indian manner of displaying friendship is very singular; in that mentioned in the second extract, the reader will perceive a strong resemblance to the Oriental practice of saluting a new acquaintance, as depicted in that admirable tale, The Crusaders.

"When they were within a mile of us, the Indian suddenly stopt. Captain Lewis immediately followed his example, took the blanket from his knapsack, and, holding it with both hands at each corner, threw it above his head, and unfolded it as he brought it to the ground, as if in the act of spreading it. This signal, which originates in the practice of spreading a robe or a skin as a seat for guests to whom they wish to show a distinguished kindness, is the universal sign of friendship among the Indians of the Missouri and the Rocky Mountains. It is repeated three times."--_Lewis and Clarke,_ i. 355.

"As our canoes approached the sh.o.r.e, and had reached about three score rods of it, the Indians began a _feu-de-joie,_ in which they fired their pieces loaded with b.a.l.l.s, but at the same time they took care to discharge them in such a manner as to cause the b.a.l.l.s to fly a few yards above our heads; during this, they ran from one tree or stump to another, shouting and behaving as if they were in the heat of battle. At first I was greatly surprised, and was on the point of ordering my attendants to return their fire, concluding that their intentions were hostile; but, being undeceived by some of the traders, who informed me that this was the usual mode of receiving friends, I happily desisted."--_Carver_, 15.

"Among the Shoshonees of the Rocky Mountains, they put their left arms over the right shoulder of the person they welcome, clapping his back, and applying their left cheek to his, shouting, 'Ah, hi e! Ah, hie e!' I am much rejoiced, I am much pleased to see you."--_Lewis and Clarke_, i.

363.

"When two parties of those Indians meet," (the Northern Indians,) says Hearne, "the ceremonies which pa.s.s between them are quite different from those made use of in Europe on similar occasions; for, when they advance within twenty or thirty yards of each other, they make a full halt, and in general sit or lie down on the ground, and do not speak for some minutes. At length one of them, generally an elderly man, if any such be in the company, breaks silence, by acquainting the other party with every misfortune that had befallen him, &c. When he has finished his oration, another orator of the other party relates, in like manner, all the bad news."--p. 332.

IV.--THE STONE CANOE.

Where is the land of the Chepewyans? Where have that tribe of valiant warriors and expert hunters built their lodges? I will tell you. It is in the regions of almost perpetual snows; regions whose suns are never warm enough to pierce the frozen earth, which, therefore, produces nothing but moss. No sweet ears of corn grow to reward the toils of the woman; no wild flowers spring up for the youthful maiden to pluck. The child wanders forth to gather no berries; no bird of sweet music sings on the branch; no b.u.t.terfly flits in the valley. Chill and dreary are the autumns, cold and bitter the winters; men drink melted ice, when in other lands buds are bursting open, and wear for a summer garment the skins of the otter and the beaver. Instead of the mild and whispering breezes of southern skies, we have the wild winds rushing impetuously forth from their caves in the icy north, and the sun of the land of the Chepewyans, knowing his uselessness, and the inability of his beams to rend the fetters which ice has thrown around our bleak hills and verdureless plains, stays with us but for a little season, leaving us for many weary days to be lighted only by the glare of the moon and stars, on the field of ice and snow. Yet the Chepewyan is not without his pleasures, as those who live in the land of the sun have their pains. He may drive from their frozen dens the beasts that make their beds in the bank of snow, and he may pursue the bear on the iceberg, and the musk-ox in the glade. In summer he may strike the salmon as he glides through the waters of the Bear Lake, and send his darts through the brown eagle, and make captive the white owl, hidden in the foliage of the dwarf-pine. In the winter, when the storm of hail rattles around his lodge of ice, stretched out on his bed of moss, he may recount the glories of his nation, and the great deeds of his fathers; And he may solace himself for the privations he endures, in his present state of being, by fancying those he will enjoy in that land of rest upon which he will enter when his spirit goes hence, and returns to the body no more.

A Chepewyan chief sat by the fire of his cabin in the time of winter, and the hour of a fall of snow, and told, in the ears of the listening tribe, a legend of the land of souls, the Chepewyan tradition of the Happy Hunting-Grounds. Let the a.s.sembled nations listen, and hear it repeated by the tongue of his son, who sat with open ears at his father's knee, drinking in the beloved words of beloved lips, and engraving them deeply on the core of his heart.

"Once upon a time," my father began, "there lived in our nation a most beautiful maiden, the flower of the wilderness--the delight and wonder of all who saw her. She was called the Rock-rose, and was beloved by a youthful hunter, whose advances she met with an equal ardour. No one but the brave Outalissa was permitted to whisper tales of love by the side of her nocturnal couch in the hour of darkness(1). The rock-moss he gathered was always the sweetest; and the produce of his hunt, however old and tough, was, in her opinion, the youngest and tenderest. They had loved from childhood, and with the deepest affection. But it was not permitted them to become inhabitants of one lodge, the occupants of one conch. Death came to the flower of the Chepewyans, in the morning of her days, and the body of the tender maiden was laid in the dust with the customary rites of burial. First, dressed in the richest garb she possessed, the gay-tinted robe of curiously woven feathers, and decked out with the ornaments bestowed upon her by the youth she loved, they placed her in the grave, lined with pine branches, amidst the groans and lamentations of the whole nation. The men howled loud and long, and the women cut off their hair, and scarred their flesh, and pierced their arms with sharp knives, and blackened their faces with charred wood.

When the earth covered her from human sight, then woke their loudest burst of sorrow--all wept, save him who had most cause to weep; he stood motionless as a tree in the hour of calm, as the wave that is frozen up by the breath of the cold wind.

"Joy came no more to the bereaved lover. The chase afforded him no pleasure, for who was to share his spoils? He found no joy in pursuing the salmon, for no one lived to reward his successful quest with the smile of approbation. He told his discontent in the ears of his people, and spoke of his determination, at all events, to rejoin his beloved maiden. She had but removed, he said, to some happier region, as the Arctic birds fly south at the approach of winter; and it required but due diligence on his part to find her. Having prepared himself, as a hunter prepares himself, with a store of pemmican, or dried beef, and armed himself with his war-spear and bow and arrow, he set out upon his journey to the Land of Souls. Directed by the old tradition of his fathers, he travelled south to reach that region, leaving behind him the great star, and the fields of eternal ice. As he moved onwards he found a more pleasant region succeeding to that in which he had lived. Daily, hourly, he remarked the change. The ice grew thinner, the air warmer, the trees taller. Birds, such as he had never seen before, sang in the bushes, and fowls of many kinds, before unknown, were pluming themselves in the warm sun on the sh.o.r.es of the lake. The gay woodp.e.c.k.e.r was tapping the hollow beech; the swallow and the martin were skimming along the level of the green vales. He heard no more the cracking of branches of trees beneath the weight of icicles and snow;--he saw no more the spirits of departed men dancing wild dances on the skirts of the Northern clouds(2); and the farther he travelled the milder grew the skies, the longer was the period of the sun's stay upon the earth, and the softer, though less brilliant, the light of the moon. Noting these changes as he went with a joyful heart--for they were indications of his near approach to the land of joy and delight--he came at length to a cabin, situated on the brow of a steep hill, in the middle of a narrow road. At the door of this cabin stood a man of a most ancient and venerable appearance. He was bent nearly double with age; his locks were white as snow; his eyes were sunk very far into his head, and the flesh was wasted from his bones till they were like trees from which the bark had been peeled. He was clothed in a robe of white goat-skin, and a long staff supported his tottering limbs whithersoever he walked. The Chepewyan began to tell him who he was, and why he had come thither, but the aged man prevented him, by saying that he knew all. "There had pa.s.sed," he said, "to the beautiful island, a little while before, the soul of a tender and lovely maiden, well known to the son of the Red Elk. Being fatigued with her long journey, he had rested awhile in his cabin, and had then told him the story of their long and affectionate attachment, and her persuasion that her lover would attempt to follow her to the Lake of Spirits. She had but just pa.s.sed, and a little more speed on his part would enable him to overtake her. But he could not be permitted to carry his body, nor the body of his dog, nor his bow, nor his war-spear, beyond the door of the cabin, which was the gate of the land. He must leave them in his charge till his return, but he need not fear that harm would happen to them. So saying, he opened the gate, and gave him a glimpse of the wide and s.p.a.cious road beyond.""

The Chepewyan was not long in disinc.u.mbering himself of the deadening clog of mortality. Leaving his body, and the bodies of his dog, and spear, and bow, in the hands of the gatekeeper, with a charge to have them delivered to his friends if he should not return, he entered upon the road to the Blissful Island. He had travelled but a couple of bowshots, when it met his view still more beautiful than his fathers had painted it. He stood upon the brow of a hill, sloping gently away to a smooth lake, which stretched as far as the eye could see. Upon its banks were groves of beautiful trees of all kinds, and many, very many canoes were seen gliding over its waters. A light breeze ruffled its waves--so light that they only reminded him of the opposition which a weak man makes to the will of the strong. Afar, in the centre of the lake, lay the beautiful island appointed for the residence of the good Chepewyan.

And scarcely three bowshots from him, leaning upon a bank of flowers, in contemplation of the glorious scene, was the soul of her so fondly loved. Beautiful vision! The sight lends to his steps the fleetness of an antelope; he bounds forward, and is soon at her side. Into his arms she flies, and though they clasp but thin air, embrace but her resemblance, yet the doing so gives a hundred times the joy it could have done, when his spirit was clogged with the grossness of mortality, and he folded to his breast a corporeal form.

At length they reached the lake. They found upon its bank, chained by a rope of sand to the shade of a willow, two canoes made of a white stone that glittered in the sun like a field of ice. There were paddles in each canoe of the same material. The lovers were prepared for this by the tradition of their fathers, which informed them that a canoe of stone was the conveyance by which they were to reach the happy mansions.

They also knew that each soul must have its separate conveyance, because the pa.s.sage was to give rise to the judgment which permitted them to sit down in the happy dwellings, or doomed them to the punishment prepared for the wicked. Casting off the rope of sand, each stepped into a canoe, and committed it to the Water of Judgment. Who can describe their joy and satisfaction, when they found that, though the actions of their life-time had not been entirely pure; though the man had sometimes slaughtered more musk-oxen than he could eat, speared salmon to be devoured by the brown eagle, and gathered rock-moss to rot in the rain; though he had once made mock of a priest, and once trembled at the war-cry of the Knisteneaux, and once forgotten to throw into the fire the tongue of a beaver as an offering to the Being who bade it cross his hunting-path in a season of scarcity; and though the maiden had suffered her father to wear tattered moca.s.sins, and her brothers broken snow-shoes, and thought of her lover when she should have been thinking of the Master of Life--still the canoes did not sink, but floated slowly on, level with the water, towards the Happy Island. They found that the paddles were not needed--once pa.s.sed the Judgment test, once p.r.o.nounced fit for the happy lands, the canoe moved, self-impelled, to the appointed harbour. As they floated onwards, their eyes and ears were pained by a thousand sights and sounds of horror. Now they saw a canoe sink from under the person it was appointed to judge--a father, perhaps, with his children in view; a husband, or wife, or friend, with the object dearest to their hearts, to listen to the bubling cry of their agony, as they sank to their chins in the water, there to remain for ever, beholding and regretting the rewards enjoyed by the good, and doomed to struggle, till the stars shall cease to shine, in unavailing endeavours to reach the blissful island. They beheld the lake thick and black with the heads of the unhappy swimmers, as the surface of the Great Bear Lake is dotted in summer with the wild fowl that seek subsistence in its bosom.