Traditions of the North American Indians Volume II Part 5

Adieu to these green vales, And to the pleasant shades, Where oft I sate and listened to the song Of birds at morn, and, in the evening hour, To that which gives the alarm, and bids the band Of Indian warriors grasp their spears.

No more my ears shall hear those sounds, In this my father's land; The notes of singing-birds shall pa.s.s me by, And the soft sighing of the month of buds; But I shall hear no howl of wolves, Nor cry of famished bears, Nor hissing of envenomed snakes, Nor what more chills the heart, The tyranny of father, brothers, friends.

Nor shall I be compelled For ever to behold a hated face, And shudder at the voice of him who sleeps Beneath my blanket; Nor, when within my cabin, Young faces smile on old ones, shall I wish Another eye looked on their beaming cheeks; When the storms howl, I shall not think of one, Alone in the far forest, With none to spread his blanket, With none to build his lodge-- Cold, hungry, lonely, in the desert glen.

But I shall cross the sharp and fearful rock, And reach the dwelling-place of happy souls.

No deeds shall bar me out.

I never told a lie; Kind have I been to father and to mother.

Returning from the hunt or field of war, His daughter handed him a lighted pipe; And she who gave her birth sat in the sun Upon her bench, beside the lodge's door, While young Winona baked the buffalo, And drew the crystal water from the stream.

And I shall go where there is peace, And where joy wakes for ever: There I shall meet my hunter; He shall build our lodge beside the murmuring stream, And thatch it with the vine, whose ripe, black grapes Shall hang adown in cl.u.s.ters; Our little babes shall pluck them.

Warrior, I shall not be your wife-- Father, you have no daughter-- Brothers, your sister lies upon the earth, Cold, bleeding, lifeless, and too late you mourn!

The light wind which blew at the time wafted the bitter words of her mournful dirge to the spot where her friends were. They immediately rushed, some towards the summit of the hill to stop her, others to the foot of the precipice to receive her in their arms, while all with tears in their eyes entreated her to desist from her fatal purpose.

Her father promised her that no compulsive measures should be resorted to, that she should marry or not as, she chose. Her brothers, who loved her with great affection, urged every thing that they thought likely to be of avail, but in vain. She was resolved, and, as she concluded the words of her song, she threw herself from the precipice, and fell at their feet, a corpse.

EXPEDITION OF THE LENNI LENAPES.

The Lenni Lenapes, who are the grandfather of nations[A], were quietly reposing in their lodges on the banks of a shallow and noisy river, that finds an outlet in the mighty waters beyond the great mountains, and far, very far, towards the setting sun. If my brother would see this river; if he would behold the cataract that impedes the progress of the Indian canoe; if he would witness the strife that takes place when the waters that are fresh first mingle with those that are salt, let him call together his youngest and stoutest warriors, the nimble of foot, and strong of heart--the faint and failing, the old and trembling, the weak and cowardly, will not do, for the path is beset with savage beasts and strong warriors, and hostile spirits. Let him load his women with much provision, and make his moca.s.sins of tanned bear-skin, for many are the suns it will take to journey thither, and rocky is the path that leads to that far abode. Mountains must be crossed, which are covered with snow, and upon whose summits the clouds break as the mist rises from the Oniagarah[B]. The warriors, who shall be seen in its path, will not bow down their heads to the axe of the stranger, till their spears are broken, and their quivers are bare of arrows. Nor then will they die like women, but with songs of past glory and present defiance in their mouths. And the spirits will not be appeased unless they have many offerings, and there will be in their paths the Dread Destroyer of Deer[C], he who laughed at the avenging arrow of the Master of Life, and is gone to prey upon the moose of the Lake of the Woods.

[Footnote A: The greater part of the Indians of the Western Continent believe themselves descended from, or colonies of, the Lenni Lenapes, and hence give to that tribe the epithet, "grandfather." Several of the tribes have a tradition, that they came from beyond the Rocky Mountains.]

[Footnote B: Oniagarah, Niagara: the former is the Indian p.r.o.nunciation of the name of that celebrated cataract.]

[Footnote C: See the note relating to the Mammoth in the tradition of "The Coming of Miquon."]

The Lenapes were living in their lodges, warring upon the Flatheads, feasting upon the salmon, and drinking the juice of the sacred bean[A], when it happened to one of their young warriors, that he dreamed a dream. w.a.n.gewaha, or the Hard Heart, though his years were but few, was one of the most celebrated chiefs of the nation. His days were but those of a young eagle; yet the bravest, even those who had watched the nut-tree from its sprout to its bloom, ranged themselves in battle under his faultless command, in the chase followed the ken of his eagle eye. He had struck more dead bodies, he had stolen more horses, he had taken more scalps, than any man of his nation. He could follow the trail of a gla.s.s snake from sun to sun, he could see the wake of a fish a fathom below the surface of the water. When he cast his eye upon a young maiden, she became his without a wrestle(1); when he told the revelations of the spirit of sleep, the aged men and wise councillors never called their truth in question, but acted upon them without reflection, believing them to be the voice of the Great Spirit, speaking through his favourite son. If he excelled in war and perilous pursuits, he excelled as much in those pastimes and games, wherewith the warrior in times of peace and rest beguiles the tedious hours. When w.a.n.gewaha struck the ball, its flight was above the soaring of the bird of morning, and he never rose from the game of bones(2) without giving proof that he was the favourite of heaven.

[Footnote A: Intoxicating bean.--See Long's First Expedition to the Rocky Mountains.]

It was a beautiful night in the month in which the Indians gather their first green corn, when, as the chief lay sleeping on his bed of skins, with the mother of his youngest child on his arm, he saw strange things in his slumbers. He dreamed that the bands of the Lenni Lenapes had taken the bones of their fathers from the burying places of the nation, loaded their women with pemmican and dried corn, folded up their tents, and departed towards the regions of their great father, the sun. He saw mountains, whose summits breathed fire, and others, which were the abode of the snow spirit--now noisy with the war of the Holy People above the clouds, and now with the hissing of the Great Serpent in the deep, awful, and inaccessible valleys of the bright old inhabitants.[A] They overcame, he thought, the impediments of fire and storm; they charmed away the wrath of the evil spirits, and looked at length from the eastern ridge of those mighty hills upon the interminable glades and prairies spread out in their shade. Onward they went, he thought, till at length they saw rolling before them a mighty river, upon whose banks abode a nation of warriors, whose size was much greater than that of the Lenape, and who dwelt behind hills of their own making, whence they would make incursions into the territories of the neighbouring tribes. Before him stood one of the maidens of the land. She was beautiful as a straight tree, as a meadow of flowers, as a tree covered with blossoms, as a clear sky lit up with stars. Her voice was sweeter than the notes of the Mocking-Bird[B], and her eye brighter and softer than the eye of the mountain-goat. She wore a cloak made of the tender bark of the mulberry-tree, interlaced with the white feathers of the swan, and the gay plumage of the snake-bird, and the painted vulture. Strings of sh.e.l.ls depended from her ancles, and flowers were braided into her hair. When she spoke to the young Lenape, it was with a soft voice, as if it would a.s.sure him, that the heart which dwelt within was as gentle as that voice, and as mild as that eye. He thought he wooed that maiden to be his wife, but, when she would have become such, and he would have pressed to his bosom the lovely flower of the giant people, there only appeared a little white dove which flew away, and nestled in the branches of the great medicine trees[C].

[Footnote A: See the tradition, ent.i.tled "The Valley of the Bright Old Inhabitants."]

[Footnote B: When an Indian wishes to express his admiration of music, he likens it to the notes of the Mocking-Bird. When the Winnabagoes visited Philadelphia, in the winter of 1828, they went to the Chesnut-street theatre, to hear Mrs. Knight sing: one of the chiefs, wishing to testify his delight, plucked an eagle's feather, and sent it to her by the box-keeper, with the message, that "she was a mocking-bird squaw."--_American paper._]

[Footnote C: The _physic-nut_, or Indian olive. The Indians, when they go in pursuit of deer, carry this fruit with them, supposing that it has the power of charming or drawing that creature to them.]

Then the dream of the warrior took another direction, and he had visions, and saw sights, and the phantoms of things more congenial to his disposition than even the smiles of beautiful maidens. He heard, in his sleep, the shrill war-cry of his nation, among whose foremost warriors he stood; and his ears were open to a loud shout of defiance from the enemy. He saw himself and his nation victorious, the Great River crossed, and the last canoe of his enemies committed in flight to its rapid bosom. The beautiful maiden became his wife. Again his course was onward like a torrent unchecked, and again other mountains opposed his course; but nothing offers insurmountable obstacles to the ardent spirit of an Indian warrior. He stands on the sunny brink of that mountain, and sees the beautiful lands spread out before his eye.

A voice speaks to him from the hollow wind, "Warrior of the Lenni Lenape, how likest thou the land which I place before thee? The rivers are beautiful--are they not? and yet thou canst not see, as I see, their better part--the sleek and juicy fish which glide through them, or the fowls which feed on their margin. The forests are tall--are they not? but thine eyes do not pierce their glades as mine do, to behold the stately bucks which browze in their flowery copses, or the gay birds which sing their soft songs of love and joy, perched on the lofty branches of the chesnut and the hickory. I have given these lands to thy tribe, and thou shalt continue to occupy them till the coming of Miquon."

w.a.n.gewaha, or the Hard Heart, awoke from his dream, and calling together the priests and conjurors of the nation, related to them the strange things he had seen and heard in his sleep. The expounders of dreams gave it as their opinion, that the Great Spirit had bidden the familiar genius of the warrior to reveal to him the work to which he had ordained the Lenapes. They were unanimous in this opinion. Yet they advised, that the Master of Life should be consulted by sacrifices, after the due fasts should have been kept, and that his a.s.sistance should be supplicated by songs and dances(3), as they were ever wont to be. The advice of the expounders of dreams was followed, and the priests prepared for the fast. First they feasted themselves, and the chiefs, and warriors. The remains of the feast were then removed to the outside of the camp, and the crumbs carefully swept out, till the cabin, in which the fast was to be held, was as clean as the brow of a gra.s.sy hill after a summer rain. Then it was proclaimed aloud by the head priest, that the warriors and chiefs of the Lenape nation should enter the cabin, and observe the fast, and that the women and children, and all who are uninitiated in war, who had never hung up a scalp-lock in the temple of the Wahconda, nor offered a victim to the Great Star, should keep apart from those who had done both. When those who had bound themselves to observe the sacred ceremonial had entered the holy square appointed for the fast, a man armed with the weapons of war was stationed at each of the corners, to keep out every thing except the initiated. If a dog had but dared to breathe upon the sacred spot, he had met the fate of a thievish Flathead.

Then the Lenapes drank, as is their wont, of the root[A], which purges away their evil and cowardly inclinations and propensities, making them tellers of nothing but truth, bold and strong in war, cunning and dexterous in the theft of horses, patient in scarcity, and beneath the torments of the victor. The while they filled the air with loud invocations to the great Wahconda, and with pet.i.tions to him, that, in the succeeding sacrifice, he would reveal the meaning of the dream which had so filled their minds. Lest the unexpiated sins of the uninitiated, the women and the children, should stifle their own purer voices, the priest sent by the hands of the oldest of the women a portion of the small green leaves of the beloved weed[B] to the sinners. And thus, for three suns, the priests and warriors of the Lenapes ate no food, but mortified their sinful appet.i.tes to please the Master of Life.

[Footnote A: b.u.t.ton snakeroot.]

[Footnote B: Tobacco.]

The fast being over, and the expiation made, according to the customs of the nation, the mult.i.tude a.s.sembled to the feast and sacrifice.

Proclamation was made, that, the holy rites being performed, it was lawful for the hungry to taste food. But first came the sacrifice. The deer's flesh was laid on the burning coals, and the warriors who had fasted danced their most solemn dance around the hearth of sacrifice.

The priest most reputed for intimacy with the Great Spirit, he who had oftenest, by his incantations, procured plentiful crops of maize, who had oftenest charmed the bisons to the unsheltered prairies, called the deer from the tangled coverts, and the horses from the hills of the Men of Black Garments[A], and given to the enemies of the Lenape the heart of the bird that runs low among the gra.s.s[B], arose, and began his hymn of supplication:

SONG OF THE LENAPE PRIEST.

w.a.n.gewaha dreamed a dream, The Hard Heart slept, When to him came the Manitou of Night, And visions danced before his eyes.

What did w.a.n.gewaha see?

This he saw.

He saw the valiant warriors of his land, a.s.sembled as for warfare; wives and babes Were at their feet; the aged on their sheds.

The dogs were harnessed; The bones of many generations Were taken from the burial places, where They had reposed for countless suns; The food was all prepared, Dried corn and pemmican, And folded tents proclaimed that the Lenapes Had shod their moca.s.sins for lengthened travel.

Dread Master of the earth, Wahconda of the thunder, and the winds, Who bid'st the earth shake, and the hills be thick With hail and snow, Shall we arise, and take Our father's relics from the burial shed?

Shall we depart, and wilt thou guide Our feet to fairer lands?

Does success await us, In this, our distant pilgrimage?

Will these, our young men, strike and overcome?

Shall we possess the lands the dreamer saw?

And will their maidens look with favouring eyes Upon our warriors?

Answer us, Spirit of the Mighty Voice!

[Footnote A: The Spaniards.]

[Footnote B: The partridge, a common figure with the Indians to express cowardice.]

Scarcely had the song of the priest ceased, when the voice of the Wahconda was heard sounding as sweetly as the notes of the mocking-bird rejoicing for the return of her mate, whom she chides for his long absence. The chiefs and warriors understood not the words he spoke, but they were heard by the priest, who repeated them to the awe-struck crowd. The Wahconda bade them gather up the bones of their fathers, burn them, and take the ashes, with which, and their women and children, and every thing they held valuable, they were to depart.

They were to repair to the great Memahoppa, or Medicine Stone, which stood in the midst of a prairie, many suns beyond their hunting-grounds; and to this stone they were to be directed by a mighty wise man, of very low stature and of cross and pa.s.sionate disposition, wearing a particoloured robe, and carrying a bag of rattles. Upon this memahoppa they would find further directions for their march engraved. Having pointed out their path, he gave them his blessing for brave men and expert horse-stealers, and his parting voice was as sweet as the voice of a maiden, who has died from ill-requited affection, and revisits the shades of earth in the form of a little white dove.

The Lenapes, having obeyed the orders of the Wahconda, set out on their march. The moment that their knapsacks were slung to their shoulders, and their journey made certain, the spirits of their departed friends struck up their glorious dance[A], far away over the great lakes, the favourite regions of the spirits of winds and tempests. The northern sky became lit all over with an effulgence brighter than that which glimmers in the Path of the Master of Life[B]. It was our departed friends who were showing their joy at the contemplated removal of our nation to the pleasant shades of the Lenape wihittuck, and the rich and beautiful lands which fringe its border.

[Footnote A: Northern lights, _aurora borealis_.]

[Footnote B: The milky way.]

The Lenapes had not travelled very far, when they heard in the gra.s.s near them a loud shaking, which sounded like the rattling of nuts in a dry gourd, and soon they saw a little head with open jaws, and a tongue moving quicker than the sparkle of the fire-fly, peering out of the low gra.s.s. The Lenapes knew not what it was, but they saw that it a.s.sumed a menacing posture: so one went forward with his raised war-club to dispatch it. When he drew near, the unknown creature threw itself into the form which our white brother gives to his whip; the motion of his tail became so rapid, that it seemed but the soul of a vapour; his body swelled through excessive rage, till it became four times its former size, rising and falling like the Longknife's wind medicine[A]; his beautiful skin became speckled and rough, his head and neck flattened, his cheeks swollen with ungovernable anger, his lips drawn up, showing his dreadful fangs, his eyes red as burning coals, and his forked tongue of the colour of the hottest flame.

[Footnote A: The name given by the Indians to the bellows.]

"Back, back," said he, "I am very pa.s.sionate; I shall bite you. If you value your safety, go back before I make you very sorry that you have bit your thumb at me. Or, if you are really mad, let me know, that I may pity you, and not harm you."

Shamonekusse drew back with astonishment, and called the priest to come and talk with the strange creature. The priest, having made a short pet.i.tion to his guardian Okki, which was the stuffed skin of a horned owl, came forward, and demanded of the strange creature, "Who are you?"

"I am," answered he, "the partisan leader of the rattlesnakes. I am the 'mighty wise man of very low stature, and of cross and pa.s.sionate disposition, wearing a particoloured robe, and carrying a bag of rattles,' spoken of by the Great Wahconda, as he who was ordered to guide the Lenapes to the River of Fish."

"We are the Lenapes," answered the priest.