Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3)

J >> James Athearn Jones >> Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3)

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They never met again. The war-party, which he led, were conducted by him
to victory. After having distinguished himself by most heroic bravery,
he received an arrow in his breast, just as the enemy had fled, with the
loss of many of their best warriors. On examining his wound, it was
perceived to be beyond the power of cure. He languished a short time,
and expired in the arms of his friends.

From the hour that she received the intelligence of his death, from the
moment that the ominous death-howl met her ear, no smile was ever seen
in the once happy lodge of Wanawosh. His daughter pined away by day and
by night. Tears and sighs sorrow and lamentations, were heard
continually. No efforts to amuse were capable of restoring her lost
serenity of mind. Persuasives and reproofs were alternately employed,
but employed in vain. It became her favourite custom to fly to a
sequestered spot in the woods, and there sit under a shady tree, and
sing her mournful laments. She would do so for days together. The
following fragment of one of these songs is yet repeated:--

Oh! how can I sing the praise of my love!
His spirit still lingers around me.
The grass which grows upon his bed of earth
Is yet too low;
Its sighs cannot be heard upon the wind.
Oh, he was beautiful!
And he was brave!

I must not break the silence,
The quiet of his still retreat,
Nor waste the time in song,
When his spirit still whispers to mine.
I hear his gentle voice
In the sounds of the newly-budded leaves;
It tells me that he yet lingers near me;
It says he loves in death
Her whom he loved in life,
Though deeply buried in the cold, cold earth.
Whisper, spirit, to me, whisper.

And I shall sing; my song,
When the green grass answers to my plaint,
When in sighs respond to my moan,
Then my voice shall be heard in his praise:
Linger, lover, linger!
Stay, spirit, stay!

The spirit of my love will soon leave me.
He goes to the land of joyful repose;
He gees to prepare my bridal bower.
Sorrowing, I must wait,
Until he comes, to call my soul away.
Hasten, lover, hasten!
Come, spirit, come!

Thus she daily repeated her plaintive song. It was not long before a
small bird of beautiful plumage flew upon the tree, beneath which she
usually sat, and, with its sweet and artless notes, seemed to respond to
her voice. It was a bird of strange character, such as she had never
seen before. It came every day and sang to her, remaining until it
became dark. Her fond imagination soon led her to suppose that it was
the spirit of her lover, and her visits to the favourite spot were
repeated with greater frequency. She now gave herself up to singing and
fasting. Thus she pined away, until that death which she had so
fervently desired came to her relief. After her decease, the bird was
never more seen. It became a popular opinion with her nation, that this
mysterious bird had flown away with her soul to the land of bliss. But
the bitter tears of remorse fell in the tent of Wanawosh, and he lived
many years to regret his false pride and his harsh treatment of the
unfortunate youth.

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 bloody
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 Pawnee 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 bloody-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 grass,
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 hither 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 passage 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 passage 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 assembled 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 passage--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
pass 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 passed 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 assembled 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 partition 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 assisted by the strength of their own hearts, and by turns
assailed 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 God 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 grass, 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 grass 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 space 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 God 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 assist 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 Pawnees, 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.

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