Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3)
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James Athearn Jones >> Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3)
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[Footnote A: Place of souls after death--the Indian elysium.]
"Once upon a time, in the season of opening buds, and the singing of
birds, and the whistling of the breeze among the wild flowers, the
people of our nation were much terrified at seeing a strange creature,
much resembling a man, riding along the adjacent waves upon the back of
a fish. He had upon his head long green hair, much resembling the coarse
weeds which the mighty storms of the month of falling leaves root up
from the bottom of the ocean, and scatter along the margin of the
feathery strand where we now dwell. Upon his face, which was shaped like
that of a porpoise, he had a beard of the colour of ooze. Around his
neck hung a string of great sea-shells, upon his forehead was bound
another made of the teeth of the cayman, and in his hand was a staff
formed of the rib of a whale. But, if our people were frightened at
seeing a man who could live in the water like a fish or a duck, how much
more were they frightened when they saw, that from his breast down he
was actually a fish, or rather two fishes, for each of his legs was a
whole and distinct fish. And, when they heard him speak distinctly in
their own language, and still more when he sang songs sweeter than the
music of birds in spring, or the whispers of love from the lips of a
beautiful maiden, they thought it a being from the Land of Shades, a
spirit from the happy fishing grounds beyond the lake of storms, and ran
into the woods like startled deer. And this was his song:
SONG OF THE MAN-FISH.
I live in the depths of brine,
Where grows the green grass slim and tall,
Among the coral rocks;
And I drink of their crystal streams, and eat
The year-old whale, and the mew;
And I ride along the dark blue waves
On the sportive dolphin's back;
And I sink to rest in the fathomless caves,
Beyond the sea-shark's track.
I hide my head, in the pitiless storm,
In caverns dark and deep;
My couch of ooze is pleasant and warm,
And soft and sweet my sleep.
I rise again when the winds are still,
And the waves have sunk to rest,
And call, with my conch-shell, strong and shrill,
My mate to the Salt Lake's breast.
"And there he would sit for hours, his fish-legs coiled up under him,
singing to the wondering ears of the Indians upon the shore the
pleasures he experienced, and the beautiful and strange things he saw,
in the depths of the ocean, always closing his strange stories with
these words, shouted at the top of his lungs: "Follow me, and see what I
will show you!" Every day, when the waves were still, and the winds had
gone to their resting-place in the depths of the earth(1), to get sleep
that they might come out refreshed for their race over the green vales
and meadows, the monster was sure to be seen near the shore where our
tribe dwelt. For a great many suns, they dared not adventure upon the
water in quest of food, doing nothing but wander along the beach,
watching the strange creature as he played his antics upon the surface
of the waves, and listening to his charming songs, and to his
invitation, "Follow me, and see what I will show you!" But the longer he
stayed, the less they feared him. They became used to him, and as, the
oftener the tiger glares upon you from the thicket, the oftener you hear
the whoop of death, the more you come to despise them, so in time they
began to think him a spirit who was neither made for harm, nor wished to
injure the poor Indian. Then they grew hungry, and their wives and
little ones cried for food. And as hunger does away all fear, except
that which relates to the satisfying it, in a few days three canoes,
with many men and warriors, no longer decorated with war-paint, no
longer armed with bows and arrows and sharp spears, but with the pale
cheeks of men of peace, and bearing the implements of fishermen,
ventured off to the rocks in quest of the finny brood.
"When our fathers reached the fishing-place, they heard, as before, the
voice shouting, "Follow me, and see what I will show you!" Presently the
Man-Fish appeared, sitting on the water, with his legs, or the fins
which served for legs, folded under him, and his arms crossed on his
breast, as they had usually seen him. There he sat, eyeing them
attentively, while they tried to bring up the fat things of the deep.
When they failed to draw in the fish they had hooked, he would make the
very water shake, and the deep echo with shouts of laughter, and would
clap his hands with great noise, and cry, "Ha! ha! my boy, there he
fooled you!" When they caught any he was very angry, and would scold
like an old woman when her husband returns from hunting and brings no
meat. When they had tried long and patiently, and taken little, and the
sun was just hiding himself behind the dark clouds which skirted the
Region of Warm Winds,[A] the strange creature, popping up his head
within a few paces of the canoe, cried out still stronger than before,
"Follow me, and see what I will show you!" Kiskapocoke, who was the head
man of the tribe, asked him what he wanted, but he would make no other
answer than "Follow me!" Kiskapocoke said, "Do you think I will be such
a fool as to go, I don't know with whom, and I don't know where?"
[Footnote A: Region of Warm Winds--the South and South-west.]
""Ah! but see what I will show you," cried the Man-Fish, throwing up one
of his odd legs, and flirting the water all over the speaker in the
boat.
""Can you show us any thing better than we have yonder?" asked the
warrior, pointing to their cabins on the shore--"good wives, good
children, good dogs--plenty of deer, plenty of train-oil, plenty of
every thing?"
""Yes, and plenty of storms in the moons of falling leaves and melting
ice, and plenty of snow in the time between them; and oftentimes plenty
of hunger, and always plenty of danger from bears, and wolves, and
painted warriors. But go with me, and see what I will show you--a land
where there is a herd of deer for every one that skips over your
ice-bound hills, where there are vast droves of creatures larger than
your sea-elephants, called, in the language of the people of the land,
_bisons_, where there is no cold to freeze you, where the glorious sun
is always soft and smiling, where the trees and the fields are always in
bloom, where the men always grow tall as stately pines, and the women
beautiful as the stars of night."
"Our fathers began now to be terrified, and wished themselves on the
land. But, the moment they tried to paddle towards the shore, some
invisible hand would seize their canoes, and draw them back, so that an
hour's labour did not enable them to gain the length of their boat in
the direction of their parted friends and relatives. Then there was much
laughing all around them, and fins of all sizes, shapes, and colours,
flirted the water over them, till they were as wet as if they had been
swimming. At last Kiskapocoke said to his companions, "What shall we
do?"
""Follow me!" said the Man-Fish, popping up his head as before.
"Then Kiskapocoke said to his companions, "Let us follow him, and see
what will come of it." So they followed him, he swimming and they
paddling, until night came. Then a great wind and deep darkness
prevailed, and the Great Serpent commenced hissing in the depths of the
ocean. They were terribly frightened, and thought not of living till
another sun, but of perishing in the great deep, far from the lands of
their fathers, and without glory. But the Man-Fish kept close to the
boat, and bade them not be afraid, for nothing should hurt them, if they
only followed him and saw what he would show them. And thus they
continued, amidst the raging of the winds and the waves, and the
thunders and the lightnings, to paddle their slender canoes till the sun
arose.
"When morning came, nothing could be seen of the shore they had left. The
winds still raged, the seas were very high, and the water ran into their
canoes like melted snows over the brows of the mountains in the months
of spring. But the Man-Fish handed them large shells, wherewith they
were enabled to bale it out. As they had brought neither food nor water
with them, and had caught neither fish nor rain, they had become both
hungry and thirsty. Kiskapocoke told the strange creature they wanted to
eat and drink, and that he must enable them to do both. "For," said he,
"since you brought us here, you would be a very bad fish to let us
starve or die of thirst."
""Oh! very well," answered the Man-Fish; "stop where you are then, while
I go down, and get you victuals and water; and be sure, this time, that
you do _not_ follow me." With that he made a plunge into the depths of
the wave. Down he went, how far our fathers could not say, only this
they knew that, when he came back again, he puffed and blew like a
whale, and said, he was very tired. He brought with him a great bag full
of parched corn, not at all wet, a great shell full of good sweet water,
and a big piece of roasted fish. "I am confoundedly tired, and I got
scorched into the bargain," said he, muttering to himself. "So much for
having a cross wife."
"Thus they went on paddling and paddling, day and night, wet, cold, and
sometimes hungry, for two moons and a half, till at last, one morning,
the Man-Fish cried out "Look there!" Upon that they rubbed up their
eyes, and, looking sharp in the direction he pointed, saw land, high
land, covered with great trees, and glittering as the sand of the
Spirit's Island(2). Behind the shore rose tall mountains, from the tops
of which issued great flames, which shot up into the sky as the forks of
the lightning cleave the clouds in the Hot Moon. The waters of the Great
Salt Lake broke into small waves upon its shores, which were covered
with seals sporting, and wild ducks pluming themselves, in the beams of
the warm and gentle sun. Upon the shore stood a great many strange
people, but, when they saw our warriors step upon the land, and the
Man-Fish coming up out of the water, and heard his cry, "Follow me!"
they all ran into the woods like startled deer, and our fathers saw no
more of them.
"When our fathers were all safely landed, the Man-Fish told them to let
the canoe go, "for," said he, "you will never need it more." They had
travelled but a little way into the woods when he bade them stay where
they were, while he told the Spirit of the land that the strangers he
had promised were come, and with that he descended into a deep cave near
them. Soon he returned, and with him a creature as strange as himself,
or still stranger. His legs and feet were those of a man; he had
leggings and mocassins like an Indian's, tightly laced, and beautifully
decorated with wampum; but his head was like a goat's, even to the huge
horns and long beard; his hands were a goat's fore-feet, and the upper
part of his body was covered with moss-coloured hair, soft and shining,
like that of the goats which browse upon the steeps of the Spirit's
Backbone. Yet he talked like a man, though his voice was the voice of a
goat, and his language was one well understood by our fathers. He stood
up, with his feet or hands, whichever they might be called, resting upon
a little rock before him, like a goat which clambers up to nip the
loftier buds, and made them a long speech.
""You are going to a beautiful land," said he, "to a most beautiful
land, men from the Clime of Snows. There you will find all the joys
which an Indian covets. The beasts you will see will be fat, tame, and
numerous as the trees of the forest, and the fowls and birds which will
cover your waters and people your woods will be sleek as the forehead of
a young girl. Then, how lovely and kind are its maidens, how green and
gay its hills and valleys, how refreshing the winds which sweep over the
bosom of the great lake on its border, how sweet, clean, and cool, the
beautiful streams which wind along its corn-littered vales! Oh, it is a
lovely land, and the strangers have done well to leave the misery which
awaited them in the regions of the star that never sets, for the peace
and happiness which will be theirs in the land of unceasing summer."
"Brothers and chiefs! our ancestors travelled many moons under the
guidance of the Man-Goat into whose hands the Man-Fish had put them when
he retraced his steps to the Great Lake. They came at length to the land
which the Shawanos now occupy. They found it, as the strange spirits had
described it, a fit abode for the Great Spirit, a land of good and happy
enjoyments to his creatures. They married the beautiful and affectionate
maidens of the land, and their numbers increased till they were so many
that no one could count them. They grew strong, swift, and valiant, as
panthers, bold and brave in war, keen and patient in the chace. They
overcame all the tribes eastward of the River of Rivers,[A] and south to
the further shore of the Great Lake[B]. The dark-skin, whose eye beheld
their badge of war, fawned on them, or fled, became women before them,
or sought a region where neither their war-cry nor the twanging of their
bows was heard breaking the silence of the dark night.
[Footnote A: River of Rivers. Mississippi.]
[Footnote B: Great Lake, the ocean.]
"Brothers, we are called _Shawanos_ from the name of the river which runs
through our hunting-grounds. This is all I have to say."
NOTES.
* * * * *
(1) _The winds had gone to their resting-place in the depths of the
earth_.--p. 50.
The Indians think that a calm is caused by the winds' steeping. They
believe that it is quite as necessary for them to be refreshed by rest
and slumber, as for man to have his periodical exemptions from fatigue.
I never met with an Indian who entertained any thing like the opinion of
their cause current among philosophers. Attempting once to explain the
phenomenon to a groupe of Indians, I found myself treated with as much
contempt and abhorrence as a company of pious Christians would express
for an Atheist who broadly avowed his creed.
(2) _Glittering at the sand of the Spirit's Island_.--p. 55.
The Chipewas say, that some of their people, being once driven on the
bland of Maurepas, which lies towards the north-east part of lake
Superior, found on it large quantities of heavy, shining, yellow sand,
that from their description must have been gold-dust. Being struck with
the beautiful appearance of it, in the morning, when they reentered
their canoe, they attempted to bring some away; but a spirit of amazing
size, according to their account sixty feet in height, strode into the
water after them, and commanded them to deliver back what they had
taken. Terrified at his gigantic stature, and seeing that he had nearly
overtaken them, they were glad to restore their shining treasure; on
which they were suffered to depart without further molestation.
THE ALARM OF THE GREAT SENTINEL.
A TRADITION OF THE DELAWARES.
Once upon a time, a young Indian of the Delaware nation, hunting in the
lands which belonged to his tribe, had the good fortune to take captive
an old white owl, who had for his lodge a hollow oak in which he dwelt
with his family. As it was a time of great scarcity among the Indians,
all their late hunts having been singularly unsuccessful, the hunter
determined to kill the owl and make a present of its flesh to the maiden
he loved, who had tasted no food for many suns. As he was rubbing his
knife upon a stone, that it might be sharp and do the murder easily, the
owl, who, with his leg tied to a tree, was looking on with a very
curious and knowing air, turning his head first one way and then another,
now scratching it with his untied claw and now shaking it as the beams
of the sun came into his eyes, asked him what he was doing. The young
hunter, who, being a good and brave warrior, scorned to tell a lie(1)
even to an owl, answered that he was making ready to cut off his head.
"Poh, poh," said the cunning old fellow, "if you kill me, what will my
wife, and my daughters, and my little ones, do? My woman is old and
blind, and the rest are but so-so. Who will catch mice for them, pray?"
"They will be adopted into other families, I suppose," answered the
hunter, "or the old woman will get another husband."
"Such may be the Indian custom," said the owl, "but it is not the custom
of my nation. Besides, the woman is so old and ugly that the Evil One
would not take her for a second wife. No, no, if you take my life, the
little ones will starve. Their eyes are very weak in the day time, and
they are too young and shy to go out by night. If you kill me they will
starve," repeated the owl.
"I am very hungry," said the hunter. "Neither fish nor flesh has been
taken by my nation for many days; the maiden whom I love is dying for
want of food. You would be a nice dish for her."
"Old and tough, old and tough," said the owl, winking very knowingly.
"But does not the Lenape hunter know that there are things to be worse
feared than death? The warrior should fear captivity and disgrace before
the evils of an unsatisfied appetite."
"The Delawares are men," said the hunter, proudly. "They are the masters
of the earth, they are never captured. They will themselves take care
that no disgrace falls upon them. The owl must be cooked for the dinner
of the Lenape maiden."
"The youngest son of the head chief of the Gray Owls is this night to
marry my daughter," said the captive. "May I not go to the feast? The
guests are assembled, the food is prepared, they wait but my presence."
"No," answered the hunter.
"Then will a warrior of the Delawares be a greater fool than the Mingo
who married a rattlesnake[A], and forgot to cut off her tail. He will be
deaf to the voice of a Great Medicine[B]; the owl bids him beware."
[Footnote A: See the Tradition in the third volume.]
[Footnote B: Medicine means Spirit--Great Medicine, Great Spirit.]
"Is my brother a Medicine?" asked the alarmed hunter.
"He is," answered the grave old bird, shaking his head. "If now the
Delaware hunter will suffer the owl to return to his family in the
hollow oak, the good deed shall never be forgotten by my tribe. There
shall be two eyes watching for the safety of the Delawares upon every
tree around their lodges. While they, wearied out by war or the chase,
are sleeping in darkness and imagined security, the owl shall stand
sentry, and warn them if danger should be nigh. When they hear the voice
of the owl, calling out in the depths of the night, 'Up! up! danger!
danger!' let them grasp their bows and war-spears, and be men."
"Go," said the hunter, cutting the string which bound the prisoner to
the tree of death. So the old white owl, with a couple of mice in his
claws, went back to his lodge in the hollow oak, to comfort his old
woman whom the Evil One would not have, and to see his daughter married
to the young gray owl, while the youthful hunter departed to pursue a
deer, which that moment appeared in a glade of the neighbouring forest.
Many seasons had passed away, flowers had sprung up to wither, and the
sprouts from the seed of the oak had become lofty trees that bent not
with the weight of the panther. The young hunter married the maiden for
whose sake he would have killed the old white owl; their children were
many and good; and the hunter himself had become head chief of the
Unamis or Turtles, the most potent tribe of Delawares, and who reckon
themselves the parent of all other Indians. They had fought many great
battles; they had warred with the nations of the North and the South,
the East, and the West, with the Shawanos of the Burning Water[A], the
Mengwe of the Great Lakes, the Sioux who hunt beyond the River of
Fish[B], and the Narragansetts who dwell in the land of storms: and in
all and over all they had been victorious. The warriors of the Smoking
Water had confessed themselves women, the Sioux had paid their tribute
of bear-skins, the Narragansetts had sent beautiful shells for their
women, and the Mengwees had fled from the war-shout of the Delawares, as
a startled deer runs from the cry of the hunter. Our warriors had just
returned from invading the lands of the latter tribe, and had brought
with them many scalps. They were weary and exhausted, but an Indian
warrior never admits that he is either. So they feasted and rejoiced
loud and long. They sung in the open ears of their people their
exploits, the foes by their valour laid low, or duped by their cunning,
or victims to their patience in awaiting the proper moment for attack,
or to their speed and celerity in pursuit. And they danced the dance of
thanksgiving in honour of their protecting Wahconda,[C] and gave the
scalp-yell for every scalp taken, as is the custom of Indian warriors
when returned from a successful expedition.
[Footnote A: Burning Water, the river Walkulla, in Florida, near the
source of which there is, or was, a burning spring. See the Tradition.]
[Footnote B: River of Fish, another name for Mississippi, from the
Indian words _naemes_ a fish, _sipu_, a river.]
[Footnote C: Wahconda, Great Spirit, the Supreme Being.]
The song and the dance finished, the Unamis, who are the grandfather of
nations, were sleeping quietly in their lodges on the beautiful banks of
the Lenape wihittuck[A], dreaming of no danger, keeping no watch. Buried
in deep slumber, and communing with the Manitou[B] of Dreams(2), they
lay, one in the arms of his wife, another by the couch of his beloved
maiden, one dreaming over dreams of war and slaughter, another of love
and wedded joys, one in fancy grasping the spear and the war-club,
another and a younger the bosom of a dusky maiden of his tribe. Over
their heads the tall forest tree waved in the night wind, giving the
melancholy music of sighing branches; beside them ran the clear waters
of the river, slightly murmuring as they rolled away to the land, which
our nation gave to their good brother Miquon[C]. All was so hushed in
the camp of the Unamis that the lowest note of the wren could have been
heard from limit to limit.
[Footnote A: Lenape wihittnck, the "river of Delawares," the Delaware.]
[Footnote B: Manitou, a subordinate spirit, or tutelar genius.]
[Footnote C: Miquon, William Penn, the Founder of Pennsylvania.]
Hark! what noise is that? I hear a rustling of the dry grass and low
bushes, at the distance of three bowshots from the camp of the sleeping
Unamis. I behold the grass bowed down, I see the bushes yielding to some
heavy creature is pressing through them. Is it the buffalo? No, he has
neither the power nor wit to hide himself. Is it the deer? No, he has
gone to drink of the salt waters of the Great Lake. Is it the cougar?
No, for he never crouches except when he springs on his victim. Hush! I
see one of the unknown beasts raising itself above the copse. Slow and
warily, first appears an eagle's leather, then a black scalp-lock, then
a pair of shining eyes, but they are neither the wolfs, nor the wild
cat's. Oh! I know him now, and I know his band. It is they who let the
Leni Lenape fight the Allegewi[A] while they looked on, it is the dogs
of the lakes, the treacherous Mengwe. Slowly they dropped again into the
copse, and the band moved onward to gain that fatal station which should
give into their power the unsuspecting Unamis. But they did not know
that two curious eyes were watching their every movement; they did not
know that perched on the limb of a decayed tree in front of their
hiding-place sat an old white owl.
[Footnote A: See the Tradition of the Fall of the Leni Lenape.]
Nothing said the owl, it was not time yet, and he suffered the
treacherous Mengwe to approach within two bowshots of the sleeping
warriors. All at once, with a voice that penetrated every glade of the
forest, this great sentinel over mankind shouted "Up! up! danger!
danger!" All the birds of the species were alert at their posts, and all
within hearing of the shout of their chief repeated the words of alarm.
"Up! up! danger! danger!" rung through the hollow woods, and
reverberated among the hills. Up sprung the Unamis, and sallied
cautiously out to find the cause of alarm. They were just in time to
discover the backs of the flying Mengwe, from whose treacherous spears
they were saved by the timely cry of their vigilant and grateful
sentinel, the old white owl.
Since that time, the hunters of the Delawares never harm this wise and
good bird(3). When in the night it is heard sounding its notes, or
calling to its mate, some one in the camp will rise, and taking some
_glicanum_, or Indian tobacco, will strew it on the fire, that the
ascending smoke may reach the bird, and show him that they are not
unmindful of his kindness to them and their ancestors.
NOTES.
* * * * *
(1) _Scorned to tell a lie_.--p. 61.
The Indians pay a most scrupulous attention to truth, not because they
attach any peculiar moral virtue to it, or think the breach of it will
be punished, but because they esteem the telling a lie a mark of
cowardice. Civilized nations view lying as both unmanly and criminal;
the Indian, as indicating the fear of the liar to meet the consequences
of disclosing the truth. It has been adduced by more than one writer to
prove the existence of an _innate_ love of truth in the human breast.
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