Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3)

J >> James Athearn Jones >> Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3)

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[Footnote A: Hills of the Serpent, the Rocky Mountains. I have before
mentioned the Indian superstition that thunder is the hissing of a
great serpent, which has his residence among those mountains.]

In one of the war expeditions of the Pawnee Mahas against the
Burntwood Tetons, it was the good fortune of the former to overcome,
and to take many prisoners--men, women, and children. One of the
captives, Sakeajah, or the Bird-Girl, a beautiful creature in the
morning of life, after being adopted into one of the Mahas families,
became the favourite wife of the chief warrior of the nation. Great
was the love and affection which the White Crane bore his beautiful
wife, and it grew yet stronger in his soul, when she had brought him
four sons--a gift the more highly prized by the wise and sagacious
chief, because, as my brother can see, for he is not a fool, it was
the pledge of continued power and importance in the tribe, when his
own strength and vigour should have passed away, when the hand of age
should no more find joy in bending the bow, and the trembling knee be
best pleased to rest upon soft skins by the warm fire of the cabin.
Among the children of the forest he is most valued who has provided
most plentifully the means to maintain the honour, and secure the
safety, of his people; and hence he who can reckon the most brave and
warlike sons is esteemed the greatest of benefactors. Among all the
red men of the land, that wife acquires the strongest hold on the
affections of her husband who has given him the largest family, as
that husband acquires the greatest consequence in the eyes of his
nation, who sees the most birds in his nest, and is able to carry most
vultures to prey upon the corpses of his enemies. Is the barren woman
beloved by her husband? Ask me if the male bird watches by the nest of
her who sits on addled eggs. I shall tell you "No," nor does the
husband love or value the wife who lives alone in his cabin with none
to call her mother.

The beautiful Sakeajah gave her husband but one daughter, and upon her
did her parents lavish all those affections which had not their origin
in war and bloodshed. The sons were loved for the promise they gave of
bending their father's bow, and raising his massy club in battle, and
shouting his terrible war-cry with the ability to make good the
threats it contained--with the daughter were linked the few pacific
remembrances which find entrance into that stony thing--an Indian's
heart. And well was Tatoka, or the Antelope, for that was the name of
the daughter of Mahtoree and Sakeajah, worthy to be loved. She was
beautiful, as young Indian maidens generally are, before the hard
duties of the field and the cabin have bowed their limbs, and
servitude has chilled the fire of their hearts. Her skin was but
little darker than that of the chief from the far land who is
listening to my story. Her eyes were large and bright as those of the
bison-ox, and her hair black and braided with beads, brushed, as she
walked, the dew from the flowers upon the prairies. Her temper was
soft and placable, and her voice--what is so sweet as the voice of an
Indian maiden when tuned to gladness! what so moves the hearer to
grief and melancholy by its tones of sorrow and anguish! Our brother
has heard them--let him say if the birds of his own forests, the dove
of his nest, have sweeter notes than those he hears warbled in the
cabin of the red man. His eyes say no. It is well.

It may not be doubted that the beautiful Tatoka had many lovers; there
was not a youth in the nation, whose character authorised the
application, that did not become a suitor to the fair daughter of the
White Crane. But the heart of the maiden was touched by none of them;
she bade them all depart as they came; she rejected them all. The
father who loved his daughter too well to sell her as he would a
beaver-trap or a moose-skin, or to compel her to become a wife, would
have been glad to see her choose a protector from among the many
Braves who solicited her affections. But, with the perverseness which
is often seen among women, who are but fools at best, though made to
be loved, she had placed her affections upon a youth, who had
distinguished himself by no valiant deeds in war, nor even by industry
or dexterity in the chase. His name had never reached the surrounding
nations; his own nation knew him not, unless it was as a weak and
imbecile man: he was poor in every thing that constitutes the riches
of Indian life, and poorer still in spirit and acquirements. Who had
heard the twanging of Karkapaha's bow in the retreats of the bear? or
who beheld the war-paint on his cheek or brow?--Where were the scalps
or the prisoners that betokened his valour or daring? No song of
valiant exploits had been heard from his lips, for he had none to
boast of--if he had done aught becoming a man, he had done it when
none were by. The beautiful Tatoka, who knew and lamented the
deficiencies of her lover, strove long to conquer her passion; but,
finding the undertaking beyond her strength, surrendered herself to
the sweets of unrepressed affection, and urged her heart no more to
the unequal task of subduing her love. Their stolen interviews were
managed with much care, and for a long time no one suspected them; but
at length the secret of their love and the story of their shame became
so apparent as to do away the possibility of further concealment. The
lovers were in an agony of fear and terror. Though beloved by her
father, she had no reason to hope that he would so far forget his
dignity and the honour of his family, and so far sacrifice his views
of aggrandizement, as to admit into his family a man who was neither
hunter nor warrior, and whose want of qualifications would have
ensured his rejection by families of ordinary note--how much more from
that of a proud and haughty chief! Love conquers the strongest; and,
rather than be separated, those who love each other well will dare
every danger. Rather than be torn apart, the fond pair, whose
affections were strengthened by the pledge of love which Tatoka bore
about her, determined to fly the anger of the father. The preparations
for flight were made, the night fixed upon came, and they left the
village of the Mahas and the lodge of Mahtoree for the wilderness.

With all their precautions, and supposed exemption from suspicion,
their flight was not unmarked: their intimacy had been for some time
suspected; but it was only the day preceding their elopement that the
mother had discovered undoubted proofs of their guilty intimacy. When
the justly indignant father was made acquainted with the disgrace
which had befallen his house, he called his young men around him, and
bade them pursue the fugitives, promising his daughter to whomsoever
should slay the ravisher. Immediate pursuit was made, and soon a
hundred eager youths were on the track of the hapless pair. With that
unerring skill and sagacity in discovering foot-prints which mark our
race, their steps were tracked, and themselves soon discovered
retreating. But what was the surprise and consternation of the
pursuers, when they found that the path taken by the hapless pair
would carry them to the Mountain of Little Spirits, and that they were
sufficiently in advance to reach it before the pursuers could come up
with them! None durst venture within the supposed limits, and they
halted till the White Crane should be informed of their having put
themselves under the protection of the spirits.

In the mean time the lovers pursued their journey towards the fearful
residence of the little people of the hill. Despair lent them courage
to do an act to which the stoutest Indian resolution had hitherto been
inadequate. They determined, as a last resource, to tell their story
to the spirits, and demand their protection. They were within a few
feet of the hill, when, in a breath, its brow, upon which no object
till now had been visible, became covered with little people, the
tallest of whom was not higher than the knee of the maiden, and many
of them, but these children, were of lower stature than the squirrel.
Their voice was sharp and quick, like the barking of the prairie dog;
a little wing came out at each shoulder; each had a single eye, which
eye was a right in the men, and in the women a left; and their feet
stood out at each side. They were armed as Indians are armed, with
tomahawks, spears, and bows and arrows. He who appeared to be the head
chief, for he wore the air of command and the eagle feather of a
leader, came up to them, and spoke as follows:--

"Why have you invaded the village of a race whose wrath has been so
fatal to your people? How dare you venture within the sacred limits of
our residence? Know you not that your lives are forfeited?"

The trembling pair fell on their knees before the little people, and
Tatoka, for her lover had less than the heart of a doe, and was
speechless, related her story. She told them how long she had loved
Karkapaha, and holding down her head confessed her fatal indiscretion.
Then she pictured the wrath of her father, the pursuit which was
making, doubtless with a view to the punishment by death of her lover,
and concluded her tale of sorrow with a burst of tears, which came
from her eyes like the rain from a summer cloud, and sighs which might
be compared to summer winds breathing from a bed of flowers. The
little man who wore the eagle's feather appeared very much moved with
the sorrows of the pair, and calling around him a large number of men,
who were doubtless the chiefs and counsellors of the nation, a long
consultation took place. The result was a determination to favour and
protect the lovers. They had but just talked themselves into a
resolution to inflict vengeance on all who should approach the hill
with the intent to injure the pair who had thrown themselves upon
their protection, when Shongotongo, or the Big Horse, one of the
Braves whom Mahtoree had dispatched in quest of his daughter, appeared
in view in pursuit of the fugitives. It was not till Mahtoree had
taxed his courage that the Big Horse had ventured on the perilous and
fearful quest. He approached with the strength of heart and singleness
of purpose which accompany an Indian warrior who deems the eyes of his
nation upon him. When first the Brave was discovered thus wantonly,
and with no other purpose but the shedding of blood, intruding on the
dominions of the spirits, no words can tell the rage which appeared to
possess their bosoms, manifesting itself in a thousand wild and
singular freaks of passion and coarseness of language. Secure in the
knowledge of their power to repel the attacks of every living thing,
the intrepid Maha was permitted to advance within a few steps of
Karkapaha. He had just raised his spear to strike the unmanly lover,
when, all at once, he found himself riveted to the ground: his feet
refused to move; his hands, which he attempted to raise, hung
powerless at his side; his tongue, when he attempted to speak, refused
to utter a word. The bow and arrow fell from his hand, and his spear
lay powerless. A little child, not so high as the fourth leaf of the
thistle, came and spat upon him, and a company of young maidens,
whose feet were not longer than the blue feather upon the wing of the
teal, danced a mirthsome dance around him, singing a taunting song of
which he was the burthen. All and each of the tiny spirits did their
part towards inflicting pain and ignominy on the hapless Maha. When
they had finished their task of punishing by preparatory torture, a
thousand little Spirits drew their bows, and a thousand winged arrows
pierced his heart. In a moment, a thousand mattocks, of the size of an
Indian's thumb-nail, were employed in preparing him a grave. And he
was hidden from the eyes of the living, ere Tatoka could have thrice
counted over the fingers of her hand.

When this was done, the chief of the Little Spirits called Karkapaha
to his seat, and spoke to him thus:--"Maha, you have the heart of a
doe; you would fly from a roused wren. Cowards find no favour in the
eyes of the spirits of the air, who do not know what fear is, save
when they see it painted on the cheeks of a mortal. We have not spared
you because you deserved to be spared, but because the maiden loves
you, and we would pleasure her. It is for this purpose that we will
give you the heart of a man, that you may return to the village of the
Mahas, and find favour in the eyes of Mahtoree and the Braves of the
nation. We will take away your cowardly spirit, and will give you the
spirit of the warrior whom we slew, whose heart was firm as a rock,
and whose knees would have trembled when mountains caught the touch of
fear, and not before. Sleep, man of little soul, and wake to be better
worthy the love of the beauteous Antelope."

Then a deep sleep came over the Maha lover. How long he slept he knew
not, but when he woke he felt at once that a change had taken place in
his feelings and temper. The first thought that came to his mind was a
bow and arrow; the second the beautiful Indian girl who lay sleeping
at his side. The Little Spirits had disappeared--not a solitary being,
of the many thousands, who, but a few minutes before, peopled the hill
and filled the air with their discordant cries, was now to be seen or
heard. At the feet of Karkapaha lay a tremendous bow, larger than any
bowman ever yet used, and a sheaf of arrows of proportionate size, and
a spear of a weight which no Maha could wield. Wonder of wonders! the
weak and slender Karkapaha could draw that bow, as an Indian boy bends
a willow twig, and the spear seemed in his hand but a reed, or a
feather. The shrill war-whoop burst unconsciously from his lips, and
his nostrils seemed dilated with the fire and impatience of a
newly-awakened courage. The heart of the fond Indian girl dissolved
in tears, when she saw these proofs of strength and those evidences of
spirit, which, she knew, if they were coupled with valour--and how
could she doubt the completeness of the gift to effect the purposes of
the giver!--would thaw the iced feelings of her father, and tune his
heart to the song of forgiveness. Yet, it was not without many fears,
and tears, and misgivings, on the part of the maiden, that they began
their march for the Maha village. The lover, now a stranger to fear,
used his endeavours to quiet the beautiful Tatoka, and in some measure
succeeded.

Upon finding that his daughter and her lover had gone to the Hill of
the Spirits, and that Shongotongo did not return from his perilous
adventure, the chief of the Mahas had recalled his Braves from the
pursuit, and was listening to the history of the pair, as far as the
returned warriors were acquainted with it, when his daughter and her
lover made their appearance. With a bold and fearless step the once
faint-hearted Karkapaha walked up to the offended father, and, folding
his arms on his breast, stood erect as a pine, and motionless as that
tree when the winds of the earth are chained above the clouds. It was
the first time that Karkapaha had ever looked on angry men without
trembling, and a demeanour so unusual in him excited universal
surprise.

"Karkapaha is a thief," said the White Crane.

"It is the father of my beautiful and beloved Tatoka that says it,"
answered the lover; "else would Karkapaha say it was the song of a
bird that has flown over."

"My warriors say it."

"Your warriors are singing-birds; they are wrens; Karkapaha says they
do not speak the truth.--Karkapaha has the heart of a tiger, and the
strength of a bear; let the Braves try him. He has thrown away the
woman's heart; he has become a man."

"Karkapaha _is_ changed," said the chief thoughtfully, "but when,
and how?"

"The Little Spirits of the Mountain have given him a new soul. Bid
your Braves draw this bow; bid them poise this spear. Their eyes say
they can do neither. Then is Karkapaha the strong man of his tribe;"
and as he said this he flourished the ponderous spear over his head as
a man would poise a reed, and drew the bow as a child would bend a
willow twig.

"Karkapaha is the husband of Tatoka," said Mahtoree, springing to his
feet, and he gave the beautiful maiden to her lover. The traditionary
lore of the Mahas is full of the exploits, both in war and the chase,
of Karkapaha, who was made a man by the Spirits of the Mountain.

THE VALLEY OF THE BRIGHT OLD INHABITANTS.

On the northern branch of the river of the Cherokees, the most
numerous and powerful tribe of the south, there are two high mountains
nearly covered with mossy rocks, and lofty cedars, and pines. These
mountains, rugged and terrible to behold, are made yet more fearful to
the mind of the red man of the forest, who sees the Great Being in the
clouds, and hears him in the winds, and fancies a spirit in every
thing that moves, by the horrid sights and awful sounds which proceed
from them. Often, as the sun sinks behind those mountains, persons who
have their eyes intently fixed upon them will see lofty forms whose
heads stretch far into the sky, standing upon their summits, or
oftener leaping from one mountain to the other clean across the wide
valley which separates them. Those shapes we can see wear the shape of
man, yet their actions do not seem to belong to a race of mortals, and
we deem them spirits--giant spirits, which never had the sinews, and
bones, and muscle, and flesh, of men. And often, in the midnight
hour, the listener hears sounds proceeding from those mountains--the
whispers of love, the loud tones of strife, or the merry ones of
joy--laughing and weeping--wooing and strife--expressing all the
various passions and emotions which find a place in the bosoms of
mortals. With these mighty spirits no mortal hath had communication,
for they never leave the mountain--and who shall dare approach their
villages? No one has heard their story, no one knows their creator,
nor when they were born, nor when they shall die, if death be
appointed to them. They have lived in mystery: showing their forms as
the trunk of a decayed, and branch-less tree shows itself from out a
morning mist, and raising their voices but as a thunder-cloud in
summer, they will depart as a spirit departs, noiselessly, and go no
one knows whither.

Between these two lofty and dreaded mountains, there is a deep valley,
or rather a succession of deep valleys, for the occurrence at short
spaces of low hills breaks the continuousness of that with which the
space between those mountains commences. In these valleys the beams of
the sun are concentrated and drawn together, creating at times a heat
so great, that nothing can live in them but those reptiles, which are
ripened and fattened to full growth only by suns which scorch like
fire. In these same valleys have dwelt, ever since the earth was first
placed on the back of the great tortoise, those Kind Old Kings, the
_Bright Old Inhabitants_(1), which are rattlesnakes of a most
prodigious size, possessed of singular properties, and endowed with
tremendous and fearful powers. It is death to venture within their
limits, and equally fatal to displease them. So well convinced are the
people of my nation of their power to inflict an instant and dreadful
death on all, that no temptation can induce them to betray their
secret recesses to the wanton stranger. They well know that, if they
do so, they shall be exposed to the unceasing attacks of all the
inferior species of snakes who love their kings, which are these
Bright Old Inhabitants, and know by instinct those who injure, or
attempt to injure them. They know that, let but those kings issue
their commands, there is not a snake that crawls but will open his
mouth or use his sting to inflict the greatest possible degree of
vengeance in his power on the enemies and oppressors of those whom he
loves and obeys. Hence the place of residence of the Kind Old Kings is
kept a secret by our people. For a long time they did not know it
themselves, and only became acquainted with it when the occurrence
took place which I am about to relate to my brother.

Once upon a time, many years ago, there lived among the Cherokees a
man who was neither a warrior nor a hunter, yet was the most
celebrated man of his nation, and further known than its proudest
warrior or most expert hunter. He was a priest, and knew the secret
ways, and the will, and the wishes, of his master, the Great Spirit.
Not only was he skilled in the wisdom of the land of souls, but he was
learned in matters which affect the dwellers in the body. He knew how
to cure the ailments of the body, as well as to give answers to the
questions which related to the ways and doings of the Being above all.
He could tell at what time in the morning men should go to the Hill of
Prayer, with clay on their heads, to cry for mercy and aid, and when
they should repair to the Cave of Sacrifice, to gather the will of the
Great Spirit from the hollow voice[A] within it. He alone, of all the
mighty nation of the Cherokees, had seen that Spirit; he alone had
heard him speak, and to none other would that Spirit deign to listen,
or to give reply. Chepiasquit, for that was the name of this famous
priest, was indeed a very wise man, and his sayings were reckoned of
scarcely less authority then the words of his master. Whatever he said
had a weight which other men's words had not; and all his actions,
however trifling in their nature, were magnified into actions of
importance, and became invested with a character, which did not
belong to those of men in other respects more gifted than he. Yet the
unbounded respect in which his nation held him was not undeserved.
Wisdom he possessed, and he used it to the furthering of the
interests, and the advancing of the happiness, of his people. If they
wanted rain, they asked Chepiasquit for it, and he gave it to them. If
too much fell, they had only to complain to him, and the clouds
witheld their floods, and the waters were locked up in the hollow of
the hand of him that created them. If the thunders were heard to roll
awfully, and the fearful lightnings were seen to flash along the black
sky, they spoke to Chepiasquit, who uttered a short prayer to Him who
controuls the elements as well as man, and all became hushed and
still; the black clouds passed away, and the bright stars looked out
from their places of rest in the clear blue sky. All things seemed
obedient to him, when he chose to open his lips in supplication to his
master. The fame which he had acquired by this intimacy and friendship
with the Great Spirit was the means of giving peace to his nation. His
reputation being spread far and near, no tribe durst try their
strength in war, or measure their weapons in combat, with a people who
were possessed of such a friend, protector, leader, and priest. So the
Cherokees rested in peace, and the earth was no more made red with
blood, but wore the robe which nature provided for it--the robe of
green. They planted their corn in the Budding-Moon, and lived to see
it harvested in the Moon of Falling Leaves. They left the doors of
their cabins unlatched at night, and the sentinel slept as sound and
as long as the new-born babe. Their arrows were eaten up by the rust
of sloth and inactivity, and the strings of their bows were rotted by
the mildew of carelessness and idleness. The aged met not now in the
great council-house, to plan distant expeditions, or frustrate
expected invasions; the youth spent their time in courting and
marrying. The fame of Chepiasquit changed the character of the nation
from warlike to peaceable, and banished from the land the vulture of
war and havoc, to give place to the dove of peace and tranquillity.

[Footnote A: Hollow voice--echo.]

Four wives had this wise priest; they bore him many children: but,
great as was his power with the Master of the World, it did not enable
him to obtain for them a continuance of life beyond the second moon of
their birth. All, save one, died while they were yet swinging in their
cradles of willow-bark from the bough of the tree--that one, a
daughter, was spared to his entreaties and prayers. Winona, or the
first-born, for that was the name bestowed on the child, grew up in
the cabin of her father, beautiful beyond any maiden that ever graced
the nation of Cherokees. How shall I describe to my brother from the
far country the matchless charms of Chepiasquit's virgin daughter!
Shall I tell him that her eyes were the eyes of the mountain kid, and
her hair long and glossier than the plumage of the raven, and her
teeth white and even, and her hand delicate and plump, and her foot
small and speedy? Shall I say that her voice was joyful as the voice
of a mated bird in spring, and her temper cheerful, sweet, mild, kind,
and always the same? Shall I increase his admiration for the beautiful
creature, by telling him that she best loved to sit by the quiet
hearth of her parents, leaving it to lighter and less amiable maidens
to rove on idle errands and frivolous pursuits through the village.
For, let my brother learn, she was that wonder, a woman, contented and
happy in her own house, with none but her own father to listen or
reply. During the long evenings of the period when the sun is away
from the earth for so great a portion of the day, she would sit on her
soft couch of skins and dried moss, listening to the tales he would
repeat of the wonderful things he had seen and heard; the dreams of
strange and fearful creatures which had troubled his hours of sleep,
and the actual appearance to him, when sleep was far from his eyelids,
of beings or phantoms not of this world; and the traditions which
told of the love, or hatred, or favour, or punishment, of the Great
Spirit--of his bounties sent to the Cherokees, when famine reared his
gaunt form among them, or of wrath provoked, and punishment inflicted,
when pride dwelt in their villages, when their thoughts were far from
him, when no clay was put on their heads, when the tender and juicy
flesh of the deer smoked not in his sacrifice. Wars he had seen,
though he had left victory to be achieved by others, for he had been a
man of peace. To the tales of her beloved father would the fair maiden
listen with great delight, for they accorded with the belief in
wonderful events and supernatural appearances, which is early
impressed on the mind of every Indian, and never leaves him but with
life. She would sit for hours with her little head rested on her palm,
her whole soul absorbed by the wild narratives, which, during the long
season of winter, are related to while away the hours spared from war
and the chace.

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