Part 28

While one of these exploring parties was in the far southwest looking for war and new things, a band of very savage people attacked them. The young chief, the friend of the animals, was with the party, and, being separated from the rest of his party, was struck down by a tomahawk blow. The enemy cut a circle around his scalp-lock and tore it off. He could not fight strong because he was tired and very hungry from the long journey, so he was killed. The enemy knew him because he had been a brave fighter and killed a good many of their people in former battles so they were glad when they killed him and prized his scalp. Now he lay dead in a thicket and none of his warriors knew where he was but the enemy showed them his scalp. So they knew that he was dead but they did not kill all the Iroquois.

Black night came and alone upon the red and yellow leaves the chief lay dead and his blood was clotted upon the leaves where it had spilled. The night birds scented the blood and hovered over the body, the owl and the whippoorwill flew above it and O‘sh‘ă´dă’geă’, the Dew Eagle, swooped down from the regions over the clouds. “He seems to be a friend,” they said, “who can this man be?” A wolf sniffed the air and thought he smelled food. Skulking through the trees he came upon the body, dead and scalped. His nose was upon the clotted blood and he liked blood. Then he looked into the face of the dead man and leapt back with a long yelping howl,—the dead man was the friend of the wolves and the animals and birds. His howl was a signal call and brought all the animals of the big woods and the birds dropped down around him. All the medicine animals came,—the bear, the deer, the fox, the beaver, the otter, the turtle and the big horned deer (moose). Now the birds around him were the owl, the whippoorwill, the crow, the buzzard, the swift hawk, the eagle, the snipe, the white heron and also the great chief of all birds, Oshadahgeah, who is the eagle who flies in the world of our Creator above the clouds. These are all the great medicine people and they came in council about their killed friend. Then they said, “He must not be lost to us. We must restore him to life again.” Then a bird said, “He is our friend, he always fed us. We cannot allow our friend to die. We must restore him.” Then the Wolf came up to the body and said, “Here is our friend, he always gave us food in time of famine. We called him our father, now we are orphans. It is our duty to give him life again. Let each one of us look in our medicine packets and take out the most potent ingredient. Then let us compound a medicine and give it.” Then the Owl said, “A living man must have a scalp.”

So the animals made a wonderful medicine and in its preparation some gave their own lives and mixed them with the medicine roots. Now when the medicine was made all of it was contained in the bowl of an acorn. So they poured it down the throat of the man and the Bear feeling over the body found a warm spot over his heart. Then the Bear hugged him close in his hairy arms and kept him warm. The Crow had flown away for the scalp but could not find it, then the White Heron went but while flying over a bean field thought herself hungry and stopped to eat and when filled was too heavy to rise again. Then the Pigeon Hawk, the swiftest of the birds, said that he would go and surely find it. By this time the enemy had become aware that the animals were holding a council over their friend whom they had slain and so they carefully guarded the scalp which they stretched upon a hoop and swung on a thong over the smoke hole of a lodge. The Pigeon Hawk, impatient at delay shot upward into the air and flying in wide circles discovered the scalp dangling over the fire drying in the hot smoke. Hovering over the lodge for a moment he dropped down and snatching the scalp shot back upwards into the clouds, faster and further than the arrows that pursued him swift from the strong bows of the angered enemy. Back he flew, his speed undiminished by his long flight, and placed the scalp in the midst of the council. It was smoky and dried and would not fit the head of the man. Then Big Crow (buzzard) emptied his stomach on it to clean it of smoke and make it stick fast and O’sh’ă´dă’geă’ plucked a feather from his wing and dipped it in the pool of dew that rests in the hollow on his back and sprinkled the water upon it. The dew came down in round drops and refreshed the dry scalp as it does a withered leaf. The man had begun faintly to breathe when the animals placed the scalp back in his head and they saw that truly he would revive. Then the man felt a warm liquid trickling down his throat and with his eyes yet shut he began to talk the language of the birds and animals. And they sang a wonderful song and he listened and remembered every word of the song. This song the animals told him was the charm song of the medicine animals and they told him that when he wished the favor of the great medicine people and when he felt grateful, to make a ceremony and sing the song. So also they told him that they had a dance and a dance song and they told him that they would teach him the dance. So they danced and some shook rattles made of the squashes (gourds) and though his eyes were closed he saw the dance and he knew all the tunes. Then the animals told him to form a company of his friends and upon certain occasions to sing and dance the ceremony, Hadī’´dōs, for it was a great power and called all the medicine animals together and when the people were sick they would devise a medicine for them. Now they said that he must not fail to perform the ceremony and throw tobacco for them. Now the name of the society was Hadi’´dos. Then the chief asked the medicine people what the ingredients of the medicine were and they promised to tell him. At a time the animals should choose they would notify him by the medicine song. Now he could not receive the secret because he had been married. Only hoyahdiwadoh (virgin men) may receive the first knowledge of mysteries. Now the chief greatly wished for the medicine for he thought it would be a great charm and a cure for the wounds received in war. After a time the chief was lifted to his feet by the hand of the bear and then he recovered his full life and when he opened his eyes he found himself alone in the midst of a circle of tracks. He made his way back to his people and related his adventure. He gathered his warriors together and in a secret place sang the medicine song of the animals, the Hadi’´dos. So they sang the song and each had a song and they danced.

After some time the chiefs decided to send another war party against the enemy in the southwest to punish the hostile people who were attacking them. Then the friend of the birds and animals said, “It is well that we destroy them for they are not a reasonable people,” and so he went with his party.

Now after a certain number of days the party stopped in an opening in the forest to replenish their stock of food. Now the place where they stopped was grassy and a good place for camp. Now a short distance away, a half day’s journey, was a deer lick and near it a clear spring and a brook that ran from it and to this place all the animals came to drink. The party wanted fresh meat and so dispatched two young men, hoyahdiwadoh, to the lick for game. As they approached it they heard the sound of a distant song and drawing near to the lick they sat down on the bank over the spring and listened to the song. It was a most wonderful song and floated through the air to them. At a distance away the animals came and drank but so entranced were they by the music that they killed none. Through the entire night they sat listening to the song, and listening they learned sections of the song. In the morning they returned to the camp and reported what they had heard to their chief. Then said the chief, “That song is for the good of the medicine. You must find the source of the song and discover the medicine that will make us powerful in war and cure all our ills. You must purge yourselves and go again on the morrow.” So the young men did as directed and went again to the spring and threw tobacco upon its surface. As night came on they listened and again heard the great song and it was louder and more distinct than before. Then they heard a voice singing from the air and telling them the story of their lives and they marveled greatly. The song grew louder and as they listened they discovered that it emanated from the summit of a mountain. So they returned in the morning and reported to their chief and sang to him parts of the song. Then he said, “You must cleanse yourselves again and this time do not return until you have the medicine, the song and the magic.” So the young men cleansed themselves again and went to the spring and as the thick night came on they heard the singing voices clear and loud, ringing from the mountain top. Then said one of the young men, “Let us follow the sound to its source,” and they started in the darkness. After a time they stumbled upon a windfall, a place where the trees had been blown down in a tangled mass. It was a difficult place to pass in the darkness for they were often entrapped in the branches but they persevered and it seemed that some one were leading them. Beings seemed to be all about them yet they could not see them for it was dark. After they had extricated themselves from the windfall they went into a morass where their footsteps were guided by the unseen medicine animals. Now the journey was a very tedious one and they could see nothing. They approached a gulf and one said, “Let us go up and down the gulf and try to cross it,” and they did and crossed one gulf. Soon they came to another where they heard the roaring of a cataract and the rushing of waters. It was a terrifying place and one of the young men was almost afraid. They descended the slope and came to a swift river and its waters were very cold but they plunged in and would have been lost if someone unseen had not guided them. So they crossed over and on the other side was a steep mountain which they must ascend but could not because it was too steep. Then one of the young men said, “Let us wait here awhile and rest ourselves for we may need our strength for greater dangers.” So he said. But the other said, “I am rested, we must go onward somehow.” When he had so spoken a light came flying over and sang for them to follow it. So they followed the winged light and ascended the mountain and they were helped. The winged light kept singing, “Follow me, follow me, follow me!” And they were safe when they followed and were not afraid. Now the singing, flying beacon was the whippoorwill. He led them. After a time the light disappeared but they struggled up the mountain side unaided by its guidance. The way became very stony and it seemed that no one were helping them now and then they wished that their unseen friends would help them, so they made a prayer and threw sacred tobacco on the path. Then the light came again and it was brighter, it glowed like the morning and the way was lighted up. The singing continued all this while and they were nearing its source and they reached the top of the mountain. They looked about for they heard the song near at hand but there was no one there. Then looked about and saw nothing but a great stalk of corn springing from a flat rock. Its four roots stretched in the four directions, north, east, south and west. The roots lay that way. They listened and discovered that the music emanated from the cornstalk. It was wonderful. The corn was a mystically magic plant and life was within it. Then the winged light sang for them to cut the root and take a piece for medicine. So they made a tobacco offering and cut the root. As they did red blood like human blood flowed out from the cut and then the wound immediately healed. Then did the unseen speaker say, “This root is a great medicine, and now we will reveal the secret of the medicine.” So the voices told them the composition of the medicine that had healed the chief and instructed them how to use it. They taught the young men the Gano´ta’, the medicine song, that would make the medicine strong and preserve it. They said that unless the song were sung the medicine would become weak and the animals would become angry because of the neglect of the ceremonies that honored their medicine. Therefore, the holders of the medicine must sing the all-night song for it. And they told them all the laws of the medicine and the singing light guided them back to the spring and it was morning then. The young men returned to their chief and told him the full story of their experiences and he was glad for he said, “The medicine will heal all wounds.”

It was true, the medicine healed the cuts and wounds made by arrows and knives and not one of the Iroquois was killed in their battle with the enemy. When they returned home the chief organized the lodges of the medicine and the medicine people of the Hadi’´dos and the Niga‘ni‘gă´a‘ were called the Hono^n’´tci‘no^n’´gä. The medicine was called the niga‘nigă´a‘, (little dose) because its dose was so small. So started the Hono^n’´tci‘no^n’´gä.

70. ORIGIN OF THE FALSE FACE COMPANY.

THE STONE GIANTS.[60]

There were different things in the olden days, strange happenings, strange animals and birds, and strange people. It seems that they do not live any more, so men only half believe the tales of them now.

The stone giants are a kind of men-being that are now gone. What we have heard about them I will tell.

There was once a far north country where a race of giants dwelt. They were very tall and bony. It was cold in that north country and the giants lived on fish and raw flesh. When the summer came to that region there was dry sand upon the ground and the giants, it is supposed, taught their children to rub it on their bodies every day until the blood came out where the skin was worn through. After awhile the skin became hard and calloused, like a woman’s hand when the harvest is over. Each year the young rubbed their bodies with the sand, until when they had grown to be men, it was hard like rawhide and the sand stuck in and made them look like men of stone. This is what some wise men thought, but others said stone giants were born that way.

As time went on these giants grew more ferocious and warlike. They became tired of the flesh of beasts and fish and yearned for the flesh of men. Then they sallied forth to the lands south of them and captured Indians and devoured their flesh, tearing it from their living bodies. All the nations and tribes of Indians feared them, for no arrow would pierce their hard stony coats. Thus, secure in their armors of callous and sand, no season was too cold for them, no journey too long and no tribe strong enough to overwhelm them. They became more and more boastful and arrogant until they even laughed at the warnings of the Great Ruler, the Good Minded, and hallooed up to the skies mocking words. “We are as great as the Great Ruler,” they said. “We have created ourselves!”

When the Confederacy of the five brother nations was young, these terrible stone giants crossed the river of rapids and swept down upon the scattered settlements of the Five Nations. By day they hid in caves and at night they came forth in the darkness and captured men, women and children, rending their bodies apart and chewing up their flesh and bones. When they pointed their fingers at men they fell down dead.

The medicine men cried to the Good Minded Spirit until it seemed that prayer was only like hollow talking in one’s throat. The giants kept on with their raids and feasted undisturbed. No dark place was secure from their eyes, they penetrated the deepest shadows and found the hiding places of those who fled from them. Villages were destroyed and abandoned, councils were not held, for sachems and chieftains were the victims for the flesh-of-men feasts of the giants. The boldest warriors shot their strongest arrows from their strongest bows upon these invaders, but though the arrow shafts were strong and tipped with the toughest of flint, when they struck the stone coated giants, the arrows broke and the flints snapped and the giants gathered up the warriors and shredded their meat from their bones with their sharp teeth.

At last the Good Ruler saw that men would become exterminated unless he intervened. Thus, he commanded the Holder of the Heavens to descend from the sky and use his strategy to destroy the entire race of stone giants. Accordingly, the Holder of the Heavens dropped from the place above the clouds, and hiding in a deep forest, took the form of a stone giant and went among the band. Awed by his display of power, his wonderful feats and his marvelous strength they proclaimed the new comer the great chief of all the stone giants. In honor of his installation the Holder of the Heavens swung his huge war club high over his head and roared ferociously, “Now is the time to destroy these puny men, and have a great feast such as never before!” Leading forth the mighty tribe he planned to attack the stronghold of the Onondagas. Arriving at the foot of the great hill on whose summit was the stockade where the Onondagas had assembled, he bade the giants hide in the caves in the hills or make burrows and there hide. They were to await the dawn when they would commence the assault. Having instructed them the Holder of the Heavens went up the fort hill on a pretense and then gave the whole earth a mighty shake. So mighty was the shaking that the rocks broke from their beds and fell in masses over one another and the earth slid down making new hills and valleys. The caves all collapsed and the crouching stone giants were crushed to bits. You could see bones once in caves among the Onondagas. All but one was killed and he, with a terrible yell, rushed forth and fled with the speed of a being impelled by the Evil Minded to the Allegheny mountains, where, finding a cave, he hid so long in the darkness that he became the Genonsgwa, a new creature to terrify men-being.

THE GENONSGWA.[61]

The Genonsgwa was a monster terrible for his anger and fierceness. But one spot on his entire being was vulnerable and that was a certain spot on the bottom of his foot. The Holder of the Heavens did not pursue this solitary fugitive, but rested content in the fact that the race of stone giants was destroyed and that this one survivor would not be particularly harmful when his fury subsided and his terror gave way.

For many years the Genonsgwa lived in the mountains, or, sallying forth on long journeys, made new abodes where for a time he dwelt. Sometimes in fits of rage he would rush from his cavern in the rocks and hurl stones into the rivers until he had made a waterfall, the booming of whose waters made noises like the voices of the Hi’´nos, and then in his madness, he would call up to the father of thunders, and he, looking down, would become enraged at the insolent Genonsgwa and fling his fires down upon his cave retreats in the mountains. Then when the earth shook with the rumbling of thunders, reminding Genonsgwa of the awful day when the Holder of the Heavens shook down the rocks, he would crawl far back into the rocks and the listener miles away might hear his voice as he moaned and pleaded and quarreled with the powers that threatened his life.

As the years went by, Genonsgwa became more human and his spirit was quelled, but yet those who sought him found no mercy for he was the last of the stone giants. No one could see him, so terrible was his visage and so strong was his magic.

Now at this time a hunter lost his direction in a strange forest and though he traveled far and sought with vision keen the trail that should lead him out, he failed. A terrific hail storm broke from the heavens and snapped the branches and ripped off the leaves of the trees and beat down the underbrush and the hunter was bruised and dazed by the tumult of the storm. All day he wandered, wading blindly through marshes or stumbling through windfalls, wounded and bleeding. The hail like sharp flints still rained from the skies and the thunders still rumbled their threats and the hunter feared the anger of the heavens. A great rock like a deep shadow loomed up dark against the trees and the hunter hurried to it and found a great cavern for a shelter. When the leaves had been carried into a corner by the wind he made himself a bed and slept.

The rock shook and the hunter awoke and thought the great turtle moving from his moorings. A rhythmic roaring filled his mind with fear. A voice cried out, “You are in my lodge without permission! Who was it that bid you enter! Do you not know that I kill everybody!”

The voice was terrifying and hurt the hunter’s ears like thunder when it is very close. Then again it spoke. “Oh warrior, see by my eye-light the bones of people who have sought me to kill me,—they are a yellow powder! Listen! I know you came without intent of evil and therefore you shall not suffer. I am the last of the kind of men that were here before men came here, so harken, for I have seen the earth in its making. When the turtle’s back was small I lived here. My brothers are all departed but their spirits still are living. They are in the forest’s depths and live within the trees. Only you must dream and you shall see their faces. Some are monsters, some are human, some are like the beasts,—but dream and see them. Then go forth and carve their faces on the basswood that speaks when you approach. It is my voice speaking. Be wise and learn my secrets, how disease is healed, how man and beast and plant have the same great kind of life, how man and beast and plant may talk together and learn each other’s mission. Go and live with the trees and birds and beasts and fish and learn to honor them as your own brothers. I will be with you always in your learning. Go now and carve the faces that you see in your dreaming and carry back the faces to your people, and you and those that see them shall organize a society to preserve my teaching. Moreover, that posterity may not forget me and these words I speak within the mother turtle’s shell, I bid you collect many turtles and make rattles of their shells and when the company of faces shall shake them, let all who know my wisdom and remember you and your adventure and me and who I am.”

For a long time the hunter meditated upon the wisdom of the giant within the cave and when the wisdom was imbedded in his mind he lay down and slept again and had visions of strange things. When he awoke he found himself lying at the foot of an enormous basswood tree that as he looked at it it transformed itself into a great face like one he had seen in his dreams.

THE FALSE FACE.

Unfolding from the trunk of the basswood, the great face stared out at the spellbound hunter and opening wide its wide protruding lips began to speak. He told of his wonderful eyesight, its blazing eyes could see behind the moon and stars. His power could summon the storms or push aside the clouds for the sunshine. He knew all the virtues of roots and herbs, he knew all the diseases and knew how to apply the remedies of herbs and roots. He was familiar with all the poisons and could send them through the air and cure the sick. He could breathe health or sickness. His power was mighty and could bring luck in battles. Evil and poison and death fled when he looked, and good health and life came in its stead. He told of the basswood and said that its soft wood was filled with medicine and life. It contained the life of the wind and the life of the sunshine, and thus being good, was the wood for the false faces that the hunter must carve.