Chapter 4

"Fathers, this was our battle. We came upon the Walkullas, I and my brothers, when they were unprepared. They were just going to hold the dance of the green corn. The whole nation had come to the dance; there were none left behind, save the sick and the very old. None were painted; they were all for peace, and were as women. We crept close to them, and hid in the thick hazles which grew upon the edge of their camp; for the Shawanos are the cunning adder, and not the foolish rattlesnake. We saw them preparing to offer a sacrifice to the Great Spirit. We saw them clean the deer, and hang his head, and his horns, and his entrails, upon the great white pole with a forked top, which stood over the roof of the council-wigwam. They did not know that the Master of Life(5) had sent the Shawanos to mix blood with the sacrifices. We saw them take the new corn, and rub it upon their hands, and breasts, and faces. Then the head chief, having first thanked the Master of Life for his great goodness to the Walkullas, got up, and gave his brethren a talk. He told them that the Great Spirit loved them, and had made them victorious over all their enemies; that he had sent a great many fat bears, and deer, and mooses, to their hunting-grounds; and had given them fish, whose heads were very small and bodies very big; that he had made their corn grow tall and sweet; and had ordered his suns to ripen it in the beginning of the harvest-moon, that they might make a great feast for the strangers, who had come from a far country on the wings of a great bird to warm themselves at the Walkullas' fire. He told them they must love the Great Spirit, take care of the old men(6), tell no lies, and never break the faith of the pipe of peace; that they must not harm the strangers, for they were their brothers, but must live in peace with them, and give them lands, and wives from among their women. If they should do these things, the Great Spirit, he said, would make their corn grow taller than ever, and direct them to hunting-grounds where the mooses should be as thick as the stars.

"Fathers and warriors, we heard these words, but we knew not what to do. We feared not the Walkullas; the God of War(7), we saw, had given them into our hands. But who were the strange tribe? Were they armed as we were, and was their Great Medicine[A] like ours? Warriors, you all knew the Young Eagle, the son of the Old Eagle, who is here with us; but his wings are feeble, and he flies no more to the feast of blood. Now, the Young Eagle feared nothing but shame. He said, 'I see many men sit around a fire, I will go and see who they are.' He went. The Old Eagle looks at me as if he would say, Why went not the head warrior himself? I will tell you. The Mad Buffalo is a head taller than the tallest man of his tribe. Can the moose crawl into the fox's hole?--can the swan hide himself under a hazle-leaf? The Young Eagle was little, save in his soul. He was not full grown, save in his heart. He could go, and not be seen or heard. He was the cunning black snake, which creeps silently in the grass, and none think him near till he strikes; not the foolish rattlesnake, which makes a great noise to let you know he is coming.

[Footnote A: Great Medicine, Supreme Being; medicine simply means a spirit.]

"He came back, and told us that which made us weep. He told us, there were many strange men a little way from us, whose faces were white, and who wore no skins, whose cabins were white as the snow upon the Backbone of the Great Spirit[A], flat at the top, and moving with the wind like the reeds on the bank of a river; that they did not talk like the Walkullas, but spoke a strange tongue, the like of which he had never heard before. Many of our warriors would have turned back to their own lands; the Flying Squirrel said it was not cowardice to do so. But the Mad Buffalo never turns on his heel till he has tasted of the blood of his foes. And the Young Eagle said he had eaten the bitter root, and put on the new mocassins, and had been made a man, and his father and the old warriors would cry shame on him if he took no scalp. Both he and the Mad Buffalo said they would go and attack the Walkullas and their allies alone. But the young warriors said they would also go to the battle, and with a great heart, as their fathers had done. And then the Shawanos rushed upon their foes.

[Footnote A: Backbone of the Great Spirit, the Alleghany Mountains.]

"The Walkullas fell before us like rain in the summer months; it was as a fire among the dry rushes. We went upon them when they were unprepared--when they were as children; and for a while the Great Spirit gave them into our hands. But a power rose against us, which we could not withstand. The strange men came upon us armed with thunder and lightning. Why delays my tongue to tell its story? Fathers, your sons have fallen, like the leaves of the forest-tree in a high wind; like the flowers of spring after a frost; like drops of rain in the Sturgeon-Moon. Warriors, the sprouts which shot up from the roots of the withered oaks have perished. The young Braves of our nation lie, food for the eagle and the wild cat, by the arm of the Great Lake.

"Fathers, the bolt from the strangers' thunder entered my flesh, yet I did not fly: these six scalps I tore from the Walkullas; but this has yellow hair. Have I done well?"

The head chief and counsellors answered he had done well; but Chenos answered "No. You went into the Walkullas camp," said he, "when the tribe were feasting to the Great Spirit, and you disturbed the sacrifice, and wickedly mixed human blood with it. Therefore has this evil come upon us; for the Great Spirit is very angry."

The head chief and the counsellors asked Chenos what must be done to appease the Master of Breath.

Chenos answered--"The Mad Buffalo, with the morning, will offer to him that which he holds dearest."

The Mad Buffalo looked fiercely on the priest, and said--"The Mad Buffalo fears the Great Spirit; but he will offer none of his kin, neither his father nor his mother, nor the children of his mother; but he will kill a deer, and, with the morning, it shall be burned to the Great Spirit."

Chenos said to him, "You have told the council how the battle was fought, and who fell; you have showed the spent quiver, and the seven scalps, one of which has shining hair, but you have not spoken of your prisoner. The Great Spirit keeps nothing hid from his priests, of whom Chenos is one. He has told me you have a prisoner, one with tender feet and a trembling heart."

"Let any one say the Mad Buffalo ever lied," said the head warrior. "He never spoke but truth. He has a prisoner, a woman, taken from the strange camp; a daughter of the sun; a maiden from the happy islands, which no Shawano has ever seen. And as soon as I have built my house, and gathered in my corn, and hunted, and brought home my meat, she shall live with me and become the mother of my children."

"Where is she?" asked the head chief.

"She sits on the bank of the river, at the bend where we dug up the bones of the great beast, beneath the tree which the Master of Breath shivered with his lightnings. I placed her there because the spot is sacred, and none dare disturb her. I will go and fetch her to the council fire. But let no one touch her, or show anger, for she is fearful as a young deer, and weeps like a child for its mother."

Soon he returned, and brought with him a woman whose face was hidden by a veil whiter than the clouds. The head chief bade her, by signs, to throw the covering from her face, and stand forth before the council. She did so; but she shook like a reed in the winter's wind, and many tears ran down her cheeks, though the head warrior kept at her side, and with his eyes bade her fear nothing. The Indians sat as though their tongues were frozen, they were so much taken with the strange woman. Well might they be. Why? Was she beautiful? Go forth to the forest when it is clothed with the flowers of spring, look at the tall maize when it waves in the wind, and ask if they are beautiful. Her skin was white as the snow which falls upon the mountains beyond our lands, save upon her cheeks, where it was red; not such red as the Indian paints when he goes to war, but such as the Master of Life gives to the flower which grows among thorns. Her eyes shone like the star which never moves[A], and which guides the bewildered Indian hunter through the untravelled wilderness to his home. Her hair curled over her head like wild vines around a tree, and hung upon her brow in clusters, like bunches of grapes. Her step was like that of a deer when he is scared a little. The Great Spirit never made any thing so beautiful, not even the sun, the clouds, or the stars.

[Footnote A: The North Star, in their beautiful, poetical language, "the star which never moves," and "The Hunter's Star."]

The Mad Buffalo said to the council, "This is my prisoner. I fought hard for her. Three warriors, tall, strong, and painted, three pale men armed with the red lightning, stood at her side. Where are they now? I bore her away in my arms, for fear had overcome her; and, when night came on, I wrapped skins around her, and laid over her the leafy branches of the tree to keep off the cold, and kindled a fire, and watched by her till the sun rose; for I love her. Who will say that she shall not live with the Mad Buffalo, and be the mother of his children?"

Then the Old Eagle got up, but he could not walk strong, for he was the oldest warrior of his tribe, and had seen the flowers bloom many times, and the infant trees of the forest die of old age, and the friends of his boyhood laid in the dust. He went to the woman, and laid his hands on her head, and wept(8). The other warriors, who had lost their kindred and sons in the war with the Walkullas, did the same, shouting and weeping very loud. The women also wept, but they did not come near the prisoner.

"Where is the Young Eagle?" asked the Old Eagle of the Mad Buffalo. The other warriors, in like manner, asked for their kindred who had been killed.

"Fathers, they are dead," answered the head warrior. "The Mad Buffalo has said they are dead, and he never lies. But let my fathers take comfort. Who can live for ever? The foot of the swift step, and the hand of the stout bow, become feeble; the eye of the true aim grows dim, and the heart of many days quails at the fierce glance of warriors. 'Twas better that they should die like brave men in their youth, than become old men and grow faint."

"We must have revenge. We will not listen to the young warrior, who pines for the daughter of the sun[A]; revenge we will have!" they all cried. Then they began to sing a very mournful song, still weeping. The Mad Buffalo offered them the pipe of peace, but they would not take it.

[Footnote A: "Daughter of the Sun."--See the Tradition _infra_.]

Song.

Where are our sons, Who went to drink the blood of their foes? Who went forth to war and slaughter, Armed with tough bows and sharp arrows? Who carried long spears, and were nimble of foot As the swift buck, and feared nothing but shame? Who crossed deep rivers, and swam lakes, And went to war against the Walkullas?

Ask the eagle--he can tell you: He says, "My beak is red as the red leaf, And the blood of the slain of your land has dyed it." Ask the panther if he is hungry? "No," he shall say; "I have been at a feast." What has he in his mouth? Look! it is the arm of a Shawanos warrior!

Why do our old men weep, And our women, and our daughters, and our little ones? Is it for the warriors who went forth to battle? Is it for them who went forth in glory, And fell like the leaves of the tree in autumn? Is it for them?

What doth the Indian love?--Revenge. What doth he fight for?--Revenge. What doth he pray for?--Revenge. It is sweet as the flesh of a young bear; For this he goes hungry, roaming the desert, Living on berries, or chewing the rough bark Of the oak, and drinking the slimy pool.

Revenged we must be. Behold the victim! Beautiful she is as the stars, Or the trees with great white flowers. Let us give her to the Great Spirit; Let us make a fire, and offer her for our sons, That we may have success against the Walkullas, And revenge us for our sons.

When the strange woman saw them weeping and singing so mournfully, she crept close to the head warrior for protection. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she often looked up to the house of the Great Spirit, and talked; but none could understand her, save Chenos, who said she was praying to her god. All the time, the Old Eagle, and the other warriors, who had lost their sons, were begging very hard that she should be burned to revenge them. But Chenos stood up, and said:

"Brothers and warriors! our sons did very wrong when they broke in upon the sacred dance the Walkullas had made to their god, upon the coming in of the new corn, and he lent his thunder to the strange warriors, and they killed ours easily. Let us not draw down his anger farther upon us by doing we know not what. It may be if we offer this woman upon his fire, he will himself come with his thunder and strike us, as he did the sacred tree, and we shall all die. Let the beautiful woman remain this night in the wigwam of the council, covered with skins, and let none disturb her. To-morrow we will offer a sacrifice of deer's flesh to the Great Spirit; and, if he will not give her to the raging fire and the torments of the avengers, he will tell us so by the words of his mouth. If he do not speak, it shall be done to her as the Old Eagle and his brothers have said."

The head chief said, "Chenos has spoken well; wisdom is in his words. Make for the strange woman a soft bed of skins, and treat her kindly, for it may be she is the daughter of the Great Spirit."

Then the Indians all returned to their cabins and slept, save the Mad Buffalo, who, fearing for the life of his prisoner, laid himself down at the door of the lodge and watched.

When the morning came, the head warrior went to the forest and killed a deer, fat and proper for an offering, which he brought to Chenos, who prepared it for a sacrifice; and he sang a song while the flesh lay on the fire:--

Song of Chenos.

We have built the fire; The deer we have kill'd; The skin and the horns we have parted from the flesh; The flesh is laid on the burning coals; The sweetness thereof goes up in the smoke:-- Master of Life, wilt thou come and claim thine own?

Wilt thou come, Great Spirit of our fathers, And say if we may harbour revenge, and not anger thee? Shall we plant the stake, and bind the fair-one? The beautiful maid, with her hair like bunches of grapes, And her eyes like the blue sky, And her skin white as the blossoms of the forest-tree, And her voice as the music of a little stream, And her step as the bound of the young fawn? Shall her soft flesh be torn with sharp thorns, And burn'd with fiery flames?

"Let us listen," said Chenos, stopping the warriors in their dance. "Let us see if the Great Spirit hears us."

They listened, but could not hear him singing. Chenos asked him why he would not speak, but he did not answer. Then they sung again:--

Shall the flame we have kindled expire? Shall the sacrifice-embers go out? Shall the maiden be free from the fire? Shall the voice of revenge wake no shout? We ask that our feet may be strong In the way thou wouldst have us to go; Let thy voice, then, be heard in the song, That thy will, and our task, we may know.

"Hush," said Chenos, listening; "I hear the crowing of the Great Turkey-Cock[A]; I hear him speaking." They stopped, and Chenos went close to the fire, and talked with his master, but nobody saw with whom he talked. "What does the Great Spirit tell his prophet?" asked the head chief.

[Footnote A: Thunder, also called the "hissing of the Great Serpent."]

Chenos answered, "He says the young woman must not be offered to him; he wills her to live, and become the mother of many children."

Many of the chiefs and warriors were pleased that the beautiful woman was to live. They wished to make her their daughter; but those who had lost their brothers and sons in the war were not appeased. They said, "We will have blood. We will have revenge for our sons. We will go to the priest of the Evil Spirit, and ask him if his master will not give us revenge."

Not far from where our nation had their council-fire there was a great hill, covered with stunted trees, and moss, and rugged rocks. There was a great cave in it, how great none of the Indians could tell, save Sketupah, the priest of the Evil Spirit, for no one but he had ever entered it. He lived in this cave, and there did worship to his master. It was a strange place, and much feared by the Indians. If a man but spoke a word at the mouth of it, somebody from within mocked him in a strange, hoarse voice, which sounded like the first of the thunders. And just so many and the same words as the man at the mouth of the cave spoke, the spirit in the cave repeated.[A]

[Footnote A: The Indians think that echoes are the voice of a spirit.]

Sketupah was a strange old creature, whom the oldest living man of the nation never saw but as he now was. He would have been very tall if he had been straight, but he was more crooked than a warped bow. His hair looked like a bunch of snakes, and his eyes like two coals of fire. His mouth reached from ear to ear, and his legs, which were very long, were no bigger than a sapling of two snows. He was, indeed, a very fearful old man, and the Indians feared him scarcely less than the Evil One. Many were the gifts which our nation made to Sketupah, to gain his favour and the favour of his master. Who but he feasted on the fattest buffalo hump? Who but he fed on the earliest ear of milky corn?--on the best things which grew on the land or in the water? The fears of the Indian fed him with the choicest things of the land.

The Old Eagle went to the mouth of the cave, and cried with a loud voice, "Sketupah!"

"Sketupah," answered the hoarse voice of the Evil Spirit from the hollow cave. Soon Sketupah came, and asked the Old Eagle what he wanted.

"Revenge for our sons, who have been killed by the Walkullas and their friends, who live beyond the Great Lake, and came on the back of a great bird. Revenge we must have."

"Revenge we ask, revenge we must have," said the hoarse voice in the cave.

"Will your master hear us?" asked the Old Eagle of the priest.

"My master must have a sacrifice, he must smell blood," said the ugly old man. "Then we shall know if he will give you revenge. Go in the morning to the woods, and take a wolf, a rattlesnake, and a tortoise, and bring them to me at the mouth of the cave, when the great star of day is coming out of the Suwaney."

The Old Eagle, and the other chiefs and warriors who asked revenge, did as Sketupah bade them. They went to the woods, and took a wolf, a tortoise, and a rattlesnake, and brought them, the wolf growling, the snake hissing, and the tortoise snapping his teeth, to the priest.

He bade them build a fire of pine, and the tree which bears poisonous flowers[A], and the hemlock, and the grape-vine which bears no fruit. They did as he bade them, and made the fire flame high. Then Sketupah prepared the sacrifice. First he skinned the wolf, then he shelled the tortoise. He bound the wolf's skin upon himself with the snake, and with his entrails he fastened the shell of the tortoise upon his head. Then he laid the carcasses of the wolf, and the snake and the tortoise, upon the fire, and danced around it, while he sang to his master the following song:--

Song of Sketupah.

We have slain the beasts:-- The hissing snake, with poisonous fangs; The wolf, whose teeth are red with Indian blood; And the creeping tortoise, the dweller in deep fens; We have slain them. Lo! they are laid on hissing coals: Wilt thou come, Spirit of Evil, and claim thine own?

The sons of the Shawanos lie low, Far from the burial-place of their fathers; Red wounds are on their breasts, Cold and stiff are their limbs; Their eyes see not the ways of men, Nor the rising or setting of the great star, Nor the blooming of spring-flowers, Nor the glad glances of young maidens: They sleep in the vale of death.

They fell, and no revenge, No torments of foes, appease them in the land of spirits; No shoutings of brother warriors Gladden their shades; The camp of their nation is mute; They are forgotten by their women; The bright eyes of their maidens Have no tears in them: They sleep forgotten by all.

Shall they have no revenge? Shall we not plant the stake, and bind the fair-one? The beautiful maid, with her hair like bunches of grapes, And her eyes like the blue sky, And her skin white as the blossoms of the forest-tree, And her voice as the music of a little stream? Shall she not be torn with sharp thorns, And burned in fiery flames?

[Footnote A: The Magnolia, whose flowers are said to be poisonous.]

He ceased singing, and listened, but the Evil Spirit answered not. Just as he was going to begin another song, they saw a large ball rolling very fast up the hill towards the spot where they stood. It was the height of a man. When it came up to them it began to unwind itself slowly until at last a little strange-looking man crept out of the ball, which was made of his own hair. He was no higher than my shoulders. One of his feet made a strange track, the like of which the Indians had never seen before. His face was as black as the shell of the butter-nut, or the feathers of the raven, and his eyes as green as grass. And stranger yet was his hair, for it was of the colour of moss, and so long that, as the wind blew it out, it seemed the tail of a fiery star. There he stood, grinning and laughing very loud. "What do you want of me?" he asked Sketupah.

The priest answered, "The Shawanos want revenge. They want to sacrifice the beautiful daughter of the sun, whom the Mad Buffalo has brought from the camp of the Walkullas."

"They shall have their wish," said the Evil Spirit. "She shall be sacrificed. Go and fetch her to the hill."

Then the Old Eagle, and the chiefs and warriors, went to fetch the beautiful maiden to the hill of sacrifice. They found her sitting in her cabin, with the chief warrior watching at her door. He would have fought for her, and had already raised his spear to strike the foremost warrior, when Chenos commanded him to be still; "for," said he, "my master will see that she does not suffer. Before the star of day sets in the Mighty River, the nation of Shawanos shall see whose god is greatest and strongest--Sketupah's, or mine."

Then they built the fire, fixed the stake, and bound the beautiful woman to it. Till now the head warrior had stood still, for he looked that the priest of the Great Spirit should snatch her away from the Evil One. But when he saw her bound to the stake, and the flames beginning to arise, he shouted his war-cry, and rushed upon the priest of the Spirit of Evil. It was in vain; Sketupah's master did but breathe upon the face of the stern warrior, when he fell as though he had stricken him with a blow, and never breathed more. The Evil Spirit then commanded them to seize Chenos.

Then they seized the priest of the Master of Breath, to bind him for the flames. But Chenos shouted aloud, "Come, Master of Life, for the hands of the Evil One are upon me. Come, break my bands, and redeem me from the flames they have kindled for me."