‘The day is past and gone,The evening shades appear,’ etc.
‘The day is past and gone,The evening shades appear,’ etc.
‘The day is past and gone,The evening shades appear,’ etc.
‘The day is past and gone,
The evening shades appear,’ etc.
“My grief was too great. The struggling emotions of my mind I tried to keep from her, but could not. She said: ‘Don’t grieve for me; I have been a care to you all the while. I don’t like to leave you here all alone, but God is with you, and our heavenly Father will keep and comfort those who trust in him. O, I am so glad that we were taught to love and serve the Saviour.’ She then asked me to sing the hymn commencing:
‘How tedious and tasteless the hoursWhen Jesus no longer I see.’
‘How tedious and tasteless the hoursWhen Jesus no longer I see.’
‘How tedious and tasteless the hoursWhen Jesus no longer I see.’
‘How tedious and tasteless the hours
When Jesus no longer I see.’
“I tried to sing, but could not get beyond the first line. But it did appear that visions of a bright world were hers, as with a clear, unfaltering strain she sang the entire hymn. She gradually sank away without much pain, and all the time happy. She had not spent a day in our captivity without asking God to pardon, to bless, and to save. I was faint, and unable to stand upon my feet long at a time. My cravings for food were almost uncontrollable; and at the same time, among unfeeling savages, to watch her gradual but sure approach to the vale of death, from want of food that their laziness alone prevented us having in abundance, this was a time and scene upon which I can only gaze with horror, and the very remembrance of which I would blot out if I could.
“She lingered thus for several days. She sufferedmuch, mostly from hunger. Often did I hear, as I sat near her weeping, some Indian coming near break out in a rage, because I was permitted to spend my time thus with her; that they had better kill Mary, then I could go, as I ought to be made to go, and dig roots and procure food for the rest of them.
“O what moments, what hours were these! Every object in all the fields of sight seemed to wear a horrid gloom.
“One day, during her singing, quite a crowd gathered about her and seemed much surprised. Some of them would stand for whole hours and gaze upon her countenance as if enchained by a strange sight, and this while some of their own kindred were dying in other parts of the village. Among these was the wife of the chief, ‘Aespaneo.’ I ought here to say that neither that woman nor her daughter ever gave us any unkind treatment. She came up one day, hearing Mary sing, and bent for some time silently over her. She looked in her face, felt of her, and suddenly broke out in a most piteous lamentation. She wept, and wept from the heart and aloud. I never saw a parent seem to feel more keenly over a dying child. She sobbed, she moaned, she howled. And thus bending over and weeping she stood the whole night. The next morning, as I sat near my sister, shedding my tears in my hands, she called me to her side and said: ‘I am willing to die. O, Ishall be so much better off there!’ and her strength failed. She tried to sing, but was too weak.
Olive and an Indian woman grieving over Mary Ann's body as other Indians look onDEATH OF MARY ANN AT THE INDIAN CAMP.
DEATH OF MARY ANN AT THE INDIAN CAMP.
DEATH OF MARY ANN AT THE INDIAN CAMP.
“A number of the tribe, men, women, and children, were about her, the chief’s wife watching her every moment. She died in a few moments after her dying words quoted above.
“She sank to the sleep of death as quietly as sinks the innocent infant to sleep in its mother’s arms.
“When I saw that she was dead, I could but givemyself up to loneliness, to wailing and despair. ‘The last of our family dead, and all of them by tortures inflicted by Indian savages,’ I exclaimed to myself. I went to her and tried to find remaining life, but no pulse, no breath was there. I could but adore the mercy that had so wisely thrown a vail of concealment over these three years of affliction. Had their scenes been mapped out to be read beforehand, and to be received step by step, as they were really meted out to us, no heart could have sustained them.
“I wished and most earnestly desired that I might at once lie down in the same cold, icy embrace that I saw fast stiffening the delicate limbs of that dear sister.
“I reasoned at times, that die I must and soon, and that I had the right to end my sufferings at once, and prevent these savages by cold, cruel neglect, murdering me by the slow tortures of a starvation that had already its score of victims in our village. The only heart that shared my woes was now still, the only heart (as I then supposed) that survived the massacre of seven of our family group was now cold in death, and why should I remain to feel the gnawings of hunger and pain a few days, and then, without any to care for me, unattended and uncared for, lay down and die. At times I resolved to take a morsel of food by stealth, (if it could be found,) and make a desperate attempt to escape.
“There were two, however, who seemed not wholly insensible to my condition, these were the wife and daughter of the chief. They manifested a sympathy that had not gathered about me since the first closing in of the night of my captivity upon me. The Indians, at the direction of the chief, began to make preparations to burn the body of my sister. This, it seemed, I could not endure. I sought a place to weep and pray, and I then tasted the blessedness of realizing that there is One upon whom the heart’s heaviest load can be placed, and He never disappointed me. My dark, suicidal thoughts fled, and I became resigned to my lot. Standing by the corpse, with my eyes fastened on that angel-countenance of Mary Ann, the wife of the chief came to me and gave me to understand that she had by much entreaty, obtained the permission of her lord to give me the privilege of disposing of the dead body as I should choose. This was a great consolation, and I thanked her most earnestly. It lifted a burden from my mind that caused me to weep tears of gratitude, and also to note the finger of that Providence to whom I had fully committed myself, and whom I plainly saw strewing my way with tokens of his kind regards toward me. The chief gave me two blankets, and in these they wrapped the corpse. Orders were then given to two Indians to follow my directions in disposing of the body. I selected a spot in that little garden ground, where I had planted and wept withmy dear sister. In this they dug a grave about five feet deep, and into it they gently lowered the remains of my last, my only sister, and closed her last resting-place with the sand. The reader may imagine my feelings, as I stood by that grave. The whole painful past seemed to rush across my mind, as I lingered there. It was the first and only grave in all that valley, and that inclosing my own sister. Around me was a large company of half-dressed, fierce-looking savages, some serious, some mourning, some laughing over this novel method of disposing of the dead; others in breathless silence watched the movements of that dark hour, with a look that seemed to say, ‘This is the way white folks do,’ and exhibiting no feeling or care beyond that. I longed to plant a rose upon her grave, but the Mohaves knew no beauty, and read no lesson in flowers, and so this mournful pleasure was denied me.
“When the excitement of that hour passed, with it seemed to pass my energy and ambition. I was faint and weak, drowsy and languid. I found but little strength from the scant rations dealt out to me. I was rapidly drooping, and becoming more and more anxious to shut my eyes to all about me, and sink to a sweet, untroubled sleep beneath that green carpeted valley. This was the only time in which, without any reserve, I really longed to die, and cease at once to breathe and suffer. That same woman, the wife of the chief, came again to the solace andrelief of my destitution and woe. I was now able to walk but little, and had resigned all care and anxiety, and concluded to wait until those burning sensations caused by want of nourishment should consume the last thread of my life, and shut my eyes and senses in the darkness that now hid them from my sister.
“Just at this time this kind woman came to me with some corn gruel in a hollow stone. I marveled to know how she had obtained it. The handful of seed corn that my sister and I had hid in the ground, between two stones, did not come to my mind. But this woman, this Indian woman, had uncovered a part of what she had deposited against spring planting, had ground it to a coarse meal, and of it prepared this gruel for me. I took it, and soon she brought me more. I began to revive. I felt a new life and strength given me by this morsel, and was cheered by the unlooked-for exhibition of sympathy that attended it. She had the discretion to deny the unnatural cravings that had been kindled by the small quantity she brought first, and dealt a little at a time, until within three days I gained a vigor and cheerfulness I had not felt for weeks. She bestowed this kindness in a sly and unobserved manner, and enjoined secrecy upon me, for a reason which the reader can judge. She had done it when some of her own kin were in a starving condition. It waked up a hope within my bosom that reached beyond the immediate kindness. I could not account for it butby looking to that Power in whose hands are the hearts of the savage as well as the civilized man. I gathered a prospect from these unexpected and kindly interpositions, of an ultimate escape from my bondage. It was the hand of God, and I would do violence to the emotions I then felt and still feel, violence to the strong determination I then made to acknowledge all his benefits, if I should neglect this opportunity to give a public, grateful record of my sense of his goodness.
“The woman had buried that corn to keep it from the lazy crowd about her, who would have devoured it in a moment, and in utter recklessness of next year’s reliance. She did it when deaths by starvation and sickness were occurring every day throughout the settlement. Had it not been for her, I must have perished. From this circumstance I learned to chide my hasty judgment againstALLthe Indian race, and also, that kindness is not always a stranger to the untutored and untamed bosom. I saw in this that their savageness is as much a fruit of their ignorance as of any want of a susceptibility to feel the throbbings of true humanity, if they could be properly appealed to.
“By my own exertions I was able now to procure a little upon which to nourish my half-starved stomach. By using about half of my seed corn, and getting an occasional small dose of bitter, fermented oth-to-toa soup, I managed to drag my life along toMarch, 1854. During this month and April I procured a few small roots, at a long distance from the village; also some fish from the lake. I took particular pains to guard the little wheat garden that we had planted the autumn before, and I also planted a few kernels of corn and some melon seeds. Day after day I watched this little ‘mutautea,’ lest the birds might bring upon me another winter like that now passed. In my absence Aespaneo would watch it for me. As the fruit of my care and vigilant watching, I gathered about one half bushel of corn, and about the same quantity of wheat. My melons were destroyed.
“During the growing of this crop, I subsisted principally upon a small root,[1]about the size of a hazel-nut, which I procured by traveling long distances, with fish. Sometimes, after a long and fatiguing search, I would procure a handful of these roots, and, on bringing them to camp, was compelled to divide them with some stout, lazy monsters, who had been sunning themselves all day by the river.
“I also came near losing my corn by the blackbirds. Driven by the same hunger, seemingly, that was preying upon the human tribe, they would fairly darken the air, and it was difficult to keep them off, especially as I was compelled to be absent to get food for immediate use. But they were not the only robbers I had to contend against. Therewere some who, like our white loafers, had a great horror of honest labor, and they would shun even a little toil, with a conscientious abhorrence, at any hazard. They watched my little corn-patch with hungry and thieving eyes, and, but for the chief, would have eaten the corn green and in the ear. As harvest drew near I watched, from before daylight until dark again, to keep off these red vultures and the blackbirds from a spot of ground as large as an ordinary dwelling-house. I had to do my accustomed share of musquite gathering, also, in June and July. This we gathered in abundance. The Colorado overflowed this winter and spring, and the wheat and corn produced well, so that in autumn the tribe was better provided with food than it had been for several years.
“The social habits of these Indians, and the traits of character on which they are founded, and to which they give expression, may be illustrated by a single instance as well as a thousand. The portion of the valley over which the population extends, is about forty miles long. Their convivial seasons were occasions of large gatherings, tumultuous rejoicings, and (so far as their limited productions would allow) of excess in feasting. The year 1854 was one of unusual bounty and thrift. They planted more than usual; and by labor and the overflow of the river, the seed deposited brought forth an unparalleled increase. During the autumn of that year, the residents of the northpart of the valley set apart a day for feasting and merry-making. Notice was given about four weeks beforehand; great preparations were made, and a large number invited. Their supply for the appetite on that day consisted of wheat, corn, pumpkins, beans, etc. These were boiled, and portions of them mixed with ground seed, such as serececa, (seed of a weed,) moeroco, (of pumpkins.) On the day of the feast the Indians masked themselves, some with bark, some with paint, some with skins. On the day previous to the feast, the Indians of our part of the valley, who had been favored with an invitation, were gathered at the house of the chief, preparatory to taking the trip in company to the place of the feast. Some daubed their faces and hair with mud, others with paint, so as to give to each an appearance totally different from his or her natural state. I was told that I could go along with the rest. This to me was no privilege, as I knew too well what cruelty and violence they were capable of when excited, as on their days of public gathering they were liable to be. However, I was safer there than with those whom they left behind.
“The Indians went slowly, sometimes in regular, and sometimes in irregular march, yelling, howling, singing, and gesticulating, until toward night they were wrought up to a perfect phrenzy. They halted about one mile from the “north settlement,” and after building a fire, commenced their war-dance,which they kept up until about midnight. On this occasion I witnessed some of the most shameful indecencies, on the part of both male and female, that came to my eye for the five years of my stay among Indians.
“The next morning the Indians who had prepared the feast (some of whom had joined in the dance of the previous evening) came with their squaws, each bearing upon their heads a Coopoesech, containing a cake, or a stone dish filled with soup, or boiled vegetables. These cakes were made of wheat, ground, and mixed with boiled pumpkins. This dough was rolled out sometimes to two feet in diameter; then placed in hot sand, a leaf and a layer of sand laid over the loaf, and a fire built over the whole, until it was baked through. After depositing these dishes, filled with their prepared dainties, upon a slight mound near by, the whole tribe then joined in a war-dance, which lasted nearly twelve hours. After this the dishes and their contents were taken by our party and borne back to our homes, when and where feasting and dancing again commenced, and continued until their supplies were exhausted, and they from sheer weariness were glad to fly to the embrace of sleep. It would be a ‘shame even to speak’ of all the violence and indecency into which they plunged on these occasions. Suffice it to say that no modesty, no sense of shame, no delicacy, that throw so many wholesome hedges and limitations about the respectivesexes on occasions of conviviality where civilization elevates and refines, were there to interfere with scenes the remembrance of which creates a doubt whether these degraded bipeds belong to the human or brute race.
“Thus endedoneof the many days of such performances that I witnessed; and I found it difficult to decide whether most of barbarity appeared in these, or at those seasons of wild excitement occasioned by the rousing of their revengeful and brutal passions.
“Of all seasons during my captivity, these of concourse and excitement most disgusted me with the untamed Indian. When I remember what my eyes have witnessed, I am led to wonder and adore at my preservation for a single year, or that my life was not brutalized, a victim to their inhumanity.
“I felt cheerful again, only when that loneliness and desolateness which had haunted me since Mary’s death, would sadden and depress my spirits. The same woman that had saved my life, and furnished me with ground and seed to raise corn and wheat, and watched it for me for many days, now procured from the chief a place where I might store it, with the promise from him that every kernel should go for my own maintenance.”
It is not to go again over the melancholy events that have been rehearsed in the last chapter, that we ask the reader to tarry for a moment ere his eye beginsto trace the remaining scenes of Olive’s captivity, which furnish the next chapter, and in which we see her under the light of a flickering, unsteady hope of a termination of her captivity either by rescue or death.
But when in haste this chapter was penned for the first edition, it was then, and has since been felt by the writer, that there was an interest hanging about the events of the same, especially upon the closing days and hours of little Mary’s brief life, that properly called, according to the intent of this narrative, for a longer stay. A penning of mere facts does not set forth, or glance atallthat clusters about that pale, dying child as she lies in the door of the tent, the object of the enchained curious attention of the savages, by whose cold neglect the flower of her sweet life was thus nipped in the bud. And we feel confident of sharing, to some extent, the feelings of the sensitive and intelligent reader, when we state that the two years’ suffering, by the pressure of which her life was arrested, and the circumstances surrounding those dying moments, make up a record, than which seldom has there been one that appeals to the tender sensibilities of our being more directly, or to our serious consideration more profitably.
Look at these two girls in the light of the first camp-fire that glowed upon the faces of themselves and their captors, the first dreary evening of their captivity. By one hour’s cruel deeds and murderthey had suddenly been bereft of parents, brothers, and sisters, and consigned to the complete control of a fiendish set of men, of the cruelty of whose tender mercies they had already received the first and unerring chapter. Look at them toiling day and night, from this on for several periods of twenty-four hours, up rugged ascents, bruised and whipped by the ruggedness of their way and the mercilessness of their lords. Their strength failing; the distance between them and the home and way of the white man increasing; the dreariness and solitude of the region enbosoming them thickening; and each step brooded over by the horrors left behind, and the worse horrors that sat upon the brightest future that at the happiest rovings of fancy could be possibly anticipated.
In imagination we lean out our souls to listen to the sobs and sighs that went up from those hearts—hearts bleeding from wounds and pains tenfold more poignant than those that lacerated and wrung their quivering flesh. We look upon them, as with their captors they encircle the wild light of the successive camp-fires, kindled for long distant halts, upon their way to the yet unseen and dreaded home of the “inhabitants of rocks and tents.” We look upon them as they are ushered into their new home, greeted with the most inhuman and terror-kindling reception given them by this unfeeling horde of land-sharks; thus to look, imagine, and ponder, we find enough, especially when theageandcircumstancesof these captive girls are considered, to lash our thoughts with indignation toward their oppressors, and kindle our minds with more than we can express with the wordsympathyfor these their innocent victims.
In little less than one year, and into that year is crowded all of toil and suffering that we can credit as possible for them to survive, and then they are sold and againen routefor another new and strange home, in a wild as distant from their Apache home as that from the hill where, but a year before, in their warm flowing blood, their moaning, mangled kindred had been left.
Scarcely had they reached the Mohave Valley ere the elder sister saw with pain, the sad and already apparently irremovable effects of past hardships upon the constitution of the younger. What tenderness, what caution, what vigilant watching, what anxious, unrelieved solicitude mark the conduct of that noble heart toward her declining and only sister? Indeed, what interest prompted her to do all in her power to preserve her life? Not only her only sister, but the only one (to her then) that remained of the family from whom they had been ruthlessly torn. And should her lamp of life cease, thereby would be extinguished the last earthly solace and cordial for the dark prison life that inclosed her, and that threw its walls of gloom and adamant between her and the abodes and sunshine of civilized life. Yet death hadmarked that little cherub girl for an early victim. Slowly, and yet uncomplainingly, does her feeble frame and strength yield to the heavy hand of woe and want that met her, in all the ghastliness and horror of unchangeable doom, at every turn and hour of her weary days. What mystery hangs upon events and persons! How impenetrable the permissions of Providence! How impalpable and evasive of all our wisdomthat secret power, by which cherished plans and purposes are often shaped to conclusions and terminations so wide of the bright design that lighted them on to happy accomplishment in the mind of the mortal proposer!
Mary Ann had been the fondly cherished, and tenderly nursed idol of that domestic group. Early had she exhibited a precocity in intellect, and in moral sensitiveness and attainment, that had made her the subject of a peculiar parental affection, and the ever cheerful radiating center of light, and love, and happiness to the remainder of the juvenile family. But she ever possessed a strength of body and vigor of health far inferior, and disproportioned to her mental and moral progress. She was a correct reader at four years. She was kept almost constantly at school, both from her choice, and the promise she gave to delighted parents of a future appreciation and good improvement of these advantages. With the early exhibition of an earnest thirst for knowledge that she gave, there was also a strict regard fortruth, and a hearty, happy obedience to the law of God and the authority of her parents. At five years and a half she had read her Bible through. She was a constant attendant upon Sabbath school, into all the exercises of which she entered with delight; and to her rapid improvement and profit in the subjects with which she there became intimate and identified, may be attributed the moral superiority she displayed during her captivity.
She had a clear, sweet voice, and the children now live in this state who have witnessed the earnestness and rapture with which she joined in singing the hymns allotted to Sabbath-school hours. O how little of the sad after-part of Mary’s life entered into the minds of those parents as thus they directed the childish, tempted steps of their little daughter into the paths of religious pursuits and obedience.
Who shall say that the facts in her childish experience and years herein glanced at, had not essentially to do with the spirit and preparedness that she brought to the encountering and enduring of the terrible fate that closed her eyes among savages at eight years of age.
As we look at her fading, withering, and wasting at the touch of cold cruelty, the object of anxious watchings and frequent and severe painstaking on the part of her elder sister, who spared no labor or fatigue to glean the saving morsel to prolong her sinking life, we can but adore that never-sleepingGoodness that had strewn her way to this dark scene with so many preparing influences and counsels.
Young as she was, she with her sister were first to voice those hymns of praise to the one God, in which the grateful offerings of Christian hearts go up to him, in the ear of an untutored and demoralized tribe of savages. Hers was the first Christian death they ever witnessed, perhaps the last; and upon her, as with composure and cheerfulness (not the sullen submission of which they boast) she came down to the vale of death, they gazed with every indication of an interest and curiosity that showed the workings of something more than the ordinary solemnities that had gathered them about the paling cheek and quivering lip of members of their own tribe.
Precious girl! sweet flower! nipped in the bud by untimely and rude blasts. Yet the fragrance of the ripe virtues that budded and blossomed upon so tender and frail a stalk shall not die. If ever the bright throng that flame near the throne would delight to cease their song, descend and poise on steady wing to wait the last heaving of a suffering mortal’s bosom, that at the parting breath they might encircle the fluttering spirit and bear it to the bosom of God, it was when thou didst, upon the breath of sacred song, joined in by thy living sister, yield thy spirit to Him who kindly cut short thy sufferings that he might begin thy bliss.
A Sabbath-school scholar, dying in an Indiancamp, three hundred miles from even the nearest trail of the white man, buoyed and gladdened by bright visions of beatitudes that make her oblivious of present pain, and long to enter upon the future estate to which a correct and earnest instruction had been pointing!
Who can say but that there lives the little Mohave boy or girl, or the youth who will yet live to rehearse in the ear of a listening American auditory, and in a rough, uncouth jargon, the wondrous impression of that hour upon his mind.
Already we see the arms of civilization embracing a small remnant of that waning tribe, and among its revived records, though unwritten, we find the death of the American captive in the door of the chief’s “Pasiado.” When they gathered about her at that dying moment, many were the curious questions with which some of them sought to ascertain the secret of her (to them) strange appearance. The sacred hymns learned in Sabbath school and at a domestic shrine, and upon which that little spirit now breathed its devout emotions in the ear of God, were inquired after. They asked her where she expected to go? She told them that she was going to a better place than the mound to which they sent the spirits of their dead. And many questions did they ask her and her older sister as to the extent of the knowledge they had of such a bright world, if one there was. And though replies to many of their queries before had been metby mockings and ridicule, yet now not one gazed, or listened, or questioned, to manifest any disposition to taunt or accuse at the hour of that strange dying.
The wife of the chief plied her questions with earnestness, and with an air of sincerity, and the exhibition of the most intense mental agitation, showing that she was not wholly incredulous of the new and strange replies she received.
TALE OF THE TWO CAPTIVES.
One night a large company were assembled at the hut of one of the sub-chiefs. It was said that this Indian, Adpadarama, was the illegitimate son of the present chief, and there was considerable dispute between him and two of the chief’s legitimate sons as to their respective rights to the chiefship on the death of the father.
At the gathering referred to the following anecdote was related, which is here given to show the strength of their superstitions, and the unmitigated cruelties which are sometimes perpetrated by them under the sanction of these barbaric beliefs. This sub-chief said that one day, when he, in company with several of his relatives and two Cochopa captives, was away in the mountains on a hunting-tour, his (reputed) father fell violently sick. He grew worse for several days. One day he was thought tobe dying. “When I was convinced that he could not live,” said Adpadarama, or to that effect, “I resolved to kill one of the captives, and then wait until my father should die, when I would kill the other. So I took a stone tomahawk and went out to the little fire near the camping-tent, where they were eating some berries they had just picked, and I told one of them to step out, for I was a going to kill her to see if it would not save my father. Then she cried,” (and at this he showed by signs, and frowns, and all manner of gestures how delighted he was at her misery,) “and begged for her life. But I went up to her and struck her twice with this tomahawk, when she fell dead upon the ground. I then told the other that I should kill her so soon as my father died; that I should burn them both with his body, and then they would go to be his slaves up in yonder eliercha,” (pointing to their heavenly hill.) “Well, about two days after my father died, and I was mad to think that the killing of the captive had not saved him. So I went straight and killed the other, but I killed her by burning, so as to be sure that the flames should take her to my father to serve him forever.”
Such are facts that dimly hint at the vague and atrocious theories that crowd their brain and hold iron sway over their minds. And in all the abominations and indecencies authorized by their superstitions, they are not only prompt and faithful, but the more degrading and barbarous the rite, the moredoes their zeal and enthusiasm kindle at its performance.
Adpadarama said he burned, as soon as he returned, his father’s house, and all his dishes, and utensils, and bark-garments, so that his father might have them to contribute to his happiness where he had gone.