This "imposition of hands," accompanied with tears, was for the purpose of exciting compassion for the recent loss of their relations in conflict, and thus procuring revenge.
I am by no means certain that the above is a correct explanation of the practice, though, in the tale or tradition in which I have introduced it, I have considered it so. Tonti, in his relation of De La Salle's Expedition, supposes it to arise from a more subdued feeling. The passage, as the reader will see, is replete with poetical beauty. His words are—"We arrived in the midst of a very extraordinary nation, called theBiscatonges, to whom we gave the name of weepers, in regard that upon the first approach of strangers, all these people, as well men as women, usually fall a-weeping bitterly: the reason of this practice is very particular; for these poor people imagining that their relations or friends deceased are gone a journey, and continually expecting their return, the remembrance of 'em is renewed upon the arrival of new passengers; but forasmuch as they do not find in their persons those whose loss they lament, it only serves to increase their grief. That which is yet more remarkable, and perhaps even very reasonable, is that they weep much more at the birth of their children than at their death, because the latter is esteemed only by 'em, as it were a journey or voyage, from whence they may return after the expiration of a certain time, but they look upon their nativity as an inlet into an ocean of dangers and misfortunes."
(9)A great man whose head nearly reached the sky.—p. 26.
The God of the Indians has always a corporeal form, and is generally of immense stature. He is chiefly represented as a man possessed of great dimensions and mighty corporeal strength. Sometimes however he takes the shape of a beast. Charlevoix says: "Almost all the Algonquin nations have siren the name of theGreat Hareto the first spirit. Some call himMichabou,i.e.God of the Waters; othersAtoacan, the meaning of which I do not know. The greatest part say that, being supported on the waters with all his court, all composed offour-footed creatures like himself, he formed the earth out of a grain of sand taken from the bottom of the ocean, &c. Some speak of a God of the Waters, who opposed the design of theGreat Hare, or at least refused to favour it.This God is, according to some, the Great Tiger."Charlevoix, ii, 107, 108. And see traditionsupra. The Hurons believe him to be the sun.Ibid. The same author remarks (page109) that "the Gods of the savages have, according to their notions, bodies and live much in the same manner as we do," &c.
Carver says "the Indians appear to fashion to themselves corporeal representations of their Gods, and believe them to be of a human form." Wennebea, one of the Indian chiefs seen by Long in his expedition to the source of St. Peter's River, thought the Great Spirit had a human form, and wore awhite hat. It surely cannot after this be held that the "ideas of an Indian havealwaysa degree of sublimity."
I have never seen an Indian who believed the Supreme Being to have other than a human form, or to be of less than Almighty power and dimensions. An Indian, who was in the service of the Author during the entire period between childhood and manhood, and used to delight and astonish him with his sublime though most natural conceptions of Infinity and the Godhead, always called him the Great Good Man. The "Prince of the power of the air," he very appositely called the "Little Bad Man."
Pomatare rose and said:—"Brothers, a very great while ago, the ancestors of the Shawanos nation lived on the other side of the Great Lake, halfway between the rising sun and the evening star. It was a land of deep snows and much frost; of winds which whistled in the clear cold nights, and storms which travelled from seas no eye could reach. Sometimes the sun ceased to shine for moons together, and then he was continually before our eyes for as many more. In the season of cold, the waters were all locked up, and the snows overtopped the ridge of our cabins; then he shone out so fiercely that men fell down stricken by his fierce beams, and were numbered with the snow which had melted, and run to the embrace of the rivers. It was not like the beautiful lands, the lands blessed with soft suns and ever-green vales, where we now dwell. Yet it was well stocked with deer, and the waters with fat seals and great fish, which were caught just when the people pleased to go after them. Still our nation were discontented, and wished to leave their barren and inhospitable shores. The priests had told them of a beautiful world beyond the Great Salt Lake, from which the glorious sun never disappeared for a longer time than the duration of a child's sleep, where snow-shoes were never wanted—a land clothed with eternal verdure, and bright with never-failing gladness. The Shawanos listened to these tales till their minds came to loathe their own simple comforts; they even forgot the spot which contained the ashes of their ancestors; all they talked of, all they appeared to think of, was theland of the happy hunting-grounds.[12]
"Once upon a time, in the season of opening buds, and the singing of birds, and the whistling of the breeze among the wild flowers, the people of our nation were much terrified at seeing a strange creature, much resembling a man, riding along the adjacent waves upon the back of a fish. He had upon his head long green hair, much resembling the coarse weeds which the mighty storms of the month of falling leaves root up from the bottom of the ocean, and scatter along the margin of the feathery strand where we now dwell. Upon his face, which was shaped like that of a porpoise, he had a beard of the colour of ooze. Around his neck hung a string of great sea-shells, upon his forehead was bound another made of the teeth of the cayman, and in his hand was a staff formed of the rib of a whale. But, if our people were frightened at seeing a man who could live in the water like a fish or a duck, how much more were they frightened when they saw, that from his breast down he was actually a fish, or rather two fishes, for each of his legs was a whole and distinct fish. And, when they heard him speak distinctly in their own language, and still more when he sang songs sweeter than the music of birds in spring, or the whispers of love from the lips of a beautiful maiden, they thought it a being from the Land of Shades, a spirit from the happy fishing grounds beyond the lake of storms, and ran into the woods like startled deer. And this was his song:
SONG OF THE MAN-FISH.I live in the depths of brine,Where grows the green grass slim and tall,Among the coral rocks;And I drink of their crystal streams, and eatThe year-old whale, and the mew;And I ride along the dark blue wavesOn the sportive dolphin's back;And I sink to rest in the fathomless caves,Beyond the sea-shark's track.I hide my head, in the pitiless storm,In caverns dark and deep;My couch of ooze is pleasant and warm,And soft and sweet my sleep.I rise again when the winds are still,And the waves have sunk to rest,And call, with my conch-shell, strong and shrill,My mate to the Salt Lake's breast.
SONG OF THE MAN-FISH.
I live in the depths of brine,Where grows the green grass slim and tall,Among the coral rocks;And I drink of their crystal streams, and eatThe year-old whale, and the mew;And I ride along the dark blue wavesOn the sportive dolphin's back;And I sink to rest in the fathomless caves,Beyond the sea-shark's track.
I hide my head, in the pitiless storm,In caverns dark and deep;My couch of ooze is pleasant and warm,And soft and sweet my sleep.I rise again when the winds are still,And the waves have sunk to rest,And call, with my conch-shell, strong and shrill,My mate to the Salt Lake's breast.
"And there he would sit for hours, his fish-legs coiled up under him, singing to the wondering ears of the Indians upon the shore the pleasures he experienced, and the beautiful and strange things he saw, in the depths of the ocean, always closing his strange stories with these words, shouted at the top of his lungs: "Follow me, and see what I will show you!" Every day, when the waves were still, and the winds had gone to their resting-place in the depths of the earth(1), to get sleep that they might come out refreshed for their race over the green vales and meadows, the monster was sure to be seen near the shore where our tribe dwelt. For a great many suns, they dared not adventure upon the water in quest of food, doing nothing but wander along the beach, watching the strange creature as he played his antics upon the surface of the waves, and listening to his charming songs, and to his invitation, "Follow me, and see what I will show you!" But the longer he stayed, the less they feared him. They became used to him, and as, the oftener the tiger glares upon you from the thicket, the oftener you hear the whoop of death, the more you come to despise them, so in time they began to think him a spirit who was neither made for harm, nor wished to injure the poor Indian. Then they grew hungry, and their wives and little ones cried for food. And as hunger does away all fear, except that which relates to the satisfying it, in a few days three canoes, with many men and warriors, no longer decorated with war-paint, no longer armed with bows and arrows and sharp spears, but with the pale cheeks of men of peace, and bearing the implements of fishermen, ventured off to the rocks in quest of the finny brood.
"When our fathers reached the fishing-place, they heard, as before, the voice shouting, "Follow me, and see what I will show you!" Presently the Man-Fish appeared, sitting on the water, with his legs, or the fins which served for legs, folded under him, and his arms crossed on his breast, as they had usually seen him. There he sat, eyeing them attentively, while they tried to bring up the fat things of the deep. When they failed to draw in the fish they had hooked, he would make the very water shake, and the deep echo with shouts of laughter, and would clap his hands with great noise, and cry, "Ha! ha! my boy, there he fooled you!" When they caught any he was very angry, and would scold like an old woman when her husband returns from hunting and brings no meat. When they had tried long and patiently, and taken little, and the sun was just hiding himself behind the dark clouds which skirted the Region of Warm Winds,[13]the strange creature, popping up his head within a few paces of the canoe, cried out still stronger than before, "Follow me, and see what I will show you!" Kiskapocoke, who was the head man of the tribe, asked him what he wanted, but he would make no other answer than "Follow me!" Kiskapocoke said, "Do you think I will be such a fool as to go, I don't know with whom, and I don't know where?"
""Ah! but see what I will show you," cried the Man-Fish, throwing up one of his odd legs, and flirting the water all over the speaker in the boat.
""Can you show us any thing better than we have yonder?" asked the warrior, pointing to their cabins on the shore—"good wives, good children, good dogs—plenty of deer, plenty of train-oil, plenty of every thing?"
""Yes, and plenty of storms in the moons of falling leaves and melting ice, and plenty of snow in the time between them; and oftentimes plenty of hunger, and always plenty of danger from bears, and wolves, and painted warriors. But go with me, and see what I will show you—a land where there is a herd of deer for every one that skips over your ice-bound hills, where there are vast droves of creatures larger than your sea-elephants, called, in the language of the people of the land,bisons, where there is no cold to freeze you, where the glorious sun is always soft and smiling, where the trees and the fields are always in bloom, where the men always grow tall as stately pines, and the women beautiful as the stars of night."
"Our fathers began now to be terrified, and wished themselves on the land. But, the moment they tried to paddle towards the shore, some invisible hand would seize their canoes, and draw them back, so that an hour's labour did not enable them to gain the length of their boat in the direction of their parted friends and relatives. Then there was much laughing all around them, and fins of all sizes, shapes, and colours, flirted the water over them, till they were as wet as if they had been swimming. At last Kiskapocoke said to his companions, "What shall we do?"
""Follow me!" said the Man-Fish, popping up his head as before.
"Then Kiskapocoke said to his companions, "Let us follow him, and see what will come of it." So they followed him, he swimming and they paddling, until night came. Then a great wind and deep darkness prevailed, and the Great Serpent commenced hissing in the depths of the ocean. They were terribly frightened, and thought not of living till another sun, but of perishing in the great deep, far from the lands of their fathers, and without glory. But the Man-Fish kept close to the boat, and bade them not be afraid, for nothing should hurt them, if they only followed him and saw what he would show them. And thus they continued, amidst the raging of the winds and the waves, and the thunders and the lightnings, to paddle their slender canoes till the sun arose.
"When morning came, nothing could be seen of the shore they had left. The winds still raged, the seas were very high, and the water ran into their canoes like melted snows over the brows of the mountains in the months of spring. But the Man-Fish handed them large shells, wherewith they were enabled to bale it out. As they had brought neither food nor water with them, and had caught neither fish nor rain, they had become both hungry and thirsty. Kiskapocoke told the strange creature they wanted to eat and drink, and that he must enable them to do both. "For," said he, "since you brought us here, you would be a very bad fish to let us starve or die of thirst."
""Oh! very well," answered the Man-Fish; "stop where you are then, while I go down, and get you victuals and water; and be sure, this time, that you donotfollow me." With that he made a plunge into the depths of the wave. Down he went, how far our fathers could not say, only this they knew that, when he came back again, he puffed and blew like a whale, and said, he was very tired. He brought with him a great bag full of parched corn, not at all wet, a great shell full of good sweet water, and a big piece of roasted fish. "I am confoundedly tired, and I got scorched into the bargain," said he, muttering to himself. "So much for having a cross wife."
"Thus they went on paddling and paddling, day and night, wet, cold, and sometimes hungry, for two moons and a half, till at last, one morning, the Man-Fish cried out "Look there!" Upon that they rubbed up their eyes, and, looking sharp in the direction he pointed, saw land, high land, covered with great trees, and glittering as the sand of the Spirit's Island(2). Behind the shore rose tall mountains, from the tops of which issued great flames, which shot up into the sky as the forks of the lightning cleave the clouds in the Hot Moon. The waters of the Great Salt Lake broke into small waves upon its shores, which were covered with seals sporting, and wild ducks pluming themselves, in the beams of the warm and gentle sun. Upon the shore stood a great many strange people, but, when they saw our warriors step upon the land, and the Man-Fish coming up out of the water, and heard his cry, "Follow me!" they all ran into the woods like startled deer, and our fathers saw no more of them.
"When our fathers were all safely landed, the Man-Fish told them to let the canoe go, "for," said he, "you will never need it more." They had travelled but a little way into the woods when he bade them stay where they were, while he told the Spirit of the land that the strangers he had promised were come, and with that he descended into a deep cave near them. Soon he returned, and with him a creature as strange as himself, or still stranger. His legs and feet were those of a man; he had leggings and mocassins like an Indian's, tightly laced, and beautifully decorated with wampum; but his head was like a goat's, even to the huge horns and long beard; his hands were a goat's fore-feet, and the upper part of his body was covered with moss-coloured hair, soft and shining, like that of the goats which browse upon the steeps of the Spirit's Backbone. Yet he talked like a man, though his voice was the voice of a goat, and his language was one well understood by our fathers. He stood up, with his feet or hands, whichever they might be called, resting upon a little rock before him, like a goat which clambers up to nip the loftier buds, and made them a long speech.
""You are going to a beautiful land," said he, "to a most beautiful land, men from the Clime of Snows. There you will find all the joys which an Indian covets. The beasts you will see will be fat, tame, and numerous as the trees of the forest, and the fowls and birds which will cover your waters and people your woods will be sleek as the forehead of a young girl. Then, how lovely and kind are its maidens, how green and gay its hills and valleys, how refreshing the winds which sweep over the bosom of the great lake on its border, how sweet, clean, and cool, the beautiful streams which wind along its corn-littered vales! Oh, it is a lovely land, and the strangers have done well to leave the misery which awaited them in the regions of the star that never sets, for the peace and happiness which will be theirs in the land of unceasing summer."
"Brothers and chiefs! our ancestors travelled many moons under the guidance of the Man-Goat into whose hands the Man-Fish had put them when he retraced his steps to the Great Lake. They came at length to the land which the Shawanos now occupy. They found it, as the strange spirits had described it, a fit abode for the Great Spirit, a land of good and happy enjoyments to his creatures. They married the beautiful and affectionate maidens of the land, and their numbers increased till they were so many that no one could count them. They grew strong, swift, and valiant, as panthers, bold and brave in war, keen and patient in the chace. They overcame all the tribes eastward of the River of Rivers,[14]and south to the further shore of the Great Lake[15]. The dark-skin, whose eye beheld their badge of war, fawned on them, or fled, became women before them, or sought a region where neither their war-cry nor the twanging of their bows was heard breaking the silence of the dark night.
"Brothers, we are calledShawanosfrom the name of the river which runs through our hunting-grounds. This is all I have to say."
(1)The winds had gone to their resting-place in the depths of the earth.—p. 50.
The Indians think that a calm is caused by the winds' steeping. They believe that it is quite as necessary for them to be refreshed by rest and slumber, as for man to have his periodical exemptions from fatigue. I never met with an Indian who entertained any thing like the opinion of their cause current among philosophers. Attempting once to explain the phenomenon to a groupe of Indians, I found myself treated with as much contempt and abhorrence as a company of pious Christians would express for an Atheist who broadly avowed his creed.
(2)Glittering at the sand of the Spirit's Island.—p. 55.
The Chipewas say, that some of their people, being once driven on the bland of Maurepas, which lies towards the north-east part of lake Superior, found on it large quantities of heavy, shining, yellow sand, that from their description must have been gold-dust. Being struck with the beautiful appearance of it, in the morning, when they reentered their canoe, they attempted to bring some away; but a spirit of amazing size, according to their account sixty feet in height, strode into the water after them, and commanded them to deliver back what they had taken. Terrified at his gigantic stature, and seeing that he had nearly overtaken them, they were glad to restore their shining treasure; on which they were suffered to depart without further molestation.
Once upon a time, a young Indian of the Delaware nation, hunting in the lands which belonged to his tribe, had the good fortune to take captive an old white owl, who had for his lodge a hollow oak in which he dwelt with his family. As it was a time of great scarcity among the Indians, all their late hunts having been singularly unsuccessful, the hunter determined to kill the owl and make a present of its flesh to the maiden he loved, who had tasted no food for many suns. As he was rubbing his knife upon a stone, that it might be sharp and do the murder easily, the owl, who, with his leg tied to a tree, was looking on with a very curious and knowing air, turning his head first one way and then another, now scratching it with his untied claw and now shaking it as the beams of the sun came into his eyes, asked him what he was doing. The young hunter, who, being a good and brave warrior, scorned to tell a lie(1) even to an owl, answered that he was making ready to cut off his head.
"Poh, poh," said the cunning old fellow, "if you kill me, what will my wife, and my daughters, and my little ones, do? My woman is old and blind, and the rest are but so-so. Who will catch mice for them, pray?"
"They will be adopted into other families, I suppose," answered the hunter, "or the old woman will get another husband."
"Such may be the Indian custom," said the owl, "but it is not the custom of my nation. Besides, the woman is so old and ugly that the Evil One would not take her for a second wife. No, no, if you take my life, the little ones will starve. Their eyes are very weak in the day time, and they are too young and shy to go out by night. If you kill me they will starve," repeated the owl.
"I am very hungry," said the hunter. "Neither fish nor flesh has been taken by my nation for many days; the maiden whom I love is dying for want of food. You would be a nice dish for her."
"Old and tough, old and tough," said the owl, winking very knowingly. "But does not the Lenape hunter know that there are things to be worse feared than death? The warrior should fear captivity and disgrace before the evils of an unsatisfied appetite."
"The Delawares are men," said the hunter, proudly. "They are the masters of the earth, they are never captured. They will themselves take care that no disgrace falls upon them. The owl must be cooked for the dinner of the Lenape maiden."
"The youngest son of the head chief of the Gray Owls is this night to marry my daughter," said the captive. "May I not go to the feast? The guests are assembled, the food is prepared, they wait but my presence."
"No," answered the hunter.
"Then will a warrior of the Delawares be a greater fool than the Mingo who married a rattlesnake[16], and forgot to cut off her tail. He will be deaf to the voice of a Great Medicine[17]; the owl bids him beware."
"Is my brother a Medicine?" asked the alarmed hunter.
"He is," answered the grave old bird, shaking his head. "If now the Delaware hunter will suffer the owl to return to his family in the hollow oak, the good deed shall never be forgotten by my tribe. There shall be two eyes watching for the safety of the Delawares upon every tree around their lodges. While they, wearied out by war or the chase, are sleeping in darkness and imagined security, the owl shall stand sentry, and warn them if danger should be nigh. When they hear the voice of the owl, calling out in the depths of the night, 'Up! up! danger! danger!' let them grasp their bows and war-spears, and be men."
"Go," said the hunter, cutting the string which bound the prisoner to the tree of death. So the old white owl, with a couple of mice in his claws, went back to his lodge in the hollow oak, to comfort his old woman whom the Evil One would not have, and to see his daughter married to the young gray owl, while the youthful hunter departed to pursue a deer, which that moment appeared in a glade of the neighbouring forest.
Many seasons had passed away, flowers had sprung up to wither, and the sprouts from the seed of the oak had become lofty trees that bent not with the weight of the panther. The young hunter married the maiden for whose sake he would have killed the old white owl; their children were many and good; and the hunter himself had become head chief of the Unamis or Turtles, the most potent tribe of Delawares, and who reckon themselves the parent of all other Indians. They had fought many great battles; they had warred with the nations of the North and the South, the East, and the West, with the Shawanos of the Burning Water[18], the Mengwe of the Great Lakes, the Sioux who hunt beyond the River of Fish[19], and the Narragansetts who dwell in the land of storms: and in all and over all they had been victorious. The warriors of the Smoking Water had confessed themselves women, the Sioux had paid their tribute of bear-skins, the Narragansetts had sent beautiful shells for their women, and the Mengwees had fled from the war-shout of the Delawares, as a startled deer runs from the cry of the hunter. Our warriors had just returned from invading the lands of the latter tribe, and had brought with them many scalps. They were weary and exhausted, but an Indian warrior never admits that he is either. So they feasted and rejoiced loud and long. They sung in the open ears of their people their exploits, the foes by their valour laid low, or duped by their cunning, or victims to their patience in awaiting the proper moment for attack, or to their speed and celerity in pursuit. And they danced the dance of thanksgiving in honour of their protecting Wahconda,[20]and gave the scalp-yell for every scalp taken, as is the custom of Indian warriors when returned from a successful expedition.
The song and the dance finished, the Unamis, who are the grandfather of nations, were sleeping quietly in their lodges on the beautiful banks of the Lenape wihittuck[21], dreaming of no danger, keeping no watch. Buried in deep slumber, and communing with the Manitou[22]of Dreams(2), they lay, one in the arms of his wife, another by the couch of his beloved maiden, one dreaming over dreams of war and slaughter, another of love and wedded joys, one in fancy grasping the spear and the war-club, another and a younger the bosom of a dusky maiden of his tribe. Over their heads the tall forest tree waved in the night wind, giving the melancholy music of sighing branches; beside them ran the clear waters of the river, slightly murmuring as they rolled away to the land, which our nation gave to their good brother Miquon[23]. All was so hushed in the camp of the Unamis that the lowest note of the wren could have been heard from limit to limit.
Hark! what noise is that? I hear a rustling of the dry grass and low bushes, at the distance of three bowshots from the camp of the sleeping Unamis. I behold the grass bowed down, I see the bushes yielding to some heavy creature is pressing through them. Is it the buffalo? No, he has neither the power nor wit to hide himself. Is it the deer? No, he has gone to drink of the salt waters of the Great Lake. Is it the cougar? No, for he never crouches except when he springs on his victim. Hush! I see one of the unknown beasts raising itself above the copse. Slow and warily, first appears an eagle's leather, then a black scalp-lock, then a pair of shining eyes, but they are neither the wolfs, nor the wild cat's. Oh! I know him now, and I know his band. It is they who let the Leni Lenape fight the Allegewi[24]while they looked on, it is the dogs of the lakes, the treacherous Mengwe. Slowly they dropped again into the copse, and the band moved onward to gain that fatal station which should give into their power the unsuspecting Unamis. But they did not know that two curious eyes were watching their every movement; they did not know that perched on the limb of a decayed tree in front of their hiding-place sat an old white owl.
Nothing said the owl, it was not time yet, and he suffered the treacherous Mengwe to approach within two bowshots of the sleeping warriors. All at once, with a voice that penetrated every glade of the forest, this great sentinel over mankind shouted "Up! up! danger! danger!" All the birds of the species were alert at their posts, and all within hearing of the shout of their chief repeated the words of alarm. "Up! up! danger! danger!" rung through the hollow woods, and reverberated among the hills. Up sprung the Unamis, and sallied cautiously out to find the cause of alarm. They were just in time to discover the backs of the flying Mengwe, from whose treacherous spears they were saved by the timely cry of their vigilant and grateful sentinel, the old white owl.
Since that time, the hunters of the Delawares never harm this wise and good bird(3). When in the night it is heard sounding its notes, or calling to its mate, some one in the camp will rise, and taking someglicanum, or Indian tobacco, will strew it on the fire, that the ascending smoke may reach the bird, and show him that they are not unmindful of his kindness to them and their ancestors.
(1)Scorned to tell a lie.—p. 61.
The Indians pay a most scrupulous attention to truth, not because they attach any peculiar moral virtue to it, or think the breach of it will be punished, but because they esteem the telling a lie a mark of cowardice. Civilized nations view lying as both unmanly and criminal; the Indian, as indicating the fear of the liar to meet the consequences of disclosing the truth. It has been adduced by more than one writer to prove the existence of aninnatelove of truth in the human breast.
(2)Manitou of Dreams.—p. 66.
The life of an Indian is regulated by his dreams. There is not a single enterprise of any importance undertaken till the Manitou of sleep has been consulted. When a child is born, the nature of his future occupation is taught by dreams; when he arrives at manhood, the name by which he is in future to be known is given in consequence of what is seen in the dream which follows the feast of initiation into manhood.
There is nothing in which they have shown more superstition and extravagance, than in what regards their dreams; but they differ much in the manner of explaining their thoughts on this matter. Sometimes it is the reasonable soul that wanders out, while the sensitive soul continues to animate the body; sometimes it is the familiar genius that gives good advice about future events; sometimes it is a visit they receive from the soul of the object they dream of. But, in whatsoever way they conceive of a dream, it is always regarded as a sacred thing, and as the means which the Gods most usually employ to declare their will to men.
"Prepossessed with this idea," says Charlevoix, (a writer I delight to quote) "they cannot conceive that we should take no notice of them. For the most part they look upon them as desires of the soul inspired by some spirit, or an order from it. And, in consequence of this principle, they make it a duty of religion to obey these commands. A savage, having dreamt that his finger was cut off, really had it cut off when he awoke, after he had prepared himself for this important action by a feast. Another, dreaming that he was a prisoner in the bands of his enemies, was greatly embarrassed. He consulted the jugglers, and, by their advice, got himself tied to a post, and burned in various parts of the body."—Charlevoix,ii. 18.
Dreams are resorted to for the purpose of procuring a proper Manitou or guardian spirit for the child. This is the most important affair of life. They begin by blacking the face of the child; then it must fast for eight days, without baring the least nourishment; and, during this time, his future guardian genius must appear to him in his dreams. Every morning, they take great care to make him relate them. The thing the child dreams of most frequently is supposed to be his genius; but no doubt this thing was considered at first only as a symbol or shape under which the spirit manifests itself.
Nor is this potency of dreams peculiar to one tribe or nation; it obtains, both as a belief and practice, throughout the entire continent, over which that perfect anomaly in the human kind, the red men, are scattered. Equally among the Esquimaux of the regions of eternal ice, and the Abipones of Paraguay, dreams are reckoned the revelations of the God of the Universe.
(3)Wise and good bird.—p.68.
It is singular that the owl should be the symbol of Wisdom, Minerva's bird, alike with the classic Greeks and Romans, and the American savages. This is one of the many arguments to be drawn from existing manners and customs, to prove that the peopling of the western continent by the race who at present occupy it took place at a period, which may well have permitted their drawing upon classic models for a portion of their beautiful figures and allegories. Unhappily, our desire to know them thoroughly and truly has only been awakened since their minds have beencorrupted, and the strong traits of their character blunted by a participation in our enervating and demoralisingcomforts! They can now be studied only in the reports made of them by early travellers.
In the frozen regions of the North, beyond the lands which are now the hunting-grounds of the Snakes and Coppermines, there lived, when no other being but herselfwas, a woman who became the mother of the world. She was a little woman, our fathers told us, not taller than the shoulders of a young maiden of our nation, but she was very beautiful and very wise. Whether she was good-tempered or cross, I cannot tell, for she had no husband, and so there was nothing to vex her, or to try her patience. She had not, as the women of our nation now have, to pound corn, or to fetch home heavy loads of buffalo flesh, or to make snow-sledges, or to wade into the icy rivers to spear salmon, or basket kepling, or to lie concealed among the wet marsh grass and wild rice to snare pelicans, and cranes, and goosanders, while her lazy, good-for-nothing husband lay at home, smoaking his pipe, and drinking the pleasant juice of the Nishcaminnick by the warm fire in his cabin. She had only to procure her own food, and this was the berries, and hips, and sorrel, and rock-moss, which, being found plentifully near her cave, were plucked with little trouble. Of these she gathered, in their season, when the sun beamed on the earth like a maiden that loves and is beloved, a great deal to serve her for food when the snows hid the earth from her sight, and the cold winds from the fields of eternal frost obliged her to remain in her rude cavern. Though alone, she was happy. In the summer it was her amusement to watch the juniper and the alders, as they put forth, first their leaves, and then their buds, and when the latter became blossoms, promising to supply the fruit she loved, her observation became more curious and her feelings more interested; then would her heart beat with the rapture of a young mother, whose gaze is fixed on her sleeping child, and her eyes glisten with the dew of joy which wets the cheeks of those who meet long parted friends. Then she would wander forth to search for the little berry whose flower is yellow, and which requires keen eyes to find it in its hiding-place in the grass, and the larger[25]which our white brother eats with his buffalo-meat; and their progress, from the putting forth of the leaf to the ripening of the fruit, was watched by her with eager joy. When tired of gazing upon the pine and stunted poplar, she would lie down in the shade of the creeping birch and dwarf willow, and sink to rest, and dream dreams which were not tinged with the darkness of evil. The sighing of the wind through the branches of the trees, and the murmur of little streams through the thicket, were her music. Throughout the land there was nothing to hurt her, or make her afraid, for there was nothing in it that had life, save herself and the little flower which blooms among thorns. And these two dwelt together like sisters.
One day, when the mother of the world was out gathering berries, and watching the growth of a young pine, which had sprung up near her friend the flower, and threatened, as the flower said, "to take away the beams of the sun from it," she was scared by the sight of a strange creature, which ran upon four legs, and to all her questions answered nothing but "Bow, wow, wow." To every question our mother asked, the creature made the same answer, "bow, wow, wow." So she left off asking him questions, for they were sure to be replied to in three words of a language she could not understand. Did he ask for berries? no, for she offered him a handful of the largest and juiciest which grew in the valley, and he neither took them nor thanked her, unless "bow" meant "thank you." Was he admiring the tall young pines, or the beautiful blossoms of the cranberry, or the graceful bend of the willow, and asking her to join him in his admiration? She knew not, and leaving him to his thoughts, and to utter his strange words with none to reply, she returned to her cave.
Scarcely was she seated on her bed of dried leaves when he came in, and, wagging his tail, and muttering as before, lay down at her feet. Occasionally he would look up into her face very kindly, and then drop his head upon his paws. By and by he was fast asleep, and our mother, who had done no evil action, the remembrance of which should keep her awake, who never stole a beaver-trap(l), or told a lie, or laughed at a priest, was very soon in the same condition. Then the Manitou of Dreams came to her, and she saw strange things in her sleep. She dreamed that it wan night, and the sun had sunk behind the high and broken hills which lay beyond the valley of her dwelling, that the dwarf willow bowed its graceful head still lower with the weight of its tears, which are the evening dew, and the dandelion again imprisoned its leaves within its veil of brown. So far her dreams so closely resembled the reality, that for a time she thought she was awake, and that it was her own world—her cave, her berries, and her flowers, which were before her vision. But an object speedily came to inform her that she dwelt in the paradise of dreams—in the land of departed ideas. At the foot of her couch of leaves, in the place of the dog which she had left there when she slept, stood a being somewhat resembling that she had beheld in the warm season, when bending over the river to lave her bosom with the cooling fluid. It was taller than herself, and there was something on its brow which proclaimed it to be fiercer and bolder, formed to wrestle with rough winds, and to laugh at the coming tempests. For the first time since she was, she turned away to tremble, her soul filled with a new and undefinable feeling, for which she could not account. After shading her eyes a moment from the vision, she looked again, and though her trembling increased, and her brain became giddy, she did not wish the being away, nor did she motion it to go. Why should she? There was a smile upon its lip and brow, and a softness diffused over every feature, which gradually restored her confidence, and gave her the assurance that it would not harm her. She dreamed that the creature came to her arms, and she thought that it passed the season of darkness with its cheek laid on her bosom. To her imagination, the breath which it breathed on her lips was balmy as the juice of the Sweet Gum Tree, or the dew from her little neighbour, the flower. When it spoke, though she could not understand its language, her heart heaved more tumultuously, she knew not why, and when it ceased speaking, her sighs came thick till it spoke again. When she awoke it was gone, the beams of the star of day shone through the fissures of her cavern, and, in the place of the beautiful and loved being lay the strange creature, with the four legs and the old "bow, wow, wow."
Four moons passed, and brought no change of scene to the mother of the world. By night, her dreams were ever the same: there was always the same dear and beloved being, each day dearer and more beloved, coming with the shades, and departing with the sun, folding her in its arms, breathing balm on her lips, and pressing her bosom with its downy cheek. By day, the dog was always at her side, whether she went to gather berries or cresses, or to lave her limbs in the stream. Whenever the dog was there, the more beloved being was not; when night came, the dog as surely disappeared, and the other, seen in dreams, supplied his place. But she herself became changed. She took no more joy in the scenes which once pleased her. The pines she had planted throve unnoticed; the creeping birch stifled the willow and the juniper, and she heeded it not; the sweetest berries grew tasteless—she even forgot to visit her pretty sister, the rose. Yet she knew not the cause of her sudden change, nor of the anxiety and apprehension which filled her mind. Why tears bedewed her cheeks till her eyes became blind, why she trembled at times, and grew sick, and feinted, and fell to the earth, she knew not. Her feelings told her of a change, but the relation of its cause, the naming to her startled ear of the mystery of "the dog by day, and the man by night," was reserved for a being, who was to prepare the world for the reception of the mighty numbers which were to be the progeny of its mother.
She had wandered forth to a lonely valley—lonely where all was lonely—to weep and sigh over her lost peace, and to think of the dear being with which that loss seemed to her to be in some way connected, when suddenly the sky became darkened, and she saw the form of a being shaped like that which visited her in her sleep, but of immense proportions, coming towards her from the east. The clouds wreathed themselves around his head, his hair swept the mists from the mountain-tops, his eyes were larger than the rising sun when he wears the red flush of anger in the Frog-Moon, and his voice, when he gave it full tone, was louder than the thunder of the Spirit's Bay of Lake Huron. But to the woman he spoke in soft whispers; his terrific accents were reserved for the dog, who quailed beneath them in evident terror, not daring even to utter his only words, "bow, wow." The mother of the world related to him her dreams, and asked him why, since she had had them, she was so changed—why she now found no joy in the scenes which once pleased her, but rather wished that she no longer was, her dreams being now all that she loved. The mighty being told her that they were not dreams, but a reality; that the dog which now stood by her side was invested by the Master of Life with power to quit, at the coming in of the shades, the shape of a dog, and to take that of MAN, a being who was the counterpart of herself, but formed with strength and resolution, to counteract, by wisdom and sagacity, and to overcome, by strength and valour, the rough difficulties and embarrassments which were to spring up in the path of human life; that he was to be fierce and bold, and she gentle and afraid. He told her that the change she complained of, and which had given her so much grief, wetted her cheek with tears, and filled her bosom with sighs, was the natural result of the intimate connection of two such beings, and was the mode of perpetuating the human race, which had been decreed by the Master of Life; that before the buds now forming should be matured to fruit, she would give birth to two helpless little beings, whom she must feed with her milk, and rear with tender care, for from them would the world be peopled. He had been sent, he said, by the Good Spirit to level and prepare the earth for the reception of the race who were to inhabit it.
Hitherto the world had lain a rude and shapeless mass—the great, man now reduced it to order. He threw the rough and stony crags into the deep valleys—he moved the frozen mountain to fill up the boiling chasm. When he had levelled the earth, which before was a thing without form, he marked out with his great walking-staff the lakes, ponds, and rivers, and caused them to be filled with water from the interior of the earth, bidding them to be replenished from the rains and melted snows which should fall from the skies, till they should be no more.
When he had prepared the earth for the residence of the beings who were to people it, he caught the dog, and, notwithstanding the cries of the mother of the world, and her entreaties to him to spare its life, he tore it in pieces, and distributed it over the earth, and the water, and into air. The entrails he threw into the lakes, ponds, and rivers, commanding them to become fish, and they became fish. These waters, in which no living creature before moved, were now filled with salmon, trout, pike, tittymeg, methy, barble, turbot, and tench, while along the curling waves of the Great Lake the mighty black and white whale, the more sluggish porpoise, and many other finny creatures, sported their gambols. The flesh he dispersed over the land, commanding it to become different kinds of beasts and land-animals, and it obeyed his commands. The heavy moose, and the stupid we-was-kish, came to drink in the Coppermine with the musk-ox, and the deer, and the buffalo. The quiquehatch, and his younger brother, the black bear, and the wolf, that cooks his meat without fire,[26]and the cunning fox, and the wild cat, and the wolverine, were all from the flesh of the dog. The otter was the tail of the dog, the wejack was one of his fore-paws, and the horned horse, and the walrus, were his nose.
Nor did the great man omit to make the skin furnish its proportion of the tribes of living beings. He tore it into many small pieces, and threw it into the air, commanding it to become the different tribes of fowls and birds, and it became the different tribes of fowls and birds. Then first was seen the mighty bird which builds its nest on trees which none can climb, and in the crevices of inaccessible rocks—the eagle, which furnishes the Indians with feathers to their arrows, and steals away the musk-rat and the young beaver as his recompense. Then was the sacred falcon first seen winging his way to the land of long winters; and the bird of alarm, the cunning old owl, and his sister's little son, the cob-a-de-cooch, and the ho-ho. All the birds which skim through the air, or plunge into the water, were formed from the skin of the dog.
When the great man had thus filled the earth with living creatures, he called the mother of the world to him, and gave to her and her offspring the things which he had created, with full power to kill, eat, and never to spare, telling her that he had commanded them to multiply for her use in abundance. When he had finished speaking, he returned to the place whence he came, and has never been heard of since. In due time, the mother of the world was delivered of two children, a son and a daughter, both having the dark visage of the Indian race, and from them proceeded the Dog-ribs, and all the other nations of the earth. The white men were from the same source, but the father of them, having once upon a time been caught stealing a beaver-trap, he become so terrified that he lost his original colour and never regained it, and his children remain with the same pale cheeks to this day.
Brothers, I have told you no lie.
(1)Never stole a beaver-trap.—p. 76.
Thieving is considered disreputable among the Indians; that is, it is highly criminal and infamous to steal from each other. Thieves are compelled to restore what they have stolen, or to make satisfactory amends to the injured party; in their default, their nearest relations are obliged to make up the loss. If the thief, after sufficient warning, continues his bad practices, he is disowned by his nation, and any one may put him to death the next time he is caught in the act of stealing, or that a theft can be clearly proved to have been committed by him. "I once," says Heckewelder, "knew an Indian chief who had a son of a vicious disposition, addicted to stealing, and would take no advice. His father, tired and unable to satisfy all the demands which were made upon him for the restitution of articles stolen by his son, at last issued his orders for shooting him, the next time be should be guilty of a similar act"—Heckew., 328.
Theft is always looked upon as a blot which dishonours a family, and every one has a right to wash away the stain with the blood of the delinquent. "Father Breb[oe]uf," says Charlevoix, (vol. ii. p. 28) "one day saw a young Huron who was killing a woman with a club; he ran to him to prevent him, and asked him why he committed such violence. 'She is my sister,' replied the savage; 'she is guilty of theft, and I will expiate by her death the disgrace she has brought upon me and all my family.'"
The Delawares are the grandfather of nations, the parent stock from which have proceeded the many tribes who roam over the woods of this vast island. From them are descended the red men of the east and the west, of the shores of the Great Sea and of the northern lakes. Among these the Mengwe was a favoured grandchild. In the days that are gone, the Delawares fought his battles, his war was theirs; and the hostile shout that woke in his woods was answered by the defiance of the sons of the Leni Lenape.
But the Mengwe was ungrateful, and forgot these benefits; he was treacherous, and raised his hand against his benefactors and former friends. His hostile bands invaded the lands of his grandfather, but they were defeated, and fled howling to their wilderness. The Mengwe, by their cunning and duplicity, had brought all the tribes of the land upon the Lenape, whose sons nevertheless continued in possession of their hunting-grounds, for they were very brave. Still their enemy continued his arts. He first sought to raise quarrels and disturbances, which in the end might lead to wars between the Lenape and the distant tribes who were friendly to them, for which purpose they privately murdered people on one or the other side, seeking to make the injured party believe that some particular nation or individual had been the aggressor. They left a war-club painted as the Lenape paints his[27]in the country of the Cherokees, where they purposely committed a murder, and that people, deceived by appearances, fell suddenly on the Lenape, and a bloody and devastating war ensued between the two nations. They frequently stole into the country of the Lenape and their associates, committing murders and making off with plunder. Their treachery having at length been discovered, the Lenape marched with a powerful force into their country to destroy them. Finding that they were no match for the brave Delawares, Thannawage, an aged and wise Mohawk, called the different tribes of the Mengwe to the great council-fire. "You see," said he, "how easily the sons of our grandfather overcome us in battle. Their pole is strung full of the scalps of our nation, while ours has but here one and there one. This must not be; the last man of the Mengwe is not yet prepared to die. We must become united, the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagos, the Cayugas, and the Senecas, must become one people; they must move together in the conflict, they must smoke in one pipe, and eat their meat in one lodge." The people listened to the words of Thannawage, and the five nations became one people.
Still, though united they did not prevail over the Lenape and their connexions; the latter were most usually victorious. While these wars were at their greatest height, and when neither could decidedly pronounce themselves conquerors, the Bigknives arrived in Canada, and a war commenced between them and the confederated Iroquois. Thus placed between two fires, and in danger of being exterminated, they resorted to their old cunning and knavery. They sent a deputation of their principal warriors, with the sacred calumet (1) and the belt of peace, to the sons of their grandfather. But they appeared not to wish for peace, but to be guided by wisdom and compassion alone, and to be fearful only of being considered as cowards. "A warrior," said they, "with the bloody weapon in his hand should never intimate, a desire for peace, or hold pacific language to his enemies. He should shew throughout a determined courage, and appear as ready and willing to fight as at the beginning of the contest. Will a man who would not be thought a liar threaten and sue in the same breath; will he hold the peace-belt in one hand, and smoke the unpainted calumet, while his other hand grasps a tomahawk? Will he strike his breast, and say 'I am brave and fearless,' yet shew that he is a mocking-bird? No, men's actions should be of a piece with their words, whether good or bad; good cannot come out of evil, neither can the brave man feel faint-hearted, or the fawn become a tiger. The Mengwe were brave: they would not abase themselves in the eyes of the Lenape by admitting that they were vanquished, or proposing peace. They made use of their women to soften the hearts of our nation. They said to their wives and the wives of the Lenape, Are you tired of the fathers of your children?—to the mothers, Does the Lenape hate her sons?—to our young women, Do the eyes of the maidens turn with aversion from the youths of your nation? if the wife is tired of her husband, if the mother hate her sons, if the dark-eyed maiden feels no grief when the Lenape youth goes forth to battle and certain death, nor sheds a tear when he paints his face, and dresses his hair, and fills his quiver with arrows, then let them remain silent, and the messengers of the Mengwe will return to their nation."
The women to whom they spoke were moved by the eloquence of the treacherous Iroquois, and they persuaded the enraged combatants to bury their hatchets, and make the tree of peace grow tall and firm-rooted. They lamented, with great feeling and many tears, the loss which their country had sustained in these wars: there was not a woman among them who had not lost a son, or a brother, or a father, or a husband. They described the sorrows of bereaved mothers and widowed wives; the pains mothers endured ere they were permitted to behold their offspring; the anxieties attending the progress of their sons from infancy to manhood, from the cradle to the hour when they chewed the bitter root, and put on new mocassins; these unavoidable evils they had borne: but, after all these trials, how cruel it was, they said, to see those promising youths reared with so much care, and so tenderly beloved, fall victims to the insatiable rage of war, and a prey to the relentless cruelty of their enemies. "See them slaughtered," cried they, with tears and groans, "on the field of battle. See them put to death as prisoners by a protracted torture, and in the midst of lingering torments. Hark, the death-cries! 'Tis the Iroquois, 'tis the Delawares, 'tis the Delawares returning from battle! I see the beautiful young warriors among them, crowned with flowers, their faces painted black, and their arms tied with cords. Hark! they are singing their death-song. 'I am brave and intrepid, I do not fear death, I care not for tortures. Those who fear them are less than women. I was bred a warrior; my father never knew fear, and I am his son.' Then we behold them surrounded with flames, their flesh torn from their bones, the skin of their head peeled off, coals heaped thereon, and sharp thorns driven into their flesh. The thought of such scenes makes us curse our own existence, and shudder at the thought of bringing children into the world."
Again they gave utterance to loud lamentation and wailing for the unavoidable separation they were doomed to experience from their husbands. The men they had selected for their partners, who were to protect and feed them, to cherish and make them happy, left them exposed to hunger and a thousand enemies, while they courted dangers in distant regions. Or, if they followed their husbands, they were exposed in a greater degree than those husbands themselves to the risks attending the perilous warfare.
Then the young maidens took up the song, and painted the share of sorrows which fell to them. Often, when beloved by a youthful hunter, their hearts were doomed to wither in the pang of an eternal separation. The eyes they so loved to look upon were soon to be deprived of their lustre—the step so noble, fearless, and commanding led them but to death. They called passionately upon their countrymen and upon the Iroquois to put a stop to war. They conjured them, by every thing that was dear to them, to take pity on the sufferings of their wives and helpless infants, their weeping mothers, and beloved maidens; to turn their faces once more towards their homes, families, and friends; to forgive the wrongs each nation had suffered from the other, lay aside their weapons, and smoke together in the pipe of peace and amity. They had each given sufficient proofs of courage; the contending nations were alike high-minded and brave: why should they not embrace as friends who had been respected as enemies?
Thus spoke the women, at the prompting of the artful Mengwe; it is not necessary to say that they were listened to. The Delawares at length came to believe that it would be an honour to a powerful nation, who could not be suspected of wanting either courage or strength, with arms in their hands and recent victory perched on the staff of their nation, to assume that station by which they would be the means, and the only means, of saving the Indian race from utter extirpation.
To the voice of the women the artful Mengwe added many arguments, which were of weight with the unsuspecting Delawares, and many pleas addressed to their generosity. There remained, they said, no resource for them but that some magnanimous nation should assume the part and situation ofthe woman(2).
It could not be given to a weak and contemptible tribe; such would not be listened to: it must be given to a valiant and honoured tribe, and such were the Delawares—one who should command influence and respect. As men, they had been justly dreaded; as women, they would be respected and honoured; none would be so daring or base as to attack or insult them; as women, they would have a right to interfere in all the quarrels of other nations, and to stop or prevent the effusion of Indian blood. They entreated them, therefore, to becomethe womanin name and in fact; to lay down their arms and all the insignia of warriors; to devote themselves to planting corn and other pacific pursuits, and thus become the means of preserving peace and harmony among the nations.
Unhappily, our nation listened to this croaking of a raven; and forgot how many times it had been heard before disturbing their slumbers and ringing its echoes in the hollow night. They knew it was true that the Indian nations, excited by their own wild passions, were in the way of total extirpation by each other's hand. And, foolish men! they believed, notwithstanding all past experience, that the Mengwe were sincere, and only wished the preservation of the Indian race. As if the panther could forget its nature, or the rattlesnake cease to remember its means of defence; as if the Mengwe had forgotten the blood of their race, which had been shed by the sons of the Lenape, and could think of forgiveness while their defeats were the subject of every dream.
In a luckless hour, the Delawares gave their consent, and agreed to become women. Then the Iroquois appointed a great feast, and invited the Delaware nation to it. They came at the bidding of their treacherous foes, and were declared by them, in the following words, to be no longer men and warriors, but women and peace-makers. "We dress you," said the orator, "in a woman's long habit, reaching down to your feet, and we adorn your ears with rings," meaning that they should no more take up arms. "We hang a calabash, filled with oil and medicines, upon your arm. With the oil you shall cleanse the ears of other nations, that they may attend to good and not to bad words; and with the medicine you shall heal those who are walking in foolish ways, that they may return to their senses, and incline their hearts to peace. And we deliver into your hands a plant of Indian corn and a hoe, which shall be the emblems of your future calling and pursuits." So the great peace-belt, the chain of friendship, was laid upon the shoulders of the new mediator, who became a woman, buried the tomahawk, planted the corn, and forgot the glories which Areskoui confers upon the successful and dauntless warrior.
Before this, no Mengwe had been permitted, even when at peace, to visit the country of the Delawares. Whenever such had appeared, whenever the blue feather of an Iroquois was seen in a glade of the Lenape wihittuck[28], its possessor was hunted down as one hunts a wolf or a bear. But, nowthe womanhad voluntarily abandoned her bow and her spear, what had she to do with weapons of war? The former warrior needed now no paints, unless to attract the eye of a maiden; the Mengwe needed not to fear the Lenape women. Then the pleasant glades of the Lenape wihittuck became thronged with curious eyes and false hearts; hostile feet threaded the mazes of her forest; hostile hands were laid upon the most fertile spots of her territory. To-day, came a few Iroquois; they wished for but a little piece of land—they had it. To-morrow, came another band; they wanted permission to kill a very few deer—it was granted them, and the cry of the hunter of the lakes was heard from the sea to the mountains. One remained, that the seeds of peace might not wither; another, to protect, oh changed times!the woman, who was the peace-maker, from the tomahawks of hostile tribes. But, while they were amusing the Lenape with flattering tales and the songs of mocking-birds, they were concerting measures to destroy them. They left war-clubs, such as the Delawares used, in the lands of the Cherokees, to incite them to fall upon us. Why delays my tongue to finish its tale? The fatal unmanning of our tribe wrought our ruin. The white people encroached upon us, because we were women and could not resent; the men of our own colour were not more just or generous. The Delawares stand abased by the children of their grandchild, overthrown by men defeated in a hundred battles. They are no longer warriors, but women.
Brothers, I would weep, were I not a man, for the downfall of my nation.
(1)Sacred Calumet.—p. 89.
The text deserves an elaborate comment, as connected with the wars of the savages; in other words, their sole employment. The pipe of peace, which is termed by the French theCalumet, for what reason has never been learned, is about four feet long[29]. The bowl is made of red marble, and the stem is of light wood, curiously painted with hieroglyphics in various colours, and adorned with feathers of the most beautiful birds; but it is not in the power of language to convey an idea of the various tints and pleasing ornaments of this much esteemed Indian implement.
Every nation has a different method of decorating these pipes, and they can at first sight tell to what band it belongs. It is used as an introduction to all treaties, and great ceremony attends the use of it on these occasions.
The assistant of the great warrior, when the chiefs are assembled and seated, fills it with tobacco mixed with certain herbs, taking care, at the same time, that no part of it touches the ground. When it is filled, he takes a coal that is thoroughly kindled, from a fire which is generally kept burning in the midst of the assembly, and places it on the tobacco.
As soon as it is sufficiently lighted, he throws off the coal. He then turns the stem of it towards the heavens, after this, towards the earth, and now holding it horizontally, moves himself round till he has completed a circle, by which first action he is supposed to present it to the Great Spirit, whose aid is thereby supplicated; by the second, to avert any malicious interposition of the Evil Spirits; and, by the third, to gain the protection of the Spirits inhabiting the earth, the air, and the waters. Having thus secured the favour of those invisible agents, in whose power they suppose it is either to forward or obstruct the issue of their present deliberations, he presents it to the hereditary chief, who, having taken two or three whiffs, blows the smoke from his mouth, first towards heaven, and then around him upon the ground.
It is afterwards put in the same manner into the mouths of the ambassadors or strangers, who observe the same ceremony; then to the chief of the warriors, and to all the other chiefs in turn, according to their gradation. During this time, the person who executes this honourable office holds the pipe slightly in his hand, as if he feared to press the sacred instrument, nor does any one presume to touch it but with his lips.
The calumet of the savages, is properly the tube of peace, but they comprehend under this name the pipe also, as well as its tube. The custom is to smoke in the calumet when you accept it, and perhaps there is no instance where the agreement has been violated, which was made by this acceptance. The savages are at least persuaded that the Great Spirit would not hare met a breach of faith unpunished. If, in the midst of a battle, the enemy presents a calumet, it is allowable to refuse it; but, if they receive it, they most instantly lay down their arms. There are calumets for every kind of treaty. In trade, when they have agreed upon the exchange, they present a calumet to confirm it, which readers it, in some manner, sacred. When it concerns war, not only the tube, but the feathers which adorn it, are painted red.
La Hontan enters into many speculations as to the origin of this instrument and practice, and very properly scoots the idea that it was derived from the ancient caduceus of Mercury. He supposes that it arose from their habit of using the pipe while deliberating in council.
(2)Assume the part and situation of the woman.—p. 94.
This signifies thedisarming of a man, who thenceforth may become a mediator or peace-maker, and is never allowed to resume the weapons or practices of warfare. In addition to this, the "metaphorical woman" is liable to be called to take part with the real woman in the labours of the field and the cabin.