James Athearn Jones

“ He had never violated the laws of his tribe, by encroaching upon the hunting-grounds of his neighbours, or by taking that which did not of right belong to him. No offended hunter waylaid his steps to revenge an interference with his rights, no haughty chief came to the door of his lodge, to say, "Chippewa, give back that which you have stolen." No dream of the fame to be acquired by war—by the frequent slaughter of unoffending women and children, or even of hardy warriors, his equals in strength and valour—danced before his eyes, filling his sleep with bloody images and sights of horror. ”

“ The vines are bending to the earth with rich ripe grapes, berries are loading every bush, and the earth is covered with flowers. Thou shalt become my companion in the cabin I have built me beside the Nanticoke; and even as that river, when unvexed by the swell of rains, glides along in the months of summer, so shall our lives pass away. Thou shalt be the wife of my bosom, and together will we live, till we are called to the land revealed to us by our dreams as the land of souls."
The lovely maiden heard the words of the Nanticoke, and answered that she knew not well what she should say. ”

“ The stars shone by day, and the beams of the moon gladdened the hours of darkness. Winds swept the vast expanse of ocean, and a part of the time was calm as a part of the time is now. The world was very like what it is at this day, save that, within its mighty boundaries, over all its far limits, neither on mountain, hill, valley, tree, nor bush, in den nor burrow, in water nor air, dwelt a living creature. No gentle song of bird arose to break the stillness of morning, no cry of wild beast to disturb the unbroken hush of midnight ”

“ I cannot spare the fawn. How should I answer the fond questions of her mother, when, with eyes streaming with tears, she should ask me for her daughter? When I told her the truth, she would cry, 'Hard and cruel man! thou hast torn from me the darling of my heart, the idol of my soul.—What shall become of me—of thee, thus deprived of our sweet child?' No, Muscogulgee! I must refuse thee my daughter. And yet, if thou wilt renounce thine own nation, and come and take up thy residence in the native land of her thou lovest, or pretendest to love, the maiden shall be thine. ”

“ She has awoke to the feelings of humanity, her heart has felt the throb of love, her bosom has been pained by the fear that it may not be returned; and anxiety, and joy, and grief, and many of the other passions of human nature, have visited her bosom. Beautiful creature! she has blushed on the Nanticoke her consent to be his, she has whispered in his delighted ear her happiness and pleasure; and, while she sits on the green sod at his side, she lays her head on his shoulder, and sings a sweet song of happy lovers, in the language of the Nanticoke which has become her own. ”

“ Great was the love and affection which the White Crane bore his beautiful wife, and it grew yet stronger in his soul, when she had brought him four sons—a gift the more highly prized by the wise and sagacious chief, because, as my brother can see, for he is not a fool, it was the pledge of continued power and importance in the tribe, when his own strength and vigour should have passed away, when the hand of age should no more find joy in bending the bow, and the trembling knee be best pleased to rest upon soft skins by the warm fire of the cabin. ”

“ We have not spared you because you deserved to be spared, but because the maiden loves you, and we would pleasure her. It is for this purpose that we will give you the heart of a man, that you may return to the village of the Mahas, and find favour in the eyes of Mahtoree and the Braves of the nation. We will take away your cowardly spirit, and will give you the spirit of the warrior whom we slew, whose heart was firm as a rock, and whose knees would have trembled when mountains caught the touch of fear, and not before. ”

“ I hear no longer the voices of men supplicating me for favours—soliciting my lightnings to cool the air, nor my rains to refresh the earth, nor my suns to ripen the harvest. They no longer thank me for the fat bears, and mooses, and deer, and bisons, which I send to their hunting-grounds, nor the salmon, and other juicy fish, which I bid to their waters, nor the corn which I command to grow tall and sweet for their use, nor the rich grapes which I make to bow their vines to the earth. I must sweep, and wash, and purify, the earth; I must destroy all living creatures from off the face of it. ”

“ The fame which he had acquired by this intimacy and friendship with the Great Spirit was the means of giving peace to his nation. His reputation being spread far and near, no tribe durst try their strength in war, or measure their weapons in combat, with a people who were possessed of such a friend, protector, leader, and priest. So the Cherokees rested in peace, and the earth was no more made red with blood, but wore the robe which nature provided for it—the robe of green. They planted their corn in the Budding-Moon, and lived to see it harvested in the Moon of Falling Leaves. ”

“ The aged warrior, whom weakness and decrepitude had compelled to throw down the bow and the spear, and the eagle-eyed boy, who was fast gaining upon the ripened period when he should take them up, did each his part in celebrating the feats which the one had equalled, and the other hoped to outdo. The wife, with a proud mien, came forward to meet the embraces of her renowned husband; the timid maiden, with a downcast eye, to steal a look at her valiant lover. Those who had lost friends came eagerly to enquire their fate, and to know whether they had died like men. ”

“ They wore in some respects the character of man—were gifted with his strength and wisdom, his power and capacities—were by turns a prey to lust, ambition, hate, despair, revenge—commencing life with tears, and dying with a sigh. Their fangs were for venom the fangs of a snake; their cunning, the cunning of a fox; and their fierceness, the fierceness of a mountain cat, or a panther. Very nimble they seemed, and sprang about the legs and arms of the bigger animal, like a squirrel leaping from one branch of a tree to another branch. One ran up a rope till it had reached one of the arms ”

“ Choose, then, between me, and a longer stay upon earth—between the pains of a life which must be assailed by woes and sorrows, by continual storm, angry winter, parching thirst, pinching hunger, and chilling nakedness, and the joys which will attend thee when thou art clasped in the arms of her thou lovest, and who will return thy love with equal ardour. Unlike the maidens of the earth, my charms can never fade; never, like theirs, can my love be turned into hatred, or my heart grow cold, or my eyes cease to regard the beloved object with favour. ”

“ Gloom would be in my cabin, and tears would rush from the eyes, that for seventeen harvests have been accustomed to see the gentle maiden performing her acts of dutiful kindness, and gliding with a foot noiseless as snow around the couches of her beloved parents. We should listen in the morning for the carol of the sweetest of all birds, and miss in the evening the tread of the lightest mortal foot that ever brushed the dew from the flowers of the prairie. There would be one missing from the repast of meat; one from the dance of maidens beneath the shady oak ”

“ I have a noble river, with a flowery bank rising above it, and I have a level lake, but thou hast not given me a mountain, to whose cool and refreshing breezes I may retire, when the fervid and scorching suns of summer invade the lowlands. I would—thou wilt deem me greedy as the hawk or the heron—I would have some such spot, whose breezes, when they kindly dispense health, nerve the soul to great actions, and within whose wild and inaccessible fastnesses, which, ever since Time was, have been the keepers of the free, the weak may find a resting-place, and the wearied by oppression a refuge. ”

“ What more would the bear do, if he were made ruler, than train his subjects to perform great feats of strength, or to climb a tree, or to suck their paws through the long nights of winter?—The panther would teach them savage cruelty and a speedy step, and the deer would counsel them to fly from the pursuit of a snail, or a land-tortoise, or the cry of a wren, or the prate of a jackdaw; the fox might teach them cunning, and the dog sagacity, and the wild cat nimbleness, and the antelope fleetness, and the wolf courage, and the owl an insight into my ways. ”

“ Here are stars, beautiful as anything can be; a moon, that sheds her mild light on—what?—and a sun so bright that not even the Bird of Ages can look steadily on his beams—with that bird alone to behold him or them. How balmy is the air which I feel fanning my feathers!—but it cannot breathe to revive the human heart after sickness or toil, or gladden the spirit of the beast which lies panting in the shade from excessive heat. It is lost, wasted, and so are the beams of the sun, the moon, and the stars ”

“ We saw, from the mansions of the blest, the patience with which you bore your disappointments in the chace; the gratitude to the Great Spirit which you always evinced; the tribute to his goodness which you always paid when your hunts were successful, and you were enabled to return to your cabin with the wealth of the forest. Still we find that you have some of the weaknesses of a mortal, and your wife is found still more wanting in our eyes. But it is not for you alone that we weep; it is for the fate of mankind. ”

“ THE VALLEY OF THE BRIGHT OLD INHABITANTS.
On the northern branch of the river of the Cherokees, the most numerous and powerful tribe of the south, there are two high mountains nearly covered with mossy rocks, and lofty cedars, and pines. These mountains, rugged and terrible to behold, are made yet more fearful to the mind of the red man of the forest, who sees the Great Being in the clouds, and hears him in the winds, and fancies a spirit in every thing that moves, by the horrid sights and awful sounds which proceed from them. ”

“ Her hair, long, straight, and black, hung over her shoulders till it reached her feet; her mocassins were of the gaudiest colours; and beads, and shells, and wampum, were profusely employed in adorning her person. Above her head towered feathers, the canieu's or war-eagle's, and the painted vulture's—in her hands she carried a spear and a sheaf of arrows. A bow hung at one of her shoulders, while over the other was carelessly thrown the game slain by her archery. Her robe was made of the furs of the gayest forest animals, and her emblems were an ear of maize and the antlers of a buck. ”

“ And the tradition is yet freshly traced out on the green leaf of my memory, which has made it the terror of all the surrounding nations, and which fills the Sioux, the Mahas, the Ottoes, and all the neighbouring tribes, with great fear and trembling, whenever their incautious feet have approached the sacred spot, or their avocation compels them to look at the work of spirits. No gift can induce an Indian to visit it, for why should he incur the anger of the Little People who dwell within it, and, sacrificed upon the fire of their wrath, behold his wife and children no more? ”

“ Her body was observed to be assuming the posture of a human being, gradually erecting itself, as a sapling, which has been bent to the earth, re-ascends to its upright position. When the little animal became erect, the skin began to fall from the head and neck, and gradually unveiling the body to the very feet, displayed to all around the form of a maiden, beautiful as the flowery mead, or the blue sky filled with stars, or the north, lit up by the dance of departed friends, or the rainbow, which precedes, or follows the summer rain ”

“ He sings, that the men of his tribe will smoke in the pipe of peace with the strange warriors, or they will throw a war-club into the council-house, as best suits them. The Lenapes are neither women nor deer, they are not suing for peace, but they ask themselves why the great storm of war should arise, and the sky be overcast with the blustering clouds of tumult and quarrel. The Lenapes wish to go to the land of the rising sun; why should their path be shut up? their course is over a great river; why should it be made red with the blood of either nation? ”

“ It came in tones soft and sweet as the wind of summer lightly sweeping the bosom of a prairie, and these were the words which belonged to them:
"'Mishikinakwa, it is not hatred of thee that makes me refuse to be seen by thee save at a distance, it is not hatred of thee which makes me refuse to re-animate that mass of stone and re-shape it to the proportions thou didst say were so beautiful. Oh no! I have seen thee before, chief of the Winnebagoes, and spirit as I am, have beheld thee with the eyes of love. But the beings which are not of clay are not allowed to associate with flesh and blood. ”

“ At the feet of Karkapaha lay a tremendous bow, larger than any bowman ever yet used, and a sheaf of arrows of proportionate size, and a spear of a weight which no Maha could wield. Wonder of wonders! the weak and slender Karkapaha could draw that bow, as an Indian boy bends a willow twig, and the spear seemed in his hand but a reed, or a feather. The shrill war-whoop burst unconsciously from his lips, and his nostrils seemed dilated with the fire and impatience of a newly-awakened courage. ”

“ The music of birds, and the hum of bees, and the rattling of the distant rill, and the sighing of the wind, greet her ear, and her eyes are made happy by all the bright things which the Great Being has placed in this glorious world. And, most of all the objects which meet her eye, does the form of the Nanticoke please and gratify her. Her beautiful cheek is covered with a blush, her eye grows mellower, and her heart beats with a new, and till now unfelt passion. ”