Meave

“ Once upon a time, before there were white men on the earth, the Beavers were a family like men. They were thrifty and honest, and spent their time building in the lakes and ponds. They had hands like our hands. They were dressed in gray fur, warm enough for the winters, and dark enough for all the digging which they had to do.
There was no family of all the forest so hard working as the Beavers. The Beaver men had a secret trade of making arrows. ”

“ I wish papa would let me go to the Upper Province, to see the beaver meadows, and gather the dear blue-bells."
"My father, Lady Mary, wept when I brought him a handful of these flowers, for he said it reminded him of his Highland home. I have found these pretty bells growing on the wild hills about Rice Lake, near the water, as well as near the beaver meadows."
"Do the beavers sleep in the winter time, nurse?"
"They do not lie torpid, as racoons do, though they may sleep a good deal; but as they lay up a great store of provisions for the winter, of course they must awake sometimes to eat it." ”

“ Mehevi was in fact the greatest of the chiefs—the head of his clan—the sovereign of the valley; and the simplicity of the social institutions of the people could not have been more completely proved than by the fact, that after having been several weeks in the valley, and almost in daily intercourse with Mehevi, I should have remained until the time of the festival ignorant of his regal character. ”

“ Mehevi generally produced, among other dainties, a baked pig, an article which, I have every reason to suppose, was provided for my sole gratification.
The Ti was a right jovial place. It did my heart, as well as my body, good to visit it. Secure from female intrusion, there was no restraint upon the hilarity of the warriors, who, like the gentlemen of Europe after the cloth is drawn, and the ladies retire, freely indulged their mirth. ”

“ Tell your father, the chief, to send his warriors in the morning to a valley, one day's march to the northward, and they shall find a colony of beavers as large as an Indian village. Many lodges they shall see, and all will contain beaver meat, and warm furs to protect them and their women against the wind and frost. I, Puigagis, the King of all the Beavers, will go before them to show the way. ”

“ Our father the Bear told me to say to you that his son has sent this young man to you, and you must exert all your power for him.”
Now the animals began to make ready to use their power to help the chief’s son. First the Beaver talked to the young man, to tell him of his powers and his ways, so that he might perform wonderful acts. How he should take the branch of a tree and strike a man with its point and it would go through him, and then how to draw it out and to make the man well again. ”

“ Miscan Maeve.​—​On the summit of Knocknarea, which commands a fine view over the coast of Sligo and surrounding country, is a great cairn composed of small stones, and locally known as ‘Miscan Maeve,’ or ‘Misgaun Meaw.’ The cairn is oval-shaped, and measures 590 feet in circumference and 34 feet in height; the sides slope to 79 feet on one side and 67 feet on the other. The top has a major axis of 100 feet and a minor of 85 feet. According to tradition this is the burial-place of Maeve (the Mab of English folk-tales) , a celebrated Queen of Connaught, who reigned in the first century. ”

“ Father Beaver gnawed a strip of bark from a young birch tree before he answered. "The Wolverene is not our worst enemy," he said slowly. "Beavers were driven from your shores by Man. Yes—" as Phil gave a little start of surprise—"we used to build in many of your streams and rivers; in Wales we were well known, and I have heard that in the time of Hoel-dda, the great Welsh lawgiver, one hundred and twenty pence—then a very large sum—was offered for each Beaver's skin. You see we were much thought of even in those days, though I must say I wish it had been for something else than for our fur. ”

“ A beaver's house is large enough to allow two men a comfortable sleeping-room, and it is kept very clean. It is built of sticks, stones, and mud, and is well plastered outside and in. The trowel the beaver uses in plastering is his tail; this is considered a great delicacy at the table. Their beds are made of chips, split as fine as the brush of an Indian broom, these are disposed in one corner, and kept dry and sweet and clean. It is the bark of the green wood that is used by the beavers for food; after the stick is peeled, they float it out at a distance from the house. ”

“ Beaver?"
"Yes, my son," said the Beaver sorrowfully, "for our fur is in greater demand than ever. In the winter, which is the 'hunting season,' they do their best to force our houses with heavy weapons, and if we take to the water beneath the ice, and swim to our tunnels in the river side, they sound the ice above the banks with an iron chisel, which tells their practised ears the exact spot where our holes are to be found. Then they dig us out—and that is the end of us."
"I'm very sorry, dear Beaver," Phil whispered, stroking the shining fur that brought such trouble on its possessors. ”

“ On the afternoon of the day that I took my first bath in the valley, we received another visit from Mehevi. The noble savage seemed to be in the same pleasant mood, and was quite as cordial in his manner as before. After remaining about an hour, he rose from the mats, and motioning to leave the house, invited Toby and myself to accompany him. I pointed to my leg; but Mehevi in his turn pointed to Kory-Kory, and removed that objection; so, mounting upon the faithful fellow's shoulders again—like the old man of the sea astride of Sindbad—I followed after the chief. ”

“ All hail, therefore, Mehevi, King of the Cannibal Valley, and long life and prosperity to his Typeean majesty! May Heaven for many a year preserve him, the uncompromising foe of Nukuheva and the French, if a hostile attitude will secure his lovely domain from the remorseless inflictions of South Sea civilization.
Previously to seeing the Dancing Widows I had little idea that there were any matrimonial relations subsisting in Typee, and I should as soon have thought of a Platonic affection being cultivated between the sexes, as of the solemn connection of man and wife. ”

“ THE PERSISTENT BEAVER I saw a forest fire sweeping down upon the Broken Tree Beaver colony, and I knew that the inhabitants could take refuge in their earthy, fire-proof houses in the water. Their five houses were scattered in the pond like little islands or ancient lake dwellings. A vigorous brook that came down from the snows on Mount Meeker flowed through the pond. Towering spruce trees encircled its shores. ”

“ A girl knows when she is looking her prettiest, and the young Meadowses were in no way concerned for the propriety of their own appearance. Father Meadows, looking along the row of smiling faces belonging to him, was as well satisfied as any man in the house. His eyes rested longer than usual on little Meta to-night. ”

“ Here the beavers have their winter home in a great domed lodge. Around the open water are tracks made by three generations of beaver, and these with the uncommonly big house tell us that the family is a large one. Probably their bark soured under water, the wood having been cut early with too much sap, and they were compelled to go afield for a fresh supply. It is hard, perhaps impossible, for a man to judge what went on in their troubled heads when the need of food grew imperative; but a little memory and some study [152] of the trail bring out two facts to make one thoughtful. ”

“ The chief, his father, was standing above him with arms outstretched as he said these words:
“My son, the time is at hand when you must go into the forest for your long fast. You must prove to your people that you are brave and strong and ready to try the test of fasting.
“My son must show that he is strong and courageous. You need have no fear, for the Great Spirit will protect you.”
Then the Indians danced around Mewanee singing in a solemn chant. ”

“ Beaver are pretty mean; they're great things to fight among themselves, and I've seen many a one all scarred and cut about his head and neck and shoulders, where he'd been fighting with another one. After the full-grown ones are driven off by their parents, I reckon they start out and either build themselves houses somewhere nearby, or perhaps go on up or down the stream, and either join some other colony, or build a dam for themselves. ”

“ Working silently and secretly near the water's edge is a beaver. We can scarcely distinguish him as he toils patiently, bringing to our minds the old Selish legend that the beavers are a fallen tribe of Indians, doomed by the Great Spirit to expiate an ancient wrong by constant labor in their present shape. But some day after the appointed penance, the Indians believe that the beavers will resume the form of men and come into their own again. ”

“ Mehevi having now departed, and the family physician having likewise made his exit, we were left about sunset with ten or twelve natives, who by this time I had ascertained composed the household of which Toby and I were members. As the dwelling to which we had been first introduced was the place of my permanent abode while I remained in the valley, and as I was necessarily placed upon the most intimate footing with its occupants, I may as well here enter into a little description of it and its inhabitants. ”

“ Said the eldest brother, as he saw the beavers: "How I would like some beaver-tail for supper to-night; there is nothing so delicious as beaver-tail." The little one said nothing; but presently, when the camp-ground had been chosen for the night, he strolled off by himself along the edge of the lake, and stooping down drank of the water till the lake was quite dry. He then took a stick and killed all the beavers one after another as they ran out of their holes, and piling them one on the top of the other sat down upon the topmost and awaited his brothers' presence. ”

“ Deep in the northern forests the beaver does not work and play in darkness only, but uses day even more than night, and many of Beaver Tooth's people were awake when Baree began disconsolately to investigate the shores of the pond. The little beavers were still with their mothers in the big houses that looked like great domes of sticks and mud out in the middle of the lake. ”

“ In fact, so little ingenuity do they at times display in this particular, that at one of our camps on Snake River, a beaver was found with his head wedged into the cut which he had made, the tree having fallen upon him and held him prisoner until he died."
Great choice, according to the captain, is certainly displayed by the beaver in selecting the wood which is to furnish bark for winter provision. The whole beaver household, old and young, set out upon this business, and will often make long journeys before they are suited. ”

“ Raising the arras, he whispered to young Drummond of Mewie, who stood without, and was in attendance upon him,—
"Summon Carnock, Balloch, and their people; they are loitering in the hall, the street, or garden. Tell them that this man knoweth more than should be risked with others than ourselves. Dost thou comprehend me?"
Mewie, a savage-looking and unscrupulous young Celt from Strathearn, muttered something under the thick red beard that fell in shaggy volume under the brow of his steel cap, while he grinned and withdrew. ”

“ Next day the lads learned still more about the work of an Indian hunter. There were five more beavers to be skinned, and of all fur-bearing animals the beaver is the hardest to skin. The skin will not peel off like that of a rabbit, but almost every inch of it has to be cut and great care is needed not to cut into the fur. It took Ray and Bruce as long to skin one beaver as it took Ganawa to skin three. ”

“ I cannot tell you all the amusing things the Indian boy said about the beaver, though the Major told them to me; but I cannot talk like an Indian, you know, Mrs. Frazer. After the boy went away, the gentleman set to work and made a little log-house for his beaver to live in, and set it in a corner of the shanty; and he hollowed a large sugar-trough for his water, that he might have water to wash in, and cut down some young willows and poplars and birch-trees for him to eat, and the little beaver grew-very fond of his new master ”

“ A Beaver is credited with a haphazard way of gnawing round and round a tree till somehow it tumbles, and when a chopper deviates in the least from the correct form, the exact right cut in the exact right place, he is said to be "beavering"; therefore, while "working like a Beaver" is high praise, "beavering" a tree is a term of unmeasured reproach, and Sam's final gibe had point and force that none but a Sangerite could possibly have appreciated. ”

“ This behaviour, until subsequent discoveries enlightened me, puzzled me more than anything else I witnessed in Typee.
As for Mehevi, I had supposed him a confirmed bachelor, as well as most of the principal chiefs. At any rate, if they had wives and families, they ought to have been ashamed of themselves; for sure I am, they never troubled themselves about any domestic affairs. In truth, Mehevi seemed to be the president of a club of hearty fellows, who kept 'Bachelor's Hall' in fine style at the Ti. ”