Ponape

“ As the boat drew near I saw that she was steered by a white man, who sailed her beautifully. He was dressed in a suit of dirty pyjamas, and presently, as the wind lifted the rim of the wide Panama hat he was wearing, I caught a glimpse of his features and recognised him—Florence Tully, one of the greatest blackguards in the Pacific, and whom I had last seen at Ponape, in the Carolines. ”

“ The king of Ponape, one of the Caroline Islands, must wear his hair long, and so must his grandees. Among the Hos, a negro tribe of West Africa, “there are priests on whose head no razor may come during the whole of their lives. The god who dwells in the man forbids the cutting of his hair on pain of death. If the hair is at last too long, the owner must pray to his god to allow him at least to clip the tips of it. The hair is in fact conceived as the seat and lodging-place of his god, so that were it shorn the god would lose his abode in the priest.” ”

“ Here in Tokolmé lived three hundred and two-score people, who owed allegiance neither to Lirou nor Roka, for their ancestors had come to Ponapé from Yap, an island far to the westward. After many years of fighting on the coast they made peace with Lirou's father, who gave them all this piece of country as a free gift, and without tribute, and many of their young men and women intermarried with ours, for the language and customs of Yap are akin to those of Ponapé. ”

“ Early one morning some native hunters came on board our vessel and asked me to come with them to the mountain forest of the island of Ponapé in quest of wild boar. Glad to escape from the ship, which lay in a small land-locked harbour on the south-eastern side of the island, I quickly put together my gear, stepped into one of the long red-painted canoes alongside, and pushed off with my companions—men whom I had known for some years and who always looked to me to join them in at least one of their hunting trips whenever our brig visited their district on a trading cruise. ”

“ We lowered our whale-boat, and, taking two hands, I pulled alongside the barque. Although under the Hawaiian flag, her officers were nearly all Americans, and, as is always the case in the South Seas, we were soon on friendly terms. The four ships were all making for Jakoits Harbour, in Ponapé, to wood and water; and I said we would keep company with them. Our own skipper, I must mention, was just recovering from wild, weird visions of impossible, imaginary animals, superinduced by Hollands gin, and I wanted to put him ashore at Ponapé for a week or so. ”

“ He carried with him complete equipment for his work and gathered at Ponape a dozen or so natives for laborers. They went straight to Metalanim harbor and set up their camp on the island called Uschen-Tau in the group known as the Nan-Matal. You will remember that these islands are entirely uninhabited and are shunned by the people on the main island. ”

“ Before we left, however, Hayes gave the remainder of the population nearly a ton of rice and several casks of biscuits. "You can pay me when the sky of brass has broken and the rain falls, and the land is fertile once more," said the so-called pirate.
We made a quick passage to the Caroline Islands, touching at Kusaie or Strong's Island on our way, and on a Sunday evening swept into Jakoits Harbour on the island of Ponapé before a strong trade-wind. ”

“ When the Ponca met these terrible warriors, they were afraid. They thought man and horse were one. They named it “Kawa” because they noticed the odor of the horse. Then they knew by this odor when the Padouca were coming. When a man smelled the horses, he would run to the camp and say, “The wind tells us the Kawa are coming.” Then the Ponca would make ready to defend themselves. The Ponca had many battles with the Comanches. They did not know how to use the animals, so they killed the horses as well as the men. Neither could they find out where the Padouca lived. ”

“ Mrs. Ponto wept; and as we slowly worked our way outside of Port Royal, I could see her waving her apron, for she was innocent of a more classical signal, in fond adieus. We finally got out from under the lee of the land, and caught in our sails the full trade-wind, blowing steadily in the desired direction. I sat long on deck, watching the receding island sinking slowly in the bright sea, until Captain Ponto signified to me, in the patois of Jamaica, which the deluded people flatter themselves is English, that dinner was ready, and led the way into what he called the cabin. ”

“ Those Pongoes are never taken alive, because they are so strong that ten men cannot hold one of them, but yet they take many of their young ones with poisoned arrows. The young Pongo hangeth on his mother’s belly, with his hands clasped fast about her, so that when the country people kill any of the females, they take the young one which hangeth fast upon his mother. ”

“ The king’s face fell, as did those of his councillors.
“Listen, O lord Macumazana, and all of you,” he said. “These Pongo are horrible wizards, a great and powerful people who live by themselves amidst the swamps and mix with none. If the Pongo catch Mazitu or folk of any other tribe, either they kill them or take them as prisoners to their own land where they enslave them, or sometimes sacrifice them to the devils they worship.”
“That is so,” broke in Babemba, “for when I was a lad I was a slave to the Pongo and doomed to be sacrificed to the White Devil. ”

“ I at once employed from the young men of the tribe a suitable number for the purpose, and at five o'clock p. m. had the entire tribe with their effects across the river, off the reservation, and in camp in Nebraska."
Twenty-five soldiers had been in service at the Ponca agency while the "consent" of the one hundred and seventy was being secured; they seem to have furnished the necessary showing of force. Confronted with the choice of going either "peaceably or by force," these unarmed people naturally concluded to go peaceably. ”

“ You might lose your house. If you ever want a home come to me or my tribe. You shall never want as long as we have anything. All the tribe in the Indian Territory will soon know what you have done. While there is one Ponca alive you will never be without a friend." [1]
But freedom did not bring with it the restoration of a single right to their goods and lands. They were destitute, and without a home. The members of the Omaha Committee, with substantial aid from many other friends of the Indian, succeeded in gathering about one hundred of the refugee Poncas near their old reservation. ”

“ The agent reports:
"The Ponca Indians are in no way addicted to drinking or gambling, neither will they spend their money for whisky. They fully understand the use of money, and will use it to the very best possible advantage. I am fully of the opinion that if their annuity were paid to them in money, they would use it more judiciously for their comfort than it could possibly be used for them in the purchase of goods. The Poncas are the most peaceable and law-abiding of any of the tribes of Indians. ”

“ So it happened that when he grew up Pontiac could not remember a time when the dark forest did not seem like home to him.
As soon as he was old enough to understand words, he heard his mother laughing with her neighbors about [Pg 61] the men in the village who stayed about their wigwams like women. Now, he thought that a wigwam or bark lodge was a very pleasant place. The small, dark, oven-shaped room, smoky and foul with the smell of fish and dirt, was home to him—the mud floor, worn smooth and hard with use, was strewn with mats and skins which served for chairs and beds. ”

“ A second and a third flight of arrows, and the rushing Poncas were thrown into confusion. Those in the rear were thrown by the floundering bodies of the wounded ponies in the front, the fury of their momentum hurling them pellmell into the valley below. Then the Omahas swept down the valley, as the eagle sweeps, with the battle cry upon their lips, and the remnant of the attacking Poncas turned and fled up the steep hillside to their village. ”

“ A rich proprietor in the cordilleras is often seen with such a poncho, and the quality of the garment, the length of time it will turn rain, etcetera, are favourite subjects of conversation with the wearers of them. Of course everybody in those parts possesses one, as everybody in England or the United States must have a great coat; but the ponchos of the poorer classes of Peruvians—the Indian labourers, shepherds, and miners—are usually manufactured out of the coarse wool of the llama. Only the ‘ricos’ can afford the beautiful fabric of the vicuña’s fleece. ”

“ The Santee agent's report for the ensuing year takes notice of them:
"In my report last year I spoke of a number of Ponca Indians who had come among the Santees. Since then they have nearly all left, and they are now living on an island, about three miles above Niobrara, adjoining their old reservation. I visited them a short time ago and found they numbered 103 souls. They have considerable corn; are making hay and building houses for the winter. They have been and are now receiving some assistance from an organization at Omaha which has been created for their relief." ”

“ Poncas.—The Poncas, numbering 735, have a reservation of 576,000 acres, near the confluence of the Niobrara and Missouri Rivers, in the south-eastern part of the Territory, provided for them in their treaty with the United States, made in 1858. They are quiet and peaceable, are inclined to be industrious, and engage to some extent in farming; but from various causes, principally the destruction of their crops by grasshoppers, have not succeeded in supporting themselves without assistance from the government. ”

“ White Eagle, one of the Ponca chiefs, who had lost his wife and four children, and who was himself fast sinking under disease developed by the malarial Indian Territory, came to Washington and gave eloquent testimony in behalf of his tribe. The physicians there predicted that he had not three months to live, A bill was introdueed into Congress for restoring to the Poncas their old reservation in Dakota, and putting their houses, farms, etc., in the same good condition they were at the time of their removal. ”

“ The Poncas, about 700 in number, were taken to the Quapaw reservation, in the northeastern corner of the Indian Territory, with a view to permanent settlement. But the reluctance with which they had left their old homes, the strange aspect of a new country, an unusually large number of cases of disease and death among them, and the fact that they were greatly annoyed by white adventurers hovering around the reservation, who stole many of their cattle and ponies and smuggled whiskey into their encampments, engendered among them a spirit of discontent which threatened to become unmanageable. ”

“ The Indian ring sought eagerly for some especially favored spot for the powerful chiefs, Spotted Tail and Red Cloud; something to serve up to them as a token of kindly regard.
There, at the southeast corner of the great reserve, was the land of the Poncas,—a prize for any Indian chief. And why not? One hundred and fifty houses, five hundred acres of growing crops,—just the place to teach the astute Spotted Tail, or Red Cloud, the warrior, the gentle arts of the white man.
The Poncas? Some eight hundred of them—what were they compared to the recovery of the Black Hills? The treaty? ”

“ It's so weak that no wonder Ponto's sleep isn't disturbed by it.
Of mornings we used to go out shooting. We had Ponto's own fields to sport over (where we got the landrail) , and the non-preserved part of the Hawbuck property: and one evening in a stubble of Ponto's skirting the Carabas woods, we got among some pheasants, and had some real sport. I shot a hen, I know, greatly to my delight. 'Bag it,' says Ponto, in rather a hurried manner: 'here's somebody coming.' So I pocketed the bird.
'You infernal poaching thieves!' roars out a man from the hedge in the garb of a gamekeeper. ”

“ The weirder, greater things of nature loom often through the poems of the man who looked upon such scenes from the study window in what was [35] “The Bemis Place” of the elder days of Ponkapoag village. It seems as if all the lighter, sweeter fancies that laugh or slip, tear in eye, through his verse, whirled like rose petals on summer winds or danced like butterflies into the little valley on which the westward study windows looked. Through this, right in the foreground, flows Ponkapoag brook, and on it falls slowly into decay an ancient mill, a relic of the early days of the village. ”

“ None sweeter is to be found in the forests of America. A few slices of that, and then a glass each of my best Jamaica, and we shall have strength to go through the expedition, if its object be the capture of the bold Ponteac himself."
"I presume the object is rather to seek for Captain de Haldimar," said Lieutenant Boyce, the officer of grenadiers; "but in that case why not send out his own company?"
"Because the Colonel prefers trusting to cooler heads and more experienced arms," good-humouredly observed Captain Erskine. "Blessington is our senior, and his men are all old stagers. ”

“ The public were told again and again that the land occupied by the Poncas in the Indian Territory was a malarious swamp upon which the Indians were rapidly perishing by disease; that they had already lost from one-fourth to one-half of their number; that they could not and would not gain a living there by agriculture and other labor; that the whole tribe would be in their graves before becoming acclimated or in any manner contented with their situation ”