Nunatak

“ A large band of Ayana Indians had arrived during the night. They had drifted in from the forest, men, women, children, and dogs, and were encamped in little groups along the river, and among the trees. It was an animated sight which met Natsatt's eyes as he wended his way toward the spot where Klitonda had erected his temporary lodge. He moved slowly, for the natives interested him. The curiosity of the children as they watched the white man did not disturb him. It was Nagu, the crafty medicine man, who arrested his attention. ”

“ Here she hesitated, and paused.
"What is it?" questioned Natsatt.
"I have been wondering how you, a white man, can love Owindia. There must be so many maidens of your own race beyond the mountains of the rising sun. I know so little, while they must be so wise and beautiful."
"Oh, that's what's troubling you," Natsatt laughed, pressing her hands more firmly in his. "But I am as much an Indian, nay more so, than you are. I speak several Indian languages better than the English; I was born in the wilderness, and have spent most of my life there. ”

“ Natsatt demanded. "Are there none who will stand by their chief?"
"There are some who are not cowards, but they are only a few. They would follow Klitonda to the death if he called them."
Thus Natsatt learned that little help could be expected from the Ayana Indians. The white traders had come into the country, and were they to be driven back, probably killed, when spring came? No, such a thing must not happen. As soon as the storm abated he would hurry back to the Post. It would be necessary for him to leave Owindia for a while. To remain would be worse than useless. ”

“ At this moment an old Indian woman, the mother of the boy whom Nanking had desired to amuse, threw herself between the upraised spears and the laughing widow's son. She shouted something very earnestly, and then stretched herself at Nanking's feet. All the other Indians also flung themselves down in fear or revulsion of feeling, and some crawled in another minute to where the burning coals were strewn over the sward, and with their fingers or with tree-boughs returned these coals to the fire, while others quenched the fire itself with water from the torrent. Nanking had never lost his temper. ”

“ Natsatt quietly remarked. "Do you think I could stay here all night knowing that Owindia was out there with those devils against her will? We must know the truth at once."
"And what is your plan, lad?"
"With your permission I shall visit the Chilcat camp to-night, find out if she is there, and learn the strength of the Coast Indians. It is certainly important for us to know."
"You are right, you are right," the Ranger mused. "We should know how many there are who have come against us. But it will be a difficult undertaking. However, it can't be helped. ”

“ At that time a great number of Eskimo lived at Niutang, in Kingnait Fjord, and many men of this settlement had been murdered by a Qinguamio of Anarnitung. For this reason the men of Niutang united in a sledge journey to Anarnitung to revenge the death of their companions. They hid themselves behind the ground ice and killed the returning hunter with their arrows. All hostilities have probably been of a similar character.
One tradition only refers to a real fight between the tribes. On the steep island Sagdluaqdjung, near Naujateling, ruins of huts are found on the level summit. ”

“ It has always been my custom to welcome the strangers within our gates, and I must confess to a preference for those who seem to promise something more than a perfunctory interchange.
So as my young viking came down the aisle, I held out my hand. "We are so glad to have you with us."
He stopped at once, gave me his hand, and bent on me his clear gaze. "Thank you." And then, immediately: "You live here? In Nantucket?" ”

“ Why do you now call them a warning?”
“There was no red in the lights we saw first,” replied Nangotook. “The last time they were red with anger, the color of blood and of the fire that destroys the lodge and turns the green forest to black. So will the manito destroy us if we heed not his warnings.”
“Take shame to yourself as a poor Christian, Etienne,” cried Jean indignantly. “Whatever the power of the Indian spirits, and I do not deny that they have power over heathens, that of the good God is greater. If we trust in Him and do no evil, we need not fear. ”

“ Only a few months before, Napyank himself had attempted to pilot a flat-boat down the river. In the dead of night, when the whole crew were on the watch, a large body of Indians stole upon them, and in a twinkling had possession of the boat, and most of its inmates. What became of the unfortunate captives, none could tell, for neither Napyank, nor the two or three who escaped with him ever saw or heard of them again. But imagination can easily decide their fate, in the face of what was so well known to all those who had heard of the North Americans Indians. ”

“ And the sunset flared full of omens through the tree trunks, and night fell, and they came by fitful starlight, as Nuth had foreseen, to that lean, high house where the gnoles so secretly dwelt.
All was so silent by that unvalued house that the faded courage of Tonker flickered up, but to Nuth's experienced sense it seemed too silent; and all the while there was that look in the sky that was worse than a spoken doom, so that Nuth, as is often the case when men are in doubt, had leisure to fear the worst. ”

“ Natsatt did not wish to kill the Indian, and in the darkness he could not tell how much injury the fallen man had received. For a few seconds he maintained his merciless grip, and then let his fingers slowly relax. He sat for a while upon the prostrate form, ready any instant should the Chilcat arouse to renew the contest. But the defeated brave exhibited no sign of further wish to fight. That he was not dead Natsatt could tell by the breathing he could now distinctly hear. He might be unconscious, he thought, and will recover later. He wished to leave the place and get back to the Post. ”

“ This is the story of “Nunaria,” a place of ghosts and of the dead. To this day no Eskimo will willingly enter its precincts. The ice and gales of winter, the frosts and thaws of spring, the deluges of rain and the grass of summer, work hard to obliterate it, yet still it may be found, and its ruin tells the tale of one brief winter of too much plenty, and the evil effect of a sudden plethora of the good things of civilization and city life on the Innuit. With him, as with the rest of us, self-control is not easily learned where abstemiousness is continually forced. ”

“ Convinced of Nangotook’s innocence, Havard had induced the angry men to delay the execution of their sentence, and had sought out and brought to justice the real offender, a renegade half-breed. For that service the Indian had vowed that his life belonged to his white brother. The Ojibwa and the Frenchman had become fast friends, for Nangotook, or Etienne, as the French priests, in whose mission school he had been trained, had christened him, was one of the higher type of Indians, possessing most of the better and few of the worse traits of his tribe. ”

“ If Klota was that captive, why did she never come back?"
"Perhaps the Indian who married her refused to let her do so," Natsatt suggested.
"I have thought of that," Dan replied, while a sigh escaped his lips. "It is hard to tell of the many things which have been beating through my brain. Anyway, this expedition, and the erection of the Post are the outcome of what I heard. Nothing may come of it all, and in that case I shall be the heavy loser. But it was my last hope. A trading Post would be the only way by which the Indians could be speedily gathered. ”

“ He was the son of the notorious Quibby, already referred to, and of Judith Quary—a half-breed fortune-teller well-known on the island at one time. Abram, for obvious reasons, chose to assume his mother’s name. A fine portrait in oil of this dignified old man may be seen in the Nantucket Atheneum.
It may seem strange that no burial place of the Indians has been discovered on the island of Nantucket, so far as I am aware. Skeletal remains and a few bones have been discovered at one time and another, and in various places, but I believe no regular place of Indian burial has ever been found. ”

“ Such were the rulers of Nantucket when the settlers arrived.
What a revelation the incoming of the whites must have been to the red men, who had lived on the island, probably from a very early age, among their own people, under their own laws, perpetuating their own habits and customs—living close to Nature—for the most part in peace25 and amity—simple in their lives, and knowing nothing, caring nothing for the external world beyond them! ”

“ His pipe being filled and lighted, its fumes rolled over the ocean like a mist—in fact, the Indians would say, when a fog was rising, "Here comes old Maushope's smoke"—and when he finished he emptied his pipe into the sea. Falling on a shallow, the ashes made the island of Nantucket. The first Indians to reach the latter place were the parents of a babe that had been stolen by an eagle. They followed the bird in their canoe, but arrived too late, for the little bones had been picked clean. The Norsemen rediscovered the island and called it Naukiton. ”

“ Chiuzenji Lake, three miles wide and eight miles long, is surrounded by steep and thickly-wooded mountains, the great Nantaisan grandly soaring nine thousand feet above the sea, tapering regularly as a pyramid and forested to the summit. Nantaisan is a sacred mountain, a temple at its foot, shrines all along the ascent, and at the top an altar on which repentant murderers offer up their swords. ”

“ Who knows that it may not come and go in the sight of men at the will of the manito?”
“But,” objected Ronald, “you said that island on the east shore was the grave of Nanabozho. What has he to do with the Cape of Thunder?”
Nangotook looked puzzled. “It is true,” he said slowly, “my people say the manito makes his dwelling on that island to the east, but they say also that the Cape of Thunder is formed in his likeness, and they leave offerings to him there. It may be,” the Ojibwa added, his face clearing, “that part of the time he lives in one place, part of the time in the other. Why not? ”

“ Clearly, Navish refers to Verdrietig Hook, on the west side of the river, where it is of record. It is an equivalent of Newás (Len.) , "promontory." (See Nyack-on-the-Hudson.)
Nannakans, given as the name of a clan residing on Croton River, is an equivalent of Narragans (s foreign plural) , meaning "People of the point," the locative being Croton Point. (See Nyack.) This clan, crushed by the war of 1643-5, removed to the Raritan country, where, by dialectic exchange of n and r, they were known as Raritanoos, or Narritans. ”

“ And one and all of every tribe we questioned swore that Opechancanough was at Orapax. So Master Rolfe puts off up river to find, if not you, then the Emperor, and make him give up your murderers; and the Governor sends a party along the bay, and West another up the Chickahominy. And there you were, all the time, mewed up in the village above the marshes! And Nantauquas, after saving our lives like one of us, is turned Indian again! And your man is killed! Alackaday! there’s naught but trouble in the world. ‘As the sparks fly upwards,’ you know. ”

“ Nangotook could make his own people the greatest, the most prosperous, the happiest of all the Indian nations. He could prevent them from ever knowing famine, or even hunger again, though the game should disappear from the woods, the fish from the lakes, and the wild rice from the streams and the marshes, for he could purchase from the white men great ship loads of flour, pork and all other articles of food. ”

“ The chief’s great breast heaved with the pleasure of his eye and ear. “Nunda Nu has the heart of a man and the eye of a woman,” he said; “her voice is soft like the song of a forest stream; Muzape Tunga spares her people.”
Nunda Nu turned her face to her village and made a signal with her uplifted hands. Soon an unarmed Ponca, manifestly a chief by his garments, was seen taking his way down the hillside.
“Come!” said Nunda Nu, turning to Big Axe; “my father bears the pipe of peace; let us meet him in the valley.” ”

“ He would cross the Mount Hope or the Narragansett bay in tempestuous weather. He used to convey the beautiful Queen Weetamoc from Pocassett to Mount Hope to attend Philip’s war-dances under the summer moons, and when the old Indian war began he offered his two swift legs and all of his ten canoes to the service of his chief.
“Nipanset”—for this was his Indian name—“Nipanset’s bosom is his chief’s, and it knows not fear. Nipanset fears not the storm or the foe, or the gun of the pale-face. Call, call, O ye chiefs; in the hour of danger call for Nipanset. Nipanset fears not death.” ”

“ Nutka, from Nutka Sound, west coast of Vancouver Island, came gradually into use as the collective name of the eastern Vancouver tribes, and of some peoples on the opposite mainland ethnically related to them. But the languages differ so widely that they cannot be reduced to a common root. Though possessing great intelligence and even considerable artistic skill, shown especially in their wood and bone carvings and plastic works, these north-western nations betray an absolute incapacity for adapting themselves to civilized institutions. ”