CHAPTER VI.—The Children.
Logan had brought the two captive children directly to Shauane-Town. As they were too young to effect their escape, they were allowed to wander at will in and around the village, where they played with and were treated as the native children.
A week after his return, at a tribal council he referred to the massacre of his family at the mouth of Yellow Creek, spoke of his present loneliness and asked to adopt the two children as his own, saying: “* * * They are so young they will soon forget their own people and language and I shall bring them up as my own children.” His request having been granted the two children were brought before the council.
The adoption of the girl was quite simple; she was stripped of her clothing and sent out naked to play with the other little girls. The boy’s adoption was more formal. After being stripped he was seated in the center of the council; two old squaws, called in for the purpose, deliberately plucked out his curls, strand by strand, until only the scalp lock was left; a small tuft, three inches in diameter on his crown, which was stiffened and discolored with an ointment of graphite and bear grease, then certain tribal designs were painted upon his body with the juice of the puccoon root. This completed the ceremony.
They were just sending him out, when a very old and highly respected medicine man, the chief priest of the nation, and to whom were attributed occult powers of a high order; came into the council hall and walking over [pg 124] to the boy, stooped and removed from his neck a gold chain to which was attached a cross of ebony and pearl; this he examined carefully. Then turning to the council he said: “This child is of the sacred priesthood. He has the look in his face and eyes and his body is without blemish, as is required by the order. Let no one do him harm or cross his will, because in what he does he will be guided by the Great Spirit. The night before Logan brought him I saw the boy in a dream and was told of his coming and his mission. It is one of peace. He will be the friend of all men; of Long Knives and Indians alike. He does not know your language and will be carried home by Logan before the flying of the cahonks or the first snow-fall. By then he will speak your tongue as well as your own children and will never forget a word. It is the will of the Great Spirit. In proof that what I say is true, as he steps over the threshold of your council lodge he will drop as one dead; and for some days will lie in coma. When this passes he will not speak the language of the Long Knives so long as he remains with you. You will see in him many things that are strange; because his are a mind and spirit that see where yours cease seeing.”
After mumbling certain incantations which no one understood, he drew from his girdle a case made from a hollow bone and taking from it needles of fish bone and certain pigments; tattooed upon the chest of the boy an enlarged likeness of the cross he wore; and beneath it pricked the tribal sign of the Mingo priesthood. All this the little boy endured without outcry, though his face was ashy pale and his colorless lips moved in prayer.
Then the priest took from his own waist a girdle of wampum of unusual pattern and fastened it about the waist of the boy and extending his hands above the boy’s [pg 125] head, murmured yet more of his incantations. Then indicating the ceremony was completed, walked away.
The boy was told to go to his lodge. As he stepped over the threshold he dropped apparently lifeless; and no wonder; he had been subjected to a terrible strain and his blood was filled with impure pigments.
He was carried by Logan to their lodge and placed upon a pallet of deer skins. An old woman was called to attend him. He lay in a deep sleep until sundown, when he sat up and was given food and drink. A few minutes later he dropped back into unconsciousness which lasted for eighteen hours; at the end of which time, rousing from his torpor, he walked to a brook, where he bathed, removing all the grease and pigment. The tattooed cross and Mingo tribal signs stood out upon his body like a great blotch of blood on a statue of white marble. He returned to his pallet, smiled at Dorothy and after eating slept again.
For several days he was in a stupor and slept much of the time. At the end of a week the tattooed marks were no longer inflamed and he had recovered.
Not far from the village on the brow of a hill was a green mound, which rumor said was a place of burial; though the Indians knew not what people had made or used it. As the view from its summit was extensive, the timber having been burned away, the mound was used for signal fires and because of superstition, never visited except for that purpose.
John Calvin, who was the only child in the village permitted to go where he pleased, even to the council lodge and that of the medicine man, each day climbed to the summit and for an hour or more sat upon the signal rock, scarcely moving, lost in dreams or visions. The whole tribe watched him with superstitious awe.
[pg 126] Rumor of the child’s strange conduct spread throughout the Mingo nation and fierce, wild chiefs and warriors would watch him seated in silence upon the mound and as he walked about the village deferentially made room for him. They said: “The boy is so different from other Long Knives, he says nothing, they talk all the time.”
Dorothy grew half afraid of her old playmate, who when she spoke to him in English answered by a word or two in the Mingo tongue if he answered at all, having very quickly picked up a few common words. When he was not alone upon the mound they would go to the playground of the children and listen to and watch them. It was thus they learned to speak the language, he very quickly and Dorothy more slowly. In a little while they were playing with the Indian children, usually on or in the river; and both soon learned to swim and to paddle about in small canoes.
While they were prisoners at Shauane-Town the widow of Pukeshirrwan, whose husband was killed in the battle of Point Pleasant, gave birth to three posthumous children, one of whom was the Prophet. Dorothy grew very fond of the three little babies and spent much of her time playing the part of nurse to them.
Tecumseh, a brother of the three babies, was of the same age and a playfellow of the prisoners. Between them a friendship grew up, which lasted until he was killed at the battle of the Thames.
These Indian children were of the family or totem of the Panther. The name Tecumseh for a while was applied to all the male children of the family and meant flying across. When John Calvin was dedicated to the priesthood, he was adopted into their family instead of Logan’s; and under the cross on his breast was inscribed the sign of the Panther.
[pg 127] The young prisoners throughout the summer into mid-September ran naked, grew dark of skin and lapsed into the habits and speech of the Indian children. It seemed they were beginning to forget their own people. They were even taken with a hunting party into the country south of the “Oyo” into the land Kentucke, given in Charlevoix’s map of New France as the “Pays du Chouarrons” (Land of the Shauanese). Here while hunting, a fawn closely pursued ran to John Calvin, who put his arms about it and would not let it be killed. After the hunters left he turned it loose.
When the weather grew frosty they were dressed in doe skin clothing and moccasins, ornamented as those of a chief’s children; and slept on a bear skin wrapped in a vividly colored blanket, purchased from a French trader at Chicasaw Falls.
One morning in early November they were roused from sleep by Logan and told they were to be carried home across the great mountain. Many of the tribe gathered to see them off. Tecumseh gave John a bow, quiver and arrows and to Dorothy beaded moccasins. The priest took the old girdle from around him and in its place substituted a new one; which in sign language recited that he had been adopted into the family of the Panther and belonged to the Mingo priesthood. He was told to preserve and wear it and that no Indian henceforth would harm him.
The children were placed upon a doe skin pallet in the bottom of the canoe; then Logan and the two Indians who had helped kidnap them took their seats in the canoe, which, shoved from the shore, glided out into the river, and was soon paddled out of sight around a bend of the river; their Indian friends standing on the bank and watching until it disappeared.
[pg 128] Twelve days later they reached the head of canoe travel on the Kanawha and rested for the night. The next morning at first light, Logan with the two children, leaving the two Indians, traveled eastward along a narrow trail, following the stream until it became a mountain torrent, dashing in spray over boulders and down declivities. At night they slept at its very head under an overhanging cliff, from the foot of which the river’s first waters gurgled forth.
Mid-afternoon of the next day they crossed the divide through the pass; and from a projecting rock on the eastern slope saw again their own home and below in the Valley, the church and school house of the settlement.
Richard Cameron was milking the cows. He saw Jerry run up the mountain path and heard several glad, sharp barks. He looked up and saw an Indian, whom he recognized as Logan, and accompanying him two small Indian children.
The children ran forward, the dog barking and frisking at their heels. When they were near they called out: “Hello, Richard! Hello, Mr. Mason!” and together they all ran to the house.
For the moment Logan was forgotten. He seated himself on a log near the gate. In a short while Captain Campbell came out and cordially though formally greeted him. He remained some weeks a welcome guest.
Mrs. Campbell was too happy to sleep soundly that night. Sometime after midnight, she heard the “Cahonk, cahonk” of the wild geese flying southward, the first of the season.
[pg 129]