Of all the spiritual creations of the Indian, there is none more beautiful than the one concerning the guardians which they imagine to preside over their favorite vegetables, corn, beans, and squashes. Each of these has a spirit, but a separate name is not given to each spirit. They have the forms of beautiful females, and are represented as loving one another as sisters, and dwelling together in perfect unity and happiness. The vines of these vegetables grow in the same soil, and often from the same hill, and cling lovingly around each other, and thus are true representatives of those who watch over them. The maidens are ever young, and are clothed with the leaves of the plants among which they dwell. She who is the guardian spirit of corn, has for her drapery the long tapering leaves of the maize, ornamented with its silken tassels, which also are bound in wreaths about her brow. She whose office it is to guard the bean, has her garments also of its leaves woven together by the delicate tendrils, with a crown of the velvet pods upon her head, interspersed with the blossom which precedes the fruit. The [[135]]spirit of squashes is also clothed with the productions of the vine under her special care, and all the summer they flit about among the plants, and are called, De-o-ha-ho, Our Life, or Our Supporters.
Corn, the Indians say, was once of easy culture, and yielded far more abundantly than now, the grain being very rich with oil. But the Evil Spirit being envious of this great gift of Ha-wen-ne-yu to man, went forth into the fields and spread over it a universal blight. Since then it has been more difficult to cultivate, and is without its original richness.
When the rustling wind waves the corn leaves, producing a mournful sound, the pious Indian fancies he hears the spirit of corn, in her compassion for the red man, still bemoaning with unavailing regrets her blighted fruitfulness.
I have here given but a few of the innumerable legends which are to be found among the Iroquois, hoping at some future day to devote a volume entirely to this subject. It may not be so interesting, or so valuable a contribution to literature as “Keightley’s Fairy Mythology,” and it may be many years before such a work will be truly appreciated, even by the antiquarian and the scholar; but it may yet prove a mite in the vast treasure house of traditional lore, and will some day be considered not entirely unworthy a place beside the fairy castles of Merrie England, Scotia’s sylvan temples, and the grottos of Italian nymphs.
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CHAPTER VII.
A CAPTIVE’S LIFE AMONG INDIANS, ILLUSTRATED BY THE LIFE OF “THE WHITE WOMAN.”
To be taken captive by the Indians, was among the early colonists considered the most terrible of all calamities; and it was indeed a fearful thing to become the victim of their revenge. But those who were enduring the actual sufferings of captives, or suffering still more from terror of uncertain evils, thought little of the provocation given by our own people. The innocent often suffered for the guilty, and however persevering the efforts of the government to be just, in its infancy, in a wild unknown country, it was impossible to control unprincipled marauders. Some atrocious act was first committed by white men, which drove the Indian to retaliation, and thinking pale faces were all alike, he did not wait till the real offender fell into his hands.