Tscholens was not stricken with astonishment, although that migration is held by investigators of pre-Columbian myths[[11]] to have occurred before the ninth century! It was formerly a general trait among the Indians to use the, first person singular in speaking of the tribe, and to avoid, even in its name, the plural termination. Tsiskwa went on with the tone of reminiscence rather than legendary lore, and with an air of bated rancor, as of one whose corroding grievance still works at the heart, to describe how the Lenni Lenape crossed the Mississippi and fell upon the widespread settlements of the Alligewi (or Tallegwi) Indians—considered identical with the Cherokee (Tsullakee)—and warred with them many years in folly, in futility, in hopeless defeat.
He lifted his eyes and gazed at the sun. A curve of pride steadied his old lips. His face was as resolute, as victorious, in looking backward as ever it had been in vaunting forecast. His was the temperament that always saw in prophecy or retrospect what he would wish to see. And that sun, now going down, had lighted him all his life along a path of conscious triumph.
And then, he continued, the Lenni Lenape, after years of futile war, combined with the Mengwe,[[12]] and before their united force the Cherokee retired into the impregnable stronghold of their mountains, their beautiful country, the pride of the world!
He waved his hand toward the landscape—lying out there in the lustre of its exquisite coloring, in the clarified air and the enhancing sunset; in the ideality of the contour of its majestic lofty mountains; in the splendor of its silver rivers, its phenomenally lush forests, its rich soil—pitying the rest of the world who must needs dwell elsewhere.
"And here," he went on, "the European found me two centuries ago."
He proceeded to narrate the advent of De Soto and his followers into the country of the Cherokees, embellishing his account with unrecorded particulars of their stay, especially in their digging for gold and silver, in which enterprise he himself seemed to have actively participated—only some two centuries previous!
Tscholens, listening, looked about absently at the "beloved square," which was vacant, with its open piazza-like building on each of the four sides. Two or three men were talking in the "war cabin," painted a vivid red. On the western side of the square the roof of the "holy cabin" showed dark against a lustrous reach of the shimmering river; despite the shadows within the broad entrance, the "sacred white seat" and the red clay transverse wall that partitioned off the sanctum sanctorum were plainly visible, but all was empty, deserted—the cheera-taghe had departed for the night.
As Tsiskwa paused to cough, the Delaware, suddenly taking heart of grace, observed that it had always been the boast of the Lenni Lenape that they were the first tribe to welcome the European, the Dutch, to the land that they now called New York.
Whereupon Tsiskwa retorted in a tempest of racking coughs that, whoever welcomed the Europeans here or there, it was no credit that the Lenape should be so forward to appropriate it! The white people were not the friends of the red man. They wanted the whole country. Finally they would have it.
"Mattapewiwak nik, schwannakwak!" (The white people are a deceiving lot!) said Tscholens, seeking some common ground on which they could meet with a mutual sentiment.