Sir Walter Raleigh.
‘The chiefs and headmen of the Indians avow that the herb is a most precious gift of the Great Spirit who created them, and who rules over the affairs of their daily lives. He it was in ages long past, when all the different tribes were warring one against another, had taught them the peace-inspiring virtues of the plant. He it was who, out of a fragment broken from the red rock, had fashioned for their guidance the first peace-pipe. And it came to pass in this wise: The Master of Life, the Great Spirit that broods over creation, descended to the summit of the mountain; he called his children together, and they obedient to the divine command assembled in infinite numbers to hearken to his will. Then there came forth from the mountain a voice, crying, “Listen, O children of the redskin, to the words of your Great Father. Let your deliberations, domestic as well as public, be conducted under the soothing influence of the herb of life, the divine uppówoc. Let the pipe be to you a symbol of peace between you yourselves and all the tribes of men. In loving brotherhood let it be passed from the lips of those famous in the war of words as in the strife of battle; from those seated on the front bench in the possession of treasure to those of the hungry of the assembled senators who have nought but who fain would have all. Let the smoke-cloud that ascends from the calumet be to you a pledge of peace, of personal amity and good-will. Then shall your compacts one with another be held sacred before me, and the war-club be buried deep in the earth. Henceforward shall friendship and fraternity be yours for evermore—till, alas, they of the pale face have grabbed from you your lands, and the red man hath become a stranger and an outcast in the country of his birth.”
‘Thus spoke the Master of Life to his children of the redskin. Having fashioned with wondrous curves the emblem of happiness out of stone of the red rock, he filled the bowl with the leaves of the sacred herb, and commanded the lightning to kindle it into flame. High up on the mountain over their heads he smoked the first great symbol of peace among the nations. He told the assembled multitude that the rock, out of which the pipe was made, was formed of the flesh of their grandfathers, long ages ago, when the world was deluged and the people of the earth destroyed. Seeing the gathering of the waters, the children of the forest and of the prairie fled to the high lands, thinking thus to save themselves. The waters pursued them; they were overwhelmed in one mighty mass and their bodies were converted into the red sandstone rock of the mountain, therefore is it good medicine.
‘Yet one escaped the flood. A maiden, Kwaptahw, finding herself bereft of kindred, lay disconsolate on the mountain ridge. Then it came to pass that espying her from afar, the great war-eagle came to her side. She clung to the lord of the air, and he carried her to a place of safety high up on an adjacent cliff.
‘Then like the murmur of distant waters, the voice of the great spirit gradually melted away.
“—The Master of Life ascending
Through the opening of cloud curtains,
Through the doorways of the heaven,
Vanished from before their faces,