The two Indians walked up to the birch-bark lodge, where now the family and the friends were assembled.
Shinguakonse made his father sit down on the red chest. Then from the ancient bead-dress he brought an eagle feather and fashioned a quill into a pen. Ojeeg took it, dipped up a good deal of ink, and laboriously printed: Nick Fisher.
Then he drew a picture beneath—something meant for a fisher. It would have done just as well for a bobcat, but he bushed out the tail at the root and handed the deed to the notary. That personage, after holding it close to his thick lenses, added these words: “an American citizen of Chippewa County in the State of Michigan, and known in the Chippeway language as Ojeeg, the Fisher, chief of the ancient and honorable Crane totem, and further attested by his mark in the shape and image of the animal so called.”
Then the wife signed, adding a leaf. Dr. Rich and Jean signed as witnesses, the notary affixed his stamp, and the deed was done. Those graves were gone forever.
Chapter 61
But of Indian graves who can say anything worth hearing? The undiscovered sixty-first element is known to be a rare-earth metal, but wisdom in dealing with backward races is rarer than the rarest earth.
Ojeeg belonged to the people that normally inhabit hills and live on venison or milk. Many a time this wild and living nitrogen has swept down from the hills and conquered the mild farmer who raises wheat and sesame—in short, starch. Thus fell starchy Babylon.
But starch in turn can conquer. It can backfire up the hills in the form of alcohol, first enchanting the primitive soul and then destroying it. When Ojeeg’s ancestors first received their kegs of liquor, they straightway dreamed that earth is pure kindliness and then slew their own families in the orgy of this romance.
Ojeeg was neither civilized nor savage. He was neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red Indian. But he knew his enemy, which is about the last thing that any man attains to know.