Oowikapun, or, How the Gospel reached the Nelson River Indians

by Egerton Ryerson Young

“Why should she be your favourite child?” was asked him.

“Why? Because she, of all my children, will go the longest without food, without crying,” was his answer.

To suffer, but to show no sign, is the proverb of the true Indian. And yet Astumastao would not admit even to herself that she was deeply in love with Oowikapun. She had treasured the fond conceit in her heart that the one all-absorbing passion with her was that which she had freely revealed to him, and she in her simplicity had honestly believed that no other love could take its place, or even share the room in her heart.

But here was a rude awakening. She was a mystery to herself. Why these sighs and tears when she was alone and unwatched by her bright-eyed, alert young associates? Why did the image of this one young Indian hunter intrude itself so persistently before her in her waking hours? It is true he came not frequently to her in her dreams, for we dream but little of those we love the most, and who are in our memories and on our hearts continually during the waking hours of active life.

Untaught in the schools and free from all the guiles of heartless coquetry, an orphan girl in an Indian village, with neither prudery on the one hand, nor hothouse teachings on the other, which turn the heads of so many girls, Astumastao was to herself a riddle which she could not solve—a problem the most difficult of any she had tried to understand.

Her maidenly modesty seemed first to tell her to banish his image from her heart, and his name from her lips. To accomplish this she threw herself with renewed diligence into the duties incident to her simple yet laborious life, and by her very activities endeavoured to bring herself back to the sweet simplicities of her earlier days. But fruitless were all her efforts. The heart transfixed, was too strong for her head, and the new love which had so unconsciously come to her would not be stilled or banished.

A true daughter of Eve was this forest maiden, even if she did live in a wigwam, and had never read a novel or a romance, and because she had these feelings and was passing through these hours of disquietude and conflicting emotions we think none the less of her. Our only regret is that she had no judicious friend of her own sex to whom in her perplexity she could have gone for wise and prudent counsel. Happy are those daughters in civilised lands who have their precious mothers or other safe counsellors to whom they can go in these critical hours of their history, when their future weal or woe may turn upon the decisions then made. And happy are those fair maidens who, instead of impulsively and recklessly rejecting all counsel and warning from their truest friends, listen to the voice of experience and parental love, and above all, seek aid from the infinitely loving One who has said: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”

Astumastao unfortunately had no one to whom she could go in her perplexity. Her feeble aunt had been a purchased wife, bought in the long ago by her husband whom she had never seen until the day when he had come from a distant village, and being impressed with her appearance, for she was then a fine-looking young woman, had quickly spread out at her father’s feet all the gifts he demanded for her. His first words to her were to inform her that she was his wife, and that very shortly they would set out for his distant home. Crushed, out of her heart were some feelings of affection for a handsome young hunter who had several times met her on the trail, as she was accustomed to go to the bubbling spring in the shady dell for water for her father’s wigwam. Few indeed had been his words, but his looks had been bright and full of meaning, and he had let her know that he was gathering up the gifts that would purchase her from her stern, avaricious father. But, alas! her dreams and hopes had been blasted, and her heart crushed by this old pagan custom, and so for long years she had lived the dreary, monotonous life to which we have referred. Such a woman could give no advice that would be of much service to such an alert, thoughtful girl as Astumastao, and so, unaided and undisciplined, she let her thoughts drift and her heart become the seat of emotions and feelings most diverse. Sometimes she bitterly upbraided herself for her coldness and indifference to Oowikapun as she thought of his many noble qualities. Then again she would marshal before her his weaknesses and defects, and would vainly try to persuade herself to believe that the man who had been in the tent of Memotas and had heard him pray, and had then gone into the devil dance and had voluntarily suffered the tortures of hock-e-a-yum, was unworthy of her notice. Then suddenly, as the memory of what he must have suffered in those terrible ordeals came before her, her bright eyes would fill with tears, and she found herself impulsively longing for the opportunity to drive the recollection of such suffering from her mind and heart, and to be the one to save him from their repetition. Amid these conflicting emotions there was one thought that kept coming up in her mind and giving her much trouble, and that was, “Why had he left so abruptly? Why did he not at least come and say ‘Good-bye?’ or why had he not left at least some little message for her?”

Over these queries she pondered, and they were more than once thrown at her by the young Indian maidens, as with them she was skillfully decorating with beads some snow-white moccasins she had made.

Thus pondered Astumastao through the long weeks that were passing by since Oowikapun left her, while he, brave fellow, little dreaming that such conflicting feelings were in her heart, was putting his life in jeopardy, and enduring hardships innumerable, to save and benefit the one who had become dearer to him than life itself.