"This morning, about day-break, the Indians, who had encamped around us, broke out into their usual lamentations and complaints to the Great Spirit. Their mourning was truly pathetic, and uttered in a peculiar tone. The commencing tone was exceeding loud, and gradually fell off into a low, long continued, and almost monotonous bass; to this tone of lamentation was modulated the subject of their distress or petition. Those who had experienced any recent distress, or misfortune previously blackened their faces with coal, or besmeared them with ashes."—Nutall, p. 190.
I will quote one more extract from a favourite author for the benefit of those who may wish to view the Indian as a worshipper of the Eternal Being whom they are early taught to worship. "From the age of about five years," says Long, "to that of ten or twelve, custom obliges the boy to ascend to a hill-top, or other elevated position, fasting, that he may cry aloud to the Wahconda. At the proper season his mother reminds him that 'the ice is breaking up in the river, the ducks and geese are migrating, and it is time for you to prepare to go in clay.' He then rubs his person over with a whitish clay, and is sent off to the hill-top at sunrise, previously instructed by a warrior what to say, and how to demean himself in the presence of the Master of Life. From this elevation he cries out to the great Wahconda, humming a melancholy tune, and calling on him to have pity on him, and make him a great hunter, horse-stealer, and warrior. This is repeated once or twice a week, during the months of March and April."—Long's First Expedition, vol.. i. p. 240.
[DISCOVERY OF THE UPPER WORLD.]
A TRADITION OF THE MINNATAREES.
The Minnatarees, and all the other Indians who are of the stock of the grandfather of nations, were once not of this upper air, but dwelt in the bowels of the earth. The Good Spirit, when he made them, no doubt meant, at a proper time, to put them in the enjoyment of all the good things which he had prepared for them upon the earth, but he ordered that their first stage of existence should be within it, as the infant is formed, and takes its first growth in the womb of its natural mother. They all dwelt under ground, like moles, in one great cavern, which covered the whole island; when they emerged, it was in different places, but generally near where they now inhabit. At that time, few of the Indian tribes wore the human form; some had the figures or semblances of beasts. The Paukunnawkuts were rabbits, some of the Delawares were ground-hogs, others tortoises, and the Tuscaroras and a great many others, were rattlesnakes. The Sioux were the hissing-snake(1); but the Minatarees were always men. Their part of the great cavern was situated far towards the Mountains of Snow.
The great cavern in which the Indians dwelt was indeed a dark and dismal region. In the country of the Minnatarees it was lighted up only by the rays of the sun which strayed through the fissures of the rock, and the crevices in the roof of the cavern, while in that of the Mengwe it was dark and sunless. The life of the Indians was a life of misery compared with that they now enjoy, and it was endured only because they were ignorant of a fairer or richer world, or a better or happier state of being. Clothes they had none; they lived and died naked as they came into the world. Their food was mice, and snakes, and worms, and moles, with now and then a bat, and the roots of trees, which crept downward from the regions of the upper air till they reached the subterranean abodes of the poor benighted Indian. They ate sand, it is true, and fed upon a dirt which glittered like the sun, but which was tasteless, and contained no nutriment, and they grew poor upon it, and early sickened and died. A miserably poor and weak race they were, and the Great Spirit was kindest, when he took them from their dismal dwellings to the happy mansions in the green vales and quiet lakes which lie hid in the mountains. And, so well convinced were the Indians that the exchange would be for the better, that they celebrated the death of a man with great rejoicing, but wept and howled loud and long when a child was born. And thus they dwelt, in the caverns which lie beneath the surface of the earth, unknowing of the beautiful and glorious world over their heads, till the Good Spirit sent agents for their deliverance.
There were among the Minnatarees two boys, who, from the hour of their birth, showed superior wisdom, sagacity, and cunning. Even while they were children, they were wiser than their fathers and mothers. They asked their parents whence the light which streamed through the fissures of the rock and played along the sides of the cavern came, and whence and from what descended the roots of the great vine. Their father said he could not tell; and their mother only laughed at the question, which appeared to her very foolish. They asked the priest; neither could he tell, but said he supposed the light came from the eyes of some great wolf. The boys told him he was a fool. They asked the king tortoise, who sulkily drew his head into his shell, and made no answer. But, when they asked the chief rattlesnake, he answered that he knew, and would tell them all about it if they would promise to make peace with his tribe, and on no account ever to kill one of his descendants. The boys promised, and the chief rattlesnake then told them that there was a world above them, composed of ore more shining than that they had tossed in boyish play in each other's eyes—a beautiful world, peopled by creatures in the shape of beasts, having a pure atmosphere and a soft sky, sweet fruits and mellow water, well-stocked hunting-grounds and well-filled ponds. He told them to ascend by the roots, which were those of a great grape-vine. A while after the boys were missing. Another while they had not returned; nor did they come back until the Minnatarees had celebrated the feast of rejoicing for their death(2), and the lying priest had, as he falsely said, in a vision seen them inhabitants of the Land of Spirits.
One day, the Indians were surprised by the return of the boys. They came back singing and dancing, and were grown so much, and looked so different from what they did when they left the cavern, that their father and mother scarcely knew them. They were sleek and fat; and when they walked it was with so strong a step that the hollow space rung with the sound of their feet. Their bodies were covered with something which the Minnatarees had never seen before, but which they since know was feathers and the skins of animals. They had blankets wrapt around them of the skins of racoons and beavers. Each of them had at his back a bundle of beautiful ripe grapes, and of the flesh of a great animal, which they had been taught to kill by people looking much like the Minnatarees, only handsomer and stronger—people who lived by hunting, and delighted in shedding the blood of each other, who painted their bodies with strange figures, and loved to drink a water which made them crazy and boisterous.
On first emerging from the caverns, they came, they said, into a world where all was light and beauty. It was directly over that part of the cavern where our tribe dwelt. They saw a great round ball of fire, which gave light and heat to the earth, and whose beams it was which had shot down through the fissures of the rock, partially illumining the cavern. The earth above them they had found covered with green, and scented with sweet-smelling flowers. Here and there were beautiful groves of trees, in whose shady branches birds of soft notes and varied and lovely plumage were singing all the day long. Its waters, which flowed cool and clear, were peopled by sportive fishes, and by many kinds of fowls, whose motions in their element were beautiful to the eye; and whose meat, when cooked, was exceedingly sweet to the taste. They saw a beautiful river, gliding rapidly through banks, shaded by lofty trees; its smooth current wafting the Indian brave to distant expeditions of war and the chase. Here were vast herds of wild animals, called by the inhabitants bisons, whose flesh they had found very good and juicy, and which animals were killed with arrows and sharp spears. The eyes of the boys glistened like coals of fire, and became of double size, while they described the beauties and wonders of the upper earth.