Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2

by James Athearn Jones

As he approaches the camp of the strange people, he puts on his most martial airs, and commences his song. He sings the lofty and warlike character of his nation, who never retreated from a foe, nor quailed before the stern glance of warriors; who can fast for seven suns, and, on the eighth, tire out the deer in his flight. He sings, that his fathers have been conquerors of all the tribes who roam between the mountains and the distant sea. He sings, that the maidens of his nation have eyes and feet like the antelope, that their songs are sweeter than the melodies of the song-sparrow, and their motions more graceful than the motions of a young willow, bowed by the wind. He sings, that the men of his tribe will smoke in the pipe of peace with the strange warriors, or they will throw a war-club into the council-house, as best suits them. The Lenapes are neither women nor deer, they are not suing for peace, but they ask themselves why the great storm of war should arise, and the sky be overcast with the blustering clouds of tumult and quarrel. The Lenapes wish to go to the land of the rising sun; why should their path be shut up? their course is over a great river; why should it be made red with the blood of either nation? As he concluded his song, he held up the pipe of peace, the bowl of which was of red marble, the stem of which was of alder curiously carved, painted, and adorned with beautiful feathers. This, my brother must know is the symbol of peace among all the tribes of the wilderness.

A Brave, painted for war, met the messenger from the Lenape camp, and, after he had given his blanket to the winds, conducted him to the cabin of the assembled chiefs of his nation, not, however, before he had received the curses of the old women, and had been called "a wrinkled old man with a hairy chin and a flat nose."

Then meat was placed before the Lenape messenger. When he had satisfied his hunger, he pulled off his mocassins[22], and presented the pipe to the Brave who had been his conductor, who, filling it with tobacco and sweet herbs, handed it to him again. Then the youngest chief present took a coal from the fire, which flamed high in the centre of the council-cabin, and placed it on the beloved herb, which was made to smoke high. Mottschujinga then turned the stem of the pipe towards the field of the stars, to supplicate the aid of the Great Spirit, and then towards the bosom of his great mother, the earth, that the Evil Spirits might be appeased; now holding it horizontally, he moved round till he had made a circle, whereby he intimated that he sought to gain the protection of the spirits who sit on the clouds, and move in the winds of the air, of those who dwell in the deep and fearful glens and caverns, in the hollows of old and decayed oaks, on the summits of inaccessible hills, and within the limits of the great council-fire[23] of Michabou[24]. Having secured the aid of those invisible beings, in whose power it is to blow away the smoke of the pipe of peace, so that men shall speak from their lips only, and not from their hearts, and in consequence their promises shall be but as the song of a bird that has flown over, Mottschujinga presented his pipe to the great chief of the strangers, who, before he would smoke in it, arose and made a speech.

"Our tribe," said the chief, "are called Mengwe. We too have come from a distant country, and we also are bound to the land of the rising sun. We will smoke in the Lenape's pipe, and bury the war-club very deep; we will assist to make the Lenapes very strong, and will never suffer the grass to grow in our war-path when the Lenapes are assailed by enemies. We will draw out the thorns from your feet, oil your stiffened limbs, and wipe your bodies with soft down. We will lift each other up from this place, and the burthen shall be set down at each other's dwelling-place. And the peace we make shall last as long as the sun shall shine, or the rivers flow. And this is all I have to say."

So a league was made, though no war had been, and the two nations freely intermingled. Each man unclosed his hand to his neighbour, the Lenape warrior took the Mengwe maiden to his tent, and her brother had a woman of the former nation to roast his buffalo-hump, and boil his corn.

And now the spies, who had been sent forward for the purpose of reconnoitring, returned. They had seen many things so strange, that when they reported them, our people half-believed them to be dreams, and for a while regarded them but as the songs of birds. They told, that they had found the further bank of the River of Fish inhabited by a very powerful people, who dwelt in great villages, surrounded by high walls. They were very tall—so tall that the head of the tallest Lenape could not reach their arms, and their women were of higher stature and heavier limbs than the loftiest and largest man in the confederate nations. They were called the Allegewi, and were men delighting in red and black paint, and the shrill war-whoop, and the strife of the spear. Such was the relation made by the spies to their countrymen.

This report of the spies increased the fears and dissatisfaction of the Lenapes to such a height, that part agreed to remain in the lands in which they then were, and not to attempt to cross the river occupied by so many hostile warriors. But the greater part declared that they were men, and rather than turn back from a foe, however strong, or leave a battle-field without a blow or a war-whoop, they would march to certain death, and leave their bones in a hostile camp. So one band, the strongest of the Lenapes, remained beyond the Mississippi, while the others prepared to encounter the nations who were the present lords of the soil. But, ere they committed their fortunes to battle, they fasted, and mortified their flesh, to gain the favour of the being who presides over war, and their priests were consulted to learn whether he would be propitious to them. "Shall we conquer?" "Shall we overcome?" was eagerly asked. The priests replied, "The Lenapes shall overcome, when they have obtained the great war medicine." They asked what it was; the priests replied, "It shall be made known to you on the morrow." The morrow came, and the priests made known the great war medicine, whose properties brought certain victory to those possessed of it. In old times, the wild cat had devoured their people; they set a trap for him and caught him in it, burned his bones, and preserved the ashes. These ashes had been carefully kept by the priests, and they now brought them forth. The great old snake, the father of strife, was in the water; the old men gathered together and sang, and he shewed himself; they sang again, and he showed himself a little further out of the water; the third time he showed his horns. They were enabled to cut off one of the horns. He showed himself a fourth time, and they cut off the other horn. A piece of these horns, and the ashes of the bones of the wild cat compounded, was the great war medicine of our nation. Prepared with a medicine of such potency, the confederated nations moved towards the land of reported giants. When they had arrived on the banks of the Mississippi, they sent a message to the Allegewi, to request permission to settle themselves in their neighbourhood. That haughty people refused the request, but they gave them leave to pass through their country, and seek a settlement farther towards the land of the rising sun. The Lenapes accordingly began to cross the Mississippi, when the Allegewi, seeing that their bands were very numerous, outnumbering the birds on the trees or the fish in the waters, made a furious attack upon those who had crossed, threatening all with destruction, if they dared to persist in coming to their side of the river. Fired at the treachery of these people, and maddened with the loss of their brothers in arms, the Lenapes retired to the thick covert to consult on what was best to be done. It was deliberated in council, whether it was better to retreat in the best manner they could, or put forth their utmost strength, and let the enemy see they were not cowards, but men—brave men, who would not suffer themselves to be driven into the woods, before they had tested the strength of the enemy, and seen the power of their arms in hurling the spear, and striking with the war-club, and the truth of their eye in levelling the bow. It was determined, that brave men never turned back, that the Lenape were brave men, and must steep their mocassins in the blood of their enemies. The Mengwe, who till now had only looked on while our nation had done the fighting, offered to join our warriors, if, when the country was conquered, they should be allowed to share it with us. The proposal pleased our councillors, and the two nations renewed the faith of the calumet, resolved to conquer or die. The next sun was fixed on to attack the Allegewi in their intrenchments.

It was night; the bands of the confederate nations were sleeping in their cabins, dreaming dreams of victory and glory, when Wangewaha, or the Hard Heart, sleeping in his tent, was aroused by the tread of a light foot on the earth at his side, and the music of a voice sweeter than that of the linnet or the thrush. Looking up he saw, by the beams of the moon, a tall and beautiful woman, straight as a hickory, and graceful as a young antelope. She wore over her shoulders a cloak made of the tender bark of the mulberry, interlaced with the white feathers of the swan, and the gay plumage of the snake bird and the painted vulture. Wangewaha started from his sleep, for he knew her to be the beautiful maiden whom he had seen in his dream, ere he quitted the land of his father's bones—the shape tall and erect, the eye black and sparkling, the foot small and swift, the teeth white and even, the glossy dark hair, and the small plump hand. He spoke to the beautiful stranger in mild accents, and the tones of her reply were as sweet as the breathings of a babe rocked to rest on the bough of a tree. He asked her who she was, and she replied she was a maiden from the camp of the Allegewi. "Why," he demanded, "had she come hither? Why had one so young and fair adventured her person in a hostile camp, in the dark hours of night, among fierce warriors, who had sworn the destruction of her nation?"

"I have come hither," replied the beautiful creature, "because I would escape the persecutions of a young warrior, the favourite of my father, who solicits me to become his wife. I love him not, I have told him so, yet he wishes to have me, while my heart revolts at the thought of becoming the companion of one, who boasts only the merit of being able to slay men weaker than himself; and of showing cheeks painted for war, and hands red with blood."

The Hard Heart, who felt not towards beautiful women the feeling which his name intimates, spoke to her words of consolation, and bade her go sleep with his sister, whom he called to him from another part of the cabin. But the passion of love arose in the warrior's heart, and he determined that, if the Great Spirit should give him victory in the approaching contest, the beautiful maiden should become his wife.