Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2

by James Athearn Jones

"A river and a lake should go together," said the younger.

"They should," answered she of the land, "nor will I be the one to separate them. I give thee the lake."

"How much loftier than all the mountains of my own clime is that which I see towering in the distance towards the land of the warm breezes!"

"That mountain is indeed very lofty," answered the dark Genius.

"I have a noble river, with a flowery bank rising above it, and I have a level lake, but thou hast not given me a mountain, to whose cool and refreshing breezes I may retire, when the fervid and scorching suns of summer invade the lowlands. I would—thou wilt deem me greedy as the hawk or the heron—I would have some such spot, whose breezes, when they kindly dispense health, nerve the soul to great actions, and within whose wild and inaccessible fastnesses, which, ever since Time was, have been the keepers of the free, the weak may find a resting-place, and the wearied by oppression a refuge."

"Take thou the mountain, and name what else thou wilt have."

"Only a few more rivers and a few more vales, which thou canst easily spare, and another mountain for a further refuge, and some more lakes to breed more wild-fowl in, and a forest or two well stocked with deer, and a part of the Great Lake to put my whales in—nothing more, except it be another vale, and another mountain, and another river, and a piece more of the sea."

The dark Genius of the land smiled at the narrow wishes of her younger sister, and replied, that she could spare them all. So the younger sister appropriated to herself the highest mountains, and the most pleasant vales, and the broadest lakes, and the most rapid rivers, and a large piece of the sea to put whales in, and some forests well stocked with deer, and said, "she had taken so little it was scarcely worth thanking for."

Then the dreamer saw in his sleep that, at her bidding, the strange beasts which came in the cloud issued forth to take possession. How their eyes gloated upon the fair gifts which had been made them by the kind spirit of the land! And how grateful they appeared to be, and how exceedingly kind and affectionate they were to the poor Indians! They stroked their heads gently with one hand, while with the other they released them from their oppressive burdens—their beaver skins and their maize—indeed they were too kind. Then to gratify them still further, they produced a burning water[36], which they distributed among them, assuring them of its power to create pleasing images in the mind, and to make bright visions dance before the eyes of those who drank it. The Indians drank as they were bidden, and realised the predicted effects. What a wonderful medicine was the strong water! Under its potent influence, the mirror of the soul became enlarged, and a thousand images, till then unseen, floated before the mental eye. Then might a man receive certain intimations of the object he should choose as his protecting spirit, and astonish his brothers by a medicine of strange proportions and great power. And secrets of the land of souls—the way to pass the "narrow bridge over the fearful river," and how to stay the anger of the dog that guards it at the point where the Huron passes—how to tread the sharp and steep rock upon which the Chippewa finds entrance to his land of rest—all this, and much more, to be attained by no other means, was learned from the strong waters given to the Abnakis by the strange spirit. And Wangewaha, the dreamer, woke from his sleep, rubbed his eyes, and indulged in deep thought of what the dream might portend.

Again he sunk to sleep, and again he dreamed. Still his dream was of strange creatures, aliens to his land, and usurpers of the rights of its native sons. But they had multiplied till their numbers were as the sands upon the sea shore. He stood in imagination upon a lofty hill, and cast his eyes upon the broad lands beneath him. How changed! The forests had been swept away, the land was cleared of its mossy old oaks, and lofty pines, and cedars, but, where they once raised their leafy heads to the winds of heaven, now rose cabins, white as the folds of a cloud, and glittering in the sun like a sheet of ice in a winter's day. The broad and rapid river, as well as the waters of the Great Lake, was marked in streaks of white foam by the many clouds traversing it, like that he had seen in his first dream. The lofty mountains were seamed like the breast of a tattooed warrior(2), by the roads which the strangers had made over it. The vales waved with the yellow wheat, and, herds of tame bisons lay resting on the grassy knolls, or stood grouped at the outlets of the fields, which the industrious strangers had girded in with fences of rock.