Oak Openings

by James Fenimore Cooper

While the young men eagerly pointed out the precise spots where the scent was the strongest, Peter maintained the most unmoved gravity. He did not kneel to smell the rocks, like the other chiefs, for this an innate sense of propriety told him would be undignified; but he made his observations closely, and with a keen Indian-like attention to every little circumstance that might aid him in arriving at the truth. All this time, great was the awe and deep the admiration of the lookers-on. Onoah had succeeded in creating a moral power for himself among the Indians of the northwest which much exceeded that of any other red man of that region. The whites scarcely heard of him, knew but little of his career, and less of his true character, for both were shrouded in mystery. There is nothing remarkable in this ignorance of the pale-faces of the time. They did not understand their own leaders; much less the leaders of the children of the openings, the prairies, and the forest. At this hour, what is really known by the mass of the American people of the true characters of their public men? No nation that has any claim to civilization and publicity knows less, and for several very obvious reasons. The want of a capital in which the intelligence of the nation periodically assembles and whence a corrected public opinion on all such matters ought constantly to flow, as truth emanates from the collisions of minds, is one of these reasons. The extent of the country, which separates men by distances that no fact can travel over without incurring the dangers of being perverted on the road, is another. But the most fatal of al he influences that tend to mislead the judgment of the American citizen, is to be found in the abuse of a machinery that was intended to produce an exactly contrary effect. If the tongue was given to man to communicate ideas to his fellows, so has philosophy described it as “a gift to conceal his thoughts.” If the press was devised to circulate truth, so has it been changed into a means of circulating lies. One is easily, nay, more easily, sent abroad on the four winds of the heavens than the other. Truth requires candor, impartiality, honesty, research, and industry; but a falsehood, whether designed or not, stands in need of neither. Of that which is the most easily produced, the country gets the most; and it were idle to imagine that a people who blindly and unresistingly submit to be put, as it might be, under the feet of falsehood, as respects all their own public men, can ever get very accurate notions of those of other nations.

Thus was it with Onoah. His name was unknown to the whites, except as a terrible and much-dreaded avenger of the wrongs of his race. With the red men it was very different. They had no “forked tongues” to make falsehood take the place of truth; or if such existed they were not believed. The Pottawattamies now present knew all about Tecumseh, [Footnote: A “tiger stooping for his prey.”] of whom the whites had also various and ample accounts. This Shawanee chief had long been active among them, and his influence was extended far and near. He was a bold, restless, and ingenious warrior; one, perhaps, who better understood the art of war, as it was practised among red men, than any Indian then living. They knew the name and person, also, of his brother Elkswatawa, [Footnote: “A door opened.”] or the Prophet, whose name has also become incorporated with the histories of the times. These two chiefs were very powerful, though scarce dwelling regularly in any tribe; but their origin, their careers, and their characters were known to all, as were those of their common father, Pukeesheno, [Footnote: “I light from fly—“] and their mother, Meethetaske.[Footnote: “A turtle laying her eggs in the sand.”] But with Onoah it was very different. With him the past was as much of a mystery as the future. No Indian could say even of what tribe he was born. The totem that he bore on his person belonged to no people then existing on the continent, and all connected with him, his history, nation, and family, was conjecture and fancy.

It is said that the Indians have traditions which are communicated only to a favored few, and which by them have been transmitted from generation to generation. An enlightened and educated red man has quite recently told us in person, that he had been made the repository of some of these traditions, and that he had thus obtained enough of the history of his race to be satisfied that they were not derived from the lost tribes of Israel, though he declined communicating any more. It is so natural to resort to secrecy in order to extend influence, that we can have no difficulty In believing the existence of the practice; there probably being no other reason why Free Masonry or Odd Fellowship should have recourse to such an expedient, but to rule through the imagination in preference to the judgment. Now Peter enjoyed all the advantages of mystery. It was said that even his real name was unknown, that of Onoah having been given in token of the many scalps he took, and that of Wa-wa-nosh, which he also sometimes bore, having been bestowed on him by adoption in consequence of an act of favor extended to him from an Ojebway of some note, while that of Peter was clearly derived from the whites. Some of his greatest admirers whispered that when the true name of the “Tribeless” should get to be known, his origin, early career, and all relating to him would at once become familiar to every red man. At present, the Indians must rest content with what they saw and understood. The wisdom of Wa-wa-nosh made itself felt in the councils; his eloquence no speaker has equalled for ages; as for his vengeance on the enemies of his race, that was to be estimated by the scalps he had taken. More than this no Indian was to be permitted to know, until the mission of this oracle and chief was completed.

Had one enlightened by the education of a civilized man been there, to watch the movements and countenance of Peter as he scented the whiskey, and looked in vain for the cause of the odor, and for a clew to the mystery which so much perplexed the Pottawattamies, he would probably have discovered some reason to distrust the sincerity of this remarkable savage's doubts. If ever Peter was an actor, it was on that occasion. He did not, in the least, fall into any of the errors of his companions; but the scent a good deal confounded him at first. At length he came to the natural conclusion, that this unusual odor was in some way connected with the family he had left on the other shore; and from that moment his mind was at ease.

It did not suit the views of Peter, however, to explain to the Pottawattamies that which was now getting to be so obvious to himself. On the contrary, he rather threw dust into the eyes of the chiefs, with a view to bring them also under the influence of superstition. After making his observations with unmoved gravity, he promised a solution of the whole affair when they should again meet in the Openings, and proposed to recross the river. Before quitting the shore Peter and Crowsfeather had a clear understanding on the subject of their respective movements; and, as soon as the former began to paddle up against the wind, the latter called his young men together, made a short address, and led them into the woods, as if about to proceed on a march of length. The party, notwithstanding, did not proceed more than a mile and a half, when it came to a halt, and lighted a fire in order to cook some venison taken on the way.

When Peter reached the south shore, he found the whole group assembled to receive him. His tale was soon told. He had talked with the Pottawattamies, and they were gone. The canoes, however, must be carried to the other shore and left there, in order that their owners might recover their property when they returned. This much had Peter promised, and his pale-face friends must help him to keep his word. Then he pointed to the Openings as to their place of present safety. There they would be removed from all immediate danger, and he would accompany them and give them the countenance and protection of his name and presence. As for going south on the lake, that was impossible, so long as the wind lasted, and it was useless even could it be done. The troops had all left Chicago, and the fort was destroyed.

Parson Amen and Corporal Flint, both of whom were completely deluded by Peter, fancying him a secret friend of the whites, in consequence of his own protestations to that effect and the service he had already rendered them, in appearance at least, instantly acquiesced in this wily savage's proposal. It was the best, the wisest, nay, the only thing that now could be done. Mackinaw was gone, as well as Chicago, and Detroit must be reached by crossing the peninsula, instead of taking the easier but far more circuitous route of the lakes. Gershom was easily enough persuaded into the belief of the feasibility, as well as of the necessity, of this deviation from his original road, and he soon agreed to accompany the party.

With le Bourdon the case was different. He understood himself and the wilderness. For him the wind was fair, and there was no necessity for his touching at Mackinaw at all. It is true, he usually passed several days on that pleasant and salubrious island, and frequently disposed of lots of honey there; but he could dispense with the visit and the sales. There was certainly danger now to be apprehended from the Ottawas, who would be very apt to be out on the lake after this maritime excursion against the fort; but it was possible even to elude their vigilance. In a word, the bee-hunter did not believe in the prudence of returning to the Openings, but thought it by far the wisest for the whole party to make the best of its way by water to the settlements. All this he urged warmly on his white companions, taking them aside for that purpose, and leaving Peter and Pigeonswing together while he did so.

But Parson Amen would as soon have believed that his old congregation in Connecticut was composed of Philistines, as not to believe that the red men were the lost tribes, and that Peter, in particular, was not especially and elaborately described in the Old Testament. He had become so thoroughly possessed by this crotchet as to pervert everything that he saw, read, or heard, into evidence, of some sort or other, of the truth of his notions. In this respect there was nothing peculiar in the good missionary's weakness, it being a failing common to partisans of a theory, to discover proofs of its truths in a thousand things in which indifferent persons can find even no connection with the subject at all. In this frame of mind the missionary would as soon think of letting go his hold on the Bible itself, as think of separating from an Indian who might turn out any day to be a direct representative of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. Not to speak irreverently, but to use language that must be familiar to all, the well-meaning missionary wished to be in at the death.

Corporal Flint, too, had great faith in Peter. It was a part of the scheme of the savage to make this straight for-ward soldier an instrument in placing many scalps in hit power; and though he had designed from the first to execute his bloody office on the corporal himself, he did not intend to do so until he had made the most of him as a stool-pigeon. Here were four more pale-faces thrown in his power, principally by means of the confidence he had awakened in the minds of the missionary and the soldier; and that same confidence might be made instrumental in adding still more to the number. Peter was a sagacious, even a far-seeing savage, but he labored under the curse of ignorance. Had his information been of a more extended nature, he would have seen the utter fallacy of his project to destroy the pale-faces altogether, and most probably would have abandoned it.