The Man with the Iron Hand

by John Carl Parish

Suddenly their weapons dropped. Older men among them, perhaps recognizing for the first time the pipe of peace which Marquette still held, restrained the impetuous young braves. Coming to the water’s edge as the white men drew nearer, two chiefs tossed their bows and quivers into the canoes and invited the strangers to come ashore in peace.

With signs and gestures Indians and white men talked. In vain did Marquette try, one after another, the six Indian languages which he knew. At length there came forward an old man who spoke a broken Illinois tongue. Through him Marquette asked many questions about the lower river and the sea. But the Indians only replied that the strangers could learn all they wished at a village of the Arkansas Indians, about ten leagues farther down the stream. The explorers were fed with sagamite and fish; and, not without some fear, they spent the night in the Indian village.

The next morning they continued their journey, taking the old man with them as an interpreter; and ahead of them went a canoe with ten Indians. They had not gone many leagues when they saw two canoes coming up the river to meet them. In one stood an Indian chief who held a calumet and made signs of peace. Chanting a strange Indian song, he gave the white men tobacco to smoke and sagamite and bread made from Indian corn to eat. Under the direction of their new guides the Frenchmen soon came to the village of the Arkansas, which lay near the mouth of the river of that name.

Here under the scaffold of the chief they were given seats on fine rush mats. In a circle about them were gathered the elders of the tribe; and around about the elders were the warriors; and beyond the warriors in a great crowd were the rest of the tribe eager to see and hear the strange men who had come down from the north. Among the young men was one who spoke the Illinois tongue better than the old man, and through him Marquette talked to the tribe. In his talk he told of the white man’s religion, and of the great French chief who had sent them down the valley of the Mississippi.

Then he asked them all manner of questions about the trip to the sea. Was it many days’ journey now? And what tribes were on the way?

It was only on occasions like this that the Indian boy understood what was said, for usually his companions in the canoes spoke the melodious but to him wholly unintelligible French. He now listened to the Illinois tongue with keen interest. The young interpreter was telling of their neighbors to the north and east and south and west. Four days’ journey to the west was the village of an Illinois tribe, and to the east were other friendly people from whom they bought hatchets, knives, and beads. But toward the great sea to the south, where the white men wished to go, were their enemies. Savage tribes with guns barred them from trade with the Spaniards. All along the lower river the fierce tribes were continually fighting; and woe betide the white men if they ventured farther, for they would never return.

As the Indians told of the dangers of the river below the mouth of the Arkansas River, large platters of wood were continually being brought in, heaped with sagamite, Indian corn, and the flesh of dogs. Nor did the feast end before the close of day.

Meditating upon the warnings of their hosts, the white men made ready for the night. When they had retired on beds raised about two feet from the ground at the end of their long bark-covered lodge, the Indians held a secret council. Some of the warriors had looked with envious eyes upon the canoes, clothes, and presents of the whites. Why not fall upon the strangers by night, beat out their brains with skull-crackers or Indian war clubs, and make away with the plunder? To some of the covetous Indians it was a tempting plan. The whites were defenseless and hundreds of leagues from their friends. Who was there to avenge their death?

But to the chief, who had welcomed the visitors with the pipe of peace, the bond of friendship was sacred. He broke up the schemes of the treacherous braves, dismissed the council, and sent for the white men. Then with the pipe of peace in his hand he danced before the strangers the sacred calumet dance; and as he closed the ceremony he gave into the hands of Marquette the calumet. It was a token, sacred among all Indians, that peace should not be broken, and that the whites would be unharmed.

The Frenchmen, however, did not sleep much. Joliet and the priest sat up far into the night and counseled together as to whether they should go on to the sea or turn back. They were now very near to the sea, they thought—so near that they were confident that the river continued southward to the Gulf of Mexico, instead of turning to the west or east to the Vermilion Sea or the Atlantic Ocean. Indeed, they believed that in two or three days they might reach the Gulf.