Many wondered, but none knew what lay in the Unknown Place across the Southern Sea, for no man had dared cross the churning waters to that island lair of the Devil Bird. But the Sachem’s eyes saw the turbulent waters not as danger, but as a bloody challenge. The Giant Manshope called out to the Great Spirit to give him the strength and cunning to follow the Devil Bird to its hiding place and slay him there. Then he strode boldly forth into the deep, treacherous waters.
Guided only by the stars, he came at length to the strange and feared Unknown Place, now Martha’s Vineyard. From the western end of the island, he saw majestically sheer cliffs which rose straight from the sea. At the narrowest end of the land, he saw something which made his heart sink, and his blood run cold in his veins, for there was a giant oak, its twisted exposed roots strewn with the white bleached bones of Indian children captured by the Devil Bird for countless years.
The Giant Manshope crept noiselessly towards the death tree. Under the enveloping shadows of its great branches he looked up, and saw the dim silhouette of the Devil Bird sleeping in the uppermost branches. Its head was beneath its wing, its beak dripped blood, and its belly was distended with gluttonous human feasting.
Manshope glanced at the stone tomahawk in his hand, and saw it gleam in the half-light. He fastened it to his belt, and then swung himself soundlessly up through the branches towards the sleeping Devil Bird. At last he reached his goal at the top of the Death Tree, so close to the Bird that the night breeze ruffled its feathers across Manshope’s cheek.
There he paused, gazing down at the Bird, hate in his eyes, his heart beating wildly with the excitement of near victory and revenge. He raised his weapon high over his head and brought it down with a crushing thud on the neck of the Devil Bird. The Great Evil One fell to earth, never to rise again.
Panting with excitement and triumph, Manshope waited until he was sure the Devil Bird was dead before he left the hated Death Tree and its sorrowful remains. But his triumph had a bitter taste, and his heart was heavy, for although he had vanquished the Great Evil One, his soul cried out in anguish for his beloved son.
Lost in sorrowful meditation, Manshope rested for a while at the northern end of the island before returning to his camp on the mainland. He drew forth his pipe, but the tobacco was dampened by the waters through which he had plunged, and would not burn, so he gathered some poke weed, and, loading his pipe, sat quietly smoking. As he smoked, the rings and swirls from his pipe billowed and rose through the early morning air. It floated across the Southern Sea, over the Cape moors and the lodges of the Indian camp, where his sorrowing squaw awaited his return.
Great was the rejoicing in the Indian lodges when Manshope’s people saw this smoke, for they knew that their Great Sachem would never linger to smoke his pipe while an enemy he was stalking was still alive.
The Great Devil Bird no longer ravaged and killed, and the Indians lived without fear once more. And when the sweet summer air drifted in from the woods, the mist lay low on the swamplands, and the fog bank from the sound curled in over the mainland just as the smoke from Giant Manshope’s pipe did on that morning—Indian mothers drew their children closer to the fire, and while the enveloping mists and fogs crept slowly in, they told them the legend of the Great Devil Bird, saying, “Here comes Old Manshope’s Smoke.”
