Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the Elephant

by Mathew Joseph Holt

Logan had brought the two captive children directly to Shauane-Town. As they were too young to effect their escape, they were allowed to wander at will in and around the village, where they played with and were treated as the native children.

A week after his return, at a tribal council he referred to the massacre of his family at the mouth of Yellow Creek, spoke of his present loneliness and asked to adopt the two children as his own, saying: “* * * They are so young they will soon forget their own people and language and I shall bring them up as my own children.” His request having been granted the two children were brought before the council.

The adoption of the girl was quite simple; she was stripped of her clothing and sent out naked to play with the other little girls. The boy’s adoption was more formal. After being stripped he was seated in the center of the council; two old squaws, called in for the purpose, deliberately plucked out his curls, strand by strand, until only the scalp lock was left; a small tuft, three inches in diameter on his crown, which was stiffened and discolored with an ointment of graphite and bear grease, then certain tribal designs were painted upon his body with the juice of the puccoon root. This completed the ceremony.

They were just sending him out, when a very old and highly respected medicine man, the chief priest of the nation, and to whom were attributed occult powers of a high order; came into the council hall and walking over [pg 124] to the boy, stooped and removed from his neck a gold chain to which was attached a cross of ebony and pearl; this he examined carefully. Then turning to the council he said: “This child is of the sacred priesthood. He has the look in his face and eyes and his body is without blemish, as is required by the order. Let no one do him harm or cross his will, because in what he does he will be guided by the Great Spirit. The night before Logan brought him I saw the boy in a dream and was told of his coming and his mission. It is one of peace. He will be the friend of all men; of Long Knives and Indians alike. He does not know your language and will be carried home by Logan before the flying of the cahonks or the first snow-fall. By then he will speak your tongue as well as your own children and will never forget a word. It is the will of the Great Spirit. In proof that what I say is true, as he steps over the threshold of your council lodge he will drop as one dead; and for some days will lie in coma. When this passes he will not speak the language of the Long Knives so long as he remains with you. You will see in him many things that are strange; because his are a mind and spirit that see where yours cease seeing.”

After mumbling certain incantations which no one understood, he drew from his girdle a case made from a hollow bone and taking from it needles of fish bone and certain pigments; tattooed upon the chest of the boy an enlarged likeness of the cross he wore; and beneath it pricked the tribal sign of the Mingo priesthood. All this the little boy endured without outcry, though his face was ashy pale and his colorless lips moved in prayer.

Then the priest took from his own waist a girdle of wampum of unusual pattern and fastened it about the waist of the boy and extending his hands above the boy’s [pg 125] head, murmured yet more of his incantations. Then indicating the ceremony was completed, walked away.

The boy was told to go to his lodge. As he stepped over the threshold he dropped apparently lifeless; and no wonder; he had been subjected to a terrible strain and his blood was filled with impure pigments.

He was carried by Logan to their lodge and placed upon a pallet of deer skins. An old woman was called to attend him. He lay in a deep sleep until sundown, when he sat up and was given food and drink. A few minutes later he dropped back into unconsciousness which lasted for eighteen hours; at the end of which time, rousing from his torpor, he walked to a brook, where he bathed, removing all the grease and pigment. The tattooed cross and Mingo tribal signs stood out upon his body like a great blotch of blood on a statue of white marble. He returned to his pallet, smiled at Dorothy and after eating slept again.

For several days he was in a stupor and slept much of the time. At the end of a week the tattooed marks were no longer inflamed and he had recovered.

Not far from the village on the brow of a hill was a green mound, which rumor said was a place of burial; though the Indians knew not what people had made or used it. As the view from its summit was extensive, the timber having been burned away, the mound was used for signal fires and because of superstition, never visited except for that purpose.