Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the Elephant

by Mathew Joseph Holt

John Calvin, who was the only child in the village permitted to go where he pleased, even to the council lodge and that of the medicine man, each day climbed to the summit and for an hour or more sat upon the signal rock, scarcely moving, lost in dreams or visions. The whole tribe watched him with superstitious awe.

[pg 126] Rumor of the child’s strange conduct spread throughout the Mingo nation and fierce, wild chiefs and warriors would watch him seated in silence upon the mound and as he walked about the village deferentially made room for him. They said: “The boy is so different from other Long Knives, he says nothing, they talk all the time.”

Dorothy grew half afraid of her old playmate, who when she spoke to him in English answered by a word or two in the Mingo tongue if he answered at all, having very quickly picked up a few common words. When he was not alone upon the mound they would go to the playground of the children and listen to and watch them. It was thus they learned to speak the language, he very quickly and Dorothy more slowly. In a little while they were playing with the Indian children, usually on or in the river; and both soon learned to swim and to paddle about in small canoes.

While they were prisoners at Shauane-Town the widow of Pukeshirrwan, whose husband was killed in the battle of Point Pleasant, gave birth to three posthumous children, one of whom was the Prophet. Dorothy grew very fond of the three little babies and spent much of her time playing the part of nurse to them.

Tecumseh, a brother of the three babies, was of the same age and a playfellow of the prisoners. Between them a friendship grew up, which lasted until he was killed at the battle of the Thames.

These Indian children were of the family or totem of the Panther. The name Tecumseh for a while was applied to all the male children of the family and meant flying across. When John Calvin was dedicated to the priesthood, he was adopted into their family instead of Logan’s; and under the cross on his breast was inscribed the sign of the Panther.

[pg 127] The young prisoners throughout the summer into mid-September ran naked, grew dark of skin and lapsed into the habits and speech of the Indian children. It seemed they were beginning to forget their own people. They were even taken with a hunting party into the country south of the “Oyo” into the land Kentucke, given in Charlevoix’s map of New France as the “Pays du Chouarrons” (Land of the Shauanese). Here while hunting, a fawn closely pursued ran to John Calvin, who put his arms about it and would not let it be killed. After the hunters left he turned it loose.

When the weather grew frosty they were dressed in doe skin clothing and moccasins, ornamented as those of a chief’s children; and slept on a bear skin wrapped in a vividly colored blanket, purchased from a French trader at Chicasaw Falls.

One morning in early November they were roused from sleep by Logan and told they were to be carried home across the great mountain. Many of the tribe gathered to see them off. Tecumseh gave John a bow, quiver and arrows and to Dorothy beaded moccasins. The priest took the old girdle from around him and in its place substituted a new one; which in sign language recited that he had been adopted into the family of the Panther and belonged to the Mingo priesthood. He was told to preserve and wear it and that no Indian henceforth would harm him.

The children were placed upon a doe skin pallet in the bottom of the canoe; then Logan and the two Indians who had helped kidnap them took their seats in the canoe, which, shoved from the shore, glided out into the river, and was soon paddled out of sight around a bend of the river; their Indian friends standing on the bank and watching until it disappeared.