The old man drew a deep sigh, and shaking his head, he said, "I know thee, thou art Summer!"
"True," said the young man, "and here behold my head—see it crowned with flowers! and my cheeks how they bloom—come near and touch me. Thou art Winter! I know thy power is great; but, father, thou darest not come to my country,—thy beard would fall off, and all thy strength would fail, and thou wouldst die!"
The old man felt this truth; for before the morning was come, he was seen vanishing away: but each, before they parted, expressed a hope that they might meet again before many moons.
INDIAN SONGS.
The language of the Chippewas, however figurative and significant, is not copious. In their speeches and songs they are emphatic and impressive by the continual repetition of the same phrase or idea; and it seems to affect them like the perpetual recurrence of a few simple notes in music, by which I have been myself wound up to painful excitement, or melted to tears.
A cousin of mine (I have now a large Chippewa cousinship) went on a hunting excursion, leaving his wife and child in his lodge. During his absence, a party of Sioux carried them off, and on his return he found his fire extinguished, and his lodge empty. He immediately blackened his face (Indian mourning), and repaired to the lodge of his wife's brother, to whom he sang, in a kind of mournful recitative, the following song; the purport of which seems to be partly a request for aid against his enemies, and partly an excuse for the seeming fault of leaving his family unprotected in his wigwam.
My brother-in-law, do not wrongfully accuse me for this seeming neglect in exposing my family, for I have come to request aid from my brother-in-law!
The cry of my little son was heard as they carried him across the prairie, and therefore I have come to supplicate aid from my brother-in-law.
And the voice also of my wife was heard as they carried her across the prairie; do not then accuse your brother-in-law, for he has come to seek aid from his brother-in-law!