The Thunder Power of Rumbling-wings
The strange events of which I write, took place in the summer of 1840, when I, then a man in the full vigor of my early forties, chanced to be in charge of a museum expedition sent to explore an ancient Lenape burial site situated on a hilltop in the northwestern part of the State of New Jersey.
On the tenth day of June we encountered an unusually deep grave of circular form, some six feet in diameter, in which, at a distance from the surface of perhaps seven feet, we encountered a number of slabs of stone piled up in the form of a cairn.
Removing these with care, we found beneath them a skeleton, which, when carefully uncovered and brushed off, proved to be of a full-grown man, lying on his right side, with his knees drawn up at right angles to his body and his hands near his face. Beside his crumbling breastbone lay a tiny mask of stone, bearing two little perforations which showed the wear of a suspending cord, and near it a knife blade of purple argillite and a small pipe of baked clay, bearing a very neat pattern, drawn into its surface with a sharp point while the material was still soft. At each side of the skull were the chalky remains of some shell beads, rather larger and coarser than wampum, but similar in form; while near the feet a little pile of neatly-made flint arrow points told of the one-time presence of a sheaf or quiver of arrows.
What archæologist has not sat upon the brink of a newly uncovered, ancient grave and wished that the fleshless jaws before him could speak and tell their story? Or wished that he himself could be transported backward in time for a brief space to learn something of the life of a bygone day? So I sat and so I wished; and then we photographed our find as it lay, and removed the specimens for safe keeping.
As the hour was late, we did not touch the bones, however, intending to remove them upon the morrow, and so we left them for the night, still surrounded by some of the stone slabs.
After dark I bethought myself that I had forgotten to bring in my notebook, and recalled that I had left it on the pile of dirt beside the grave, and so, guiding my steps by the flickering flashes of lightning from an approaching thunder-shower, I made my way thither. I remember that I had found the book and had just turned back toward the camp, holding out my hand to feel the first splashes of rain, when a blinding flash and a violent concussion sent me reeling, reeling, down,—into darkness....
When I came to myself I could see nothing, but I knew it was raining steadily; I could hear the drops patter on the leaves; I could feel them on my body.
On my body? I must be naked! I felt my chest, it was bare and wet, my arms likewise. What had become of my clothes? I felt at my waist; it was belted, and in front hung something like a little apron, wet and slimy. My legs? I felt, and found them encased in long stockings of some sort, reaching nearly to the hips, and I could feel that some sort of supporters ran from them to the belt. My feet seemed covered with the same soft stockings which, like the apron, felt wet and slimy to the touch.