American Indian life

by Unknown

As I bent over to feel of my feet, something brushed against my cheek, something hard and cold, yet light and almost clinging. I put up my hand and felt; it seemed to be a string or rather loop of little beads.

Then I followed up with my fingers and found that the loop, with a number of other loops were, somehow or other, firmly attached to my ear in several different places from the lobe upward. I felt around and discovered there were so many of them that the top of the ear was bent over by their weight, and the lobe was somewhat stretched. I felt of each separate loop; each was firmly attached; and the other ear was in similar shape. I shook my head and could feel the swinging weight of them.

Puzzled, I started to run my fingers through my hair—a favorite habit of mine, and found that I had none! That is none to speak of—it was very short indeed, almost as if shaven, except for a bristly crest like a mule’s mane, which ran from front to back over the top of my head, and ended in a little pigtail or queue in the back.

Something moving against my breast as I moved, I felt it and found a little hard, cold, oval object slung from a string about my neck; near it on another string hung a wet and slimy bag, and what felt like a small knife in a sheath.

I was puzzled indeed—I could not make out what had happened to me. As I sat thinking, I must have dropped off into a doze in spite of the rain, for when I opened my eyes again it was daylight.

I looked about me; it was still raining and a brisk wind stirred the tree tops; but I seemed to be in a strange, wild country for, although to my left I could look off over a valley, my eye met no houses, roads, or clearings, just a waste of tossing tree tops, in fact no sign of man except a distant blur of smoke, rising apparently from among the trees. I looked behind me; there stood a great tree, its wood showing white, its bark practically stripped off, while broken branches littered the ground. It had been struck by lightning.

I looked at my hands; they were lean, and tawny in color instead of fat and freckled as I knew them; I looked at my legs; they were encased in soiled and worn buckskin leggings; upon my feet were moccasins puckered to a single seam down the front, near which were traces of colored patterns now nearly worn away—and still I did not understand.

I pulled the queue around and looked at it; the hair was black and neatly braided, whereas my own, in those days, was red; I pulled around the beads attached to my ears; they were white and apparently made of shell, but were too close to my eyes to see plainly.

Then I investigated the things hung about my neck, and noted, with a start, that the oval, hard object was the little stone mask we had found in the grave. I pulled the knife from its sheath; it was of stone—argillite—not purple from age, but black, fresh-looking, sharp. And when I looked in the bag, I found what I had come to expect, the little, decorated pipe of clay, and with it some damp, shriveled leaves which must have been some sort of tobacco.

I could not avoid the conclusion; I was somehow transported back into prehistoric times, and had assumed the body and belongings of the Indian whose skeleton we had unearthed.