Indian Legends of Minnesota

by Unknown

His voice, low, musical, recounted o'er
Strange tales of days when other forms he wore:
How, far above the highest airy plain
Where soars and sings the weird, fantastic crane,
Wafted like thistle-down he strayed at will,
With power almost supreme for good or ill,
Over all lands and nations near and far,
Beyond the seas, or 'neath the northern star,
And long had pondered where were best to dwell
When he should deign a human shape to wear.
"Whether to be of them that buy and sell,
With fish-scale eyes, and yellow corn-silk hair, Or with the stone-men chase the giant game.
But wander where you may, no land can claim
A sky so fair as ours; the sun each day
Circles the earth with glaring eye, but sees
No lakes or plains so beautiful as these;
Nor e'er hath trod or shall upon the earth
A race like ours of true Dakota birth.
Our chiefs and sages, who so wise as they
To counsel or to lead in peace or war,
And heal the sick by deep mysterious law.
Our beauteous warriors, lithe of limb and strong,
Fierce to avenge their own and others' wrong,
What gasping terror smites their battle song
When, night-birds gathering near the dawn of day,
Or wolves in chorus ravening for the prey,
They burst upon the sleeping Chippeway;[11]
Their women wail whose hated fingers dare
To reap the harvest of our midnight hair;
Swifter than eagles, as a panther fleet,
A hungry panther seeking for his meat,
So swift and noiseless their avenging feet.

---

Dakota matrons truest are and best,
Dakota maidens too are loveliest."

He ceased, and soon, departing through the night,
She watched his burly form till out of sight.
And then the Raven spoke in whispers low:
"Gray Cloud demands our daughter's hand, and she
Unto his tipi very soon must go." Winona's mother sought to make reply,
But something checked her in his tone or eye.
Again the Raven spoke, imperiously:
"Winona is of proper age to wed;
Her suitor suits me, let no more be said."

Winona heard no more; a rising wave
Of mingled indignation, fear, and shame
Like a resistless tempest shook her frame,
The earth swam round her, and her senses reeled;
Better for her a thousand times the grave
Than life in Gray Cloud's tent, but what could she
Against the stern, implacable decree
Of one whose will was never known to yield?

Winona fled, scarce knowing where or how;
Fled like a phantom through the moonlight cool,
Until she stood upon the rocky brow
That overlooked a deep sequestered pool,
Where slumbering in a grove-encircled bay
Lake Minnetonka's purest waters lay.
Unto the brink she rushed, but faltered there—
Life to the young is sweet; in vain her eye
Swept for a moment grove and wave and sky
With mute appeal. But see, two white swans fair
Gleamed from the shadows that o'erhung the shore,
Like moons emerging from a sable screen;
Swimming abreast, what haughty king and queen,
With arching necks their regal course they bore.
Winona marveled at the unwonted sight
Of white swans swimming there at dead of night,
Her frenzy half beguiling with the scene. Unearthly heralds sure, for in their wake
What ruddy furrows seamed the placid lake.
Almost beneath her feet they came, so near
She might have tossed a pebble on their backs,
When lo, their long necks pierced the waters clear,
As down they dove, two shafts of purest light,
And chasing fast on their descending tracks,
A swarm of spirals luminous and white,
Swirled to the gloom of nether depths from sight.

Then all was still for some few moments' space,
So smooth the pool, so vanished every trace,
It seemed that surely the fantastic pair
Had been but snowy phantoms passing there.
Winona hardly hoped to see them rise,
But while she gazed with half-expectant eyes,
The waters strangely quivered in a place
About the bigness of a tipi's space,
Where weirdly lighting up the hollow wave
Beat a deep-glowing heart, whose pulsing ray
Now faded to a rosy flush away,
Now filled with fiery glare the farthest cave.
A shapeless bulk arose, then, taking form,
Bloomed forth upon the bosom of the lake
A crystal rose, or hillock mammiform,
And round its base the curling foam did break
As round a sunny islet in a storm;
And on it poised a swiftly changing form,
With filmy mantle falling musical,
And colors of the floating bubble's ball,
Fair and elusive as the sprites that play,
Bright children of the sun-illumined spray,
'Mid rainbows of a mountain waterfall. Then mingling with the falling waters came
In whispers sibilant Winona's name;
So indistinct and low that voice intense,
That she, half frightened, cowering in the grass
In much bewilderment at what did pass,
Till thrice repeated noted not its sense.

She rose, and on the very brink defined,
Against the sky in silhouette outlined,
Erect before the Water-Demon stood.
Again those accents weird her wonder stirred,
And this is what the listening maiden heard:
"Thy fate, Winona, hangs on thine own choice
To scorn or heed the Water-Demon's voice.
Gone are thy pleasant days of maidenhood,
And evil hours draw nigh, but knowest thou not,
That what thou fleest is the common lot
Of all thy sisters? Thou must be the bride
Of one thou lovest not, must toil for him,
Watch for his coming, and endure his whim;
Must share his tent, and lying at his side
Weep for another till thine eyes grow dim.
And he, so fondly loved, will pass thee by
Indifferent with cold averted eye;
E'en he, whose wanton hands and hated arms
Have crushed the fair flower of thy maidenhood,
Will weary of thy swiftly-fading charms,
And seek another when thy beauty wanes.
Aha, thou shudderest; in thy tense veins,
Fierce and rebellious, leaps the mingling blood
Of countless warriors, high of soul and brave;
And would'st thou quench their spirit 'neath the wave? Is Gray Cloud's life more dear to thee than thine?
The village sleeps, unguarded is his tent,
Thy knife is keen, and unto thee is lent
A spell to-night of potency malign.
Cradled in blissful dreams alone he lies,
And he shall stray so deep in sleep's dominions,
He would not waken though the rushing pinions
Of his own Thunder-Bird should shake the sky.
All freedom-loving spirits are with thee,
Strike hard and fear not as thou would'st be free;
Lest thine own hatred prove too weak a charm,
The Water-Demon's hate shall nerve thine arm."

The Water-Demon sank and disappeared,
And faint and fainter fell those accents weird,
Until the air was silent as the grave,
Still as December's crystal seal the wave.
Homeward again Winona took her way.
How changed in one short hour! no longer now
The song-birds singing at her heart, but there
A thousand gnashing furies made their lair,
And urged her on; her nearest pathway lay
Over a little hill, and on its brow
A group of trees, whereof each blackened bough
Bore up to heaven as if in protest mute
Its clustering load of ghastly charnel fruit,[12]
The swaddled forms of all the village dead—
Maid, lusty warrior, and toothless hag,
The infant and the conjurer with his bag,
Peacefully rotting in their airy bed.
As on a battle plain she saw them lie,
Fouling the fairness of the moonlit sky; And heavily there flapped above her head,
Some floating drapery or tress of hair,
Loading with pestilential breath the air
That fanned her temples, or the reeking wing
Of unclean bird obscenely hovering;
And something crossed her path that halting nigh,
At the intruder glared with evil eye,—
She hardly heeded passing swiftly by.

Leaving behind that hideous umbrage fast,
What wraith escaping from its tenement,
Winona through the sleeping village passed,
And pausing not, to Gray Cloud's tipi went,
Laid back the door, and with a stealthy tread,
Entered and softly crouched beside his head.
Her gaze that seemed to pierce his inmost thought,
Keen as the ready knife her hand had sought,
And through the open door the slant moonbeams
Smiting the sleeper's face awaked him not.
He vaguely muttered in his wandering dreams
Of "medicine," and of the Thunder-Bird.
As if to go, her knife she half returned;
Whether her woman's heart with pity stirred,
Or superstitious awe, she slightly turned,
But gazing still, over his features came
The semblance of a smile, and his arms moved,
Clasping in rosy dreams some form beloved,
And his lips moved, and though no sound she heard,
She thought they shaped her name, and a red flame
Leaped to her brain, and through her vision passed; A raging demon seized and filled her frame,
And like a lightning flash leaped forth her knife:
That cold keen heart-pang is his last of life;
The Water-Demon is avenged at last.