The Legends of the Iroquois

by Unknown

"The Senecas should be driven away by the warriors of the Mohawks and the Onondagas," he cried, "for not only are they child-stealers and cowards, but traitors, who have forgotten that the Great Spirit made the council-fire and commanded that it should not be violated. Orontadeka is ready to go on his long journey. Let the warriors advance and see the cowards run through the forest. Orontadeka and his friends will teach them how to die."

The guards over the captive Mohawks seized their victims and raised their heavy stone-hatchets to strike the death-blows. The Mohawks and Onondagas knew that advance on their part meant certain death to their chiefs and the other prisoners, but they prepared to go forward with a rush.

Then the voice of one of the young Mohawk girls rose in a cry that fastened the attention of the warriors of both parties. Her gaze was directed toward the sun, and from her lips came words that carried fear and consternation to all their hearts.

"See, see, my Brothers! The Great Spirit hides his smiling face and will not look upon the battle of the red men. He will go away and leave them in darkness if they burn the villages and with their poisoned arrows send the hunters and the women and the children on their long journey before they have been called. Look thou, my brothers, he has seen the Mohawk maidens happy in the lodges of the Senecas, and he will not look upon them in misery and death. He hides his face, my brothers! He hides his face!"

A moan of terrible fear went up from the warriors men who could meet death on the chase or in the battle with a smile were unnerved by that awful spectacle. They saw a black disc moving forward over the face of an unclouded sun.

The guards released their prisoners and fell at their feet. Mohawks, Senecas and Onondagas mingled, imploring each other for pardon and protesting the most profound friendship. The Seneca women and children hurried from the woods, where they had been in hiding, and lent their voices to the general clamor of fear. The wild, savage faces, streaked with the various colored earths and pigments, were turned in fearful apprehension toward the fast-darkening heavens, becoming wilder and more savage by the terrible fear that filled them. The sachems and wise men hid their faces in their fur robes, and the warriors groveled in terror upon the ground. The eagle, the hawk and flocks of smaller birds darted blindly among the branches of the trees, while strange cries of alarm and distress came from every side. The panther and the bear ran whimpering and whining with the rabbit; the fox and other denizens of the forest sought the frightened red men for protection, or lay trembling and panting under the cover of some prostrate giant of the forest.

On, on crept that fearful black shadow, eating its way into the disc of the beautiful sun, like a mighty demon that had come to blot out of existence the source of light and warmth and life, while over the fresh and budding earth spread the ghostly gloom that never fails to inspire the most careless observer with awe. The flowers that filled the woods with such profusion closed as though night had suddenly fallen upon them; the warmth and fragrance of the day that had opened with such glory gave way to the damps of evening, while the stars and planets appeared again in the heavens. Over the whole face of nature was thrown an unearthly, cadaverous hue, and in the sudden chill everything was cold and sodden with the falling dew.

At last, through that awful gloom, the frightened and trembling red men saw the once tall and erect, but now bent and tottering, form of Sagoyountha, the aged sachem of the Senecas, creeping forth from his wigwam. Reaching the center of the terror-stricken assemblage, the aged man appeared to be suddenly endowed with the vigor of youth, and stood before them like a mighty warrior, while his scarred and wrinkled face, upon which had beaten the storms of more than a hundred winters, was turned toward the dread spectacle in the heavens, the like of which even Sagoyountha had never looked upon. His voice rang once more with the clear tones that had awakened the echoes of the forests long before any of his listeners were born, and it sounded strangely sharp and loud in the awesome silence that prevailed.

"My children, Sagoyountha speaks to you in the voice of the past, but his eyes are looking into the future. The Great Spirit is angry with his children, for he would have them live in peace. He has drawn the door of his wigwam before his smiling face, and his children will see him no more, unless they smoke the pipe that he gave their fathers when he sent them forth from the Happy Hunting-Grounds. Sagoyountha has spoken. Will his children hear his voice?"