THE COMING OF THE STRANGERS
It was many days later, and the quiet and beauty of June had come upon
the Mississippi Valley. From in front of the Peoria lodges on the banks
of the Iowa River, a slender trail slipped off across the prairies
through two leagues of sunshine over a country fair to see, and came at
length to the west bank of the Mississippi. But on this summer day no
Indian traveled the pathway that led from the village. There was no one
in the streets of the Indian town, and no movement to be seen save the
slow rising of smoke from the tops of the three hundred lodges which
dotted the hill like so many long arbors, with rounded roofs made
waterproof by layers of plaited rush mats. But from the lodges came the
murmur of voices, for inside the windowless walls the Indians of the
Peoria tribe were gathered.
Down the center line within each lodge four or five fires were burning,
and beside each fire two families made their home. Indian women squatted
by the smouldering embers, or pounded corn into meal in stone bowls;
while here and there on rush mats or on the dirt floor sat the men with
tattooed and sinewy bodies, smoking long-stemmed pipes or mending bows.
Against the walls brown papooses, on end in their cases, blinked at the
light from doorway and fires or gazed stolidly and silently at nothing.
Life among the lodges, except in time of war, was uneventful. Nor was
there on this day in late June any reason to look for events other than
those which had fallen upon the tribe for generations.
Then of a sudden the village was startled by a shout. It was not that
peculiar cry of war which sometimes echoed along the valley, nor yet the
cry of returning hunters or warriors. It had an odd new note in it that
halted the busy work of the Indian women and woke to activity the
dreaming braves. Pipes were laid aside, stones with which the squaws
were grinding corn fell quiet into the bowls, and papooses were
forgotten as the villagers swarmed out of the lodges into the sunlight.
Strange was the sight which met their curious gaze. There in the pathway
that came over from the Mississippi were two men. The Peorias had seen
no Indians like these. Although it was the month of June the strangers
were covered from head to foot with garments of cloth. One, a man yet in
his twenties, was dressed in a coat and heavy breeches; the other, a
quietfaced man somewhat older than his companion, wore a long black
robe, gathered about his waist by a cord and reaching to his feet. Swung
from this cord was a string of large beads from which hung a cross.
Unannounced these strange beings had appeared in the pathway before the
village almost as if dropped by some spirit from the sky. No paint was
on their pale faces, no feathers in their hair. They carried no weapons
and displayed neither the pipe of war with its red paint and feathers
nor the pipe of peace that told of the coming of friends. Yet there were
those among the Indian villagers who doubtless knew whence the strangers
came. Perhaps among them were some of the Illinois warriors who, six
years before, had made a visit to a group of cabins many leagues to the
north, on the shore of Lake Superior, and who had there seen the
energetic fur traders, with their blanket coats and stout breeches, and
the Jesuit priests who, dressed like this man in black gown and hood,
had pushed their way into the villages all about the Great Lakes.
Perhaps in the journeys which the Peorias sometimes made to the village
of their Kaskaskia brothers over on the Illinois River, they had heard
of the men with white faces who lived near Green Bay and at the Straits
of Mackinac.
The word quickly passed among the men of the Peoria village that these
two strangers were of the great French nation from over the sea.
Moreover, since it was customary for the Indian to be hospitable to
peaceable visitors, these two men who had appeared so unexpectedly in
the pathway must be fitly welcomed. Four Indians—old men with authority
in the tribe—stepped out from the crowd and advanced down the path. They
walked slowly, two of them holding above their heads in the glowing
sunlight the calumets or pipes of peace decorated with feathers and
finely ornamented. Without a word they drew near the strangers, holding
their pipes to the sky as if offering them to the sun to smoke. Finally
they stopped and gazed attentively, yet courteously, upon the white men.
Then spoke up the man in the black gown. “Who are you?” he said in a
broken Algonquian tongue.
“We are Illinois,” the old men answered. There was pride in their tones,
for the name Illinois means “the men”—as if no other Indians were so
worthy to be called men. Then they gave the white men the pipes of peace
to smoke and invited them to visit the lodges.
Together the Indians and their guests walked up the path to the village.
At the door of one of the lodges was an old man who stood naked and
erect, with hands extended to the sun. Toward this lodge the strangers
made their way; and as they drew near, the old man spoke:
“How beautiful is the sun, O Frenchmen, when thou comest to visit us!
All our village awaits thee and thou shalt enter all our lodges in
peace.”
Within the lodge were many of the tribe, and in their minds was great
wonder as they looked upon the curious men from the East. The elders of
the tribe again gave to the visitors the pipe of peace; and when they
had smoked, the Indians also drew upon the calumet, thus binding upon
themselves peace and good will to their strange guests.
A little way off was a group of lodges where lived the greatest chief of
the tribe. When he heard of the coming of the white men, he sent to
invite them to his lodge. The strangers accepted, and a great retinue
attended them as they passed through the village. Eager to see such
unusual visitors, the Indians followed them in throngs. Some lay in the
grass and watched them as they passed by; others ran ahead, and then
walked back to meet them. Yet without noise and with great courtesy they
looked upon the two white men. Finally they all came to the lodge of the
Peoria chief.
The chief stood in his doorway, while on either side of him stood an old
man. Naked were the three, and up toward the sun they held the
long-stemmed calumet. With a few dignified words the chief drew the
white men into his lodge, where again they smoked together in
friendship. Then silence fell upon those within the lodge, for the time
had come when the strangers should tell of their mission. Impassive but
full of expectancy, the Indians waited. It was the man in the black gown
who spoke; and after the manner of the Indians he gave them four
presents and with each present he gave them a message.
Silently the red men listened as with his first present he told them of
the object of his coming. He was Jacques Marquette, a priest of the
Order of Jesuits, and his companion was Louis Joliet, a fur trader and
explorer of the great French nation. They had come journeying peaceably
to visit the tribes that dwelt upon the Mississippi, and they were eager
to go as far as the sea into which the Great River flowed.
Again he gave them a present and told them of the God of the white men,
who had created the Indian as well, and who had sent the black-robed
priests into the far corners of the earth to tell the Indians of his
glory. Then a third present he gave to the Peorias and told them of the
great chief of the French who sent word that he had conquered the fierce
Iroquois and made peace everywhere. With the fourth and last present he
begged the Peorias to tell him of the Indian nations to the south along
the windings of the great river and beside the sea into which it flowed.
When the priest ceased speaking, the chief of the Peorias rose. Beside
him stood an Indian boy of about ten years. He was not a Peoria, but the
captive who had been taken in battle and adopted into the chief’s
family. Placing his hand on the boy’s head, the chief spoke these
words:—
“I thank thee, Black Gown, and thee, O Frenchman, for having taken so
much trouble to come to visit us. Never has the earth been so beautiful
or the sun so bright as to-day. Never has our river been so calm or so
free from rocks, which thy canoes have removed in passing. Never has our
tobacco tasted so good or our corn appeared so fine as we now see it.
Here is my son whom I give thee to show thee my heart.”
Thus the captive Indian lad came to be one of the party of explorers and
to share their strange wanderings and adventures in the Great Valley.
As the priest spoke of the God of the French who had sent his men across
seas and into forests, the Indian chief, and those who sat with him,
thought of their own manitous and gods, and of their own medicine men
who understood and knew the powerful spirits, and by prayers and
incantations could influence them to bring sunshine to ripen the corn
and rain in time of drought, to guard them in warfare, and to cure them
in sickness. This black-robed priest must be a great medicine man in the
lodges of the whites; and so the chief said:—
“I beg thee to have pity on me and on my nation. It is thou who knowest
the Spirit who made us all. It is thou who speakest to Him and hearest
his word. Beg Him to give me life and health and to come and dwell with
us that we may know Him.”
Then the chief gave the priest a pipe like that which the two old men
had carried. It was carved, and decked with the plumage of birds, and
its stem was as long as a tall brave’s arm. It was a token of peace
which the white men would often need in the countries they were about to
explore. With this present the Peoria spoke of the love he bore for the
great chief of the French.
With another present he warned the white men of the dangers ahead of
them; and he begged them not to go farther. Tribes fierce and deadly
lived toward the south, and other dangers more mysterious and awful
lurked along the waters of the river. But the gentle-faced priest
replied that he had no fear of death, saying that he counted no
happiness greater than to die teaching of his God.
Amazed were all the Indians who sat in the chiefs lodge and heard this
answer. To scalp a foe in honor of one’s manitou and to the glory of his
nation seemed the height of joy and triumph; but they could not
understand the courage of one who would willingly be scalped or tortured
in honor of his God. So they made no reply and the council closed.
Meanwhile among the lodges Indian women and girls had busied themselves
in preparing a feast for the strangers. Papooses were hung up out of the
way on trees or leaned against the lodge walls while their mothers
brought corn and meat, stirred the fires, and killed a dog for the
distinguished guests. A woman whose nose had been cut off as a
punishment for unfaithfulness to her husband came out of a near-by
lodge. Young girls, whose daily duty it was to care for the rows of corn
and beans in the fields, now helped to bring into the lodge the food
which the women had made ready.
The first course at this Peoria feast was sagamite, a dish made from the
meal of Indian corn and seasoned with fat. It was served on a great
wooden platter. An Indian, acting as master of ceremonies, took a spoon
made from the bone of a buffalo, filled it with sagamite, and presented
it several times to the mouths of the strangers as one would feed
children. Then they brought, fresh from the fires which the Indian women
had tended, a dish containing three fish. The same Indian took the fish,
removed the bones, blew upon some pieces to cool them, and fed them to
the guests. The third course, which was served only upon rare and highly
important occasions, consisted of the meat of a dog freshly killed. To
the great surprise of the Indians the white men did not eat of this
dish, and so it was taken away. The fourth course was buffalo meat, the
choicest morsels of which were given to the priest and his companion.
After this elaborate feast, the Peorias took their visitors through the
whole village, and the open-mouthed and open-hearted Indians brought
them gifts of their own make—belts and bracelets made from the hair of
buffalo or bear and dyed red, yellow, and gray. At length when night
came upon the Peoria lodges, Marquette and Joliet were made comfortable
on beds of buffalo robes in the lodge of the chief.
In the afternoon of the next day the strangers departed from the Indian
lodges on the Iowa River and followed the pathway back to the bank of
the Mississippi; and with them, courteous to the last, went the chief
and full six hundred members of the tribe. When they came out upon the
river bank, the Indians gazed in wonder at the five white men who had
been left by their leaders to guard two small canoes—small, indeed, in
comparison with the great boats of the Peorias which, hollowed out of
three-foot logs, were half a hundred feet long.
The sun was about halfway down the sky when the strangers embarked. The
Peorias, gathered on the bank, looked on curiously as the two white men
and the Indian boy joined their companions in the birch-bark canoes,
pushed out from the shore, swung into the current, and paddled off
downstream. Then they faced the dropping sun and walked back to the
village. As they thought of the savage tribes to the south and the awful
dangers of the river, they doubted greatly if the gallant strangers
would again come to their village and pay them the visit which the
black-robed priest had promised.
They did see these same voyagers again, but not in the village by the
side of the Iowa River; for during that very summer the Peoria tribe
moved. One day the Indian women stripped the lodge-poles, packed up the
camp implements, loaded themselves with supplies of food and robes, and
together with the men of the village started on a journey eastward which
led them far beyond the Mississippi. On the banks of the Illinois River,
not far from the lake that still bears their name, the Peoria women set
up new lodges and kindled the fires that were to burn day and night in
the new home. Farther up the same river another tribe of the Illinois
Nation—the Kaskaskias—were living in a village on the north bank.
Between these two Illinois towns the young braves no doubt often passed
during the summer of 1673; and as they sat by the fires of their
Kaskaskia brothers and smoked the long calumets, the Peorias told of the
coming of the whites to the village beyond the Mississippi and of their
departure with the Indian boy to journey down the length of the
mysterious river to the great salt sea of the south.