STRANGE RITES
Spring was coming, and the giant of the Great Valley, lying stretched at
full length, was beginning to stir uneasily. Too long had he slept with
his head in the snow far up in the country of the Sioux. His outspread
arms, flung to the mountains on either side, began to move, and to the
tips of his fingers, entwined in the hills of the Alleghanies and the
rough piles of the Rockies, a new life came. The Mississippi River was
waking from its winter sleep.
In the land of the Iroquois, by distant Lake Ontario, the ice in little
brooks was melting, and snow-water was running down from their banks to
flow through the length of the Ohio Valley into the Great River. Over by
the foot of the Lake of the Illinois, where the headwaters of the
Kankakee crept out from the country of the timorous Miamis, cakes of ice
were starting on a long journey down the widening river into the
Illinois, there to run smoothly through a deserted valley, past the
mined village of the Kaskaskias, the empty Peoria lodges, and the
forsaken fort to find the wide river in the land of the luckless
Tamaroas.
Even in the cold Sioux country the tiny sources of the Mississippi were
stirring; and the waters grew less chill as they slipped out of the
sight of the Sioux hunters and took their way southward past the
far-driven tribes of the Illinois—here the Kaskaskias, lower down the
Peorias—until they reached the haunts of the Tamaroas and were joined by
the waters of the Illinois.
Southward ever the spring water flowed. Here from the Western plains
came rushing like a buffalo bull the tawny Missouri, bringing down logs
and trees that had passed many and strange peoples on their way from the
far unknown West. Out of these Western countries came also the Arkansas
to cast its burden into the river farther down.
Now all these waters, gathered in a mighty stream, flowed on past the
strange Southern tribes—past the Taensas, watching their sacred fires
and guarding their temples in eight villages gathered on a
crescent-shaped lake, and past the Natchez and the treacherous Coroas
and Quinipissas—till at last, under the warm Southern sun, the river
poured itself out of the bottom of the valley into the salt waters of
the Gulf of Mexico.
Thus in the year 1682 the Great Valley awoke from its quiet winter. Soon
in the North the Indian women could stir the eager soil and begin their
planting. The Indian braves could toss their snowshoes into a corner of
the lodge, throw off their winter garments of buffalo hide, and go out
into the sunshine as free and happy and unencumbered as God had made
them.
All the valley was a playground for the Indians. Its woods and its
streams, its prairies and its hills, its herds of buffalo, its deer and
bear and wild fowl were theirs. They could build their lodges and hunt
game where they willed. They could trade with the tribes of the North
and South and of the river valleys on either side; or they could fight
with them if they chose. It was a valley full of the best gifts of the
good spirits—this land of the Indians. What if there were up around the
rivers of the North and East occasional white men? They were few and
they brought wonderful gifts. Surely there was room for all.
Below the villages of the Arkansas tribes, which Marquette and Joliet
had reached nine years before, the Indians had seen no white man’s
canoe. It is true their old men told a tale, handed down through long
years, of a Spaniard who came into the Great Valley from the East with
an army that ravaged and plundered and killed. The leader disappeared,
and his men drifted down the river to its mouth and left forever the
basin of the Mississippi. But many generations had passed since the time
of the mysteriously vanishing De Soto and his cruel followers. Between
the French far to the northeast and the Spaniards as far to the
southwest there lay the length of the river with room in its broad and
smiling valley for the homes and hunting-grounds of a hundred tribes.
It was the month of March, in the villages of the Arkansas tribes, and
the air was soft and mild, and the peach trees were in blossom. The
banks of the river were low and drowned now with the spring floods; and
thick barriers of cane rose up from the swampy shores. Since Marquette
and Joliet visited the Arkansas, no white men had entered their
villages; but they had learned of the events in the North. When they
found that a powerful white chief was building a fort on the Illinois
River and giving wonderful presents to the neighboring tribes, they sent
a delegation to invite him to come to their country and live.
La Salle had said that he was coming down the river soon, and they had
seen the ribs of the great ship he was building. The Arkansas, moreover,
had brought home gifts from him to their neighbors and friends. But he
had not come in these two long years, and the Indians had been busy with
their own concerns—with their hunting and their care of the fields, and
with a constant vigilance to prevent an attack by surprise from their
enemies the Chickasaws.
On this particular March day a dense fog lay upon the river. In the
spring fogs were frequent and were not without danger; for under cover
of these concealing mists the Chickasaws might more easily approach
unawares. But this morning there were those who watched and they brought
news into the upper village that a band of men was coming down the river
in canoes. The village flew to arms. The women gathered together and
hurried away to the inland, their papooses in cradles swinging from
their shoulders. The men, weapons in hand, began to howl their war cries
and beat their skin drums. Within an hour the fog disappeared, and they
saw a party of men encamped on the bank opposite the village. On a point
of land jutting out into the river stood a man who called across to
them.
The Arkansas thrust one of their dugouts into the stream and hastened to
meet the visitors. When they were within earshot, the man on shore
called out in the Illinois tongue to ask who they were. There happened
to be an Illinois Indian in the dugout and he replied that they were
Arkansas. One of the warriors from the village drew back the string of
his bow and let fly an arrow. Then they sat silent and waited. It was
their way of inquiring whether peace or war was sought by the strangers.
The man on shore did not attempt to return the fire. So with lightened
hearts they drew near to learn more of the peaceful newcomers.
It was a white man who met them. His hair was black and long, and his
right hand was encased in a glove. It was the Man with the Iron Hand who
greeted them on behalf of his leader La Salle. Without delay the Indians
sent an embassy to smoke the calumet with La Salle, and soon the
Arkansas were welcoming in their village on the west bank of the river
the entire band of strangers. La Salle had come at last as he had
promised, but he had not come in a mighty ship, but in a fleet of bark
canoes with nearly half a hundred men.
There were old friends in his company besides Tonty. The stout-hearted
young Boisrondet and the gray-gowned Father Membré were there, and
perhaps a score of other Frenchmen. There were also nearly as many of
the New England Indians who had joined La Salle at Fort Miami; and with
them was a handful of Indian women, who had refused to be left behind,
and three little Indian children.
The tribes living in this upper Arkansas village were known as Kappas or
Quapaws; and they proved themselves royal entertainers. They gave the
strangers quarters by themselves, built lodges for them, and brought
them provisions in great abundance. The day following his arrival they
danced before La Salle the calumet dance. First the chiefs of the tribe
took their places in the midst of an open space, while warriors brought
them two calumets decorated with plumage of many colors. The bowls of
the calumets were of red pipestone and full of tobacco. Warriors who
took part in the dance held gourds hollowed out and filled with pebbles;
and two of them had drums made of earthen pots covered with dried pieces
of skin.
One group of Indians began to sing, at the same time dancing and shaking
their gourd rattles—all in perfect rhythm, though not necessarily in the
same time. An Indian might sing with one time, dance with a different
time, and shake his gourd with a rhythm more slow or rapid than either.
Yet the rhythm of each series of motions or sounds would be perfect in
itself.
When the first group stopped, another group took up the song and the
dance. Two men beat the skin drums, while the chiefs gravely drew smoke
from the long-stemmed calumets and passed them on to La Salle and his
men. Then those of the warriors who had gained renown seized, one after
another, a great war club, and with it struck blows upon a stout post
planted in the ground. With his blows each brave recounted his feats of
bravery and told of the scalps he had taken, the enemies he had killed,
and the times when he had been first of his band to strike the enemy.
When they had finished this ceremony, they presented gifts of buffalo
hides to La Salle. Then La Salle’s men also one by one struck the post
and told of their own brave deeds and gave presents to the Indians. And
all the while the chiefs, Indian and French, smoked the pipes that bound
them to peace.
Doubtless this ceremony of the calumet—with the dancing and singing, the
recounting of brave deeds, and the giving of gifts—seemed a very curious
performance to the French. But equally curious to the Indians must have
seemed the ceremonies of the white men on that selfsame day.
La Salle asked permission of the chiefs to raise, in the village, an
emblem of the God of the French and of the great King of France. To this
the Indians readily agreed. Whereupon Tonty was dispatched with some of
the men to make preparations. They cut and smoothed a huge wooden
pillar, and upon it they drew a cross, and above the cross they carved
the arms of France with these words:—
“Louis the Great, King of France and Navarre,
reigns this thirteenth day of March, 1682.”
A procession was formed, and the pillar was carried in state to the open
space in the midst of the Indian town. Here the procession divided into
two columns, with La Salle at the head of one and Tonty leading the
other. Every Frenchman was in arms, while the New England Indians with
their wives and children steadfastly followed their white leaders.
Father Membré began to sing a curious song; and then the whole
procession took up the chant and marched three times around the open
square. Three times they sent up a great cry, “Vive le Roi,” and
discharged their guns in the air. Then they planted the pillar firmly in
the ground, cried again, “Vive le Roi,” and shot off another volley with
their guns.
When it was quiet once more La Salle began a solemn speech in French.
The awe-stricken Indians did not understand his words; but later the
speech was interpreted for them and they knew that, by the sign of the
cross and the king’s arms, the white chief was claiming the whole broad
valley for his king beyond the seas. What mattered it to the Indians? If
the white men would bring them gifts, and if this mysterious pillar
would protect them from harm and safeguard them from their enemies, the
distant king was welcome to his claim.
With wondering faces the Indians gathered about the pillar when the
strange ceremony was over. They placed their hands upon the hewed wood
and then rubbed their naked bodies—as if to transfer to themselves some
of the medicine in the white men’s shaft.
Two days later the strangers embarked in their canoes and left the
village of the Kappas; and with them went two Arkansas guides to point
out the way to their allies, the Taensas, who lived on a lake near the
river many leagues below.