In the southern part of the lands which were once occupied by the
Creeks, the Walkullas, and other tribes of Indians, lies the marsh
Ouaquaphenogan. On one side of it is the river Flint; on the other,
the Oakmulgee. This marsh is of very great extent, so great that it
takes several moons to travel around it. In the wet season, and when
the great rains of the southern sky are falling upon the earth, the
whole surface of this marsh appears a vast lake. It is interspersed
here and there with large islands and knolls of rich land, one of
which, the largest island, situated in the centre of the lake, the
present generation of Creeks represent to be a most blissful spot of
earth. They term this little island, also, Ouaquaphenogan, and relate
the following tradition of its discovery, which I will repeat to my
brother.
Once upon a time, many ages ago, there were four young hunters in the
nation of the Creeks, and these four young hunters upon the morning of
a beautiful day in summer took their hunting spears, and their bows
and arrows, and repaired to the forest. The hunting-ground to which
they directed their steps lay upon the skirt of this marsh. It was the
dry season of the year, and the surface of the lake was again a bog or
morass. The four hunters, finding a narrow and crooked path, leading
over the waste from the high grounds above the morass, determined,
with a view to ascertain if no kind of game dwelt upon it, to thread
this path for a short distance, but by no means to venture so far as
to lose sight of the beacons which should guide their feet back to
their village. They knew that very many hunters had been lost on this
marsh, that there were many who had lived to tell the story of their
bewilderment, and many who, never having returned from the chace,
could only be supposed to have been tempted to the fatal morass, and
perished in its mazes. Thus, armed with the knowledge of what had
happened to many, and was supposed to have happened to more, the
hunters ventured into the narrow and crooked path, which led to the
island Ouaquaphenogan, in the lake of the same name.
The four hunters had not walked far, when one of them said to another,
"Where are the hills which glitter in the morning sun, behind the
cabins of our fathers?" The other answered, "I see them not, nor do I
know which way they should be sought for. Deep fogs obscure the
earth, and hide the sun from our eyes; the signs are wanting which
should direct our feet in the path of our return; for the moss grows
equally on every side of the tree; the waters lie dead, and sleeping,
and stagnant, so that no one may gather from their flow a knowledge of
his path; it is not the hour of the day for the Hunter's Star to shine
upon the eyes of our judgment; no wind stirs to inform us whether it
comes from the flowery land of the South, or the cold hills of the
North--how then can I assist my bewildered brothers, who am myself
bewildered? I see not whence we came, I know not where we are; I only
know this--that we have ventured into a narrow and crooked path in the
Lake Ouaquaphenogan, and are lost, as many of our nation have been
before, in the intricate mazes into which it is death to venture." So
concluded the young hunter.
The four bewildered hunters still continued their endeavours to
retrace their path, but without success. Still more dark and dismal
grew those mazes--more wet and miry the morass. Night came, but it
brought no stars to enable them to find their road back to their
dwellings, nor south nor north winds were abroad to direct their
steps--the waters were still stagnant, and still did moss grow upon
every side of the tree. No bird flew by, to direct by the course of
his flight to his roosting-place, or to the nest of his beloved, on
the dry hills beyond the waste--no plaint of animals, which love not
the water or damp grounds, was heard in the distance. They knew no
better than a child of the last moon the path which should lead them
back to safety.
While they were wandering about in the mazes of the swamp, one said to
another, "I hear the sound of voices." Listening, they were soon able
to distinguish the sounds of music and merriment proceeding from a
glade at a short distance, in the direction of the little path upon
which they were entering. Pursuing that path, they soon came to a
little knoll of high and rich land. Nothing could be more beautiful
than the appearance of this little spot. Here and there were clumps of
trees, covered with fruit in every stage of its growth, and blossoms
scenting the air with their fragrance. The earth was covered with a
robe of flowers; birds were singing on the boughs, and hopping about
on the twigs, filling the air with sweet melody, and little rills were
rattling away over the gentle slopes. Upon one side of the knoll lay a
clear lake, in which swans, white as the lily, were disporting
themselves, and the red-headed, and the green-winged duck, and many
other beautiful feathered creatures. But the most beautiful objects
remain to be painted. These were four tall and slender maidens,
beautiful as the flower-clad trees and blossom-crowned hills of their
own island, and sweet as the breath of a lemon-tree. Their eyes shone
as bright as the beams of the morning sun; bright locks of surpassing
beauty clustered around their lovely brows; and their garments were
woven of many colours as brilliant as the rainbow. Their bosoms
swelled like the heavings of the billows on a little lake, when it is
but slightly stirred by the breezes of spring. Their step--what can be
compared to it? A bird skimming the fields; a wind slightly stirring
the bushes; an antelope bounding over a mountain crag; a deer a little
alarmed at the whoop of the hunter. Beautiful creatures! The Great
Spirit never formed any thing, not even the trees, nor the flowers of
spring, nor the field of ripe grain, nor the sun of whom those four
maidens were sisters, so beautiful as they were.
They came--these four beautiful maidens--to the four bewildered
travellers, whom they addressed thus, and their voice was sweeter than
the music of the song-sparrow--"Who are ye?" The hunters replied that
they were men of the Creek-nation who had ventured into the marsh
Ouaquaphenogan, and were bewildered in its inextricable mazes. Two
days, they said, they had been without food; they were faint and
weary, and demanded refreshments, such as they would have given, had a
hungry traveller come to their door, and said, "Food I have none, give
me or I faint." The beautiful maidens replied, that the men of their
nation, having long ages ago been driven with much bloodshed into the
inaccessible fastnesses of the island Ouaquaphenogan, in the lake of
the same name, by the ancestors of the present generation of Creeks,
had retained so deeply in their bosoms the memory of their wrongs,
that they were sure to inflict upon them most excruciating tortures,
and to make them die a death of fire. Such, they said, would be the
fate of the four bewildered hunters, should their fathers or brothers
discover them now. They earnestly besought them to fly; but first,
with that tender and compassionate nature which belongs to women when
they see the other sex in distress, they brought from a little cabin
which stood near, covered with beautiful vines in blossom, abundance
of provisions, besides oranges, dates, and other fruit, sweet, ripe,
and tempting, as their own beautiful selves. These they spread out on
the flowery earth, and invited the four hunters to partake. Placed
each by the maiden of his choice, they fed upon the repast prepared by
the fair hands of the daughters of the sun, the while drinking in the
passion of love from their large and lustrous eyes. Nor was the soft
language of looks alone the medium of thought; words of the tongue
were interchanged as sweet as those of the eyes. Wrought up at length
to a phrenzy of passion, and emboldened by the melting glances of the
dove-eyed girls, the youthful hunters besought them to bless them with
their love--to become the wives of their heart. Faint was the shake of
the head, and scarcely heard the breathing of the "No," and cast
meekly down upon the blue flowers at their feet the soft and tender
eyes, which could not have looked up and kept their secret. At length,
one of the maidens, the eldest sister--for they were sisters--began
thus:
"Young and amiable strangers, it is proper that we tell you who we
are, that you may think whether you will dare the danger, that will
attend the union of one of our race with one of yours. We are born of
mothers, and are the children of fathers, who are governed by the
influences of the sun, even as tides obey the commands of their
mistress the moon, and stars perform their round of service in the
sky, at the command of the Master of all. Our disposition--the
disposition of our race--is as variable as that of the winds upon
which our great father acts. Ye behold him fiery at times--even so are
we--a change comes over him, his beams grow mild and soft, dispensing
genial warmth and gladness; ours, like his, also soften, and, though
they cannot possess his power, yet they are fashioned on his pattern,
and we in our kind moments bestow all the happiness we can upon those
we love. At those moments, were it possible to fill all the earth with
love, to make bush, tree, flower, man, beast, bird, utter the language
of the soft passion, and hill, dale, mountain, and valley, echo it, we
would do it. Again do we change; and he that hath noted the quick
obscuring of the sun in the Month of Buds, may estimate the
variableness of our temper. Then tears fall from our eyes in torrents,
as showers fall from a cloud, and as hastily as a mist is dissipated
by a bright morning beam do smiles re-illumine our countenances, and
our faces and hearts become filled with gladness. Tempest and fair
weather, darkness and sunshine, are in us strangely blended. There is
in our nature a strange jarring of the elements of being. Can ye take
to your bosoms wives, who will afflict you with mutabilities as great,
sudden, various, as those of the elements which surround you? Ye are
pleased to think us beautiful, and it may be that we are; but remember
that ye see us in one of our pleased, pleasant, and happy, moments.
Wait till an accident or misfortune happens, till want or calamity
come, or contradiction ensue, or some of the crosses which belong to
human life, as clouds and tempests to the constitution of nature,
assail us. But, if you think your love could survive the hurricanes
which will visit your dwellings when we are stormy; if you can bear to
see the lightnings of our eyes flashing wrath upon you, and our voices
speaking thunder in your ears--I speak for myself and sisters--take
us, and we will assure you of many moments of bright sunshine, many
days of peace and happiness--uninterrupted sun, and cloudless skies."
The beautiful daughter of the sun, who spoke for herself and her
sisters, concluded thus, and the eldest of the four hunters rose, and
replied in these words:
"Beautiful maiden, that speakest for thyself and sisters, do not think
that what thou hast said will affright us. I speak for myself and
brothers--we will take you with all your faults, with the chance of
the hurricanes and stormy weather, linked with the hope of the moments
of bright sunshine and days of peace and happiness. Believe me,
dove-eyed maidens, that the women of the lake Ouaquaphenogan, in the
island of the same name, are not alone in their disposition to be
stormy at times. It need not be told the men of the Creek nation,
that a woman's face, of whatever country, may justly be likened to an
April day, alternately shining and showering, and that her soul is
like a morning in the Variable Moon, which one moment may be dressed
in a thick mantle of clouds, and the next in a glittering robe of
solar glory. It need not be told the son of my mother, that a woman's
voice is sometimes the voice of a gentle rill, and at others, that of
a cloud charged with the poison of the heated and rarefied air. Are
not the Creeks men, and shall they be frightened by what is a mere
momentary delirium? No. Having looked upon a wintry storm and a summer
tempest, and seen the bright stars succeeding one, and the warm and
cheering sun the other, we can listen with calmness--even with
pleasure--to the tempest of a woman's anger, and survey, without
trembling, or hiding, or running away, the lightnings of her wrath,
because we know that after a storm comes a calm. We know that the sun
shines most gloriously when his beams are first unveiled by the
passing away of the clouds which have obscured him; we know that a
woman's face is most beautiful, when she has wiped the tears of anger
from her cheek, and dressed it in smiles to win back the love which
her folly has endangered. We will take you, beautiful creatures,
subject to the becoming passions of which you speak, filled with all
the beautiful frenzies of woman's temper. We know that all women,
whether they dwell among the Creeks, or in the island Ouaquaphenogan,
in the lake of the same name, are alike in their dispositions. It hath
long been taught, beautiful creatures, in our nation, and among all
nations of which we have heard our fathers speak, that men should take
them wives, but it is only now that we have recalled the maxim to our
minds, it is only now that we acknowledge the wisdom of our teachers.
Now, if men chose those only whose tempers never varied, one, two, may
be three, among all the sons of men would take wives; if one sought
for a maiden with a never clouded brow and soul, it might become the
labour of a whole nation to furnish mocassins for the feet of one
travelling in quest of the bride. Therefore we take you with all your
faults, believing that you have them but in common with all your sex,
and with no greater portion than belongs to others. And we bind on
your fair brows the flowers which betoken affection and constancy, and
we place in your soft and beautiful hands the emblems of the charge we
confide to them when we make you the wives of our bosoms."
So these four beautiful daughters of the sun became the affianced
brides of the four bewildered Creek hunters.
"But," said the beautiful maidens to their lovers, "we have told you
of the ferocity of our fathers and brothers, and of the hatred of our
nation towards the descendants of the men who overthrew and massacred
our ancestors. We cannot expose you to the danger of their wrath; you
must fly, but whithersoever that be, we will fly with you." So the
four beautiful daughters of the sun left for ever the island
Ouaquaphenogan, and the lake of the same name, and became the wives
and mothers of hunters and warriors. They were at times very stormy in
their tempers, but upon the whole not worse than other women. Their
faces were at times those of April days, alternately shining and
showery, but there were women in our nation, who were not at all akin
to the sun, nor ever saw Ouaquaphenogan, that were as like them as if
they had been sisters. Their eyes did, indeed, sometimes send out
volleys of lightnings, and their tongues give forth heavy thunders,
but neither were louder nor sharper than those of the women, who had
for ages given the beam of the one and the music of the other to the
men of the Creeks. And, if they did at times term their husbands
"brutes," it was no more than other husbands had been called before.
And if they did, in the moment of a hurricane, drive their husbands
from their fire-sides, they were by no means the first who had done
so. Upon the whole, the four hunters had no particular reason to
regret their bewilderment in the marsh Ouaquaphenogan.