At a short distance below the Falls of St. Anthony, there is a small
rocky island, covered with huge trees, oak, pine, and cypress, its
water-fretted shores and steep cliffs formed of ragged rocks, against
which the waves of the cataract dash and foam in vain endeavours to
overwhelm it. This little island, so annoyed by the mighty and
wrathful fiends who sit in that surge, is famous throughout the Indian
nations for being the abode of the spirits of the warriors of the
Andirondacks--a tribe which no longer exist--who, once upon a time,
many ages ago, warring against the spirits of the cataract, were
completely overthrown, and by the power of their enemies transformed
into eagles. As a punishment, they were bidden to dwell for ever on
that misty, foggy, and noisy island; doomed to a nicer perception of
hearing than belongs to mortals, that their fate might be the more
awful. If my brother wishes to hear the tradition, let him open wide
the doors of his understanding, and be silent.
The tribe of the Andirondacks were the mightiest tribe of the
land--neither in numbers nor in valour had they their equal--their
rule stretched from the broad Lake Huron to the river of the Osages,
from the Alleghany to the Mississippi. All the tribes which dwelt in
their neighbourhood were compelled to bow down their heads and pay
them tribute. The Hurons sent them beaver-skins; the Eries wove them
wampum(1); even the Iroquois, that haughty and warlike nation, who
lorded it over their eastern neighbours with the ferocity of wolves,
bowed to those mighty warriors, the Andirondacks, whose number was
greater than that of the flights of pigeons in the month before the
snows, and who wielded spears, and bent bows, and shouted their
war-cry with more power than any other tribe or people in the land.
Some of the more distant tribes, to secure themselves against
invasion, sent ambassadors with the pipe of peace wrapped in soft furs
as a present; others offered their most beautiful women for wives to
the "lords of the land"--all, by various means, and in various ways,
testified their inability to cope with them in war, and their anxiety
to become friends and neighbours. If the proud Andirondacks granted
the boon of peace, it was always with some hard condition annexed to
it; not always did a favour granted by them prove a favour in the end.
So long and uninterrupted a course of prosperity begot pride and
arrogance in the bosom of the Andirondacks, and they forgot the Being
who had bestowed so many blessings upon them, making their wives
fertile as a vine in a rich soil, giving them victory over all their
enemies, and health, and bounteous harvests, and successful hunts.
They paid no more worship to that Great Being; no more offered him the
juicy fruits of their hunt; no more ascended the high hills at the
rising or setting of the sun, with their heads anointed with clay, to
pour out their souls in the song of gratitude for past, or in a prayer
of supplication for future, favours; they no more scarified their
bodies in deprecation of his anger, but, believing themselves--vain
fools!--able to do without his aid, they shook off their duty and
allegiance to him, and bade him, if not in words at least in their
deeds, defiance. Pride now possessed their souls, and hardness their
hearts.
It need not be told my brother that the Great Spirit is slow to anger.
Knowing his power to crush with a wink of his eye every living
creature; to rend asunder the mightiest hills, yea, shake to its
centre the very earth with a puff of his breath; he is loth to put
forth his powers or to call into action the whirlwinds of his wrath.
He suffers men to revile him long before he attempts to punish them;
he permits them to raise the finger of defiance many times before he
strikes it down, and the tongue to utter many a scornful word before
he dooms it to the silence of death. It is so with the creatures of
this world, as my brother must know. The strongest man--he who feels
most confident of his power to repel aggression, and to command
respect and obedience, is slowest to provocation, and, when excited to
anger, the easiest to be soothed and calmed. The prairie-dog oftener
shows his teeth than the wolf; the imbecile adder than the
death-dealing rattlesnake. And my pale-faced brother has told us the
wondrous tale, that, in his own land beyond the Great Waters, the
mighty animal which is called the King of Beasts is, save only when he
lacks food, as mild as the dove or the song-sparrow. And thus it was
with the Great Spirit, as regarded the scoffing and wickedness of the
Andirondacks. Long he resisted the importunities of the subordinate
Manitous, that the haughty tribe might be punished for their
insolence; long he waited with the hope that their eyes might be
opened, and repentance seize their hearts, and amendment ensue. He
waited in vain, each day they grew worse, until at length they brought
down upon their heads the vengeance which could be no longer delayed.
There was among the Andirondacks a youth who, from the moment of his
birth, was the favourite of the being who rules the world. While yet
an unfledged bird, his words were the words of grey-headed wisdom;
while yet a boy his arm was the arm of a strong man, his eye the eye
of a cool man, and his heart like the heart of a brave man. He was as
cool as a warrior who has lived to be aged in scenes of war. While he
sat in his cradle of woven willow, his father chanced to speak in his
hearing of an expedition which the Braves were about to undertake
against the distant Coppermines, who had their lodges on the skirts of
the sea of eternal ice. The wise child bade the father call the chiefs
and counsellors of the nation around him, and to them he said, "You
will not succeed in this war. The Coppermines dwell in the regions of
great cold; before they can be met, icy hills and frozen lakes, and
stormy winds and bleak tempests, must be encountered. If you meet
them, success would be doubtful, for they are on their own hills, with
nerves fitted to endure the searching cold, and possessed of that
which the Andirondacks want--a thorough knowledge of every path that
crosses their snow-clad vales and ice-bound waters. Stay at home,
Braves, help your women to plant corn, and cut up the buffalo-meat,
rather than go upon an expedition from which you will never return. Do
I not see the torturing fires lighted, and Braves wearing the
Andirondack mocassins bound to the stake of death? Do not mine ears
hear a death-song in the Andirondack tongue? And are not these
fearless sounds which come to mine ears the cries of the vulture and
the wolf, fighting for the remains of a human carcase, which hath the
Andirondack tuft of hair? Stay at home, Andirondacks, help your women
to plant corn, and cut up the buffalo-meat, rather than go upon an
expedition from which you will never return."
But the young and ardent warriors said this was the speech of a boy,
and they would not listen to them. They said that, were the words of
Piskaret the words of a man, they might hearken to them, but was he,
who sat in his willow cradle, a fit counsellor to gray-headed sages,
or even to young Braves, who had eaten the bitter root, and put on new
war-shoes, and fasted for six suns, and been made men. In vain did the
boy assure them that his _medicine_, the Great White Owl, had revealed
to him many strange things, and among others this--that if the
Andirondacks engaged in a war against the Coppermines, the wrath of
the Great Spirit, whose worship they had forsaken, would be upon
them, and of those who went not one should ever return. They laughed
at his words, treating them as they would the song of a bird that has
flown over. They bound on their mocassins, and, taking their spears,
and bows and arrows, bade adieu to the land of their fathers' bones.
Did these valiant youths return, and did the words of the prophet-boy
fall to the ground? Let the wolf, and the vulture, and the
mountain-cat, answer the question. They will tell my brother that
their voracious tribes held a feast in the far country of the
Coppermines, and that the remains of that feast were a huge heap of
human bones. Were they the bones of Andirondacks? They were, and thus
were the prophetic words of the wise boy rendered true, and his
reputation was established throughout the land.
And when years came over him, and the fire of early manhood beamed in
his eye, the same signs of his being favoured of Heaven were
displayed. He needed no practice to enable him to conquer in all the
sports and exercises which are indulged in by the boys of his nation.
He went beyond them in all which bespoke possession of the skill and
courage necessary to make a patient and expert hunter, or a brave and
successful warrior. In the game of archery, his arrow was ever
nearest the clout, and in hurling the spear, his oftenest clove
asunder the reed which was fixed as the mark. Ere he had seen fifteen
harvestings of the maize, he could throw the stoutest man of the tribe
in the wrestle, and his feet in the race were swifter than the deer in
its flight from the steps of the red hunter. When grey-headed men
assembled in the council to deliberate upon the affairs of the tribe,
their invasions, or their projected removals to other hunting-grounds,
they asked "Where is the wise boy?" If he were not present, he was
sent for, and no determination was made till he came, and had
delivered his thoughts. And thus grew up the young Piskaret, till he
had reached his twentieth spring.
There was in the neighbouring nation of Ottawas a maiden who was as
much celebrated for her beauty, and her charms, and her wit, as the
Andirondack youth was for strength, and wisdom, and prudence. Her
Indian name was Menana, which means the Daughter of the Flood. She had
reached the sixteenth summer of her residence among the Ottawas, the
gentlest and lightest hearted, the mildest and sweetest maiden, that
ever gazed on the pale full moon, or the glittering stars, or listened
to the song of the sparrow, or the waterfall. She knew how to do every
thing that was beautiful, or useful. If you saw a piece of gorgeously
dyed wampum, or a robe curiously plaited of the bark of the mulberry,
or the feathers of the canieu or war-eagle, you needed not ask who did
it--you might be sure it was Menana. Her voice was the sweetest thing
ever heard, her face the most beautiful ever seen--the first had in it
the melody of birds, with the expression they can never have till they
are gifted with the reason given to man--the last--but what is so
beautiful as the face of a beautiful woman! And then her laugh was as
joyous as a dance of warriors after a great victory, and her foot was
the speediest foot that ever brushed the dew from the grass. Every
body loved her, and she loved every body. So kind, and so good, and so
sweet-tempered, and so beautiful a maiden, was never known among the
Ottawas, famed as they are throughout the land for kind, and good, and
sweet-tempered, and beautiful maidens.
She was not the daughter of an Ottawa woman, or any other woman, nor
was her father an Ottawa man, or any other man. She was the daughter
of the mighty cataract. The moon in which she came to the land of the
Ottawas was the moon in which the forest trees put forth their
earliest buds, and the blooming takes place of the little blue flower,
which our forest maidens love to twine with their hair, and our forest
boys to gather as the harbinger of returning warmth, and joy, and
gladness. She came not at first to the village of the Ottawas in the
perfect shape of a human being. It was many years before that, one
morning, as the head warrior of the nation went out, as was his wont,
to look abroad on the early sky, he found sitting at his door a little
creature of a form such as he had never beheld, nor ever dreamed of.
Woman she seemed from her waist upward, but fish or rather two fishes
below. Her face was that of a most beautiful maiden in the charming
hours when she begins to dream of tall youths; her eyes were blue as
the deepest tinge of the water, and mild as a summer morning, her
teeth white as the teeth of a salmon, and her locks fell sweeping the
very earth. Her hands and arms were perfectly shaped, but they were
covered with scales, and here and there tinted with red, which
glittered like the evening sun on the folds of a cloud. Her height was
about that of a small child who is just beginning to use its feet. The
strange little creature did not stir as the warrior approached it, but
suffered him to survey it unmoved, and, when he kindly wiped the dew
from its waving locks, bent its eyes upon him with the deepest
gratitude depicted in its countenance. As an Indian believes that
every thing, even trees, and rivers, and mountains, have souls, or
spirits, and are all worthy to be adopted as his protecting _okkis_,
the warrior addressed the strange creature, and besought it to become
his intercessor with the Great Spirit, his _okki_ in peace and war.
What was his surprise when it made reply to him, in a tone very nearly
like the tone of a human being, and in a dialect of the Ottawas, as
follows!
"I cannot be thy guardian spirit, for I am about to throw off my
spiritual nature, and to become as thou art, a mortal, or rather I am
to assume my former nature and state. Though I wear a form which is
neither fish nor flesh, yet have I not always been thus. Once, many
years ago, I was a human being. Gazing one evening on the blue sky,
filled with shining lights, a passion came over my soul to behold them
nearer. I besought the Master of Life to suffer me to ascend to the
land of those bright things, and to visit the beautiful rainbows which
had been equally the objects of my fond contemplation. My prayer was
heard; I fell asleep, and, when I awoke, found myself where I wished
to be. I was among the stars, sailing with them as an eagle or a cloud
is wafted along on the winds which sweep the lower world. I beheld
them glorious as you behold them from the earth, bright, round, and
twinkling balls of every size, all endued with life, and all busily
engaged in dancing their intricate dances, to music which came from
unseen hands. My words cannot describe the splendour of the scene. Yet
shall I tell the Ottawa warrior that the scene and the dances soon
ceased to give pleasure. Who would wish to gaze for ever on the sun,
bright and dazzling though he be? What one of all the fair things of
the earth may be looked on for ever with delight? Its lakes, its
rivers, its mountains, its bold youths, and lovely maidens, and many
other things, are very fair, but each would tire were the eye to be
chained to that alone. I was soon tired of the splendour of the starry
world, and wished myself again upon the earth. I asked the Master of
all for permission to return. He said, 'Thou hast been disembodied,
thy flesh is decayed--thou art but a spirit, it may not be.' 'May I
not', said I, 're-animate some form from which the breath has just
departed? may I not enter the corse of some child, and live out the
remainder of the days of a favoured mortal?'
"The Great Spirit answered, 'It cannot be. But if thou art content to
return to the earth and assume a form which shall be neither mortal
nor immortal, neither man nor beast, be it so. Remember thou shalt not
be endowed with the shape of a human being till thou shalt hear in the
cataract, where I doom thee to dwell, the voice of one crying, 'Now is
the time.' Then shalt thou leave the flood, repair to the land of my
beloved people, the Ottawas, and there gradually return to the shape
which once was thine. But, an immortal soul shalt thou not possess
till thy bosom shall be lit up by the flame of love.'
"Thus spake the Great Being, and in a breath I found myself descending
from the land of the stars upon the glorious rainbow. Speedy and
uninterrupted was my descent, till I came to the mighty cataract; its
capacious and stormy bosom received me, and there have I dwelt with
the Spirits of the Flood, the adopted daughter of their chief, till
now. Lo, Ottawa! I am at thy door, a strange creature, but demanding
hospitality and protection from thee. Wilt thou give it me till I am
permitted to take that form which shall give me the powers of a human
being, and feel my bosom lit up by that flame which may give me one
bound to feed and protect me?"
The Ottawa answered, that "his cabin had a quiet corner, and there
should the strange maiden--if, indeed, she were a woman--rest; his
house was always the abode of plenty, and of that should the stranger
partake." So the creature, who was neither fish nor flesh, continued
to reside in the cabin of the Ottawa warrior.
But each day was she observed to be assuming more and more the
appearance of a mortal maiden. The scales fell from her arms and
hands, which lost their red tints, and became soft and fair as the
flesh of a new-born child. The two fishes gradually became two well
proportioned legs. But though she had now become identified in form
with the human race, she retained many of the propensities of that
with which she had formerly dwelt. She loved to sport in the cataract,
and lave herself in the lakes and rivers. Often would she fly from the
company of the Ottawas to that of her old friends, the Spirits of the
Flood. How her eyes would glow with childish delight, when the rain
dashed from the clouds in torrents, and how mirthful she would be when
the spring thaws swelled the noise and the volume of the cataract! And
she better loved to feed on the ooze and the seeds of the grass, which
were found in the torrent, and on those species of fish which are made
the prey of the larger, than on the food prepared on the hearth of the
Ottawa. Gradually, however, and at length fully, did her tastes
conform to the tastes of those with whom she dwelt.
Yet she had no soul--the spirit of a fish was in her, but not the
spirit of a mortal. She could not weep with the afflicted, nor laugh
with the joyful. She knew indeed her Creator, for all things, whether
animate or inanimate, know Him; but the worship paid by her was not
the worship of one who has reason for what he does, but of one who
follows the prompting of instinct. She still retained her passion for
the evening, and the bright balls which light it, but better loved to
see their reflection in the water, than to behold them dancing about
in the blue sky.
At length, there arose a black cloud in the atmosphere--the
Andirondacks and the Ottawas were no longer friends. A little thing
breeds a quarrel among the sons of the wilderness. A word lightly
spoken, a deer stricken an arrow's flight over a certain limit, an
insult of old date, but unavenged, a woman borne away from an approved
lover, are each deemed of sufficient importance to enlist all the
energies of a nation in the purpose of revenge. A deputation of
Andirondacks came to the chief village of the Ottawas, demanding
satisfaction for a trespass on their hunting-ground, and for doing the
foolish thing, so much reprobated by the red men of the forest as to
occasion frequent wars--the slaying of beasts of venery out of season.
Among the chiefs was the youth Piskaret, who, although he had but just
reached his twentieth summer, was, as I have before said, counted the
strongest, the wisest, and, by anticipation, the bravest, man of the
nation. And with him came his aged father, the great chief of the
Andirondacks.
The feast was made and eaten, the dance was concluded, and the chiefs,
and counsellors, and warriors, were smoking in the great pipe of
peace, when the beautiful maiden, who bore the name of Menana, entered
the council cabin. She had now lost all traces of her origin from the
waters, and to all appearance was a mortal woman. She entered without
that timid step which mortal maidens have when they find themselves
suddenly cast into a crowd of the other sex, with none of their own to
give them countenance. But Menana was not versed in the ways of
mortals, and had none of the feelings which send the blush to the
cheek and trembling to the heart of the maidens of the world. After
surveying the stern array of warriors for a moment, with a curious and
enquiring look, she walked up to the youthful Piskaret, and said to
him in a sweet and soft tone, "Thou art very beautiful. Tell me if I
may not win thy love?"
The Brave, who was smitten with the charms of the fair creature,
pressing to her side, whispered that he loved her better than all the
world, and wished her to become the wife of his bosom. Then he
painted, to her willing ear, the charms of his native land, and spoke
of the tall old oaks which threw their giant shade over the banks of
the gentle and placid river, and the many thick glades filled with
lusty deer, and lakes stocked with delicious wild fowl, which were to
be found within the hunting-grounds of his nation. He told her of the
plenty that reigned in the cabins of the Andirondacks, and how much
better their women fared than those of the surrounding tribes. The
Daughter of the Flood smiled sweetly on the youth, and tears, the
first she had ever shed--and sighs, the first she had ever
breathed--proofs of her having acquired a human soul--stole to her
heart and her eyes.
And now she had received a soul, and become possessed of those
faculties which confer pleasure and pain, and create for their
possessor happiness and misery, and joy and sorrow. She was now alive
to the hopes and fears which exalt or depress existence--had tears for
those that wept, and a laugh for those that laughed. She, who entered
that assembly of warriors, fearless as an eagle seated on the top of a
lofty pine, now at once, in the twinkling of an eye, became filled
with trembling, and alarm, and apprehension, and strove to hide her
blushes by half hiding her face in the bosom of him she loved.
But pride, which has often interrupted the course of love, as well as
led to the downfall of nations, crept into the councils of the
Andirondacks, and they refused to permit the young warrior to take to
wife the maiden who was not of mortal parentage. They said that she
was of the blood of the spirits of the cataract, of a race who had
delighted to shed a cold and pestilential vapour over the villages of
their nation, and had destroyed several Andirondacks, whose blood
remained unrevenged. In vain did the youth plead his love; in vain did
he show, that if the spirits of the flood warred on their neighbours,
who were unable to inflict a wound on their adversaries, it furnished
no reason why the beautiful maiden, so lovely and so inoffensive,
should be banned. She had not injured, then why should she be spurned?
But his argument availed not to influence the warriors, or to bend
their stern hearts to pity. They drove the fair Menana from the arms
of him she loved best, and, exerting the authority, so potent among
the red men of the wilderness, of a father, and of chiefs, and of
elders, they carried away the lover from the village of the Ottawas,
thus dividing those whom the Great Being had so clearly created for
each other.
But my brother asks what became of the beautiful maiden. Let him
listen, and I will tell him. She pined away with grief at being
separated from the man she loved. She sang not the sweet song which
young maidens sing, who know neither love nor care--but her song was
lonely and sad, as that of the bird of night. She wandered by herself
in the dark and gloomy woods, as the bird flits when deprived of its
mate, or the deer which carries its death-wound from the shaft of the
hunter. Each day her eye lost a portion of its light, and her step of
its buoyancy. She laughed no more, nor joined the dance of maidens,
nor went with them to gather wild flowers; but her amusements, if
amusements they could be called, were to weep and sigh, to wander
alone with listless step, and to sit by the edge of the cataract,
telling her sad story to the spirits of the flood. The Great Spirit,
seeing her grief, and knowing that a heart that is broken hath no more
business among the things of this world, bade her rejoin her friends
in the surge of the cataract. She heard the well-known and
well-remembered voice, and prepared to obey. Calling around her the
friends whom her sweetness and good-humour had won her, she bade them
a tearful adieu, and received the like tribute of kindness. The young
Braves, who had before attempted to win her love, crowded around her
to catch her last farewell, anxious yet fearing to attempt to change a
resolution which had been dictated by the Great Spirit. They had tough
spears in their hands, and well filled quivers at their shoulders, and
their cheeks and brows were stained with the hue of wrath, for they
were prepared to avenge on the haughty Andirondacks the slight and
injury done the beauteous Menana. The maidens came to witness her
departure, with tears bedewing their cheeks. All accompanied her to
the brink of the cataract, and beheld her throw herself into its
fearful bosom.
No sooner had she reached the waters of that boiling torrent, than
uprose from its bosom the grisly heads of the fell spirits, who were
its inhabitants. Rage filled their countenances, and horrid
imprecations burst from their lips, as they vowed to be avenged on
that arrogant and wicked people, the Andirondacks, who had inflicted
misery upon an adopted and cherished daughter of the flood. The last
the Ottawas saw of them, they were soothing and comforting the
beautiful Menana, whom, after sustaining for a few moments upon the
surface of the water, they bore to their crystal dwelling beneath the
foaming torrent. They first, however, employed an Ottawa messenger to
bear their defiance to their enemies, and to assure them of their
eternal hatred.
It was not long after that a large war-party of the Andirondacks,
composed of the flower of that nation, and headed by Piskaret,
ascended the Mississippi, to make an incursion into the territories of
a nation who dwelt upon its borders above the Falls. It is the custom
of the tribes, when travelling upon the river, to approach to the
verge of the cataract, and then transport their canoes around it. The
Andirondacks were within a bowshot of the cataract, when all at once
the surface of the water became covered with grisly heads, which
grinned hatred and defiance upon the Andirondacks, who, though filled
with courage to dare encounter with men of their own form and nature,
shook with a new sense of fear, as they beheld the hideous
countenances and uplifted arms of the spirits of the flood. In the
centre of the array of water spirits, they beheld the face of the
beautiful Menana, still shining in all its former beauty, her eyes lit
up by the fires of an unquenched and unquenchable love. Raising their
dreadful shout of vengeance, the spirits now gathered about the canoes
of the paralysed Andirondacks, and commenced their work of
destruction. But _one_ was protected by a being of their own
order--the brave and youthful Piskaret found himself, ere an arrow had
been impelled, or a thrust given by a spear, caught and shielded by
the arms of his faithful Menana. While the water-spirits were employed
in dealing death among their enemies, whose resistance availed not,
the beautiful maiden drew her lover from his seat in his canoe, and
disappeared with him beneath the waters. The moment the lovers had
sunk into the flood, the spirits, with a dreadful shout, sunk also,
leaving but few of the Andirondacks survivors of their attack. Nearly
the whole had perished from the assaults of beings against whom human
weapons were useless--who laughed at the puny resistance of mortals,
and feared their battle less than the carcajou fears the mouse, or the
canieu the humming-bird.
The Great Being, at the prayer of the water-spirits, bade the souls of
the slaughtered Andirondacks assume the shape of eagles, commanding
them to dwell for ever on the little island which stands just below
the cataract, and within the full hearing of its incessant and
tremendous roar. That they might receive the full reward of their
arrogance, and pride, and cruelty, he so refined their sense of
hearing, that the shaking of the wings of the bat was to them as loud
as the thunder of the hills to a man having but the usual ear. What
then must be the noise of the mighty cataract, which, leaping over a
precipice of rocks, upon a stony bed, flies back again in foam and
spray, higher than an arrow impelled by the toughest bow, bent by the
strongest arm!
If my brother believes my story the song of a bird, let him visit the
cataract, and use his own eyes and ears. If he do not behold that
little island covered with eagles, whose wings never cleave any other
air than its own; if he do not hear the angry voice of the spirits in
the boiling waters, ay, and if he do not see them after nightfall;
then let him call me a liar.