[Footnote A: The burnt weed.]
When the Nansemonds occupied for their hunting-grounds the vast
forests which lie between the Mountains and the Great Arm of the
Sea[B], they were the lords and masters of the wilds, and ruled them
according to their pleasure. Throughout the land there was none equal
to them for swiftness and dexterity in the chase, and they were
foremost amongst the nations for their prowess in war. When their
shout was heard among the distant hills of the Lenapes, the craven cry
of that timid people was, "A Nansemond! a Nansemond!"--when they launched
their canoes upon the distant Mississippi, the men of that region fled,
like a startled deer or elk from the growl of the carcajou.
[Footnote B: Chesapeak Bay.]
Their numbers have now become thinned; many populous villages have
disappeared--brother, the Nansemonds are not what they were, at least
in numbers. But they have not lost their courage and valour, nor
degenerated from the ancient renown of their fathers, nor has the
thinning of their nation in the least tarnished the reputation of the
few who yet live, or caused their enemies to deem them less than men.
None can say that they ever turned their backs upon a foe, or shunned
encountering one who wished for combat. Even the Iroquois, whose arms
have always wielded a tomahawk against them, and who, in their turn,
have encountered their deadly vengeance, confess them very brave, and,
whenever they make them captives, honour them with the prolonged
torture, which it is the right of the brave and valiant only to suffer.
There was once upon a time, in this tribe, formerly so potent and
renowned, but now so few and feeble, a maiden, whose name was
Aton-Larre, one of whose souls--that which speaks of things understood
by all, and discourses in a language intelligible to all--had left its
house of flesh to go to the Cheke Checkecame, or land of departed
spirits. The other soul yet abode in the body, but it was the soul
which takes care that the mouth has meat and drink, administering to
the wants of the flesh which enshrouds it by supplying it with food
and clothing, and protecting it from fire and frost. Yet, though the
sensible soul had wandered out, it had not taken away her memory, nor
her faculty of seeing things unseen by other mortals, or of relating
entertaining stories.
She was very beautiful, but her beauty was of a strange character. Her
form was very tall and commanding, and she was straight as a reed. Her
dark eyes had, from the disordered state of her mind, received a very
wild expression, but none that knew her feared her, for she was
innocent and harmless as a child. Her long black hair, which swept the
earth at her feet, was interlaced with gay beads and shells, and gayer
wild flowers, and around her wrists and ancles were fastened strings
of the teeth of the alligator. It was her greatest pleasure to enter
her canoe, and commit it to the current of the river. Then, while
drifting about, she would sing wild and melancholy songs, striking the
water at irregular intervals with a long paddle which she held in the
middle, and which formed a kind of concert with the song, as though
two persons were singing.
It was strange, but her people declared that the sensible soul left
her while she was worshipping the Great Spirit in the _Quiccosan_[A].
There, while performing the sacred dance around the carved posts[B],
her soul was called away to the happy regions, and her mind became
like a cloud in the time of a strong blast, or a dry leaf carried into
the sky by a whirlwind. Others asserted that she had dared to spit
upon a _pawcorance_[C], and for that had been punished by the Great
Being with the loss of her senses. It matters little which was true,
since one of them must have been; for it is only the Great Spirit who
can take away the gift of reason which he bestows, and he only takes
it away from those with whom he is angry. And thus lived the crazed
Aton-Larre--strange that her bosom should have felt the pangs of love,
and that for a being so ugly and misshapen as the little Ohguesse.
[Footnote A: Place of worship--church.]
[Footnote B: The Indians, occupying what is now called Virginia, had
posts fixed around the interior of their Quiccosan, or place of
worship, with men's faces carved upon them. These tribes have long
been extinct.]
[Footnote C: Altar-stone. From this proceeds the great reverence these
tribes had for a small bird, peculiar to that region, and which
continually called out that name. They believed it was the soul of one
of their princes, and thence permitted no one to harm it. But there
was once, they said, a wicked Indian, who, after abundance of fears
and scruples, was, at last, bribed to kill one of them. But he paid
dear for his presumption, for a few days after he was taken away, and
never more heard of.]
This Ohguesse was a youth, whose feet wanted the fleetness, and whose
arm lacked the strength, of a man's, but he was nevertheless the
favourite of the Great Spirit. He was less in stature than a man, and
crooked withal, his height being little more than that of the tall
bird[A] which loves to strut along the sandy shore, picking up the
fish as they flutter joyously along in the beams of the warm and
cheering sun. But if he was diminutive in body he was great in his
soul--what others lacked in wisdom he supplied. His name was Ohguesse,
which signifies a Partridge. His brothers gave him this name because
of his preferring peace to war--of his liking better to hunt the less
dangerous animals, the _makon_ than the _mackwah_[B], and to spear the
fish that gave little trouble, and to snare peaceful birds--all sports
unworthy of a man. But this tame and pacific spirit was forgiven in
Ohguesse, because he was little and misshapen, and, withal, the
favourite of the Great Spirit. None could call down rain from the
clouds, or conjure them into a clear sky, or foretell the coming of
storms, like him. If he bade the women plant the maize, they might be
sure that a shower was at hand; if he bade the warriors depart on a
distant expedition, they knew it would be successful. His blessing
spoken over the seine was as good as its marriage[C]; his prayer to
the Great Spirit in the cave, or on the hill-top, procured health and
plentiful harvests for his people. And such was Ohguesse.
[Footnote A: The crane or pelican.]
[Footnote B: _Mackwah_, an old bear; _makon_, a bear's cub.]
[Footnote C: It is what they call the bosom-net, with which the
Indians perform this singular ceremony. Before they use it they marry
it to two virgins, and, during the marriage-feast, place it between
the brides; they afterwards exhort it to catch plenty of fish, and
believe they do a great deal to obtain this favour by making large
presents to the sham fathers-in-law.]
Singular were the means by which Aton-Larre testified the affection
she bore the little man. She would wander for hours in search of sweet
berries, because he loved them; and, when in the house of her father,
they were cooking the juicy buffalo's hump, she always begged the most
savoury parts to carry to him she loved. When the winter brought its
snows and storms, she went morning and evening to the cabin in which
he dwelt, to see that there was fire to keep him warm, and, if illness
assailed him, and pain stretched him out on a bed of sickness, for his
strength was little and his body feeble, who but the crazed Aton-Larre
gave him the drink which took the cramp from his limbs, and restored
him to health?
Nor was the little Ohguesse unmindful of her kindness--he met her love
with equal return. If she procured for him ripe berries, he testified
his gratitude in a way which repaid her fondness--and the meat she
gave him, though it was ever so old and tough, was to him the juiciest
that ever touched the lips of man. He would sit on the bank of the
river for half a sun, watching her canoe, as she swept it over the
current, and listening to her charming songs in which his own name was
mentioned with so much love. And, when fatigued by her labour she
guided her bark to the shore, Ohguesse was sure to meet her with
outstretched arms, and assist her in the labour of carrying the canoe
to its shed of pine branches. In the long evenings of the moons of
snow and frost she would sit and relate to him--for her memory had not
left her--tales of the goodness of the Great Spirit and the wickedness
of the Evil Spirit; of the wars of the tribe, and of the journeys she
had made to the land of souls, and of the dreams she dreamed, and of
strange fishes she had seen in the depths of the sea, and strange
fowls in the upper regions of the air, and strange beasts in the wild
forests. Many indeed were the wonderful things she had beheld, if you
believed what she said--and who could do otherwise, since her soul had
travelled to the Happy Hunting-Grounds, and her eyes beheld with a
double nature--the nature of a spirit and the nature of a mortal? It
was in one of these long and stormy winter nights that she related to
the tribe the story of the _Maqua that married a Rattlesnake_.
There was once upon a time, she began, in the tribe of the Maquas, the
foes of my nation, a young warrior whose name was Cayenguirago. He was
the bravest and most fearless of men--his deeds were the theme of
every tongue, from the stormy shores of the wild Abenakis to the
mountain clime of the fierce Naudowessies. While he was yet a boy his
deeds were the deeds of a man--ere the suns of fifteen summers had
beamed on his head, he had followed in the war-path of the full-grown
Braves to the haunts of the Mohicans on the borders of the Great Salt
Lake. And, before the snows of the succeeding winter had melted, he
had become a Brave and a werowance[A]. But with his great strength and
daring valour was mixed a bad and cruel disposition--his heart was
very wicked and impious. When the priests spoke to him of the Great
Spirit, he told them he should never believe there was such a spirit
till he saw him--he omitted no opportunity of making scoff of that
good being, and laughing at his thunders. His mocks of those wise and
good men, the priests and prophets, whom the Great Spirit loves and
honours, by making them acquainted with his wishes and will, were
continually poured out. He paid no respect to aged people; he took
the bison's meat from his father's famished mouth, and knocked the
gourd of water from the lips of his thirsty mother. If he saw a man
weaker than himself he took from him whatever he coveted, and made no
restitution of the things he found. If he cast his eyes upon a maiden,
and she listened to his false tongue, erelong her tears were sure to
flow faster than those of a roebuck[B] that is hard pressed by a
hunter. The brothers and sisters that were in the cabin of his father,
if they crossed him, were beaten like a dog caught in a theft; if he
gave a pledge to follow a chief(1) he was sure to forget it; if he
made a vow to aid a friend in danger, he was sure to desert him, not
from fear, but because it was a pleasure to him to do wrong and
inflict injury. And thus lived Cayenguirago, the Great Arrow of the
Maquas.
[Footnote A: _Werowance_, a war-chief.]
[Footnote B: I do not know whether the roebuck actually weeps when he
is hard pushed--the Indians believe he does.]
Once upon a time, as this brave but bad chief was hunting alone in the
wilderness, in a spot which the Great Spirit had forgotten to
level(2), he came to a great cave in the side of a hill. It was in the
time of winter, and the hour of a fearful fall of rain and hail. To
escape the wrath of the spirits of the air, he entered this deep cave
in the side of the hill, carrying with him much wood, and the spoils
he had won in the chase. As he entered it he heard many strange and
fearful noises, but Cayenguirago was a warrior, though a wicked one,
and, little troubled at any time by frightful sounds, he pursued his
way into the interior of the cave. It was dark as a cloudy night in
the time that follows the death of the moon, but he remarked that the
cave was lit up and the darkness partially dispelled by what appeared
to be little stars, exceedingly bright substances which resembled the
eyes of a wolf, though smaller and far brighter, and which were
continually shifting about the cave with a slow and uncertain motion.
Then, for sound there was an incessant rattling, and hissing, and
slapping, which almost stunned him with noise. As he moved on he found
himself impeded by something into which his feet were continually
settling, and which he judged to be loose sand. When he had gone far
enough from the entrance to be free from the current of air which
entered the cavern by it, he laid down the deer's flesh which he had
brought upon his back, took out his flint and tinder-box, and struck
fire. Having properly disposed of the wood he had brought, and kindled
a flame, he raised himself to an upright posture to survey the cavern.
Who shall describe the terror which filled the soul of Cayenguirago,
stout and fearless as he was, when he found himself in the middle of
an immense body of rattlesnakes, and perceived that it was among these
deadly animals, of which there was a thick layer upon the floor of the
cave, that he had been for some time wallowing? Their eyes it was that
lit up the cavern, and theirs were the hissing, and rattling, and
slapping, which saluted his ears. Under his feet and upon every side
of him, as far as the eye could reach, were heads upreared with little
fiery tongues projecting from green jaws, and moving with a motion
more rapid than a flash of summer lightning. The heads about the
cavern were thicker than the thievish ravens in a field of milky corn.
The moment that the light of the fire he had kindled enabled them to
see the intruder, all of them rushed towards him, though none
attempted to inflict injury. The nearest approached within a step;
those behind climbed over the backs of the more advanced, until they
lay piled up on every side, as high as the shoulders of a tall man.
Surrounded, as Cayenguirago was, by the most venomous and dreadful of
all the animals formed by the Great Spirit, he did not forget to keep
his fire burning, nor to draw out his pouch filled with good tobacco.
Having recovered his coolness and composure, and become a man again,
he filled his pipe with the beloved weed, and, lighting it, began to
roll out clouds of smoke. Each time he puffed, he observed that the
snakes retreated further from him, until at length they were seen
gliding into the darkness which enshrouded the further part of the
cavern.
While he lay thus warming himself at the fire, and emitting clouds of
fragrant smoke, some one near him exclaimed, in a very sharp and
shrill voice, "Booh!" Looking up, Cayenguirago beheld standing behind
him a very ugly creature, but whether man or beast, he found it at
first difficult to determine. His skin was black as soot, and his hair
white as snow. His eyes, which were very large, were of the colour of
the green far-eyes[A] with which the pale faces survey distant
objects, and stood out so far from the head that, had one of them been
placed in the middle of the forehead, a tear dropping from it would
have hit the tip of the nose. His teeth, which were very large, were
white as snow; his ears, which were yellow, were smaller than the leaf
of the black walnut, and shaped exactly like it. His legs were not
shaped like those of a human being, but were two straight bones
without flesh or joint, and both black and glossy as charred birch.
But what rendered him yet more horrible to look at was that snakes,
poisonous rattlesnakes, were wreathing themselves around his legs,
and body, and arms--leaping from him, and upon him, tying themselves
in knots around his neck, and doing other feats of horrid agility.
After surveying this uncouth being and his fearful companions for a
few moments in deep silence, Cayenguirago addressed him thus:--
[Footnote A: _Far-eyes_, the name the Indians gave to spectacles.]
"Who art thou?"
"Thy master."
"The Maqua is a man," replied the warrior fiercely; "his knee was
never bowed--he acknowledges no master."
"Thou hast served me long and well, Cayenguirago--I am Abamocho, the
Spirit of Evil, and this is my dwelling-place."
"Thou hast chosen a dark abode, and strange companions," replied the
warrior.
"They are not my companions, but my warriors, my braves, my
tormentors," answered the Spirit of Evil. "It is with these that I
torment bad people, as the Maquas use old women to torment the
prisoners they take in battle. But fear not, Cayenguirago, thou hast
been a faithful servant to me--I will not suffer my people to harm
thee. Dost thou know that I design to bestow my daughter upon thee for
a wife?"
"I did not know it?" answered the Maqua.
"She shall be thine," said the Evil Spirit. "But I warn thee that
there have been very many pleasanter companions than she will make
thee, for she is excessively irritable and passionate. Withal she is
so fond of admiration, that I have no doubt she would give chace to
the ugliest toad that ever devoured a worm, so she could captivate
him. She is a true woman."
"What will the father give the Maqua that marries her?"
"Wampum, much wampum--"
"I will take her."
"Many beaver-skins, and much bear's meat--"
"Cayenguirago will make her his wife."
"Revenge against the Hurons who slew so many of his warriors in the
last Beaver-Moon. He shall drink their blood in plentiful draughts, he
shall eat their children roasted in the fire, and feed his men upon
broth made of the flesh of their Braves[A]."
[Footnote A: These, as I before observed, are mere metaphors,
signifying a deep revenge.]
"She is mine!"
"Dost thou know that she is a rattlesnake?"
"I care not, so she bring me as her portion the rich presents and the
sweet revenge thou hast spoken of. Shall the Maqua behold the maiden?"
"He shall, but the father bids him remember one thing. When the
marriage has taken place, let not the husband forget to cut off his
wife's tail. Upon his remembering this injunction his life depends. If
he forget it the bride will be a widow ere she is a wife."
With this the Spirit departed into the inner part of the cavern. He
soon returned, bringing with him a huge unwieldy rattlesnake. "This,"
said he, as he came up to the Maqua, "is the maiden I spoke of, and
the wife I have long destined for thee. She is rather fatter than need
be--she will eat the less, however. Take her, thou hast been a good
servant, and I owe thee a reward. Cayenguirago!"