If my brother knows anything of the Osages, as they are called by the
people of his nation, but by themselves, and all the neighbouring
tribes, the Wasbashas, he knows that they live on the banks of the large
and beautiful river, the Osage, which empties itself into the Missouri,
at the distance of a hunter's journey of three suns from its mouth. Once
the people of my nation were all united like a family of children which
have but one mother, but subdivisions of the original stock have taken
place, and they are now divided into three tribes, the Great Osages and
the Little Osages, who have raised their cabins on the south bank of the
river, and the sister's sons who broil their meat on the banks of the
stream which our white brother calls the Vermilion. Are we brave and
valiant? Ask the nations around us. Behold the Dahcotah scalps drying in
the smoke of our cabins! Are we strong? Here is the bow of an Osage
boy--bend it. Are our women beautiful? Look at them, and be convinced.
The story which our fathers told us of our origin is this, and they
believed it, for their lips never dealt in falsehood, nor were their
tongues forked. The father of our nation was a SNAIL. It was when the
earth was young and little: it was before the rivers had become wide and
long, or the mountains lifted their peaks among the clouds, that this
snail found himself passing a quiet existence on the banks of our own
beloved river. His wants and his wishes were but few and well supplied,
and as quiet and rest, and the freedom to move neither often nor much,
were to him the height of happiness, he was happy. He seldom hunted,
and, when he did, it was in the immediate neighbourhood of his lodge,
never moving unless at the call of hunger, and then according to his
nature he satisfied his appetite upon whatever was nearest at hand,
rather than take the chance of faring better by going further. And thus
lived our great forefather, the snail.
At length the region of the Missouri was visited by one of those great
storms which so often scatter desolation over it, and the river,
overflowed by the melted currents of snow and ice from the regions of
the mountains, swept away every thing from its banks, and among other
things the drowsy snail. Seated upon a log, and enjoying greatly a
circumstance which gave him all the pleasure of travel without its
fatigue, our lazy ancestor drifted down many a day's journey, till the
torrent, subsiding, left him and his log upon the bank of the River of
Fish. He mow found himself in a strange country, but there was plenty of
slime, both on ground and leaf, and there was no occasion for rapid
motion; then what cared he? It was in the middle of the season of hot
suns, which beamed fiercely upon him, till he became baked in the slime
to the earth, and found himself as incapable of moving as the clod upon
which he dwelt. Gradually he grew in size and stature, and his form
experienced a change, till at length what was once a snail, creeping
upon all-fours on the earth, ripened into man, erect, tall, and stately,
strong of limb, rugged of purpose, and formed to overcome by either
strength or cunning, every thing which dwelt on the earth, or in the
air, or in the water. For a long time after his change from a beast to a
human being, he remained stupified, not knowing what he was, where he
was, or by what means to sustain life. At length recollection returned
to him: he remembered that he was once a snail, and dwelt upon another
river--he remembered where that river lay. He now became animated with a
wish to return to his old haunts, and accordingly directed his steps
towards that part of the great island[A] from which he had been removed.
Hunger now began to prey upon him, and bade fair to close his eyes
before he should again behold his beloved haunts on the banks of the
Osage. The beasts of the forest were many, but their speed outstripped
his; he could not catch them: the birds of the air fluttered upon sprays
beyond his reach; the fish, gliding through the waves at his feet, were
nimbler than he, and eluded his grasp. Each moment be grew weaker, the
films gathered before his eyes, and in his ears there rang sounds like
the whistling of winds through the woods in the month before the snows.
At length, wearied and exhausted, he had laid himself down upon a grassy
bank to die.
[Footnote A: The Indians always speak of the earth as a "great island."]
As he lay, thinking of nothing but food and the means of obtaining it,
some one at his side said, with a voice soft as the bleat of a young
kid, "Wasbasha?"
Our father, who had heard birds sing and wail, and beasts cry and growl,
but never till now had heard one utter intelligible sounds, answered
"Eh!" Raising himself with difficulty, upon his side he beheld that
which spoke to him. He saw, mounted upon a noble beast, white as the
snow of winter, a being, like to nothing which is seen among the sons of
the earth. He was tall of stature, his eyes glittered like the stars of
morning, or the tears of a young maiden who weeps for joy, and his hair
shone like the blush of sunset upon the folds of a cloud. His was indeed
a glorious form; and power as well as beauty sate enthroned upon it:
while the Wasbasha gazed, he trembled like a fawn caught in the toils of
the hunter, or the wolf penned in the crevice of a rock. Again the
glorious being spoke to our terrified but admiring father.
"Why does he who is the kernel of the snail look terrified, and why is
be faint and weary?"
"That I tremble," answered our father, "is because I fear thy power, and
quail before the lightnings of thine eye--that I am faint is because I
lack food."
"As regards thy trembling, be composed; the Master of Breath punishes
not till sin is committed--thou hast not sinned, be calm. But art thou
hungry?"
"I have eaten nothing," replied our father, "since I ceased to be a
snail."
Upon hearing this the Great Spirit drew from under his robe a bow and
arrow, and bade our father observe what he would do with it. On the
topmost limb of a lofty maple, at the distance of a bowshot, sat a
beautiful bird, with its bright green neck and train of variegated
feathers, singing and fluttering among the red leaves of its
nestling-tree. Bending the bow, he placed before it an arrow, and,
letting it fly, the bird dropped dead upon the earth. A deer was seen at
a still greater distance, browzing upon the tree which supplies its
best-loved food. Again the skilful archer drew his bow, and the animal
lay food for the son of the snail.
"There are victuals for you," said the Spirit, "enough to last you till
your strength enables you to beat up the haunts of the deer and the
moose. And here is the bow and arrow--the heart of the fir supplies the
one, the other is the thigh-bone of the buck. Son of the mighty river,
you are naked and must be clothed. The winter is coming; the snows will
descend, and the winds will leave their caverns in the mountains towards
the setting sun, to war upon the unsheltered kernel of the snail.--You
must be clothed."
Saying this, the Great Being called our father to him, and taught him
how to skin the deer, and how to apply it for the protection of his
person from the frost, and the wind, and the snow. Having done this, and
given him the beasts, and fishes, and all feathered creatures, to be his
food and his raiment, he bade our father farewell, and took his
departure for his home beyond the mountains; and he who had received the
gifts proceeded on his journey towards the Osage.
Strengthened, and rendered cheerful and buoyant, by invigorating food
and refreshing sleep, our father's steps were light, and his journey was
soon near its completion. He soon trod upon the banks of his beloved
river; a few more suns and he would sit down upon the very spot, where,
for so many seasons, he had crawled on the slimy leaf, so often dragged
his lazy legs over the muddy pool. He had seated himself upon the bank
of the river, and was meditating deeply on these things, when up crept
from the water a stranger looking animal with four legs, a broad tail
covered with scales like a fish, and two short ears nearly hidden by the
long fur which covered his body. His colour was that of the berry which
grows within a prickly husk,[A] and is eaten by our Indian people with
their roasted opossums. Approaching our father in a saucy and menacing
manner, and displaying a set of teeth which were none of the handsomest,
he demanded, in an angry tone, "Who are you?"
[Footnote A: The chesnut.]
"I am a snail," answered our father. "Who are you?"
"I am head-warrior of the nation of beavers," answered the other. "By
what authority have you come to disturb my possession of this river? We
have held it from the time that Chappewee's musk-rat brought up the
earth from the bottom of the deep waters. By what right do you come to
disturb our possession of this river?"
"It is not your river," answered the Wasbasha. "It has been mine ever
since the melted snows ran into it. It was mine while I was a weak, and
foolish, and lazy snail; and it is surely mine now I am a wise and
valiant man, and a courageous and expert hunter."
While they stood quarreling hard, and at the point of coming to blows,
there crept out of the water another creature--a young maiden
beaver--just like the one who was disputing our father's right to his
land, only far more beautiful and glossy. She enquired what they were
quarrelling about.
"Why," answered the chief warrior of the beavers, "the strange creature
with whom I was talking, and who, I am sure, is nothing but a polecat
sewed up in a deer-skin, says he owns all the river. He says the Great
Being who is over man and beast, the Master whom even beavers worship,
gave it to him."
"Is that all?" replied the maiden; "but you need not answer, for I
listened with a curious ear to your discourse, and heard it all. It is
not worth going to war about, father--make peace with the stranger, and
each of you retain a sufficiency of the water of the river for his
purposes; and then you can help each other when enemies assail you." And
then, casting a fond look upon the Osage, she called her father aside,
and whispered a long time in his ear, frequently turning her beautiful
eyes, bright with love, upon our ancestor. When they had done talking,
the old warrior came up to the son of the snail and asked him, in an
altered tone, to go home with him to his cabin. So the Osage went home
with the chief beaver and his beautiful daughter.
They soon came to a number of small cabins built on the banks of the
river, and into one of these they entered, the beaver bidding the Osage
first wipe his feet upon the mat which lay beside the door. The Osage
found the floor of the cabin strewed with the newly-gathered branches of
the box and fir. The roof and walls were white as the robe which our
white brother folds around his breast, and a cool, refreshing air
entered the building through the windows which opened on the river.
Around the room--which was four steps of a long-legged man each
way--were hung skins, and skulls, and scalps of otters--trophies of the
wars which the beavers had waged with that nation. In one corner of the
room sat a beaver-woman, combing the heads of some little beavers, whose
ears she boxed very soundly when they would not lie still. The warrior
whispered the Osage that she was his second wife, and was very apt to be
cross when there was work to be done, which prevented her from going to
see her neighbours. Those whose heads she was combing were her children,
he said, and she who had made them rub their noses against each other
and be friends was his eldest daughter.
Then calling aloud, "Wife," said he, "what have you to eat? The stranger
is undoubtedly hungry; see, he is pale, his eye has no fire, and his
step is like that of a moose."
Without replying to him, for it was a sulky day with her, she called
aloud, and a dirty-looking beaver entered. "Go," said she, "and fetch
the stranger something to eat."
With that the beaver-girl passed through a small door into another room,
from which she soon returned, bringing some large pieces of willow-bark,
which she laid at the feet of the warrior and his guest. While the
warrior-beaver was chewing the willow, and the Osage was pretending to
do so, they fell to talking over many matters, particularly the wars of
the Beavers with the Otters, and their frequent victories over them. He
told our father by what means the beavers felled large trees, and moved
them to the places where they wished to make dams; how they raised to an
erect position the poles for their lodges, and how they plastered them
so as to keep out rain. Then he spoke of their employments when they had
buried the hatchet; of the peace, and happiness, and tranquillity, they
enjoyed when, gathered into companies, they rested from their labours,
and passed their time in talking, and feasting, and bathing, and playing
the game of bones, and making love. All the while the young
beaver-maiden sat with her eyes fixed upon the son of the snail, at
every pause moving a little nearer, till at length she was at his side
with her fore-paw upon his arm; a minute more and she had placed it
around his neck, and was rubbing her soft furry cheek against his. Our
ancestor, on his part, betrayed no disinclination to receive her
caresses, but returned them with equal ardour. The old beaver, seeing
what was going on, turned his back upon them, and suffered them to be as
kind to each other as they pleased.
At last, turning quickly round, while the maiden, suspecting what was
coming and pretending to be abashed, ran behind her mother, said he,
"To end the foolery, what say you, son of the snail, to marrying my
daughter? She is well brought up, and is the moat industrious girl in
the village. She will flap more wall with her tail in a day than any
maiden in the nation; she will gnaw down a larger tree betwixt the
rising of the sun and the coming of the shadows than many a smart beaver
of the other sex. As for her wit, try her at the game of the dish, and
see who gets up master; and for cleanliness, look at her petticoat."
Our father answered that he did not doubt that she was industrious and
cleanly, able to gnaw down a very large tree, and to use her tail to
very good purpose; that he loved her much, and wished to make her the
mother of his children. And thereupon the bargain was concluded.
That day the beaver-maiden became the wife of the Osage, and all the
nation of beavers assembled to eat the marriage-feast. The Osage went
out and killed a lusty raccoon, upon which he fed; but his wife and all
her kindred fed upon the tender bark of the young poplar and alder. A
peace was made between the two nations, which was to last for ever, but
it was broken a long tune ago; and they now take each other's scalps
whenever they can. The next day, the Osage and his wife departed for
the former haunts of the snail, where in a few moons they arrived, and
where their descendants have dwelt to this day.
Brothers, if this is a lie, blame not me, but our fathers and mothers
who told it to us. I have done.
* * * * *
The Author may perhaps be suspected of intending this as a satire upon
Buffon's highly _imaginative_ description of the habits of the Beaver.
Let the reader compare it with that description, and he will be able to
judge for himself. If the tale is a lie, he has only to say in the
language of the Indian--"Blame not me." Several more recent travellers
bear witness, however, to the genuineness of the Tradition.