Matcikineu, Terrible-eagle, sat dozing in the dusk in his round,
rush-mat wigwam. The fire smouldered, but random drafts, slipping in
through the swinging mat that covered the door, encouraged little
dancing flames to spring up, and these illumined the far interior of
the lodge, so that it was possible to observe its furnishings down to
the mustiest cranny.
Around the inner circumference of the wigwam, ran a broad rustic bench,
supported by forked sticks and thickly strewn balsam boughs on which
lay bearskin robes. The inner wall of the home was hung with woven reed
mats, bearing designs in color, of angular figures and conventional
floral motifs. Over Terrible-eagle’s head, on smoke encrusted poles,
swung several mat-covered, oval bundles, festooned with age-blackened
gourd rattles, war clubs, and utensils and weapons of unusual portent.
These were his sacred war and hunting bundles, packets of charms whose
use and accompanying formulæ he had obtained personally from the Gods,
while fasting, or purchased at a great price from others more fortunate
than he. For Terrible-eagle was a renowned war leader, a hunter,
and the greatest of all Mätc Mitäwûk, Masters of the Grand Medicine
Society, a secret fraternal and medical organization, to which, in one
form or another, nearly every Indian of influence in all the Great
Lakes and Central Western region belonged.
The door covering was quietly thrust aside and Anäm, a wolf-like dog,
trotted in to curl up by the fire, while after him, first dropping a
load of faggots from her shoulders, stumbled Wábano-mitämu, Dawn-woman,
wife of Terrible-eagle, who crouched down grumbling to enter the lodge,
and turned on her time-gnarled knees to drag the kindlings in after her.
Roused by the noise, Terrible-eagle stretched and yawned, then reached
over his head and took down a calabash-shell rattle, which he began
to shake gently, while Dawn-woman shoved aside the birch-bark boxes
that cluttered the floor, stirred up the fire in the round, shallow
pit where it was glowing, and set among the hot embers a large, round,
deep, pointed-bottomed kettle of brown earthenware, the base of which
she screwed into the ashes by a quick, circular twist of the rim. Into
this kettle she poured some water from a birch-bark pail; and, when it
began to simmer, added a quantity of wild rice, smoked meat, and dried
berries, which she stirred with an elaborate wooden-spoon paddle.
The random swish of Terrible-eagle’s rattle now began to articulate
itself in the form of a tune, the motif of which might have been
borrowed from the night babblings and murmurings of a woodland brook.
It rose like the prattle of water racing down stony riffles; it fell to
the purring monotone of a little fall burbling into a deep pool.
Then, suddenly, Terrible-eagle raised his voice in song—a song without
meaning to the uninitiated—yet a song potent with the powers of
Manitous, and ancient as the pine forests.
“Ni mánituk, häwatûkuk, kê’nêäminûm.”
“You, my gods, I am singing to you!”
“Look you, old fellow,” cried Dawn-woman, squatting beside her cooking,
“why do you sing that sacred song? There is no need to rehearse the
chants of the Manitous when ice binds the rivers, and snow blankets the
land! When new life dawns with the grass blades in the spring, then we
will need to refresh our memories; not now, while the gods sleep like
bears.”
“Silence, old partner! You do not know everything! Even now there comes
one seeking the knowledge of the path our brethren and fellows have
trod before us. Listen!”
The lodge was hushed with the heavy silence of the Wisconsin forest in
midwinter. Then came the crunch and squeak of approaching snowshoes
slipping over the crusted drifts.
“N’hau, Dawn-woman! Prepare the guest place, spread robes behind the
fire, dish out a bowl of soup! Some one of our people desires to enter!”
The noise ceased before the doorway, and Terrible-eagle, now hunched
before the fire, paused before dropping a hot coal on the tobacco in
his red stone pipe, to bid the guest to enter. “Yoh!” came the hearty
response, and a tall, dark warrior, bareheaded save for a fillet of
otter fur around his brows, ducked under the doorway and silently
passed round the fire, on the left, to the guest place, where he
seated himself, cross-legged, on a pile of robes. He was clad in a
plain shirt of blue-dyed deerskin, deeply fringed on the seams, in
flapping, leather leggings, high soft-soled moccasins, and a leather
apron handsomely embroidered with colored porcupine quills wrought
in delicate, flowered figures. He bore no weapon, and on his swarthy
cheeks two round spots of red paint were seen in the firelight.
After the newcomer had eaten a bowl of steaming stew with the aid of a
huge, wooden ladle, he lay back among the robes, puffing comfortably
on a long-stemmed pipe with bowl of red stone, filled and lighted for
him by the old man. As the cheerful odor of tobacco and kinnikinick
permeated the lodge, the stranger began to speak. He informed the old
people that his name was Muhwäsê, Little-wolf, of the Wave clan of the
Menomini, that he had come all the way from Mätc Suamäko, the Great
Sand Bar village on the Green Bay of Lake Michigan; that the young
men had opened their war bundles, and danced preparatory to going to
war against the Sauk, but that the Sauk had heard the news and fled
southward. He ended with all the gossip and tittle-tattle of his band.
It was not until Dawn-woman slept, and the stars were visible in the
winter sky through the smoke hole of the lodge, that Little-wolf went
out abruptly, and returned bearing a huge bundle which he dumped on the
floor at the feet of Terrible-eagle, and silently took his place on the
lounge once more.
With trembling hands the old man undid the leathern thongs and
unwrapped the bearskin with which the bundle was enclosed, and spread
before him an array of articles that brought an avaricious sparkle to
his red-rimmed eyes.
“Nimá, nékan! Well done, my colleague!” he exclaimed. “These are
valuable gifts, and in the proper number. Four hatchets, four spears,
and four knives of the sacred yellow rock (native copper), four belts
of white wampum, and four garments of tanned deerskin, embroidered with
quillwork, with much tobacco. Surely this gift has a meaning?”
“Grandfather! You to whom nothing is hard,” replied the visitor. “It
is true that I am nobody. I am poor—the enemy scarcely know my name.
Yet I am desirous of eating the food of the Medicine Lodge, as all the
brethren have done who have passed this way before me!”
“N’hau, my grandson! I shall call together the three other Pushwäwûk,
or masters, for their consent. What you have asked for, may seem as
nothing to you—yet it is Life. These songs may appear to partake of
the ways of children—yet they are powerful. I understand you well; you
desire to imitate the ways of our own ancient Grand Master, Mä’näbus,
who was slain and brought to life that we might gain life unending!
Good! You have done well. In the morning I shall send invitation-sticks
and tobacco to summon the leaders here, that your instruction may begin
at once!”