The strange events of which I write, took place in the summer of 1840,
when I, then a man in the full vigor of my early forties, chanced to
be in charge of a museum expedition sent to explore an ancient Lenape
burial site situated on a hilltop in the northwestern part of the State
of New Jersey.
On the tenth day of June we encountered an unusually deep grave of
circular form, some six feet in diameter, in which, at a distance from
the surface of perhaps seven feet, we encountered a number of slabs of
stone piled up in the form of a cairn.
Removing these with care, we found beneath them a skeleton, which, when
carefully uncovered and brushed off, proved to be of a full-grown man,
lying on his right side, with his knees drawn up at right angles to
his body and his hands near his face. Beside his crumbling breastbone
lay a tiny mask of stone, bearing two little perforations which showed
the wear of a suspending cord, and near it a knife blade of purple
argillite and a small pipe of baked clay, bearing a very neat pattern,
drawn into its surface with a sharp point while the material was still
soft. At each side of the skull were the chalky remains of some shell
beads, rather larger and coarser than wampum, but similar in form;
while near the feet a little pile of neatly-made flint arrow points
told of the one-time presence of a sheaf or quiver of arrows.
What archæologist has not sat upon the brink of a newly uncovered,
ancient grave and wished that the fleshless jaws before him could speak
and tell their story? Or wished that he himself could be transported
backward in time for a brief space to learn something of the life of a
bygone day? So I sat and so I wished; and then we photographed our find
as it lay, and removed the specimens for safe keeping.
As the hour was late, we did not touch the bones, however, intending to
remove them upon the morrow, and so we left them for the night, still
surrounded by some of the stone slabs.
After dark I bethought myself that I had forgotten to bring in my
notebook, and recalled that I had left it on the pile of dirt beside
the grave, and so, guiding my steps by the flickering flashes of
lightning from an approaching thunder-shower, I made my way thither.
I remember that I had found the book and had just turned back toward
the camp, holding out my hand to feel the first splashes of rain, when
a blinding flash and a violent concussion sent me reeling, reeling,
down,—into darkness....
When I came to myself I could see nothing, but I knew it was raining
steadily; I could hear the drops patter on the leaves; I could feel
them on my body.
On my body? I must be naked! I felt my chest, it was bare and wet, my
arms likewise. What had become of my clothes? I felt at my waist; it
was belted, and in front hung something like a little apron, wet and
slimy. My legs? I felt, and found them encased in long stockings of
some sort, reaching nearly to the hips, and I could feel that some sort
of supporters ran from them to the belt. My feet seemed covered with
the same soft stockings which, like the apron, felt wet and slimy to
the touch.
As I bent over to feel of my feet, something brushed against my cheek,
something hard and cold, yet light and almost clinging. I put up my
hand and felt; it seemed to be a string or rather loop of little beads.
Then I followed up with my fingers and found that the loop, with a
number of other loops were, somehow or other, firmly attached to my ear
in several different places from the lobe upward. I felt around and
discovered there were so many of them that the top of the ear was bent
over by their weight, and the lobe was somewhat stretched. I felt of
each separate loop; each was firmly attached; and the other ear was in
similar shape. I shook my head and could feel the swinging weight of
them.
Puzzled, I started to run my fingers through my hair—a favorite habit
of mine, and found that I had none! That is none to speak of—it was
very short indeed, almost as if shaven, except for a bristly crest like
a mule’s mane, which ran from front to back over the top of my head,
and ended in a little pigtail or queue in the back.
Something moving against my breast as I moved, I felt it and found a
little hard, cold, oval object slung from a string about my neck; near
it on another string hung a wet and slimy bag, and what felt like a
small knife in a sheath.
I was puzzled indeed—I could not make out what had happened to me. As I
sat thinking, I must have dropped off into a doze in spite of the rain,
for when I opened my eyes again it was daylight.
I looked about me; it was still raining and a brisk wind stirred the
tree tops; but I seemed to be in a strange, wild country for, although
to my left I could look off over a valley, my eye met no houses, roads,
or clearings, just a waste of tossing tree tops, in fact no sign of man
except a distant blur of smoke, rising apparently from among the trees.
I looked behind me; there stood a great tree, its wood showing white,
its bark practically stripped off, while broken branches littered the
ground. It had been struck by lightning.
I looked at my hands; they were lean, and tawny in color instead of fat
and freckled as I knew them; I looked at my legs; they were encased in
soiled and worn buckskin leggings; upon my feet were moccasins puckered
to a single seam down the front, near which were traces of colored
patterns now nearly worn away—and still I did not understand.
I pulled the queue around and looked at it; the hair was black and
neatly braided, whereas my own, in those days, was red; I pulled around
the beads attached to my ears; they were white and apparently made of
shell, but were too close to my eyes to see plainly.
Then I investigated the things hung about my neck, and noted, with a
start, that the oval, hard object was the little stone mask we had
found in the grave. I pulled the knife from its sheath; it was of
stone—argillite—not purple from age, but black, fresh-looking, sharp.
And when I looked in the bag, I found what I had come to expect, the
little, decorated pipe of clay, and with it some damp, shriveled leaves
which must have been some sort of tobacco.
I could not avoid the conclusion; I was somehow transported back into
prehistoric times, and had assumed the body and belongings of the
Indian whose skeleton we had unearthed.
If this were true, I must have some weapons, I thought, and soon I
found them—a five-foot, straight bow, lying beneath the broken branches
that had fallen from the lightning-blasted tree, and a buckskin quiver.
I pulled out the arrows; their points were of flint. I noticed that
the sinew filaments that fastened them to the shafts were loosening
from the dampness, and I found myself instinctively twirling each one
between my fingers until the sinew was tight again. The carcass of a
deer lay also among the fallen branches, evidently a victim of the bow.
I noticed that I was feeling hungry so I slung my quiver, picked up my
bow, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, shouldered the deer and
started down the hill toward the smoke.
After a while I found a trail leading in the right direction; this
I followed until I reached the brink of a bluff from which I could
plainly see the roofs of a number of bark houses above which rose the
naked limbs of dead trees, making a strong contrast to the living,
green forest all about them.
As I looked, I heard voices of people ascending the hill. I slipped
into the bushes with my burden, out of sight but where I could peer
out. The voices belonged to a number of men, apparently setting forth
upon the hunt, armed with bows like mine. I noticed most of them wore
leggings and moccasins of more or less the same shape as my own; that
their hair with a few exceptions was cut like mine, and that they
wore in their ears either strings of beads like mine, or tufts of
downy feathers. And I noticed with surprise that I could understand,
perfectly, their language.
From all this I judged that they must belong to the same tribe as
myself and that it must be safe to proceed, so, after they had passed,
I stepped from my hiding-place and went on down the hill and into the
village.
The first thing to strike my eye was a big, rectangular, barn-like
wigwam which stood near the middle of a large open square or plaza, the
roof made of sheets of bark held in place with poles, and pinned at the
ridge with two smoke holes. The sides were of logs; the door, which
occupied the middle of the end facing me, was closed with some sort of
curtain.
About the plaza stood fifteen or twenty smaller houses of similar form,
but from a half to a quarter the size; these had but one smoke hole in
the roof; and the sides, like the roofs, were of bark.
Some of these roofs were extended forward to form a sort of porch in
front of the wigwam; in other cases a separate little shed stood in
front, provided with a bark roof of its own, but open on all sides.
From these sheds and porches rose a haze of blue smoke wafting a savory
smell.
Beside me, at the edge of the plaza, stood one of the dead trees, the
bark of which had been girdled round; and I could see blackened stumps
where others had stood; while many such dead trees rose stark and naked
from the garden patches about the village. I found out later that, in
clearing land for village or garden, the custom was to chop the bark
around the trees so that they died, to let them stand until thoroughly
dry, then to fell them with the aid of fire and, splitting them up with
wedges, use them for wood as needed.
Seeing some women standing beneath a shed from which came a hollow,
thumping sound I made my way thither. Suddenly one of the group darted
out from under the shed and came running toward me with a glad cry.
“Oh Flying-wolf! So you have come back safe to me after all!” she
exclaimed, grasping me affectionately by the arm and leading me toward
one of the wigwams. “So the Mengwe did not get you after all! I am so
happy!”
Thinking that this must be the wife of the man whose body I had taken,
and that I must say something, I remarked, “Yes, I have really come.”
“Ah!” she said with concern, looking up into my face, “how hungry you
must be! I cooked your favorite stew against your return last night,
but you did not appear, and the boy and I never touched it; I can warm
it for you in just a little while. Hang the deer on the tree in the
old place and go to your bed and rest until I have it ready; you must
be tired. Or wait,” she added, “I will spread a fresh mat I finished
yesterday.”
She passed into the wigwam and I followed, to find myself in a
dwelling, the most noticeable feature of which was a pair of wide
platforms or benches, one along the wall on each side, raised some two
or three feet above the floor and covered with mats. Back of these
benches or bunks, the wall was lined with colored mats; and the space
beneath them was filled with assorted bags, baskets and bundles, while
from the roof hung other bags and bundles, and a string or two of corn,
the ears braided together by the husk. Behind the poles supporting the
roof, was thrust a half-finished bow; near it hung a bundle of sprouts
intended, probably, for arrows.
The woman spread a fresh mat on one of the platforms. “Lie here,” she
said, “I will build the fire inside here instead of out in the shed;
our house feels damp after the rain.”
I watched her as she went out, and saw her taking down some large
object from a shelf in the shed, and by the time I had stretched myself
on the mat she returned with a large, egg-shaped, earthen pot, and
set its pointed end between three stones placed for the purpose in the
fireplace in the center of the wigwam, and began to stir the ashes with
a long stick. Finally she uncovered some live coals, left from the
night before, and gathering them in a heap with her stick, she placed
some fibrous stuff, which looked like shredded cedar bark, upon them
and began to blow into it. Soon she had a lively blaze, which she fed
with small sticks until it was well started.
Pulling the fire about the base of the pot, she soon had it bubbling,
and, before long, set before me a wooden bowl of steaming, savory stew
of meat, corn and beans. Beside the first bowl she placed another,
containing flat dumplings, which proved to be made of crushed, hulled
corn flavored with berries, rather heavy but delicious.
On the edge of the stew bowl hung a short, wide, wooden spoon. As I
ate, she sat on the edge of the bench just opposite me and chatted
happily of this and that, rarely pausing for an answer—for which I was
thankful.
Between mouthfuls, I looked her over. She was a comely young woman
of twenty-five or thirty, ever showing her even, white teeth in a
smile, her kindly face as yet but little weather-beaten. Her black
hair was neatly parted in the middle and brought back and fastened at
the nape of her neck with a sort of long, cylindrical knot which was
wrapped in beads; several short loops of beads hung from the rims of
her ears where there were evidently, as in my own case, a number of
small perforations, while each lobe showed a hole perhaps a quarter
of an inch in diameter. About her neck were many strings of beads of
different sorts; some looked to be of dried berries or seeds; others of
bone, while some were certainly of shell, and one string looked like
copper.
The upper part of her plump body was naked but for these beads; from
her waist hung a skirt of buckskin reaching below the knees, neatly
fringed and bearing a wide, embroidered border with an intricate design
in colors; it was evidently a flat, robe-like piece wrapped about her
waist, belted taut, and the top edge folded down over the belt. Her
legs were covered by leggings, her little feet in moccasins, both
leggings and moccasins being of deerskin and embroidered with what I
afterwards found to be dyed deer hair and porcupine quills. Both wrists
were wound with strings of beads.
As I ate, she talked on: “Your mother was over yesterday from the
Pulling-corn village. She says she is making you a fine robe of four
soft, dressed deerskins, and is decorating the back with a large
picture of your Guardian Spirit, the mask being done in the little
shells she bought from those southern tribesmen who came up the river
in that big canoe—you remember. She gave them in exchange her whole
stock of healing herbs, and had to work like a beaver to dig another
lot of the little roots before winter set in.
“She says she is going to sew each little shell on separately—you know
each has a little hole rubbed into it—so that even if one breaks loose
the others will not come off. Talking of trading, when are you going
to get me that pair of Cherokee shell ear-pins you promised me? That
old Shawnee woman in Possum-ground village has some and there is not
another pair in Lenape land. See, I have stretched the holes in my ears
on purpose for them.
“And speaking of making things, when are you going to finish that big,
wooden bowl for me? You brought the maple burl home long ago, yet you
only have it partly burned out, and there it lies beneath the sleeping
birch, and right by it is a whole basket full of little slabs and
pieces of sandstone for grinding it smooth.
“I know you have no flint scrapers, but don’t you remember you buried
a lot of half-finished arrow points and little blocks of flint to keep
them fresh, just outside one corner of the shed? They ought to be moist
enough to work easily and you could make all the scrapers you want in a
little while.
“The reason I need it now is because our son took the big old feast
bowl out to play canoe with, the other day when I was not looking. It
was all right until three or four other little boys tried to stand in
it, too, all at the same time, then it split and is ruined. It made me
feel sad because that was the bowl that grandfather made for mother
when she and father built their first wigwam. I shall have to borrow
another bowl for to-night.”
During all this I had said as little as possible, for I did not want to
show my ignorance of all these things. I could not bear to spoil her
happiness and let her discover that I was not really her husband. Now,
however, I ventured to inquire, “What is going to happen to-night?”
“I forgot to tell you,” she replied, “last night when you were away,
our war chief came to see you with a number of the elders from here,
and other villages. They are going to get up a big war party to punish
the Mengwe who, you know, are getting too bold. You remember how one
of their scalping parties killed my poor brother last year when they
caught him alone out hunting; and how they killed your friend Breaker
but a few moons ago. Last night when you did not come home I feared
they had got you.
“The war chief says you know more about those trails to the north than
any other Lenape—that is of our Unami tribe—and they want you to lead
the party. Everybody said they had full confidence in your judgment and
your bravery.
“I hate to have you go because it is so dangerous, and our son and I
need our hunter yet a while, yet,” she smiled sadly, “I am proud of
my warrior too; the tribe needs you, and the ghost of my poor brother
cries for vengeance.
“I told them to come again to-night and so they will be here I suppose.
They spoke of bringing our tribal head chief, too. I was looking for
women to help me cook for them, among that party pounding corn in that
arbor, when you came into the village.”
As she finished, I realized that the crisis had come; I could keep my
secret no longer. I had not enough knowledge of tribal affairs to talk
with the delegation, let alone lead a war party. I must tell her the
truth, or at least that part of it I felt she could understand.
So I said to her. “Listen, my mate. You have been so glad to see me
come home that I have hated to spoil your joy. But something happened
to me last night—I know not what—and when I awoke this morning I found
I had forgotten everything I ever knew. I did not even recognize my own
clothing and body; I did not know myself to be Flying-wolf until you
named me. I found my way to this village by accident, and know you to
be my wife only by your actions; and at this minute I do not remember
your name. Of our life I remember only the language; as for leading a
war party, making a wooden bowl, or even hunting meat for you, all are
equally impossible. I could no more do these things than a blind puppy,
not because I do not want to do them, but because I have forgotten how.”
She slid off the bench and coming straight across the wigwam grasped me
by the shoulders with her two hands and looked full into my eyes. “Is
this true, Flying-wolf?” she asked.
“Yes,” I choked.
She stepped to the door and looked out for a while in silence; when she
turned to me again her cheeks were wet. “Perhaps,” she said, “if you
should see your son whom you always loved so, your memory would come
back.”
She went out. Shortly she returned with a bright-looking little lad
about eight years old, his long, black hair hanging loose, his lithe
body naked except for a little string about his neck where hung some
little bones which my experienced eye recognized as those of a turtle.
“Father,” he cried, “why did you send mother after me? I was having
such a good time down at the creek with the boys—we were playing
Thunder-Beings hunting for horned water-serpents.”
I laid my hand on his head and said, “All right, son, then run right
back there and play.” I met his mother’s questioning eyes, and shook my
head.
After sitting in a miserable silence a while, she asked: “Where did you
awake this morning?”
“On that hill over yonder,” I replied, pointing, “under a tree. I would
know the place again because the wood of that tree shows naked and
white, half the bark has been torn off by lightning. It must have been
struck lately because the broken limbs lying about it are still green.”
“Now I know what the matter is,” she cried, springing to her feet. “You
have been struck by one of the Thunder’s arrows. And I know who can
help you.” She darted out.
She returned with a fine-looking elderly man whose long, iron-gray hair
hung loose upon his shoulders, except for one little braid at the back,
to which were tied several fine, large, eagle feathers, white with
black tips. From the outer corner of each eye a blue line, apparently
tattooed, ran zigzag down across his cheeks to his chin; on his naked
breast was tattooed a rude but striking figure of a bird with wings
spread, surrounded by many other zigzag lines. Here hung suspended from
a string that passed around his neck, a tiny model of a war club, its
ball-like head painted red.
“This is Rumbling-wings,” said my wife. “If any one can help you, he
can.” And so I told him my story as I had told it to her.
He pondered for a while, then turned to my wife. “Run down to the
spring, Whispering-leaves,” he said, “and get us some fresh water.”
When she had disappeared with the bark bucket, he said, “I think I
understand what the matter is. Flying-wolf, whose body you occupy, must
have been killed or stunned by the Thunder arrow, and your spirit,
which must have been floating near, took possession of his body. Where
you come from I know not, but you must have been thinking of us and
our time, when your spirit was driven from its body by another Thunder
arrow. Whispering-leaves must not know this—that her real husband may
be dead.
“What can you do? You can either make up your mind to live out your
life among us and learn to be what she expects of her husband, or you
can go to that same hilltop with me some day, and I will call back
the Thunders to set you free again. Then maybe, if your own body has
not been destroyed, you may return to it, and, perhaps, Flying-wolf’s
spirit, if it has not already gone to the Land of Ghosts, will come
back to this body. It is all a chance. To-night when the elders and
chiefs come, lie in your bed here as if sick in body and say nothing; I
will explain to them. As to what you want to do, think about it as long
as you wish and when you decide, let me know. In the meantime learn all
you can and take care of your mate and the boy.”
Just then Whispering-leaves (I was glad to learn her name!) came in
with the water, and the old man dipped a gourdful for me, then drank
himself. “Thanks, daughter,” he said to her, “your husband has been
struck by lightning and his memory is very sick. Be good to him, and
little by little it will come back. But do not expect too much of
him at first. If you run short of food let my wife know. And you,
Flying-wolf,” said he, “whenever you want to learn something come to my
house. I am alone every night.” He went out.
I looked at Whispering-leaves and she at me; hope shone in her face,
she smiled. The more I looked at her, the better I liked her.
The first night I visited Rumbling-wings, his wife, after spreading a
mat for me, withdrew, murmuring something about visiting a neighbor for
the evening. I had learned by this time the Lenape amenities, and so
I did not start boldly off with my questions, but chatted quietly of
this and that for a while, finally winding up with, “Why did my wife go
to you when she heard I had been struck by a Thunder arrow? Why do you
think you can call the Thunders to set my spirit free?”
“You are asking a hard question, my friend,” said Rumbling-wings after
a moment’s cogitation, “and one which a Lenape does not like to
discuss with another. But I realize that you have been cut off from the
years of early training that most of our boys go through, and the only
way I can make you understand is to tell you outright, and I feel that
my Guardian Spirit will forgive me.
“In the first place, you know what the Thunder-Beings are—powerful
spirits, helpers of the Great Spirit—in form at the same time man-like
and bird-like. They bring the rain to water our crops and refresh the
earth. You have often heard the rumbling of their wings in the storm,
and have seen their arrows of flame shoot toward the earth as they hunt
the great horned serpents and other man-destroying monsters which form
their daily food. And it was one of those very arrows which, as you
know, started you in life as a Lenape.
“Well, I suppose I must tell you, one of these Thunder-Beings is my
Guardian Spirit and that is why people say that I am in league with the
Thunder, and have Thunder power, and why they call on me in cases like
yours.
“The Thunders must have picked me out for their favor even before I
was born, as you will realize when you hear how I come by my name of
Rumbling-wings.
“It appears that my mother confided to her brother, my uncle, that
she was expecting me, and according to our custom she asked him to
take particular notice of any dream he might have, in hopes of finding
out the child’s name. Not long after, he was overtaken at night,
far from his village; it was black and stormy and he took refuge
beneath an overhanging rock. He found a spot fairly dry, but rough
and uncomfortable, and he fell into a troubled sleep. Sometime in
the night he was awakened by something, he knew not what, and found
himself sitting up, listening. He heard a distant rumbling of thunder
among the mountains which seemed at last to take the form of words:
‘Rumbling-wings is coming, Rumbling-wings is coming.’ ... All this he
told my mother, and I was born shortly after.
“When the time came for our great autumn ceremony in the Big House—that
large wigwam in the square you passed, coming here to-night, is one
of them—my uncle took me in his arms and, standing before the centre
post with its great, carved face of ‘Mising’ looking down upon me,
he announced to the people that my name was Rumbling-wings. Even
as he spoke there was a crash of thunder, late as it was in the
moon-of-falling-leaves, and a wind sighed through the trees about the
Big House, and they heard drops of rain patter upon the bark roof or
fall hissing through the smoke holes into the two great fires below.
“Perhaps Whispering-leaves has told you how our people believe that
after the birth of a child, its navel string has much to do with its
disposition; so, if a girl, they take that string and bury it under
the house or in the garden to make her fond of home duties; or, if a
boy, they hide it out in the woods so he will like the hunt. Well, my
father, so he told me, took mine to the wood, and hid it in a hollow
tree. He had hardly done this when a thunder-shower came up and drove
him to shelter; coming back on his way home he found the tree, where he
had hidden my navel string, burning. It had been struck by a Thunder
arrow.
“As a boy I knew nothing of the Thunder power except that when the
great, black clouds fringed with yellow, began to pile up in the west,
and others, young and old, looked upon them with dread, I alone of
the village felt no fear. In fact I used to go out naked into every
storm; the crash of thunder was as music to me, the bright flashes were
beautiful, the pelting rain refreshed me. And, in truth, I do this yet,
always stretching out my arms to my Guardian to thank him for having
helped me thus far along the trail.
“But I did not know who my Guardian Spirit actually was until I had
seen some twelve or fourteen snows. About this time my parents began to
act strangely and to speak crossly to me. I did not understand why I
deserved such a change in their feelings, and many a time I felt alone
in the world. They even gave me the poorest part of the meat they had
to eat, and scraps and leavings of corn bread, and stew that had begun
to smell sour.
“One morning I was awakened before dawn by some one punching me in the
ribs with a stick—well I remember how it hurt—and I heard my father
say, ‘We must drive this wretched boy away from here, I can not stand
him any longer. Get up from there, dog-like!’ and he punched me again.
My mother who had always until lately taken my part in any dispute,
took no notice, but bent over the fireplace, and soon a little fire
began to flicker and finally filled our wigwam with light. She went
to the water jar just inside the door, and I saw her dip into it our
oldest, blackest, greasiest gourd cup. Then she turned to me and
her face, usually so kind, seemed hard as flint. ‘Drink, boy,’ she
ordered, handing me that cup, and I wonderingly obeyed.
“Then my father spoke, handing me a burnt and shriveled shred of meat
no larger than his little finger—a piece full of dirt and grit where it
had fallen to the floor. ‘Eat this, miserable brat,’ he cried, ‘and get
away out of my sight.’
“A sudden anger overcame me and I flung the morsel full in his face
and darted for the door. ‘Wait,’ I heard him say, ‘aren’t you going to
blacken your face? And besides I was going to tell you the rest of it,
that you must not come back until you bring with you something great,
but you started out too quick!’ Did I see a fleeting smile on his stern
face? Surely his eyes were twinkling!
“Then it dawned upon me what the matter was; I was expected to fast
for power, and all this seeming abuse was nothing but a sham to make
Those-above-us take pity on me as an outcast, suffering child, and
grant me a vision from which I would gain a Guardian Spirit that would
be my protector through life. Often had I heard older boys speaking
of such things, but I had never realized that I, Rumbling-wings, was
expected to go through the ordeal.
“Then said my father, ‘It seems to me I have heard that some boys who
were driven away from home, had to go up on Wolf mountain to the east
end where there is a little cave that was nice to lie in while they
prayed, because they could look out over the tops of the trees to the
river and the hills beyond. Besides,’ he added, ‘I expect to go hunting
up that way early to-morrow morning and I shall look into that cave to
see if any one is hidden away there.’
“Then indeed I understood, and so under his direction, with my mother
looking on, I rubbed my face with charcoal and, throwing about my
shoulders the oldest and raggedest robe I could find—the one the dog
had been using for a bed beneath the sleeping bench—I set out.
“All day I lay hungry in that little cave while mosquitoes and
deer-flies from the woods, and fleas from the dog’s robe bit me
unmercifully. Yet I looked out over the valley as calmly as I could,
praying to Those-above-us to take pity on me; yet nothing happened,
except that when the day was nearly spent, a cloud came up behind me
over Wolf mountain and overspread the sky, then went away grumbling
without letting fall a drop of rain. That night, still hungry, I slept
a troubled sleep and next morning, before sun up, in came my father
with a little scrap of meat and a small gourd of water. As I drew out
the cob stopper and drank, he asked me, ‘Have you found anything yet?’
When I replied ‘No,’ he took the bottle and departed.
“The same things happened on the two following days, and I got weaker
and weaker from hunger, yet saw nothing but the black cloud every
afternoon.
“But on the afternoon of the fourth day when the cloud came again it
brought rain, and heavy thunder, and this, strange as it may seem,
lulled me to sleep. And in my sleep I dreamed that I stood naked and
alone on the bare sand hills by the Great-water-where-daylight-appears,
with nothing but a wooden war club, with its round head painted red, in
my hand. And as I stood arrows came flying through the air from every
direction and whispering past my head, struck quivering into the ground
about me. But not one touched me, and my heart was unafraid.
“At this point I was awakened by an unusually loud crash of thunder
and I opened my eyes to see the shower moving off across the valley,
carrying with it a bow of beautiful colors and followed by the rays of
a lowering sun.
“Somehow I felt satisfied then that I should go home; it was useless to
linger longer in the cave. And so I started, staggering from weakness
among the wet bushes on the mountain side.
“Weak as I was I nearly lost my footing, crossing the swollen creek,
but at last I reached our village. The people looked curiously at me as
I entered and made my way toward our wigwam.
“My father was sitting in front, scraping the charcoal from the inside
of a wooden bowl he had been burning out; some one called to him, or
perhaps he heard my step, and he looked up.
“‘Have you brought it with you, son?’ he asked. On my reply that I had
a dream he seemed very well satisfied and called to my mother who was
looking out of our door. ‘Wife, sweep and fix a place for our son to
sit—he is bringing it with him!’ Mother bustled about then and swept,
and smiling, spread a fresh mat for me; I was surprised at her air of
deference. Down I sat, and after the sun had gone beneath the edge of
the world, she brought me a great bowl of stew, steaming and delicious,
and a new, clean gourd of fresh water.
“That evening they really treated me as a guest. Father even filled a
pipe for me, and then, when my mother’s deep breathing from her place
on the sleeping bench told us that she slumbered, he asked me outright,
‘What animal spirit or other Manitou has offered himself to be your
helper?’ ‘I do not know,’ I answered, and then I told him my dream,
fearing in my heart that he would think it meant nothing.
“‘Son’, he said when I had finished, ‘you have done better than I dared
to hope, you have indeed gained a powerful friend among Those-above-us,
no less a personage than one of the Thunders!’ And when I asked him how
he knew, he replied, ‘The wooden war club with a round head painted red
is the emblem of the Thunder-Beings, and represents the fearful blows
they strike. The fact that, while you held this club in your hand, the
arrows did not wound you, means that your Guardian Spirit, the Thunder,
will protect you. Don’t you understand?’
“All that night in my dreams I was struggling and fighting, with whom I
know not, but through it all I heard myself singing,
In my trouble
In my trouble
I call upon my Helper
And his answer
Out of a dark sky
It comes rumbling,
It comes rumbling!
“And this ever since has been my war song, and the song I sing at our
great autumn ceremony in the Big House, where all who have been so
blessed sing of their visions.”...
“So that,” I said, as Rumbling-wings finished, “is why you wear that
little, red, war club hanging about your neck! Now tell me why I carry
a little stone face in the same way. I have tried to take it off
several times, but Whispering-leaves will not let me.”
“That,” replied the old man, “represents Misinghalikun, the living
Mask-Being, and a powerful Manitou he is, for the Great Spirit has
given him control of all the wild animals of the forest. He is the
Guardian Spirit of Flying-wolf, whose body you occupy, but I cannot
tell you the story of his vision. No one could tell you that story but
Flying-wolf himself. And where is he? You occupy his body, but I doubt
if Misinghalikun will help you as he did him. I believe Flying-wolf
won his great fame as a hunter through the power of this Guardian
Spirit, and without that, you may have a hard time to live up to his
reputation.” And, I must say, so I found it.
Another evening I asked Rumbling-wings if his Guardian Spirit ever
helped him in later years.
“Many times, and I will tell you some instances. When I had seen about
twenty snows, I went with some of our kinsfolk to visit the Minsi, our
allies living above us on Lenape River and in the mountains to the
north and east of us here. You may have heard that, although their
language is quite a little different from our Unami tongue, they too
call themselves Lenape and their customs are almost the same as ours.
From there we went with some of these people eastward across the
mountains to see the Great River of the Mahicans of which we had often
heard. Arriving at the river, we wished to cross to visit a Mahican
village just opposite, but, although we made a signal smoke, no one
dared put out from the village with a canoe to get us because there
was a high north wind and the wide river was very rough. So I burned
tobacco and prayed to my helper, the Thunder, and soon thunder-clouds
arose in the west, and a west wind sprung up which killed the north
wind and left the river smooth; and then the Mahican canoes came for
us. We spent many pleasant days in their village, feasting and dancing,
and visiting from one wigwam to another. Their language is very much
like the Minsi, and enough like ours so that we could understand almost
everything.
“Another time a war party of us Lenape set forth against the
Susquehannocks, a tribe like the Mengwe. They lived on Muddy River in
a big village circled about with a great stockade of sharpened logs,
twice as high as a man, set on end almost touching one another. Time
and time again we attacked them, but could not break through this
stockade, nor could we pile fire against it to destroy it, so well did
their bowmen defend it.
“At last we withdrew a little way to counsel and our war chiefs said to
me, ‘We must depend on you, Rumbling-wings, to help us overthrow this
people who have harassed us so long. Call on your Guardian Spirit; help
us to take this village!’
“And so, as there were no thunder-clouds in sight, I drew from my
medicine bag a few scales of the Great Horned Serpent and laid them
on a rock beside a little creek. You know how the Thunders hate these
great snakes, and always begin to gather, the instant one of them shows
any part of himself above the water. Well even these scales seem to
attract them; I always use these scales to call the Thunders when I
need them.
“Immediately the sky began to darken in the west—so I built a little
fire, threw an offering of tobacco upon it, and prayed to my Guardian.
“Blacker and blacker grew the sky, nearly as dark as night. We could
hardly see the yellow scud flying overhead beneath the mass of cloud.
The air near the earth seemed hot, choking. All at once a few great
drops of rain splattered down, and then we heard the roar of a mighty
rain approaching across the forest. Soon it was pouring down about us
like a water-fall.
“How long this downpour lasted I know not, but it stopped as suddenly
as it began, and a few large hailstones fell, so large that we could
hear them rattle on the bark roofs of the village. Then came a deeper
roar out of the southwest, louder and louder, nearer and nearer.
Suddenly a great thing rushed past us in a cloud of flying leaves and
broken branches, and struck the village with a crash, full in the
middle, and in a moment was gone. As it passed on we saw it; it looked
like a great, twisting strand of long hair hanging from the clouds and
dragging along the earth, sweeping before it the trees and the wigwams.
“The instant it passed, we saw that the log stockade was down and most
of the houses of the village, but just then came another blinding flood
of rain which held us back, and when we finally reached our goal we
found a number of the Susquehannocks lying dead amid the ruins of their
houses; and of those who were left alive and able to run, all were in
flight somewhere in that rain-swept forest.
“As to the wounded, we dispatched those too badly hurt to take with
us, and seized the rest as captives, and then, with all the weapons,
pipes, beautiful clothing and ornaments we could carry, we made our way
homeward. Thus the Thunder, my Guardian Spirit, helped me, and helped
me to raise my name to what it is to-day.
“What finally became of the captives, do you ask? A few we killed
by torture, in revenge for what their people had done to us; some
died; some we let go free after a year or two; others finally
intermarried with our people and cast their lot with us. You
know Traveling-everywhere’s wife? She was one of those captives,
given as a servant to his parents. She was but a young girl, and
Traveling-everywhere, himself but little older, took pleasure in
teaching her to speak our Lenape language. They got to liking each
other so well that they finally built a wigwam of their own. Now you
could hardly tell her from one of us.”
I found it much easier to assimilate these beliefs and stories than to
learn the every-day, practical side of Lenape life, at which I proved a
tragic failure. Although I studied the methods of experienced hunters
I never could master the knack of effective shooting with the bow and
arrow. And I tried my best. Seldom could I bring down a deer. The
neighbors grew tired of providing meat for me and my family.
Whispering-leaves did her part to perfection; everything she made or
produced was of the very best, which made me feel my shortcomings all
the more. And she would not let me touch the garden—the only thing I
knew anything about. “Garden work is not manly,” she would say. “I will
not endure hearing the neighbors talk about my mate doing woman’s work.
How would you feel if you saw me going out of the village with a long
bow on my shoulder? Or burning out a log for a canoe? Would you not
feel shame to see your mate do an unwomanly thing? In our life, the
man and woman must do each his or her part and neither is harder than
the other. Surely to hunt all day and every day, good weather and bad,
is fully as hard as wielding the hoe! How would you like to hear the
neighbors say, ‘Whispering-leaves ought to give Flying-wolf the skirt,
and she put on his long leggings and breechclout?’”
I was even a failure at finishing her wooden bowl, although I had
watched a number of men making such things and thought I had learned
their method. I heaped hot coals on that maple burl, blew them until
they burned deep, and scraped out the charcoal with shells and bits of
flint again and again, until I thought I had it hollowed deep enough.
Then I ground it patiently with bits of gritty sandstone. When I had
finished, I thought I had accomplished a very good piece of work for a
beginner. But Whispering-leaves, although she smiled and said sweet
words when I laid it finished before her, and pretended to think it
perfect, tucked it away after a few days, and when we had visitors and
a big bowl was needed, she borrowed another bowl from the neighbors.
What hurt me worst was seeing her treasured finery disappear bit by
bit, doubtless traded for meat and for skins to make our moccasins and
every-day garments. First it was the seed beads, then those of bone,
then one string of shell beads after another until only the copper
beads were left. Finally they too were missing when I came home one
night. One day I had occasion to search beneath the sleeping benches
for something and had to pull out the square basket in which she kept
her treasures, her prettiest embroidered, festival attire. The basket
felt so light that I looked into it—and found it empty.
Often the boy came in crying and said that his little companions would
not let him play with them because, they said, his father was “no good.”
And one night Rumbling-wings told me that he had seen the spirit of
Flying-wolf in a dream the night before, and that he said he was living
in a strange land and wanted to come back to his home.
But the crisis came when I returned one night, tired out from
my fifteenth successive fruitless day’s hunting, and found my
Whispering-leaves crying bitterly. Although I begged her to tell me
what the trouble was she refused, but at last she broke down. “My dear
mate,” she sobbed, “there is nothing to eat in this house, and there is
no hope for anything, unless I sell that robe your mother made for you.
All my pretty things are gone long ago, and all yours except that.”
I caught her to me and held her tight in my arms for a moment, then
dashed out into the night straight to Rumbling-wings’ wigwam. “I am
ready,” I said....
When I came to myself I was lying beneath the lightning-riven tree.
It did not take me long to find my place again in the modern world; but
always to this day, when the clouds pile up and the thunder begins to
mutter in the west, I think sadly of my lost Whispering-leaves and of
my friend Rumbling-wings and his Thunder power.