Part 23

The eagles scream on high; They whet their forked beaks; Raise--raise the battle-cry, 'Tis fame our leader seeks.

Thus they continued the dance for two days and nights, with short intermissions; when, dropping off, one by one, from the fire, each sought his several way to the place appointed for the rendezvous, on the confines of the enemy's country. A braver or more determined war-party never left the village of the Chippewas. Their leader was not among the last to depart; but he did not quit the village without bidding a tender adieu to the daughter of Wanawosh. He imparted to her his firm determination, to perform an act that should establish his name as a warrior, or die in the attempt. He told her of the hitter pangs he had felt at her father's taunts--that his soul spurned the imputations of effeminacy and cowardice, implied by his language. He declared, that he never could be happy, either with or without her, until he had proved to the whole tribe the strength of his heart, which is the Indian term for courage. He said, that his dreams had not been so propitious as he could wish; but that he should not cease to invoke the favour of the Great Spirit in his behalf. He repeated his protestations of inviolable attachment, which she returned, and, pledging vows of mutual fidelity, they separated.

They never met again. The war-party, which he led, were conducted by him to victory. After having distinguished himself by most heroic bravery, he received an arrow in his breast, just as the enemy had fled, with the loss of many of their best warriors. On examining his wound, it was perceived to be beyond the power of cure. He languished a short time, and expired in the arms of his friends.

From the hour that she received the intelligence of his death, from the moment that the ominous death-howl met her ear, no smile was ever seen in the once happy lodge of Wanawosh. His daughter pined away by day and by night. Tears and sighs sorrow and lamentations, were heard continually. No efforts to amuse were capable of restoring her lost serenity of mind. Persuasives and reproofs were alternately employed, but employed in vain. It became her favourite custom to fly to a sequestered spot in the woods, and there sit under a shady tree, and sing her mournful laments. She would do so for days together. The following fragment of one of these songs is yet repeated:--

Oh! how can I sing the praise of my love! His spirit still lingers around me. The grass which grows upon his bed of earth Is yet too low; Its sighs cannot be heard upon the wind. Oh, he was beautiful! And he was brave!

I must not break the silence, The quiet of his still retreat, Nor waste the time in song, When his spirit still whispers to mine. I hear his gentle voice In the sounds of the newly-budded leaves; It tells me that he yet lingers near me; It says he loves in death Her whom he loved in life, Though deeply buried in the cold, cold earth. Whisper, spirit, to me, whisper.

And I shall sing; my song, When the green grass answers to my plaint, When in sighs respond to my moan, Then my voice shall be heard in his praise: Linger, lover, linger! Stay, spirit, stay!

The spirit of my love will soon leave me. He goes to the land of joyful repose; He gees to prepare my bridal bower. Sorrowing, I must wait, Until he comes, to call my soul away. Hasten, lover, hasten! Come, spirit, come!

Thus she daily repeated her plaintive song. It was not long before a small bird of beautiful plumage flew upon the tree, beneath which she usually sat, and, with its sweet and artless notes, seemed to respond to her voice. It was a bird of strange character, such as she had never seen before. It came every day and sang to her, remaining until it became dark. Her fond imagination soon led her to suppose that it was the spirit of her lover, and her visits to the favourite spot were repeated with greater frequency. She now gave herself up to singing and fasting. Thus she pined away, until that death which she had so fervently desired came to her relief. After her decease, the bird was never more seen. It became a popular opinion with her nation, that this mysterious bird had flown away with her soul to the land of bliss. But the bitter tears of remorse fell in the tent of Wanawosh, and he lived many years to regret his false pride and his harsh treatment of the unfortunate youth.

LEGENDS OF THE HAPPY HUNTING-GROUNDS.

I.--AKKEEWAISEE, THE AGED.

Let my brother listen to my words, and ponder deeply. Let him remain mute, and his question shall be answered. He has asked the opinion which the red men of the wilderness entertain of the Country of Souls;--he has asked us whither the spirits of good men repair when the sleep which knows no waking has come over them. Again, I say, let my brother listen deeply, for the words he will hear are concerning the question he has asked. We shall sing in his ears no tale of bloody deeds--of scalps taken from stricken warriors, or of victims bound to a naming stake. Our songs shall be songs of a state far happier than that enjoyed by mortals; we shall tell of worlds, the air of which is purer, the sun brighter, the moon milder, and the stars far more glorious--of the Land of the Happy Hunting-Grounds. As my brother will see, each nation has its own beloved place of rest for the soul. It is well. Could the Chippewas dwell with the Hurons, whose blood they have so frequently shed? Could a man of the Pawnee Loups embrace an Omawhaw, who carried at his back the scalps of his wife and his children? No; and, therefore, as they could not on earth dwell in peace together, so each has in the world of souls his separate hunting-grounds, his own rivers, lakes, valleys, mountains, forests, where no envious hunter may intrude, which no bloody-minded warrior may invade. An insurmountable and eternal barrier is placed between tribes who had formerly been at war, lest they disturb the peace of the blessed shades by a renewal of the quarrel, and shake the glorious mansions with the violence of wars, like those they wage on earth. My brother asks how, the Dahcotahs know these things. I answer, it was seen by one of them in his sleep; it came in the shape of a dream to a very wise man of our nation.

There was among us, in the days that are gone, a priest who was much beloved by his Master, and was taught by him to know the future as he knew the present, and to see and speak truly of things unseen by other eyes. He had been many years on the earth, and was now called "Akkeewaisee," a name signifying his great age. That he might better converse with, and worship his master he had taken up his abode in a hollow hill, near the great village of the Dahcotahs. Thither the tribe resorted, to be taught those things which were necessary to be known in respect to the proper ordering of the hunt or the war expedition, to the season at which the corn should be planted, or the gathering of the tribe at the chosen waters of the salmon should take place. Having never known any thing predicted by him prove false; having ordered, under his guidance, all their hunting and war expeditions right, and never failed, when relying on his presentiments, to go to the haunts of the salmon, at the proper season, and to return from thence with full bellies and glad hearts, they listened to the words of Akkeewaisee, the Aged, and believed the tale which he told them of the Land of Spirits.

Akkeewaisee, the Aged, was sleeping on his bed of skins and soft grass, when the Manitou of Dreams came to him, and led him out of the hollow cave towards the Wanare-tebe, or dwelling-place of the souls of the Dahcotahs, and their kindred tribes. Onward they travelled for many suns, over lofty mountains, up whose rocky sides they were obliged to scramble as a wild goat scrambles; now swimming deep rivers, now threading mazy forests, now frozen in the regions of intense cold, and now burnt in those of great heat, till at length they came to a very high rock, the edge of which was as sharp as the sharpest knife. Waiting, at its hither end, their turn to essay the dangerous test of their good or bad deeds, the unerring trial of their guilt or purity, stood many souls of Dahcotahs, and others whom Akkeewaisee had known on the earth. He stood and beheld the punishment of the bad, and the blessed escape of the good from the dreadful ordeal to which all alike were subjected. He saw a Dahcotah attempt the dangerous passage who had been too lazy to hunt, who had lain whole days stretched out upon his mat, while his wife begged food of the husbands of other women, and his children were clothed with skins, the produce of the labours of other men. He saw him precipitated from the dizzy height into the depths below, where the Evil Spirit received him into ids arms, and condemned him to that--to the criminal--hardest of punishments, a life of labour and fatigue. The great stick of wood was placed upon his shoulders, and a great pail of water in each hand, while the evil creature appointed to be his task-master flogged him incessantly to incite to a quicker walk. Again was the passage attempted by another. A Dahcotah came forward, who had dared to paint his cheeks as a warrior paints, and to shave his crown to the scalp-lock, and to prepare a sheaf of arrows, and to strike the painted pole, that stood by the council fire, and to dance the war-dance, and to utter the whoop of a warrior. Yet, when he came to the field where the hostile Tetons were assembled to do battle with his tribe--when his brothers had rushed like men upon their foes--he wiped the paint from his cheeks, he cut off the scalp-lock, he threw away his sheaf of arrows, he forgot that he had struck the war-pole, or danced, or whooped, and fled from the field as a deer flies from the bark of a dog. Him the master of the fetes of the bad ordained to a ceaseless warfare with the shades of the Tetons, from whom he had fled. He saw a liar attempt the dreadful passage--he fared no better than those who had preceded him; a reviler of the priests, and disbeliever in their power, met with the same fate. He saw the son of the aged Tadeus-kund, who had beaten his mother and spat in the face of his father, double chained to a wheel which moved over the floor of the abyss, at the top of the speed of the unnatural son.

Then came the turn of the good to make the trial of the rock. He saw pass safely over all who had been good to their parents, who had hunted well, fought bravely, told no lies, nor ridiculed, nor doubted, the priests. Having seen them all arrive in safety at the other end of the rode, the spirit conducted Akkeewaisee over also. They had yet a long way to travel, but they were guided by their observation of the encamping places of the souls who had preceded them. At each of these places tents were pitched, and fires always lighted where they could warm themselves, and rest until they had driven away the pains of fatigue, and recovered strength to pursue their journey. After many moons of weary travel, they arrived at the habitation of the Waktan Tanka, or Great Spirit. It was situated in the middle of a flowery vale, watered by cool and refreshing streams, and shaded by groves of larch and cypress. Many villages of the dead were scattered over it; here one, and there one, like single buffaloes feeding on a prairie. Akkeewaisee asked if the souls of his father and mother had reached the happy vale, and was directed to the village in which they dwelt. He found, gathered in this village, the souls of all his race who had passed the rock; the joyful reunion had there taken place for a long succession of ages--of fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters: they now composed one great family. Their life--the life of all assembled in the valley of the Waktan Tanka--was blissful and happy beyond measure. They planted corn, which never failed to grow tall; they hunted the buffalo through flowery vales, till they pierced his side with a never-varying arrow, Akkeewaisee asked the spirits if it was permitted to them to revisit the land of the living. They answered never, except when children were about to die, and then their departed relatives recrossed the rock of judgment to guide their tender feet to their latest home.

Having lain three moons in the trance, the soul of the Aged Man re-animated his body, and he awoke. He related to the people of the tribe his dream of the Land of departed Spirits, and it has travelled down to my time as I have told it to my brother.

II.--THE DELAWARE HEAVEN.

The stranger has been shown the Dahcotah land of souls--let him behold that of the Delawares. The Delawares, who are the grandfather of nations, believe that the habitation of good spirits is beyond the beautiful sky, which forms the partition between them and those who are doomed yet longer to inhabit the frail, and sickly, and feverish, tenement of flesh. The road to this bright land of spirits leads over a mighty and fearful rock, upon which the sky rolls to and fro with a stupendous sound. I am asked, "How do the Delawares know this?" I will tell you.

There were, once upon a time, in the tribe of the Unamis or Turtles, the most potent and warlike tribe of the Delawares, two valiant warriors, who feared nothing greatly but shame and disgrace. One of them loved and was beloved by a beautiful girl of the same nation, who, in a thoughtless moment, for at no other would she have made her lover incur so great a danger, expressed a wish to know if the soul of her deceased sister remembered the promise she had made her, of feeding with sweet berries, and nursing in her bosom, the spirit of the little bird which dropped dead from the bough of the locust-tree on the evening of her own death. The other warrior had lost his mother, whom he tenderly loved, and he wished to go and see, with his own eyes, if they used her well in the land of spirits, nor bowed her back to heavier burdens than accorded with the faintness of advanced years. They concluded, one to gain a smile from his beloved maiden, and the other to gratify his affectionate regards for his mother, to obtain a view of the Land of departed Souls; but it was not till they had been frequently reminded of their undertaking, and their courage had been repeatedly taxed(1), that, brave as they were, they could make their hearts strong enough to face the spirits of the winds that rove about the sky, or the thunders that leap from the black cloud. They left the village of the Unamis, and travelled for many moons in a path very crooked and difficult to be travelled, till at length they came to a mighty and fearful rock, upon which the sky was rolling to and fro with a tremendous sound, and a motion resembling that of the waves of the Great Lake Superior, when tossed about by a tempest. The winds were gambolling about the pathway, not as upon the earth, invisible to the eye, but in shapes, some of which were the most beautiful ever beheld, and some more frightful than ever entered into the conception of a son of the earth. The stars, which the inhabitants of the world are accustomed to see chained to their allotted bounds, were there floating and dashing about in the thin air, like a boat moving on troubled waters. After travelling with extreme pain and suffering for a long time upon this road, now buffetted by the terrific and angry forms of the north and east winds, and now soothed and comforted by the ministering shapes of the breezes of the west and south--now assisted by the strength of their own hearts, and by turns assailed or protected by the stars, they reached the Land of Souls. It was a beautiful country, they said, and the employments to which souls were there subjected, produced to them all the pleasant consequences they produced on earth to those who followed them, while they were unattended by the labour and difficulties attached to them in the earthly stage of existence. The sky was always cloudless, and a perpetual spring reigned throughout those happy regions. The forests were always full of game, and the lakes of fish, which were taken without the laborious pursuit and painful exertion of skill, which were necessary to secure them in the earthly habitation. The embodied forms of their friends retained the same wishes, inclinations, and habits, which had belonged to them while occupying the terrestrial house. So say the Unamis.

Another tribe of Delawares do not believe as the Unamis do--they think that the land of departed souls lies in another part of the sky, and that the path to it is not over mighty and fearful rocks, through the hideous army of embattled winds, and among the bounds and rebounds of unchained stars. There were once, but the time was many ages ago, in the tribe of the Unalachtas, two fearless and prudent hunters, who had one father, but not one mother, who had never offended the Great Spirit, or the inferior spirits, but duly observed in all their actions a full and unceasing remembrance of the Giver of all good gifts, as well as those who take a lesser part in the government of the world; and, whether in their cabins or in the wild forests, had never failed to offer sacrifices to him of the most valued part of all their acquisitions. When they came to the river or the lake, they threw in a large piece of their tobacco, and cast in birds, whose throats had been cut, and feathers plucked from the tip of the wings, to propitiate and render favourable to their prayers the haughty Michabou, the God of the Waters. When the kind and beneficent sun rose, they were careful to throw into the fire, to which he imparts the heat, a portion of every thing they intended to use that day; and when the mistress of bad spirits, the Moon, came out of the far woods, they took great care to propitiate the evil intelligences which sit upon her horns, plotting mischief to mortals, by liberal gifts of petun, or collars of beads, or ears of maize, or skins of animals. When their feet stood upon the edge of the mighty cataract, then was the most valued dog precipitated, then was the most valued drink poured into the overwhelming torrent, to appease the angry spirit of the abyss. And thus, performing their duties to the Great Master and their fellow-creatures, lived the two good Unalachta hunters.

But death at length at their request came to them. They wished to see the Country of Souls, and to judge with their own eyes if its situation and its delights had been truly told to them. Much had it been talked of, but who were they that talked? They were mortals--men, who had never quitted the corporeal state, nor stood forth disembodied spirits; things with the feelings which attend human nature. They wished to see if thorns and arrows would not wound the flesh of those who had departed hence; nor fire burn, nor cold freeze, nor hunger pinch, nor repletion distress, nor grief draw tears, nor joy produce excitement. Bending low before the Master of Life, with clay upon their heads, one of them, the elder, thus addressed him:

"Spirit of the Happy Lands! Tamenund, and the son of his father's wife, are on their knees before thee, with clay spread on their hair. It is not required that we name our wishes to thee; if thou art, as we think, the all-pervading and all-knowing spirit, thou knowest what they are before we have uttered them; if thou art not gifted with these attributes, why should we pour our words into the ears of one unable to grant us the boon we ask? We wish to die for a time; we wish that our eyes may be enabled to see the Happy Hunting-Grounds, if there be such grounds, and our ears to drink in the music of the streams which our fathers told us welled softly along beside the village of the dead. Master of Life, hear us, and grant our request."

Tamenund, and the son of his father's wife, lay down upon their couch of skins and soft grass, when the dews first began to descend upon the earth, and the deep sleep of death came over them. They found that their prayers had been heard, and themselves released from the thraldom of life and the load of the flesh. The spirit, unchained from the matter that shrivels and becomes dust, danced about like the winds of spring over the bosom of a prairie. It could stand upon the slenderest stalk of grass without bending it, and ascend and descend upon the sunbeams, as a healthy boy rung up and down a slight hill. Soon they found themselves irresistibly impelled by a wish to rise, and travel towards the bright track in the skies, where the light of innumerable stars is mingled in such confusion. They rose, and as a canoe, moving in the vicinity of the dwelling of Michabou, is drawn rapidly towards it by the hands of unseen spirits, so were they hurried towards the road of souls, which our white brother calls the Milky Way. They came to it, and found it thronged by innumerable hosts of spirits of all colours, all bound in the same bright path to the same glorious home. After travelling in this path for two suns, they came to a great city surrounded by the shade of a high wall. Within this wall, which was of immense extent, enclosing rivers and lakes, and forests and prairies, and all the things which are found on earth, dwelt the souls of good men; without, hovering around, as a hawk hovers around a dove's nest, into which he dares not pounce, because he sees near it a bent bow in the hands of a practised archer, were the souls of the bad, debarred entrance, and, as often as they approached very near, driven away by the ministering spirits of the Great Master of ail. Within the wall were all the things which give pleasure to the red man; the river filled with fishes disporting in their loved element, the lakes thronged with glad fowls, wheeling in their devious paths, and the woods with beautiful birds, singing their soft songs of love and joy from the flowery boughs of the tulip-tree and the Osage apple. They saw in the open space a panther, fangless and powerless, and heard in the thicket the growl of a fat bear, that could neither bite nor scratch. The speed of the bison was outstripped by that of the spirits; the wings of the wild turkey and soland-goose could not convey them out of the reach of the sprightly inhabitants of the City of Souls. Their corn grew up like trees, with two ears upon every stalk, and the produce of their bean-garden was a thousand for one. But while the souls of the good were so happy, and their joys so many, miserable, miserable was the state of the bad who were excluded from the city. They saw the happiness of the good souls, many of whom had been known to them on the earth, and they gnashed their teeth with impotent rage, and uttered a war-whoop, as a leg-broken bear growls or a chained man threatens, at the sight of the bliss of which they were not permitted to partake.

When they had remained three suns in the Joyful Abodes, the Great Spirit bade them prepare for their return to the earth. He told them there were human duties for them to perform before they could be permitted to take up their residence for ever in the Happy City. He bade Tamenund remember, that he had not taught his little son how to toughen a young ash bow, nor how to splint a shaken arrow. And he told the son of his father's wife that he had suffered the bird of his cabin to sow more corn than she could gather in, and that he must return to the earth, and see that her shoulders were not bowed by the heavy task of the harvest. "There were other duties for them to perform," he said, "and many must yet be their years on the earth."

In obedience to the orders of the Great Master of all, they returned to the Unalachta village, and again re-animated the bodies they had left. Tamenund taught his son how to toughen a young ash bow, and splint a shaken arrow; and the son of his father's wife forgot the dignity of an approved hunter, to assist his beloved woman in harvesting the corn. They lived long, and acted well, and when their years were many, when their limbs had grown feeble and their eyes dark with the mists of age, when they could no longer bend the bow of their youth, nor run the race of vigorous manhood, they were called from the earth, to enjoy that happiness which they had been permitted to behold with the eyes of humanity.

NOTE.

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(1) Courage had been repeatedly taxed.--p. 234.