Traditions of the North American Indians (Vol. 1-3). James Athearn Jones

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.

      THE CHOICE OF A GOD.

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      After a pause of the usual length, Miacomet, an aged Narragansett, rose and said:

      "Brother, I am a Narragansett, and my father and mother were Narragansetts. I live a journey of more than two moons towards the rising sun. But you will say the name of the Narragansetts is unknown to you, and will ask what deeds have they done. Are they warlike? can they fast long, travel far, and bear the tortures of the flame, without betraying tears and groans? The tribes of the north, and the south, and the west, of the Great River, and the Broad Lake, and the Spirit's Backbone, will say this, for they know us not. Our hunting-fields lie far apart, and our war-paths are over different forests. But it is only to those who live a far way off, who have never heard the roaring of the Great Lake in the time of storms, or killed the fish, whose body is a mountain, that the Narragansetts are unknown. Our neighbours know us well, brother; they have both seen and felt us. Come to our cabins, brothers, and come in what guise you like. If you come in peace, you shall be welcome, and we will make a feast for you. We will hunt the nimble deer with you, and show you where the mighty eagle roosts, and where the fish with shining scales abides. If you come painted, your war-pipe filled, your bow bent, your arrow sharp and barbed, your heart strong, and your cry loud, we too will paint ourselves; we will smoke our pipe of war, we will bend our bow, make sharp our arrows, and stout our hearts, and will cry our war-cry, till the startled heron shall wing his way from the swamps to his hiding-place among the hills, and the deer shall escape from the open space to the tangled covert. Our shouts shall be as loud as the roar of the Lake of Whales in the time of the Herring-Moon.

      "Brother, we have with us a chief, whose face is of the colour of the plucked pigeon; he listens. He has crossed the great waters in the season of storms, he has forded the shallow streams and swum the deeper, and threaded the dreary woods, and faced unaccustomed dangers, that he may learn our traditions, our customs, our laws, and our opinions of the Great Spirit. He has come, if he does not lie, from a far country, a land very beautiful to the eye, a land of many villages and much people, but who are not so wise and warlike as we are. He has left his father and mother, and wife and children, and the bones and burial-place of his ancestors, to listen to the wisdom of the Indians, and to be instructed by them in the history of their tribes. Shall we enlighten him? Shall we teach him the things which we know, that be may go back to his countrymen prepared to repeat to them the words of wisdom which fell from our lips; that, when he returns to his own fire-place, he may make the young doves coo, and the eyes of then mother glisten, with the tales he has heard in the camp of the Red Man.

      "Brother, the Narragansetts have a tradition which I will repeat before you. It has come down to us from old days, and we believe it, for it was told us by our fathers, who were men of truth. I know not how long since the thing was done; I cannot number the rings upon the oak since the day of its date, nor the moons that have been born and have died. But I know it was done, and done in the lands which my tribe now occupy. Listen.

      "The Narragansetts are the oldest people in the world; older than the Pequods; older than the Iroquois. When they were created, no one knows, save the Great Spirit—how, ask not me, for I do not know. We were when we first knew we were; we lived when we first found we had breath, further than that I cannot tell you. How should I know more? If a man, while he was wrapped in a deep sleep, should be carried to a far land which he had never seen before, would he know where he was when he waked? or could he tell how he came thither? no, nor can I tell you the manner of the creation of man, or name, with certainty, his creator.

      "But this we do know—when we are born, we are helpless children. The Narragansetts once were such. Even when they had grown to the stature of men, their warriors were nothing but big boys; their chiefs and councillors no wiser than old women. There was a time when they had no bow and arrow, no hatchet, no canoe, no cabin, no corn. They were ignorant and foolish as white men. They would have mistaken the track