Part 1 (2/2)
The very sight of a pale face makes him feel bad, and sends him into one of his fits of rage and madness. Oh, it has been dreadful, dreadful,” continued the poor woman, while her voice melted into a truly Indian wail, ”for my children I kept alive, or else I would have thrown myself into the river many a time last year.”
”Bah,” said Peter, who being the brother of Michel, would, with true Indian pertinacity, take part with him whatever were his offences; and, moreover, looking with his native instinct upon woman as the ”creature” of society, whose duty it was to endure uncomplaining, whatever her masters laid upon her. ”Bah; you women are always grumbling and bewailing yourselves; for my part, if I have to starve a little, Kulu (the meat) is all the sweeter when it comes. I suppose Michel has killed enough to give you many a merry night, seated round the camp fire with some good fat ribs or a moose nose, and a fine kettle of tea; then you wrap yourself in your blanket, or light your pipe and feel like a 'big master.'”
Peter's picture of comfort and enjoyment pleased the Indians, and they laughed heartily and testified their approval, all but poor Accomba. She hung her head, and sadly fondled the baby at her breast.
”You may laugh, boys,” she said at length, ”and you know what starving is as well as I do, though you are pretty well off now; it is not for myself I speak, I can bear that kind of thing as well as other women, but it comes hard for the children. Before Se Tene, my man, killed his last moose, we were starving for nearly two moons; a little dried fish and a rat or two, and now and then a rabbit, was we got: even the fish failed for some time, and there was hardly a duck or partridge to be seen. We had to eat two of the dogs at last, but, poor things, they had little flesh on their bones.”
”Eh! eh! e--h!” exclaimed the Indians, who however undemonstrative under ordinary circ.u.mstances, can be full of sympathy where they can realize the affecting points of a story.
”And the children,” asked one of the party, ”I suppose the neighbours helped you a little with them?”
”One of my cousins took little Tetsi for a while,” replied the poor woman, ”and did what she could for him, but they were all short of game as we were, only their men went off after the deer, and plenty, of them got to the lakes for duck; but Michel,--”
”Well, what did he do? I suppose he was off with his gun the first of any of them?” said Peter. ”I'll venture there shall not be a moose or deer within twenty miles, but Michel the Hunter shall smell him out.”
”Yes, he went at last,” sighed Accomba; ”but my man has had one of his ugly fits upon him for all the winter; he would not hunt anywhere near the Fort, for fear of meeting a white face; and he vowed I was making friends with them, and bidding them welcome to the camp, and so he was afraid to leave it; and then at last, when I begged him to go and get food for his children, he swore at me and called me a bad name, and took up his gun to shoot me.”
”Oh, I suppose he only said that in sport,” said another of the party; and yet it was plain that Accomba's story had produced a great sensation among her auditors.
”_In sport!_” exclaimed Accomba, now fairly roused to excitement by the apparent incredulity of her listeners; ”_In sport_, say you? No, no, Michel knows well what he _says_, though sometimes I think he is hardly responsible for his actions; but look you, boys, my husband vowed to shoot me once, and I stayed his arm and fell on my knees and tried to rouse him to pity; but I will do so no more, and if he threatens me again I will let him accomplish his fell purpose, and not a cry or sound shall ever escape my lips. But you, Tetsi,” continued the poor woman, who was now fairly sobbing, ”you are his brother, you might speak to him and try to bring him to reason; and if I die, you must take care of my poor children,--promise me that, Tetsi and Antoine, they are your own flesh and blood, do not let them starve. 'Niotsi Cho,' the Great Spirit will give it you back again.”
There was a great silence among the Indians when Accomba had finished speaking. An Indian has great discernment, and not only can soon discover where the pathos of a story lies, but he will read as by intuition how much of it is true or false. Moreover, Michel's character was well known among them all, and his eccentricities had often excited their wonder and sometimes their censure. The poor woman's story appealed to each one of them: most of all did it appeal to the heart of Sarcelle her brother, who was another occupant of the room that evening.
”It is shocking, it is monstrous.” exclaimed he at full length. ”My sister, you shall come with me. I will work for you, I will hunt for you and your children. Michel shall not threaten you again, he is a 'Nakani' man; he does not know what he says or what he does, he is a bad 'Nakani.'”
”I think some one has made medicine on him,” said another; ”he is possessed, and will get worse till the spell is off him.”
This medicine making among the Northern Indians is one of the most firmly rooted of all their superst.i.tions. The term is by no means well chosen or descriptive of the strange unG.o.dly rite; it is in reality a charm or spell which one man is supposed to lay upon another. It is employed for various purposes and by different means of operations. You will hear of one man 'making medicine' to ascertain what time the Company's boats may be expected, or when certain sledges of meat may come to the Fort. Another man is sick and the medicine-man is summoned, and a drum is beaten during the night with solemn monotonous 'tum, tum, tum', and certain confidential communications take place between the Doctor and his patient, during which the sick man is supposed to divulge every secret he may possess, and on the perfect sincerity of his revelation must depend his recovery.
The accompaniments of this strange scene vary according to circ.u.mstances. In some cases a basin of blood of some animal is made use of; in most instances a knife or dagger plays an important part.
I have seen one of these, which, by-the-by, is most difficult to obtain, and can only be seen by special favour. It is made of bone or ivory, beautifully carved and notched at the edges, with various dots or devices upon it, and all, both dots and notches, arranged in groups of sevens! After some hours the spell may be supposed to work, the sick man feels better, the excitement of the medicine-man increases, all looks promising; yet at this moment should a white face enter the house or tent, still more, should he venture to touch either doctor or patient, the spell would be instantly broken, and the whole process must be commenced anew.
The spell has been wrought upon a poor Cree Woman at Ile la C. She is perfectly convinced as to who did her the injury, and also that it was her hands which it was intended should suffer. Accordingly each Spring, for some years past, her hands are rendered powerless by a foul-looking, scaly eruption, which comes over them. Indians have been known to climb an almost inaccessible rock, and stripping themselves of every vestige of clothing, to lie there without food or drink, singing and invoking the wonder-worker until the revelation of some secret root was made known, by which their design for good or evil might be accomplished!
A Cree Indian, a man of sound education, related once the following story:--”I was suffering in the year 18----from great distress of body, and after seeing a doctor and feeling no better, I began to think I must be the victim of some medicine-man. I thought over my adventures of the last year or two, to discover if there were any who had reason to wish me evil. Yes, there was one man, a Swampy Indian.
I had quarrelled with him, and then we had had words; and I spoke, well, I spoke bitterly (which I ought not to have done, for he was the injured man) and he vowed to revenge himself upon me. This was some years since, however, and I had never given him a thought since the time of our quarrel, but now I was certain a spell was over me, and he must have wrought it,--I knew of no other enemy, and I was determined to overcome it or die. So I saddled my horse and rode across country for thirty miles till I reached the dwelling of the Swampy. The man was outside, and started when he saw me, which convinced me more than ever that I was on the right scent. I put up my horse and followed my man into the house whither he had retreated; and wasting no time, came to the point at once. Drawing my revolver and pointing it to his heart, 'Villain,' I exclaimed, 'you have made medicine on me: tell me your secret or I shall shoot you dead.' I never saw a more cowed and more wretched-looking being than my man became. I expected at least some resistance to my command; but he offered none; for without attempting to stir or even look me in the face, he smiled a ghastly smile, and muttered, 'It has done its work then--well, I am glad! Look in your horse-saddle, and never provoke me more.' I hesitated for a moment whether to loosen my hold upon the man, and to believe so improbable a story; but on the whole I deemed it better to do so. He had fulfilled his threat of revenge, and had caused me months of suffering in body and mind; he knew me well enough to be sure that I was in earnest when I told him that his life would be forfeited if the spell were not removed. So I released my hold and quitted the house. On cutting open my saddle I discovered that the whole original lining had been removed and replaced by an immense number of baneful roots and herbs, which I burnt on the spot.
How this evil deed had been effected I could not even surmise, but so it was, and from that hour I was a different man--my mind recovered its equilibrium, I was no longer affected by pain and distress of body, or haunted by nightly visions. Those who smile at the medicine- man, and are sceptical as to his power, may keep to their own opinions; I believe that the Almighty has imbued many of His creatures, both animate and inanimate, with a subtle power for good or evil, and that it is given to some men to evoke that power and to bring about results which it is impossible for the uninitiated to foresee or to avert!”
But we have wandered too far from Accomba and her sad history. We must now transport the reader to that portion of the sh.o.r.es of the Mackenzie which was described at the opening of our story. The scene indeed should be laid a few miles lower down the river than that at first described, but the aspect and condition of things is but little altered. A number of camps are there, pitched within some ten, twenty, and thirty yards of each other. The dark brown, smoke-tinted leather tents or lodges, have a certain air of comfort and peacefulness about them, which is in no wise diminished, by the smoke curling up from the aperture at the top, or the voices of children running in and out from the tent door. These are the tents of Mackenzie River Indians, speaking the Slave tongue, and mostly known by name to the Company's officers at the neighbouring forts or trading posts, known also to the Bishop and Clergy at the Mission stations, who have often visited these Indians and held services for them at their camps, or at the little English churches at Fort Simpson, Fort Norman, etc. etc., and those little dark-eyed children are, with but few exceptions, baptized Christians. Many of them have attended the Mission Schools for the few weeks in Spring or Fall, when their parents congregate round the forts; they can con over portions of their Syllabic Prayer-books, and find their place in the little Hymn books, for ”O come, all ye faithful,” ”Alleluia! sing to Jesus;” and ”Glory to thee, my G.o.d, this night,” while such anthems as ”I will arise,” and others are as familiar to the Slave Indians as to our English children. Yes, it is a Christian community we are looking at; and yet, sad to say, it is in one of those homes that the dark deed was committed which left five little ones motherless, and spread terror and confusion among the whole camp.
It was a lovely morning in May, 1880. The ice upon the Mackenzie River had but lately given way, having broken up with one tremendous crash. Huge blocks were first hurled some distance down the river, then piled up one above another until they reached the summit of the bank fifty or sixty feet high, and being deposited there in huge unsightly ma.s.ses, were left to thaw away drop by drop, a process which it would take some five or six weeks to accomplish. Some of the men had lately returned from a bear hunt, being, however, disappointed of their prey--a matter of less consideration than usual, for Bruin, being but lately roused from his long winter sleep, was in a less prime condition than he would be a few weeks later.
Michel, the hunter, had one of his ”ugly fits” upon him;--this was known throughout the camps. The women only shrugged their shoulders, and kept clear of his lodge. The men paid him but little attention, even when he skulked in for awhile after dark to smoke his pipe by their camp fire. But on this morning neither Michel nor his wife had been seen outside their camp; only one or two of the children had turned out at a late hour and looked wistfully about, as if longing for someone to give them food and other attention.
Suddenly, from within the lodge a shot was heard, and a terrible m.u.f.fled sound, which none heard without a shudder. Then came the shrieks of the terrified children, who ran out of the lodge towards their neighbours. By this time all the Indians were aware that something horrible had occurred in Michel's camp, and from every lodge, far and near, they hurried out with looks of dread and inquiry. The farthest lodge was not more than sixty yards from that of Michel, and the nearest was hardly a dozen yards removed, although a little further back from the edge of the bank. When the first man entered the lodge it could not have been more than a few seconds after the firing of the fatal shot, for Michel was still standing, gun in hand, and his poor wife sighing forth the last few breathings of her sad and troubled life. She had kept her word, and met her death without one cry or expostulation! It might have been heard from far, that groan of horror and dismay which sprung spontaneous from the one first witnessing the ghastly scene, and then from the whole of the a.s.sembled Indians.
”Se tue! Se tue!” ”My sister, my sister!” cried the women, as one by one they gazed upon the face of the departed; then kneeling down, they took hold of the poor still warm hand, or raised the head to see if life were indeed extinct; then as they found that it was truly so, there arose within that lodge the loud, heart-piercing Indian wail, which, once heard, can never be forgotten. Far, far through the tangled wood it spread, and across the swift river; there is nothing like that wail for pathos, for strange succession of unusual tones, for expression of deep need--of the heart-sorrow of suffering humanity!
In the meantime the chief actor in that sad tragedy had let the instrument of his cruelty fall from his hand; it was immediately seized by one of the Indians and flung into the river. Michel made no resistance to this, albeit even at that moment it might have occurred to him that being deprived of his gun, he was shorn of well nigh his only means of subsistence. He turned to leave his tent, and with a scared, wild look, slowly raised the blanket which hung at its entrance; but he was not suffered to escape so easily: the men of the surrounding camps were gathered close outside, and as with one consent, they laid hold of the miserable culprit and pinned him to the spot; then ensued a fierce Babel of tongues, each one urging his own opinion as to the course of treatment befitting the occasion. The din of these many voices, mingled with the sad wail of the women in the tent, made an uproar and confusion which it would be hard to describe. It ended, however, by one of the Indians producing a long coil of bab.i.+.c.he, and to this another added some pieces of rope, and with these they proceeded to bind their prisoner hand and foot, and then again to bind him to one of the nearest trees. Having succeeded in doing this effectually, but one thought seemed to seize the whole community,--to flee from the spot. But one other duty remained to be performed, and this they now prepared to carry out.
The funeral rites of the North American Indian, it need hardly be remarked, are of the very simplest description; indeed, it is only of late years, and since Christianity has spread among them, that they have been persuaded to adopt the rites and ceremonies of Christian burial. Formerly, in many instances, the body of the deceased would be wrapped in its blanket, and then hoisted up on a wooden stage erected for the purpose; after which the friends of the departed would make off with the utmost speed imaginable. Sometimes even this tribute to a lost friend would not be forthcoming; the Indian has an unspeakable dread of death, and of the dead; from the moment that the heart of his best beloved has ceased to beat, he turns from the lifeless form, nor cares to look upon it again. The new blanket which, perhaps, was only worn a day or two by the departed, will now, with scrupulous care, be wrapped around his dead body; for although he were blanketless himself, no Indian could be persuaded to use that which had once been a dead man's property. Then, it may be, the corpse would be left lying in the leather lodge or tent, which would afterwards be closely fastened up; and it has sometimes devolved upon the Missionaries to spend the night outside, watching the camp and keeping a fire burning in order to ward off dogs or wolves, which would otherwise undoubtedly have broken into the tent and made short work of the lifeless body deserted by all its friends and neighbours and dearest connexions.
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