Part 31 (2/2)

For this I thank him. I thank all who wish to do me good. Them that wish to do me harm I strike from behind. It is our Injin custom. I do not wish to hurt the medicine-priest, because I think he wishes to do me good, and not to do me harm. He has a strange law. It is to do good to them that do harm to you. It is not the law of the red men. It is not good law. I do not wonder that the tribes which follow such a law get lost. They cannot tell their friends from their enemies. They can have no people to scalp. What is a warrior if he cannot find someone to scalp? No; such a law would make women of the bravest braves in the Openings, or on the prairie. It may be a good law for Jews, who get lost; but it is a bad law for Injins, who know the paths they travel.

Let another speak.”

This brief profession of faith, on the subject that had been so recently broached in the council, seemed to give infinite satisfaction. All present evidently preferred being red men, who knew where they were, than to be pale-faces who had lost their road. Ignorance of his path is a species of disgrace to an American savage, and not a man there would have confessed that his particular division of the great human family was in that dilemma. The idea that the Yankees were ”lost,” and had got materially astray, was very grateful to most who heard it; and Bough of the Oak gained a considerable reputation as an orator, in consequence of the lucky hits made on this occasion.

Another long, ruminating pause, and much pa.s.sing of the pipe of peace succeeded. It was near half an hour after the last speaker had resumed his seat, ere Peter stood erect. In that long interval expectation had time to increase, and curiosity to augment itself. Nothing but a very great event could cause this pondering, this deliberation, and this unwillingness to begin. When, however, the time did come for the mysterious chief to speak, the man of many scalps to open his mouth, profound was the attention that prevailed among all present. Even after he had arisen, the orator stood silently looking around him, as if the throes of his thoughts had to be a little suppressed before he could trust his tongue to give them utterance.

”What is the earth?” commenced Peter, in a deep, guttural tone of voice, which the death-like stillness rendered audible even to the outermost boundaries of the circle of admiring and curious countenances. ”It is one plain adjoining another; river after river; lake after lake; prairie touching prairie; and pleasant woods, that seem to have no limits, all given to men to dwell in. It would seem that the Great Spirit parcelled out this rich possession into hunting-grounds for all. He colored men differently. His dearest children he painted red, which is his own color. Them that he loved less he colored less, and they had red only in spots. Them he loved least he dipped in a dark dye, and left them black.

These are the colors of men. If there are more, I have not seen them.

Some say there are. I shall think so, too, when I see them.

”Brothers, this talk about lost tribes is a foolish talk. We are not lost. We know where we are, and we know where the Yankees have come to seek us. My brother has well spoken. If any are lost, it is the Yankees.

The Yankees are Jews; they are lost. The time is near when they will be found, and when they will again turn their eyes toward the rising sun.

They have looked so long toward the setting sun, that they cannot see clearly. It is not good to look too long at the same object. The Yankees have looked at our hunting-grounds, until their eyes are dim. They see the hunting-grounds, but they do not see all the warriors that are in them. In time, they will learn to count them.

”Brothers, when the Great Spirit made man, he put him to live on the earth. Our traditions do not agree in saying of what he was made.

Some say it was of clay, and that when his spirit starts for the happy hunting-grounds, his body becomes clay again. I do not say that this is so, for I do not know. It is not good to say that which we do not know to be true. I wish to speak only the truth. This we do know. If a warrior die, and we put him in the earth, and come to look for him many years afterward, nothing but bones are found. All else is gone. I have heard old men say that, in time, even these bones are not to be found.

It is so with trees; it may be so with men. But it is not so with hunting-grounds. They were made to last forever.

”Brothers, you know why we have come together on this prairie. It was to count the pale-faces, and to think of the way of making their number less. Now is a good time for such a thing. They have dug up the hatchet against each other, and when we hear of scalps taken among them, it is good for the red men. I do not think our Canada father is more our friend than the great Yankee, Uncle Sam. It is true, he gives us more powder, and blankets, and tomahawks, and rifles than the Yankee, but it is to get us to fight his battles. We will fight his battles. They are our battles, too. For this reason we will fight his enemies.

”Brothers, it is time to think of our children. A wise chief once told me how many winters it is since a pale-face was first seen among red men. It was not a great while ago. Injins are living who have seen Injins, whose own fathers saw the first pale-faces. They were few.

They were like little children, then; but now they are grown to be men.

Medicine-men are plenty among them, and tell them how to raise children.

The Injins do not understand this. Small-pox, fire-water, bad hunting, and frosts, keep us poor, and keep our children from growing as fast as the children of the pale-faces. Brothers, all this has happened within the lives of three aged chiefs. One told to another, and he told it to a third. Three chiefs have kept that tradition. They have given it to me. I have cut notches on this stick (holding up a piece of ash, neatly trimmed, as a record) for the winters they told me, and every winter since I have cut one more. See; there are not many notches. Some of our people say that the pale-faces are already plentier than leaves on the trees. I do not believe this. These notches tell us differently. It is true the pale-faces grow fast, and have many children, and small-pox does not kill many of them, and their wars are few; but look at this stick. Could a canoe-full of men become as many as they say, in so few winters? No; it is not so. The stories we have heard are not true. A crooked tongue first told them. We are strong enough still to drive these strangers into the great salt lake, and get back all our hunting-grounds. This is what I wish to have done.

”Brothers, I have taken many scalps. This stick will tell the number.”

Here one of those terrible gleams of ferocity to which we have before alluded, pa.s.sed athwart the dark countenance of the speaker, causing all present to feel a deeper sympathy in the thoughts he would express.

”There are many. Every one has come from the head of a pale-face. It is now twenty winters since I took the scalp of a red man. I shall never take another. We want all of our own warriors, to drive back the strangers.

”Brothers, some Injins tell us of different tribes. They talk about distant tribes as strangers. I tell you we are all children of the same father. All our skins are red. I see no difference between an Ojebway, and a Sac, or a Sioux. I love even a Cherokee.” Here very decided signs of dissatisfaction were manifested by several of the listeners; parties of the tribes of the great lakes having actually marched as far as the Gulf of Mexico to make war on the Indians of that region, who were generally hated by them with the most intense hatred. ”He has the blood of our fathers in him. We are brothers, and should live together as brothers. If we want scalps, the pale-faces have plenty. It is sweet to take the scalp of a pale-face. I know it. My hand has done it often, and will do it again. If every Injin had taken as many scalps as I have taken, few of these strangers would now remain.

”Brothers, one thing more I have to say. I wish to hear others, and will not tell all I know this time. One thing more I have to say, and I now say it. I have told you that we must take the scalps of all the pale-faces who are now near us. I thought there would have been more, but the rest do not come. Perhaps they are frightened. There are only six. Six scalps are not many. I am sorry they are so few. But we can go where there will be more. One of these six is a medicine-man. I do not know what to think. It may be good to take his scalp. It may be bad.

Medicine-men have great power. You have seen what this bee-hunter can do. He knows how to talk with bees. Them little insects can fly into small places, and see things that Injins cannot see. The Great Spirit made them so. When we get back all the land, we shall get the bees with it, and may then hold a council to say what it is best to do with them.

Until we know more, I do not wish to touch the scalp of that bee-hunter.

It may do us great harm. I knew a medicine-man of the pale-faces to lose his scalp, and small-pox took off half the band that made him prisoner and killed him. It is not good to meddle with medicine-men. A few days ago, and I wanted this young man's scalp, very much. Now, I do not want it. It may do us harm to touch it. I wish to let him go, and to take his squaw with him. The rest we can scalp.”

Peter cunningly made no allusion to Margery, until just before he resumed his seat, though now deeply interested in her safety. As for le Bourdon, so profound was the impression he had made that morning, that few of the chiefs were surprised at the exemption proposed in his favor.

The superst.i.tious dread of witchcraft is very general among the American savages; and it certainly did seem to be hazardous to plot the death of a man, who had even the bees that were humming on all sides of them under his control. He might at that very moment be acquainted with all that was pa.s.sing; and several of the grim-looking and veteran warriors who sat in the circle, and who appeared to be men able and willing to encounter aught human, did not fail to remember the probability of a medicine-man's knowing who were his friends, and who his enemies.

When Peter sat down, there was but one man in the circle of chiefs who was resolved to oppose his design of placing Boden and Margery without the pale of the condemned. Several were undecided, scarce knowing what to think of so sudden and strange a proposition, but could not be said to have absolutely adhered to the original scheme of cutting off all.

The exception was Ungque. This man--a chief by a sort of sufferance, rather than as a right--was deadly hostile to Peter's influence, as has been said, and was inclined to oppose all his plans, though compelled by policy to be exceedingly cautious how he did it. Here, however, was an excellent opportunity to strike a blow, and he was determined not to neglect it. Still, so wily was this Indian, so much accustomed to put a restraint on his pa.s.sions and wishes, that he did not immediately arise, with the impetuous ardor of frank impulses, to make his reply, but awaited his time.

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