Part 52 (1/2)
”I am very glad to find that your friend has escaped. We accept your present; and you may take him home with you.”
Wawatam thanked the a.s.sembled chiefs, and taking me by the hand, led me to his lodge, which was at the distance of a few yards only from the prison lodge. My entrance appeared to give joy to the whole family; food was immediately prepared for me; and I now ate the first hearty meal which I had made since my capture. I found myself one of the family; and but that I had still my fears, as to the other Indians, I felt as happy as the situation could allow.
In the course of the next morning, I was alarmed by a noise in the prison lodge; and looking through the openings of the lodge in which I was, I saw seven dead bodies of white men dragged forth. Upon my inquiry into the occasion, I was informed that a certain chief, called by the Canadians Le Grand Sable, had not long before arrived from his winter's hunt; and that he having been absent when the war begun, and being now desirous of manifesting to the Indians at large his hearty concurrence in what they had done, had gone into the prison lodge, and there, with his knife, put the seven men, whose bodies I had seen, to death.
Shortly after, two of the Indians took one of the dead bodies, which they chose as being the fattest, cut off the head, and divided the whole into five parts, one of which was put into each of five kettles, hung over as many fires kindled for this purpose, at the door of the prison lodge. Soon after things were so far prepared, a message came to our lodge, with an invitation to Wawatam to a.s.sist at the feast.
An invitation to a feast is given by him who is the master of it. Small cuttings of cedar wood, of about four inches in length, supply the place of cards; and the bearer by word of mouth states the particulars.
Wawatam obeyed the summons, taking with him, as usual, to the place of entertainment, his dish and spoon.
After an absence of about half an hour, he returned, bringing in his dish a human hand, and a large piece of flesh. He did not appear to relish the repast, but told me that it was then, and always had been the custom among all the Indian nations, when returning from war, or on overcoming their enemies, to make a war-feast from among the slain. This he said inspired the warrior with courage in attack, and bred him to meet death with fearlessness.
In the evening of the same day, a large canoe, such as those which came from Montreal, was seen advancing to the fort. It was full of men, and I distinguished several pa.s.sengers. The Indian cry was made in the village; a general muster ordered; and to the number of two hundred they marched up to the fort, where the canoe was expected to land. The canoe, suspecting nothing, came boldly to the fort, where the pa.s.sengers, as being English traders, were seized, dragged through the water, beat, reviled, marched to the prison lodge, and there stripped of their clothes and confined.
Of the English traders that fell into the hands of the Indians at the capture of the Fort, Mr. Tracy was the only one who lost his life. Mr.
Ezekiel Solomons and Mr. Henry Bostwick were taken by the Ottawas, and after the peace carried down to Montreal, and there ransomed. Of ninety troops, about seventy were killed; the rest, together with those of the posts in the Bay des Puants, and at the river St. Joseph, were also kept in safety by the Ottawas till the peace, and then either freely restored, or ransomed at Montreal. The Ottawas never overcame their disgust at the neglect with which they had been treated, in the beginning of the war, by those who afterwards desired their a.s.sistance as allies.
In the morning of the ninth of June, a general council was held, at which it was agreed to remove to the island of Michilimackinac, as a more defensible situation in the event of an attack by the English. The Indians had begun to entertain apprehensions of want of strength. No news had reached them from the Potawatamies, in the Bay des Puants; and they were uncertain whether or not the Monomins would join them. They even feared that the Sioux would take the English side.
This resolution fixed, they prepared for a speedy retreat. At noon the camp was broken up, and we embarked, taking with us the prisoners that were still undisposed of. On our pa.s.sage we encountered a gale of wind, and there were some appearances of danger. To avert it, a dog, of which the legs were previously tied together, was thrown into the lake; an offering designed to soothe the angry pa.s.sions of some offended Manito.
As we approached the island, two women in the canoe in which I was, began to utter melancholy and hideous cries. Precarious as my condition still remained, I experienced some sensations of alarm from these dismal sounds, of which I could not then discover the occasion. Subsequently, I learned that it is customary for the women, on pa.s.sing near the burial places of relations, never to omit the practice of which I was now a witness, and by which they intend to denote their grief.
By the approach of evening we reached the island in safety, and the women were not long in erecting our cabins. In the morning, there was a muster of the Indians, at which there were found three hundred and fifty fighting men.
In the course of the day, there arrived a canoe from Detroit, with amba.s.sadors, who endeavored to prevail on the Indians to repair thither to the a.s.sistance of Pontiac; but fear was now the prevailing pa.s.sion. A guard was kept during the day, and a watch by night, and alarms were very frequently spread. Had an enemy appeared, all the prisoners would have been put to death; and I suspected that, as an Englishman, I should share their fate.
Several days had now pa.s.sed, when one morning a continued alarm prevailed, and I saw the Indians running in a confused manner toward the beach. In a short time I learned that two large canoes from Montreal were in sight.
All the Indian canoes were immediately manned, and those from Montreal were surrounded and seized, as they turned a point behind which the flotilla had been concealed. The goods were consigned to a Mr. Levy, and would have been saved if the canoe men had called them French property; but they were terrified and disguised nothing.
In the canoes was a large proportion of liquor, a dangerous acquisition, and which threatened disturbance among the Indians, even to the loss of their dearest friends. Wawatam, always watchful of my safety, no sooner heard the noise of drunkenness, which in the evening did not fail to begin, than he represented to me the danger of remaining in the village, and owned that he could not himself resist the temptation of joining his comrades in the debauch. That I might escape all mischief he therefore requested that I would accompany him to the mountain, where I was to remain hidden till the liquor should be drank.
We ascended the mountain accordingly. It is this mountain which const.i.tutes that high land in the middle of the island, of which I have spoken before, as a figure considered as resembling a _turtle_, and therefore called _Michilimackinac_. It is thickly covered with wood, and very rocky toward the top. After walking more than half a mile, we came to a large rock, at the base of which was an opening, dark within, and appearing to be the entrance of a cave.
Here, Wawatam recommended that I should take up my lodging, and by all means remain till he returned.
On going into the cave, of which the entrance was nearly ten feet wide, I found the further end to be rounded in its shape, like that of an oven, but with a further aperture, too small, however, to be explored.
After thus looking around me, I broke small branches from the trees, and spread them for a bed; then wrapped myself in my blanket and slept till daybreak.
On awaking I felt myself incommoded by some object upon which I lay; and removing it, found it to be a bone. This I supposed to be that of a deer, or some other animal, and what might very naturally be looked for in the place in which it was; but, when daylight visited my chamber, I discovered, with some feelings of horror, that I was lying on nothing less than a heap of human bones and skulls, which covered all the floor!
The day pa.s.sed without the return of Wawatam, and without food. As night approached, I found myself unable to meet its darkness in the charnel-house, which, nevertheless, I had viewed free from uneasiness during the day. I chose, therefore, an adjacent bush for this night's lodging, and slept under it as before; but in the morning, I awoke hungry and dispirited, and almost envying the dry bones, to the view of which I returned. At length the sound of a foot reached me, and my Indian friend appeared, making many apologies for his long absence, the cause of which was an unfortunate excess in the enjoyment of his liquor.
This point being explained, I mentioned the extraordinary sight that had presented itself in the cave to which he had commended my slumbers. He had never heard of its existence before; and, upon examining the cave together, we saw reason to believe that it had been anciently filled with human bodies.
On returning to the lodge, I experienced a cordial reception from the family, which consisted of the wife of my friend, his two sons, of whom the eldest was married, and whose wife, and a daughter of thirteen years of age, completed the list.
Wawatam related to the other Indians, the adventure of the bones. All of them expressed surprise at hearing it, and declared that they had never been aware of the contents of this cave before. After visiting it, which they immediately did, almost every one offered a different opinion as to its history.