Part 68 (1/2)
I am afraid of your love, my dear.
O pain! O pain!
Oh, where is my true love going, my dear?
Oh, they say she will be taken away far from here. She will leave me, my true love, my dear.
My body feels numb on account of what I have said, my true love, my dear.
Good-by, my true love, my dear.[250]
MORE LOVE-STORIES
Apart from ”free translations” and embellishments, the great difficulty with poems like these, taken down at the present day, is that one never knows, though they may be told by a pure Indian, how far they may have been influenced by the half-breeds or the missionaries who have been with these Indians, in some cases for many generations. The same is true of not a few of the stories attributed to Indians.
Powers had heard among other ”Indian” tales one of a lover's leap, and another of a Mono maiden who loved an Awani brave and was imprisoned by her cruel father in a cave until she perished. ”But,” says Powers (368), ”neither Choko nor any other Indian could give me any information touching them, and Choko dismissed them all with the contemptuous remark, '_White man too much lie_.'” I have shown in this chapter how large is the number of white men who ”too much lie” in attributing to Indians stories, thoughts, and feelings, which no Indian ever dreamt of.[251]
The genuine traditional literature of the Indians consists, as Powers remarks (408), almost entirely of petty fables about animals, and there is an almost total lack of human legends. Some there are, and a few of them are quite pretty. Powers relates one (299) which may well be Indian, the only suspicious feature being the reference to a ”beautiful” cloud (for Indians know only the utility, not the charm, of nature).
”One day, as the sun was setting, Kiunaddissi's daughter went out and saw a beautiful red cloud, the most lovely cloud ever seen, resting like a bar along the horizon, stretching southward. She cried out to her father, 'O father, come and see this beautiful [bright?] cloud!' He did so.... Next day the daughter took a basket and went out into the plain to gather clover to eat. While picking the clover she found a very pretty arrow, trimmed with yellow-hammer's feathers. After gazing at it awhile in wonder she turned to look at her basket, and there beside it stood a man who was called Yang-wi'-a-kan-uh (Red Cloud) who was none other than the cloud she had seen the day before. He was so bright and resplendent to look upon that she was abashed; she modestly hung down her head and uttered not a word. But he said to her, 'I am not a stranger. You saw me last night; you see me every night when the sun is setting. I love you; you love me; look at me; be not afraid.' Then she said, 'If you love me, take and eat this basket of gra.s.s-seed pinole.' He touched the basket and in an instant all the pinole vanished in the air, going no man knows whither. Thereupon the girl fell away in a swoon, and lay a considerable time there upon the ground. But when the man returned to her behold she had given birth to a son. And the girl was abashed, and would not look in his face, but she was full of joy because of her new-born son.”
The Indian's anthropomorphic way of looking at nature (instead of the esthetic or scientific, both of which are as much beyond his mental capacity as the faculty for sentimental love) is also ill.u.s.trated by the following Dakota tale, showing how two girls got married.[252]
”There were two women lying out of doors and looking up to the s.h.i.+ning stars. One of them said to the other, 'I wish that very large and bright s.h.i.+ning star was my husband,' The other said, 'I wish that star that s.h.i.+nes so brightly were my husband.' Thereupon they both were immediately taken up.
They found themselves in a beautiful country, which was full of twin flowers. They found that the star which shone most brightly was a large man, while the other was only a young man. So they each had a husband, and one became with child.”
Fear and superst.i.tion are, as we know, among the obstacles which prevent an Indian from appreciating the beauties of nature. The story of the Yurok siren, as related by Powers (59), ill.u.s.trates this point:
”There is a certain tract of country on the north side of the Klamath River which nothing can induce an Indian to enter. They say that there is a beautiful squaw living there whose fascinations are fatal. When an Indian sees her he straightway falls desperately in love. She decoys him farther and farther into the forest, until at last she climbs a tree and the man follows. She now changes into a panther and kills him; then, resuming her proper form, she cuts off his head and places it in a basket. She is now, they say, a thousand years old, and has an Indian's head for every year of her life.”
Such tales as these may well have originated in an Indian's imagination. Their local color is correct and charming, and they do not attribute to a savage notions and emotions foreign to his mind and customs.
”WHITE MAN TOO MUCH LIE”
It is otherwise with a cla.s.s of Indian tales of which Schoolcraft's are samples, and a few more of which may here be referred to. With the unquestioning trust of a child the learned Waitz accepts as a specimen of genuine romantic love a story[253] of an Indian maiden who, when an arrow was aimed at her lover's heart, sprang before him and received the barbed shaft in her own heart; and another of a Creek Indian who jumped into a cataract with the girl he loved, meeting death with her when he found he could not escape the tomahawk of the pursuers. The solid facts of the first story will be hinted at presently in speaking of Pocahontas; and as for the second story it is, reduced to Indian realism, simply an incident of an elopement and pursuit such as may have easily happened, though the motive of the elopement was nothing more than the usual desire to avoid paying for the girl. Such sentences as ”she loved him with an intensity of pa.s.sion that only the n.o.blest souls know,” and ”they vowed eternal love; they vowed to live and die with each other,” ought to have opened Waitz's eyes to the fact that he was not reading an actual Indian story, but a story sentimentalized and embellished in the cheapest modern dime-novel style. The only thing such stories tell us is that ”white man too much lie.”
White woman, too, is not always above suspicion. Mrs. Eastman a.s.sures us that she got her Sioux legends from the Indians themselves. One of these stories is ent.i.tled ”The Track Maker” (122-23). During an interval of peace between the Chippewas and Dakotas, she relates, a party of Chippewas visited a camp of the Dakotas. A young Dakota warrior fell in love with a girl included in the Chippewa party.
”_Though he would have died to save her from sorrow_, yet he knew that she could never be his wife,” for the tribes were ever at war. Here Mrs. Eastman, with the recklessness of a newspaper reporter, puts into an Indian's head a sentiment which no Indian ever dreamt of. All the facts cited in this chapter prove this, and, moreover, the sequel of her own story proves it. After exchanging vows of love (!) with the Dakotan brave, the girl departed with her Chippewa friends. Shortly afterward two Dakotas were murdered. The Chippewas were suspected, and a party of warriors at once broke up in pursuit of the innocent and unsuspecting party. The girl, whose name was Flying Shadow, saw her lover among the pursuers, who had already commenced to slaughter and scalp the other women, though the maidens clasped their hands in a ”vain appeal to the merciless wretches, who see neither beauty nor grace when rage and revenge are in their hearts.” Throwing herself in his arms she cried, ”Save me! save me! Do not let them slay me before your eyes; make me your prisoner! You said that you loved me, spare my life!” He did spare her life; he simply touched her with his spear, then pa.s.sed on, and a moment later the girl was slain and scalped by his companions. And why did the gallant and self-sacrificing lover touch her with his spear before he left her to be murdered? Because touching an enemy--male or female--with his spear ent.i.tles the n.o.ble red man to wear a feather of honor as if he had taken a scalp! Yet he ”would have died to save her from sorrow”!
An Indian's capacity for self-sacrifice is also revealed in a favorite Blackfoot tale recorded by Grinnell (39-42). A squaw was picking berries in a place rendered dangerous by the proximity of the enemy.
Suddenly her husband, who was on guard, saw a war party approaching.
Signalling to the squaw, they mounted their horses and took to flight.
The wife's horse, not being a good one, soon tired out and the husband had to take her on his. But this was too much of a load even for his powerful animal. The enemy gained on them constantly. Presently he said to his wife: ”Get off. The enemy will not kill you. You are too young and pretty. Some one of them will take you, and I will get a big party of our people and rescue you.” But the woman cried ”No, no, I will die here with you.” ”Crazy person,” cried the man, and with a quick jerk he threw the woman off and escaped. Having reached the lodge safely, he painted himself black and ”walked all through the camp crying.” Poor fellow! How he loved his wife! The Indian, as Catlin truly remarked, ”is not in the least behind us in conjugal affection.” The only difference--a trifling one to be sure--is that a white man, under such circ.u.mstances, would have spilt his last drop of blood in defence of his wife's life and her honor.
THE STORY OF POCAHONTAS
The rescue of John Smith by Pocahontas is commonly held to prove that the young Indian girl, smitten with sudden love for the white man, risked her life for him. This fanciful notion has however, been irreparably damaged by John Fiske (_O.V._, I., 102-111). It is true that ”the Indians debated together, and presently two big stones were placed before the chiefs, and Smith was dragged thither and his head laid upon them;” and that
”even while warriors were standing with clubs in hand, to beat his brains out, the chief's young daughter Pocahontas rushed up and embraced him, whereupon her father spared his life.”