38. A Chieftain's Lament
BY PASSACONNAWAY (1660)[146]
HEARKEN to the words of your father. I am an old oak
that has withstood the storms of more than a hundred winters.
Leaves and branches have been stripped from me by the
winds and frosts. My eyes are dim. My limbs totter. I must
soon fall!
But when young and strong, my bow could be bent by no
young man of the Pennacooks. My arrows would pierce a
deer at a hundred yards, and I could bury my hatchet in a
sapling up to the handle.
No wigwam then had so many furs. No pole had so many scalp locks
as Passaconnaway's![147] Then I delighted in
war. The whoop of the Pennacooks was heard upon the Mohawk and no voice
so loud as Passaconnaway's. The scalps upon the pole of my wigwam told
the story of Mohawk suffering.
The English came, they seized our lands; I sat me down at
Pennacook. They followed upon my footsteps. I made war upon them, but
they fought with fire and thunder.[148] My
young men were swept down before me, when no one was near them.
I tried magic against them, but they still increased and got the
better of me and mine.[149] I gave place to
them and came to my beautiful island of Natticook.
I, that can make the dry leaf turn green and live again I, that
can take the rattlesnake in my palm as I would a worm,
without harm I, who have had communion with the Great
Spirit dreaming and awake I am powerless before the pale
faces. The oak will soon break before the whirlwind. It
shivers and
shakes even now. Soon its trunk will be fallen the ant and the worm will
sport upon it!
Then think, my children, of what I say. I commune
with the Great Spirit. He whispers to me now: "Tell your
people peace, peace, is the only hope of your race. I have
given fire and thunder to the pale faces for weapons. I have
made them plentier than the leaves of the forest, and still shall
they increase!
These meadows shall turn with the plough. These forests shall
fall by the axe. The pale faces shall live upon your
hunting-grounds, and make their villages upon your
fishing-places!" The Great Spirit says this and it must be so!
We are few and powerless before them ! We must bend before
the storm! The wind blows hard! The old oak trembles! Its
branches are gone! Its sap is frozen! It bends! It falls! Peace,
peace with the white men is the command of the Great Spirit
and the wish the last wish of Passaconnaway.
[[146]]
Passaconnaway was chieftain of the Pennacook
Indians, in the Merrimac River. No one set down his speech at the time,
but this is the spirit of his words.
[[147]]
At the doors of the lodges the Indians set up
poles, ornamented with the scalps of those whom they had killed.
[[148]]
I.e. they went west and attacked the fierce
Iroquois.
[[149]]
The English muskets seemed strange to the Indians
on account of the dash of light and noise made when one was
fired.
