 | The wigwam and the cabin |  |
JOCASSÉE.
A CHEROKEE LEGEND.
1. CHAPTER I.
“Keowee Old Fort,” as the people in that quarter style it, is a
fine antique ruin and relic of the revolution, in the district of
Pendleton, South Carolina. The region of country in which we
find it is, of itself, highly picturesque and interesting. The
broad river of Keowee, which runs through it, though comparatively
small as a stream in America, would put to shame, by its
size not less than its beauty, one half of the far-famed and
boasted rivers of Europe;—and then the mountains, through and
among which it winds its way, embody more of beautiful situation
and romantic prospect, than art can well figure to the eye,
or language convey to the imagination. To understand, you
must see it. Words are of little avail when the ideas overcrowd
utterance; and even vanity itself is content to be dumb in the
awe inspired by a thousand prospects, like Niagara, the ideals of
a god, and altogether beyond the standards common to humanity.
It is not long since I wandered through this interesting region,
under the guidance of my friend, Col. G—, who does the honours
of society, in that quarter, with a degree of ease and unostentatious
simplicity, which readily makes the visiter at home.
My friend was one of those citizens to whom one's own country
is always of paramount interest, and whose mind and memory,
accordingly, have been always most happily employed when
storing away and digesting into pleasing narrative those thousand
little traditions of the local genius, which give life to rocks and
valleys, and people earth with the beautiful colours and creatures
seeker, he had forever in readiness; and, with him to illustrate
them, it is not surprising if the grove had a moral existence in
my thoughts, and all the waters around breathed and were instinct
with poetry. To all his narratives I listened with a satisfaction
which book-stories do not often afford me. The more he
told, the more he had to tell; for nothing staled
“His infinite variety.”
There may have been something in the style of telling his stories;
there was much, certainly, that was highly attractive in
his manner of doing every thing, and this may have contributed
not a little to the success of his narratives. Perhaps, too, my
presence, upon the very scene of each legend, may have given
them a life and a vraisemblance they had wanted otherwise.
In this manner, rambling about from spot to spot, I passed five
weeks, without being, at any moment, conscious of time's progress.
Day after day, we wandered forth in some new direction,
contriving always to secure, and without effort, that pleasurable
excitement of novelty, for which the great city labours in vain,
spite of her varying fashions, and crowding, and not always innocent
indulgences. From forest to river, from hill to valley, still
on horseback,—for the mountainous character of the country forbade
any more luxurious form of travel,—we kept on our way,
always changing our ground with the night, and our prospect
with the morning. In this manner we travelled over or round
the Six Mile, and the Glassy, and a dozen other mountains; and
sometimes, with a yet greater scope of adventure, pushed off on
a much longer ramble,—such as took us to the falls of the White
Water, and gave us a glimpse of the beautiful river of Jocassée,
named sweetly after the Cherokee maiden, who threw herself
into its bosom on beholding the scalp of her lover dangling from
the neck of his conqueror. The story is almost a parallel to that
of the sister of Horatius, with this difference, that the Cherokee
girl did not wait for the vengeance of her brother, and altogether
spared her reproaches. I tell the story, which is pleasant and
curious, in the language of my friend, from whom I first heard it.
“The Occonies and the Little Estatoees, or, rather, the Brown
nation, between whom, as was not unfrequently the case,
there sprung up a deadly enmity. The Estatoees had their town
on each side of the two creeks, which, to this day, keep their
name, and on the eastern side of the Keowee river. The Occonies
occupied a much larger extent of territory, but it lay on the
opposite, or west side of the same stream. Their differences were
supposed to have arisen from the defeat of Chatuga, a favourite
leader of the Occonies, who aimed to be made a chief of the nation
at large. The Estatoee warrior, Toxaway, was successful;
and as the influence of Chatuga was considerable with his tribe,
he laboured successfully to engender in their bosoms a bitter dislike
of the Estatoees. This feeling was made to exhibit itself on
every possible occasion. The Occonies had no word too foul by
which to describe the Estatoees. They likened them, in familiar
speech, to every thing which, in the Indian imagination, is accounted
low and contemptible. In reference to war, they were
reputed women,—in all other respects, they were compared to
dogs and vermin; and, with something of a Christian taste and
temper, they did not scruple, now and then, to invoke the devil
of their more barbarous creed, for the eternal disquiet of their
successful neighbours, the Little Estatoees, and their great chief,
Toxaway.
“In this condition of things there could not be much harmony;
and, accordingly, as if by mutual consent, there was but little
intercourse between the two people. When they met, it was
either to regard one another with a cold, repulsive distance, or
else, as enemies, actively to foment quarrel and engage in strife.
But seldom, save on national concerns, did the Estatoees cross the
Keowee to the side held by the Occonies; and the latter, more
numerous, and therefore less reluctant for strife than their rivals,
were yet not often found on the opposite bank of the same river.
Sometimes, however, small parties of hunters from both tribes,
rambling in one direction or another, would pass into the enemy's
territory; but this was not frequent, and when they met, quarrel
and bloodshed were sure to mark the adventure.
“But there was one young warrior of the Estatoees, who did
not give much heed to this condition of parties, and who, moved
when the humour seized him, to cross the river, making
quite as free, when he did so, with the hunting-grounds of the
Occonies as they did themselves. This sort of conduct did not
please the latter very greatly, but Nagoochie was always so gentle,
and at the same time so brave, that the young warriors of Occony
either liked or feared him too much to throw themselves often in
his path, or labour, at any time, to arrest his progress.
“In one of these excursions, Nagoochie made the acquaintance
of Jocassée, one of the sweetest of the dusky daughters of
Occony. He was rambling, with bow and quiver, in pursuit of
game, as was his custom, along that beautiful enclosure which
the whites have named after her, the Jocassée valley. The circumstances
under which they met were all strange and exciting,
and well calculated to give her a power over the young hunter,
to which the pride of the Indian does not often suffer him to
submit. It was towards evening when Nagoochie sprung a fine
buck from a hollow of the wood beside him, and just before
you reach the ridge of rocks which hem in and form this beautiful
valley. With the first glimpse of his prey flew the keen
shaft of Nagoochie; but, strange to say, though renowned as a
hunter, not less than as a warrior, the arrow failed entirely and flew
wide of the victim. Off he bounded headlong after the fortunate
buck; but though, every now and then getting him within range,
—for the buck took the pursuit coolly,—the hunter still most unaccountably
failed to strike him. Shaft after shaft had fallen
seemingly hurtless from his sides; and though, at frequent intervals,
suffered to approach so nigh to the animal that he could not but
hope still for better fortune, to his great surprise, the wary buck
would dash off when he least expected it, bounding away in some
new direction, with as much life and vigour as ever. What to
think of this, the hunter knew not; but such repeated disappointments
at length impressed it strongly upon his mind, that the
object he pursued was neither more nor less than an Occony
wizard, seeking to entrap him; so, with a due feeling of superstition,
and a small touch of sectional venom aroused into action
within his heart, Nagoochie, after the manner of his people,
promised a green bird—the emblem of his tribe—in sacrifice to
overcome the potent enchanter, who had thus dazzled his aim and
blunted his arrows. He had hardly uttered this vow, when he
beheld the insolent deer mincingly grazing upon a beautiful tuft
of long grass in the valley, just below the ledge of rock upon
which he stood. Without more ado, he pressed onward to bring
him within fair range of his arrows, little doubting at the moment
that the Good Spirit had heard his prayer, and had granted
his desire. But, in his hurry, leaping too hastily forward, and
with eyes fixed only upon his proposed victim, his foot was caught
by the smallest stump in the world, and the very next moment
found him precipitated directly over the rock and into the valley,
within a few paces of the deer, who made off with the utmost
composure, gazing back, as he did so, in the eyes of the wounded
hunter, for all the world, as if he enjoyed the sport mightily.
Nagoochie, as he saw this, gravely concluded that he had fallen
a victim to the wiles of the Occony wizard, and looked confidently
to see half a score of Occonies upon him, taking him at a vantage.
Like a brave warrior, however, he did not despond, but
determining to gather up his loins for battle and the torture, he
sought to rise and put himself in a state of preparation. What,
however, was his horror, to find himself utterly unable to move;
—his leg had been broken in the fall, and he was covered with
bruises from head to foot.
“Nagoochie gave himself up for lost; but he had scarcely
done so, when he heard a voice,—the sweetest, he thought, he had
ever heard in his life,—singing a wild, pleasant song, such as the
Occonies love, which, ingeniously enough, summed up the sundry
reasons why the mouth, and not the eyes, had been endowed with
the faculty of eating. These reasons were many, but the last
is quite enough for us. According to the song, had the eyes,
and not the mouth, been employed for this purpose, there would
soon be a famine in the land, for of all gluttons, the eyes are the
greatest. Nagoochie groaned aloud as he heard the song, the
latter portion of which completely indicated the cause of his
present misfortune. It was, indeed, the gluttony of the eyes which
had broken his leg. This sort of allegory the Indians are fond
of, and Jocassée knew all their legends. Certainly, thought
I never heard such sweet music, and such a voice.' The
singer advanced as she sung, and almost stumbled over him.
“`Who are you?' she asked timidly, neither retreating nor
advancing; and, as the wounded man looked into her face, he
blessed the Occony wizard, by whose management he deemed
his leg to have been broken.
“`Look!' was the reply of the young warrior, throwing
aside the bearskin which covered his bosom,—`look, girl of Occony!
'tis the totem of a chief;' and the green bird stamped
upon his left breast, as the badge of his tribe, showed him a
warrior of Estato, and something of an enemy. But his eyes
had no enmity, and then the broken leg! Jocassée was a gentle
maiden, and her heart melted with the condition of the warrior.
She made him a sweet promise, in very pretty language, and with
the very same voice the music of which was so delicious; and
then, with the fleetness of a young doe, she went off to bring him
succour.
2. CHAPTER II.
“Night, in the meanwhile, came on; and the long howl of
the wolf, as he looked down from the crag, and waited for the
thick darkness in which to descend the valley, came freezingly
to the ear of Nagoochie. `Surely,' he said to himself, `the girl
of Occony will come back. She has too sweet a voice not to
keep her word. She will certainly come back.' While he
doubted, he believed. Indeed, though still a very young maiden,
the eyes of Jocassée had in them a great deal that was good for
little beside, than to persuade and force conviction; and the belief
in them was pretty extensive in the circle of her rustic acquaintance.
All people love to believe in fine eyes, and nothing
is more natural than for lovers to swear by them. Nagoochie did
not swear by those of Jocassée, but he did most religiously believe
in them; and though the night gathered fast, and the long
howl of the wolf came close from his crag, down into the valley,
the young hunter of the green bird did not despair of the return
of the maiden.
“She did return, and the warrior was insensible. But the
motion stirred him; the lights gleamed upon him from many
torches; he opened his eyes, and when they rested upon Jocassée,
they forgot to close again. She had brought aid enough, for her
voice was powerful as well as musical; and, taking due care
that the totem of the green bird should be carefully concealed by
the bearskin, with which her own hands covered his bosom, she
had him lifted upon a litter, constructed of several young saplings,
which, interlaced with withes, binding it closely together,
and strewn thickly with leaves, made a couch as soft as the
wounded man could desire. In a few hours, and the form of
Nagoochie rested beneath the roof of Attakulla, the sire of Jocassée.
She sat beside the young hunter, and it was her hand
that placed the fever balm upon his lips, and poured into his
pharmacy.
“Never was nurse more careful of her charge. Day and
night she watched by him, and few were the hours which she
then required for her own pleasure or repose. Yet why was Jocassée
so devoted to the stranger? She never asked herself so
unnecessary a question; but as she was never so well satisfied,
seemingly, as when near him, the probability is she found pleasure
in her tendance. It was fortunate for him and for her, that
her father was not rancorous towards the people of the Green
Bird, like the rest of the Occonies. It might have fared hard
with Nagoochie otherwise. But Attakulla was a wise old man,
and a good; and when they brought the wounded stranger to his
lodge, he freely yielded him shelter, and went forth himself to
Chinabee, the wise medicine of the Occonies. The eyes of Nagoochie
were turned upon the old chief, and when he heard his
name, and began to consider where he was, he was unwilling to
task the hospitality of one who might be disposed to regard him,
when known, in an unfavourable or hostile light. Throwing
aside, therefore, the habit of circumspection, which usually distinguishes
the Indian warrior, he uncovered his bosom, and bade
the old man look upon the totem of his people, precisely as he had
done when his eye first met that of Jocassée.
“`Thy name? What do the people of the Green Bird call
the young hunter?' asked Attakulla.
“`They name Nagoochie among the braves of the Estato:
they will call him a chief of the Cherokee, like Toxaway,' was
the proud reply.
“This reference was to a sore subject with the Occonies, and
perhaps it was quite as imprudent as it certainly was in improper
taste for him to make it. But, knowing where he was, excited by
fever, and having—to say much in little—but an unfavourable
opinion of Occony magnanimity, he was more rash than reasonable.
At that moment, too, Jocassée had made her appearance,
and the spirit of the young warrior, desiring to look big in her
eyes, had prompted him to a fierce speech not altogether necessary.
He knew not the generous nature of Attakulla; and when
the old man took him by the hand, spoke well of the Green Bird,
humbled, while his heart grew gentler than ever. His `son!'—
that was the pleasant part; and as the thoughts grew more and
more active in his fevered brain, he looked to Jocassée with such
a passionate admiration that she sunk back with a happy smile
from the flame-glance which he set upon her. And, day after
day she tended him until the fever passed off, and the broken
limb was set and had reknitted, and the bruises were all healed
upon him. Yet he lingered. He did not think himself quite
well, and she always agreed with him in opinion. Once and
again did he set off, determined not to return, but his limb pained
him, and he felt the fever come back whenever he thought of
Jocassée; and so the evening found him again at the lodge, while
the fever-balm, carefully bruised in milk, was in as great demand
as ever for the invalid. But the spirit of the warrior at length
grew ashamed of these weaknesses; and, with a desperate effort,
for which he gave himself no little credit, he completed his determination
to depart with the coming of the new moon. But even
this decision was only effected by compromise. Love settled the
affair with conscience, after his own fashion; and, under his direction,
following the dusky maiden into the little grove that stood
beside the cottage, Nagoochie claimed her to fill the lodge of a
young warrior of the Green Bird. She broke the wand which
he presented her, and seizing upon the torch which she carried,
he buried it in the bosom of a neighbouring brook; and thus, after
their simple forest ceremonial, Jocassée became the betrothed of
Nagoochie.
3. CHAPTER III.
“But we must keep this secret to ourselves, for as yet it remained
unknown to Attakulla, and the time could not come for
its revealment until the young warrior had gone home to his people.
Jocassée was not so sure that all parties would be so ready
as herself to sanction her proceeding. Of her father's willingness,
she had no question, for she knew his good nature and good sense;
but she had a brother of whom she had many fears and misgivings.
He was away, on a great hunt of the young men, up at Charashilactay,
or the falls of the White Water, as we call it to this
day—a beautiful cascade of nearly forty feet, the water of which
is of a milky complexion. How she longed, yet how she dreaded,
to see that brother! He was a fierce, impetuous, sanguinary
youth, who, to these characteristics, added another still more distasteful
to Jocassée;—there was not a man among all the Occonies
who so hated the people of the Green Bird as Cheochee.
What hopes, or rather what fears, were in the bosom of that
maiden!
“But he came not. Day after day they looked for his return,
and yet he came not; but in his place a runner, with a bearded
stick, a stick covered with slips of skin, torn from the body of a
wolf. The runner passed by the lodge of Attakulla, and all its
inmates were aroused by the intelligence he brought. A wolf-hunt
was commanded by Moitoy, the great war-chief or generalissimo
of the Cherokee nation, to take place, instantly, at Charashilactay,
where an immense body of wolves had herded together,
and had become troublesome neighbours. Old and young, who
had either taste for the adventure, or curiosity to behold it, at
once set off upon the summons; and Attakulla, old as he was,
and Nagoochie, whose own great prowess in hunting had made it
a passion, determined readily upon the journey. Jocassée, too,
joined the company,—for the maidens of Cherokee were bold
spirits, as well as beautiful, and loved to ramble, particularly
their lovers. Lodge after lodge, as they pursued their way,
poured forth its inmates, who joined them in their progress, until
the company had swollen into a goodly caravan, full of life,
anxious for sport, and carrying, as is the fashion among the Indians,
provisions of smoked vension and parched grain, in plenty,
for many days.
“They came at length to the swelling hills, the long narrow
valleys of the Keochee and its tribute river of Toxaway, named
after that great chief of the Little Estatoees, of whom we have
already heard something. At one and the same moment they
beheld the white waters of Charashilactay, plunging over the
precipice, and the hundred lodges of the Cherokee hunters. There
they had gathered—the warriors and their women—twenty different
tribes of the same great nation being represented on the
ground; each tribe having its own cluster of cabins, and rising
up, in the midst of each, the long pole on which hung the peculiar
emblem of the clan. It was not long before Nagoochie marshalled
himself along with his brother Estatoees—who had counted
him lost—under the beautiful green bird of his tribe, which
waved about in the wind, over the heads of their small community.
“The number of warriors representing the Estato in that great
hunt was inconsiderable—but fourteen—and the accession, therefore,
of so promising a brave as Nagoochie, was no small matter.
They shouted with joy at his coming, and danced gladly in the
ring between the lodges—the young women in proper taste, and
with due spirit, hailing, with a sweet song, the return of so handsome
a youth, and one who was yet unmarried.
“Over against the lodges of the Estatoees, lay the more imposing
encampment of the rival Occonies, who turned out strongly,
as it happened, on this occasion. They were more numerous
than any other of the assembled tribes, as the hunt was to take
place on a portion of their own territory. Conscious of their superiority,
they had not, you may be sure, forborne any of the
thousand sneers and sarcasms which they were never at a loss to
find when they spoke of the Green Bird warriors; and of all their
clan, none was so bitter, so uncompromising, generally, in look,
Jocassée. Scorn was in his eye, and sarcasm on his lips, when
he heard the rejoicings made by the Estatoees on the return of
the long-lost hunter.
“`Now wherefore screams the painted bird to-day? why
makes he a loud cry in the ears of the brown viper that can strike?'
he exclaimed contemptuously yet fiercely.
“It was Jocassée that spoke in reply to her brother, with the
quickness of woman's feeling, which they wrong greatly who hold
it subservient to the strength of woman's cunning. In her reply,
Cheochee saw the weakness of her heart.
“`They scream for Nagoochie,' said the girl; `it is joy that
the young hunter comes back that makes the green bird to sing
to-day.'
“`Has Jocassée taken a tongue from the green bird, that she
screams in the ears of the brown viper? What has the girl to do
with the thoughts of the warrior? Let her go—go, bring drink to
Cheochee.'
“Abashed and silent, she did as he commanded, and brought
meekly to the fierce brother, a gourd filled with the bitter beverage
which the Cherokees love. She had nothing further to say on the
subject of the Green Bird warrior, for whom she had already so
unwarily spoken. But her words had not fallen unregarded
upon the ears of Cheochee, nor had the look of the fond heart
which spoke out in her glance, passed unseen by the keen eye of
that jealous brother. He had long before this heard of the great
fame of Nagoochie as a hunter, and in his ire he was bent to surpass
him. Envy had grown into hate, when he heard that this
great reputation was that of one of the accursed Estatoees; and,
not satisfied with the desire to emulate, he also aimed to destroy.
This feeling worked like so much gall in his bosom; and when
his eyes looked upon the fine form of Nagoochie, and beheld its
symmetry, grace, and manhood, his desire grew into a furious
passion which made him sleepless. The old chief, Attakulla, his
father, told him all the story of Nagoochie's accident—how Jocassée
had found him; and how, in his own lodge, he had been
nursed and tended. The old man spoke approvingly of Nagoochie;
and, the better to bring about a good feeling for her lover,
desires, and studiously sought to serve him. But all this failed to
effect a favourable emotion in the breast of the malignant young
savage towards the young hunter of the Green Bird. He said
nothing, however, of his feelings; but they looked out and were
alive to the sight, in every aspect, whenever any reference, however
small, was made to the subject of his ire. The Indian passion
is subtlety, and Cheochee was a warrior already famous
among the old chiefs of Cherokee.
4. CHAPTER IV.
“The next day came the commencement of the great hunt, and
the warriors were up betimes and active. Stations were chosen,
the keepers of which, converging to a centre, were to hem in the
wild animal on whose tracks they were going. The wolves were
known to be in a hollow of the hills, near Charashilactay, which
had but one outlet; and points of close approximation across
this outlet were the stations of honour; for, goaded by the hunters
to this passage, and failing of egress in any other, the wolf, it was
well known, would be then dangerous in the extreme. Well calculated
to provoke into greater activity the jealousies between the
Occonies and the Green Birds, was the assignment made by Moitoy,
the chief, of the more dangerous of these stations to these two
clans. They now stood alongside of one another, and the action
of the two promised to be joint and corresponsive. Such an appointment,
in the close encounter with the wolf, necessarily promised
to bring the two parties into immediate contact; and such
was the event. As the day advanced, and the hunters, contracting
their circles, brought the different bands of wolves into one,
and pressed upon them to the more obvious and indeed the only
outlet, the badges of the Green Bird and the Brown Viper—the
one consisting of the stuffed skin and plumage of the Carolina parrot,
and the other the attenuated viper, filled out with moss, and
winding, with erect head, around the pole, to the top of which it
was stuck—were, at one moment, in the indiscriminate hunt, almost
mingled over the heads of the two parties. Such a sight was
pleasant to neither, and would, at another time, of a certainty, have
brought about a squabble. As it was, the Occonies drove their
badge-carrier from one to the other end of their ranks, thus studiously
avoiding the chance of another collision between the viper
so adored, and the green bird so detested. The pride of the Estatoees
was exceedingly aroused at this exhibition of impertinence,
and though a quiet people enough, they began to think that forbearance
and hostile neighbours. Had it not been for Nagoochie, who
had his own reasons for suffering yet more, the Green Birds would
certainly have plucked out the eyes of the Brown Vipers, or tried
very hard to do it; but the exhortations to peace of the young
warrior, and the near neighbourhood of the wolf, quelled any open
show of the violence they meditated; but, Indian-like, they determined
to wait for the moment of greatest quiet, as that most fitted
for taking away a few scalps from the Occony. With a muttered
curse, and a contemptuous slap of the hand upon their thighs,
the more furious among the Estatoees satisfied their present anger,
and then addressed themselves more directly to the business before
them.
“The wolves, goaded to desperation by the sight and sound of
hunters strewn all over the hills around them, were now, snapping
and snarling, and with eyes that flashed with a terrible anger, descending
the narrow gully towards the outlet held by the two rival
tribes. United action was therefore demanded of those who,
for a long time past, had been conscious of no feeling or movement
in common. But here they had no choice—no time, indeed,
to think. The fierce wolves were upon them, doubly furious at
finding the only passage stuck full of enemies. Well and manfully
did the hunters stand and seek the encounter with the infuriated
beasts. The knife and the hatchet, that day, in the hand
of Occony and Estato, did fearful execution. The Brown Vipers
fought nobly, and with their ancient reputation. But the
Green Birds were the hunters, after all; and they were now
stimulated into double adventure and effort, by an honourable
ambition to make up for all deficiencies of number by extra valour,
and the careful exercise of all that skill in the arts of hunting for
which they have always been the most renowned of the tribes of
Cherokee. As, one by one, a fearful train, the wolves wound
into sight along this or that crag of the gully, arrow after arrow
told fearfully upon them, for there were no marksmen like the
Estatoees. Nor did they stop at this weapon. The young Nagoochie,
more than ever prompted to such audacity, led the way;
and dashing into the very path of the teeth-gnashing and clawrending
enemy, he grappled in desperate fight the first that offered
him, with a fearful plunge at his side, adroitly leaping to the right,
he thrust a pointed stick down, deep, as far as he could send it,
into the monster's throat, then pressing back upon him, with the
rapidity of an arrow, in spite of all his fearful writhings he pinned
him to the ground, while his knife, in a moment after, played
fatally in his heart. Another came, and, in a second, his hatchet
cleft and crunched deep into the skull of the angry brute, leaving
him senseless, without need of a second stroke. There was no rivalling
deeds of valour so desperate as this; and with increased
bitterness of soul did Cheochee and his followers hate in proportion
as they admired. They saw the day close, and heard the
signal calling them to the presence of the great chief Moitoy, conscious,
though superior in numbers, they could not at all compare
in skill and success with the long-despised, but now thoroughly-hated
Estatoees.
“And still more great the vexation, still more deadly the hate,
when the prize was bestowed by the hand of Moitoy, the great
military chief of Cherokee—when, calling around him the
tribes, and carefully counting the number of their several spoils,
consisting of the skins of the wolves that had been slain, it was
found that of these the greater number, in proportion to their force,
had fallen victims to the superior skill or superior daring of the
people of the Green Bird. And who had been their leader? The
rambling Nagoochie—the young hunter who had broken his leg
among the crags of Occony, and, in the same adventure, no longer
considered luckless, had won the young heart of the beautiful
Jocassée.
“They bore the young and successful warrior into the centre
of the ring, and before the great Moitoy. He stood up in the
presence of the assembled multitude, a brave and fearless, and
fine looking Cherokee. At the signal of the chief, the young
maidens gathered into a group, and sung around him a song of
compliment and approval, which was just as much as to say,—
`Ask, and you shall have.' He did ask; and before the people
of the Brown Viper could so far recover from their surprise as to
interfere, or well comprehend the transaction, the bold Nagoochie
had led the then happy Jocassée into the presence of Moitoy and
lodge of the Estato hunter.
“That was the signal for uproar and commotion. The Occonies
were desperately angered, and the fierce Cheochee, whom
nothing, not even the presence of the great war-chief, could restrain,
rushed forward, and dragging the maiden violently from
the hold of Nagoochie, hurled her backward into the ranks of his
people; then, breathing nothing but blood and vengeance, he
confronted him with ready knife and uplifted hatchet, defying the
young hunter in that moment to the fight.
“ `E-cha-e-cha, e-herro—echa-herro-echa-herro,' was the war-whoop
of the Occonies; and it gathered them to a man around
the sanguinary young chief who uttered it. `Echa-herro, echa-herro,'
he continued, leaping wildly in air with the paroxysm of
rage which had seized him,—`the brown viper has a tooth for the
green bird. The Occony is athirst—he would drink blood from
the dog-heart of the Estato. E-cha-e-cha-herro, Occony. ' And
again he concluded his fierce speech with that thrilling roll of
sound, which, as the so much dreaded warwhoop, brought a death
feeling to the heart of the early pioneer, and made the mother
clasp closely, in the deep hours of the night, the young and unconscious
infant to her bosom. But it had no such influence upon
the fearless spirit of Nagoochie. The Estato heard him with
cool composure, but, though evidently unafraid, it was yet equally
evident that he was unwilling to meet the challenger in strife.
Nor was his decision called for on the subject. The great chief
interposed, and all chance of conflict was prevented by his intervention.
In that presence they were compelled to keep the
peace, though both the Occonies and Little Estatoees retired to
their several lodges with fever in their veins, and a restless desire
for that collision which Moitoy had denied them. All but Nagoochie
were vexed at this denial; and all of them wondered
much that a warrior, so brave and daring as he had always
shown himself, should be so backward on such an occasion. It
was true, they knew of his love for the girl of Occony; but they
never dreamed of such a feeling acquiring an influence over the
hunter, of so paralyzing and unmanly a character. Even Nagoochie
himself, as he listened to some of the speeches uttered
he began to wish that the affair might happen again, that he might
take the hissing viper by the neck. And poor Jocassée—what of
her when they took her back to the lodges? She did nothing but
dream all night of Brown Vipers and Green Birds in the thick of
battle.
5. CHAPTER V.
“The next day came the movement of the hunters, still under
the conduct of Moitoy, from the one to the other side of the upper
branch of the Keowee river, now called the Jocassée, but which,
at that time, went by the name of Sarratay. The various bands
prepared to move with the daylight; and, still near, and still in
sight of one another, the Occonies and Estatoees took up their
line of march with the rest. The long poles of the two, bearing
the green bird of the one, and the brown viper of the other, in
the hands of their respective bearers—stout warriors chosen for
this purpose with reference to strength and valour—waved in
parallel courses, though the space between them was made as
great as possible by the common policy of both parties. Following
the route of the caravan, which had been formed of the ancient
men, the women and children, to whom had been entrusted
the skins taken in the hunt, the provisions, utensils for cooking,
&c., the great body of hunters were soon in motion for other and
better hunting-grounds, several miles distant, beyond the river.
“The Indian warriors have their own mode of doing business,
and do not often travel with the stiff precision which marks European
civilization. Though having all one point of destination,
each hunter took his own route to gain it, and in this manner asserted
his independence. This had been the education of the Indian
boy, and this self-reliance is one source of that spirit and
character which will not suffer him to feel surprise in any situation.
Their way, generally, wound along a pleasant valley, unbroken
for several miles, until you came to Big-knob, a huge
crag which completely divides it, rising formidably up in the
midst, and narrowing the valley on either hand to a fissure, necessarily
compelling a closer march for all parties than had heretofore
been pursued. Straggling about as they had been, of
course but little order was perceptible when they came together,
in little groups, where the mountain forced their junction. One
and a chief of the Alligators plunged promiscuously into
the centre of a cluster of the Turkey tribe, whose own chief was
probably doing the proper courtesies among the Alligators. These
little crossings, however, were amusing rather than annoying, and
were, generally, productive of little inconvenience and no strife.
But it so happened that there was one exception to the accustomed
harmony. The Occonies and Estatoees, like the rest, had
broken up in small parties, and, as might have been foreseen,
when they came individually to where the crag divided the valley
into two, some took the one and some the other hand, and it was
not until one of the paths they had taken opened into a little plain
in which the woods were bald—a sort of prairie—that a party of
seven Occonies discovered that they had among them two of their
detested rivals, the Little Estatoees. What made the matter
worse, one of these stragglers was the ill-fated warrior who had
been chosen to carry the badge of his tribe; and there, high
above their heads—the heads of the Brown Vipers—floated that
detestable symbol, the green bird itself.
“There was no standing that. The Brown Vipers, as if with
a common instinct, were immediately up in arms. They grappled
the offending stragglers without gloves. They tore the green
bird from the pole, stamped it under foot, smothered it in the mud,
and pulling out the cone-tuft of its head, utterly degraded it in
their own as well as in the estimation of the Estatoees. Not content
with this, they hung the desecrated emblem about the neck
of the bearer of it, and, spite of all their struggles, binding the
arms of the two stragglers behind their backs, the relentless Vipers
thrust the long pole which had borne the bird, in such a
manner between their alternate arms as effectually to fasten them
together. In this manner, amidst taunts, blows and revilings,
they were left in the valley to get on as they might, while their
enemies, insolent enough with exultation, proceeded to join the
rest of their party.
6. CHAPTER VI.
“An hundred canoes were ready on the banks of the river
Sarratay, for the conveyance to the opposite shore of the assembled
Cherokees. And down they came, warrior after warrior,
tribe after tribe, emblem after emblem, descending from the crags
around, in various order, and hurrying all with shouts, and whoops
and songs, grotesquely leaping to the river's bank, like so many
boys just let out of school. Hilarity is, indeed, the life of nature!
Civilization refines the one at the expense of the other, and then
it is that no human luxury or sport, as known in society, stimulates
appetite for any length of time. We can only laugh in the
woods—society suffers but a smile, and desperate sanctity, with
the countenance of a crow, frowns even at that.
“But, down, around, and gathering from every side, they came
—the tens and the twenties of the several tribes of Cherokee.
Grouped along the banks of the river, were the boats assigned to
each. Some, already filled, were sporting in every direction over
the clear bosom of that beautiful water. Moitoy himself, at the
head of the tribe of Nequassée, from which he came, had already
embarked; while the venerable Attakulla, with Jocassée, the gentle,
sat upon a little bank in the neighbourhood of the Occony
boats, awaiting the arrival of Cheochee and his party. And why
came they not? One after another of the several tribes had filled
their boats, and were either on the river or across it. But two
clusters of canoes yet remained, and they were those of the rival
tribes—a green bird flaunted over the one, and a brown viper, in
many folds, was twined about the pole of the other.
“There was sufficient reason why they came not. The strife
had begun;—for, when, gathering his thirteen warriors in a little
hollow at the termination of the valley through which they came,
Nagoochie beheld the slow and painful approach of the two stragglers
upon whom the Occonies had so practised—when he saw
the green bird, the beautiful emblem of his tribe, disfigured and
There was no longer a thought of Jocassée to keep him
back; and the feeling of ferocious indignation which filled his
bosom was the common feeling with his brother warriors. They
lay in wait for the coming of the Occonies, down at the foot of
the Yellow Hill, where the woods gathered green and thick.
They were few—but half in number of their enemies—but they
were strong in ardour, strong in justice, and even death was preferable
to a longer endurance of that dishonour to which they had
already been too long subjected. They beheld the approach of
the Brown Vipers, as, one by one, they wound out from the gap
of the mountain, with a fierce satisfaction. The two parties were
now in sight of each other, and could not mistake the terms of
their encounter. No word was spoken between them, but each
began the scalp-song of his tribe, preparing at the same time his
weapon, and advancing to the struggle.
“ `The green bird has a bill,' sang the Estatoees; `and he
flies like an arrow to his prey.'
“ `The brown viper has poison and a fang,' responded the Occonies;
`and he lies under the bush for his enemy.'
“ `Give me to clutch the war-tuft,' cried the leaders of each
party, almost in the same breath.
“ `To taste the blood,' cried another.
“ `And make my knife laugh in the heart that shrinks,' sung
another and another.
“ `I will put my foot on the heart,' cried an Occony.
“ `I tear away the scalp,' shouted an Estato, in reply; while
a joint chorus from the two parties, promised—
“ `A dog that runs, to the black spirit that keeps in the dark.'
“ `Echa-herro, echa-herro, echa-herro,' was the grand cry, or
fearful warwhoop, which announced the moment of onset and the
beginning of the strife.
“The Occonies were not backward, though the affair was
commenced by the Estatoees. Cheochee, their leader, was quite
as brave as malignant, and now exulted in the near prospect of
that sweet revenge, for all the supposed wrongs and more certain
rivalries which his tribe had suffered from the Green Birds. Nor
was this more the feeling with him than with his tribe. Disposing
in the coming of a strife, in which, having many injuries
to redress, they had the advantages, at the same time, of position
and numbers.
“But their fighting at disadvantage was not now a thought with
the Little Estatoees. Their blood was up, and like all usually
patient people, once aroused, they were not so readily quieted.
Nagoochie, the warrior now, and no longer the lover, led on the
attack. You should have seen how that brave young chief went
into battle—how he leapt up in air, slapped his hands upon his
thighs in token of contempt for his foe, and throwing himself open
before his enemies, dashed down his bow and arrows, and waving
his hatchet, signified to them his desire for the conflict, à l'outrance,
and, which would certainly make it so, hand to hand. The Occonies
took him at his word, and throwing aside the long bow, they
bounded out from their cover to meet their adversaries. Then
should you have seen that meeting—that first rush—how they
threw the tomahawk—how they flourished the knife—how the
brave man rushed to the fierce embrace of his strong enemy—and
how the two rolled along the hill in the teeth-binding struggle of
death.
“The tomahawk of Nagoochie had wings and a tooth. It flew
and bit in every direction. One after another, the Occonies went
down before it, and still his fierce war cry of `Echa-mal-Occony,'
preceding every stroke, announced another and another victim.
They sank away from him like sheep before the wolf that is
hungry, and the disparity of force was not so great in favour of
the Occonies, when we recollect that Nagoochie was against them.
The parties, under his fierce valour, were soon almost equal in
number, and something more was necessary to be done by the
Occonies before they could hope for that favourable result from
the struggle which they had before looked upon as certain. It
was for Cheochee now to seek out and to encounter the gallant
young chief of Estato. Nagoochie, hitherto, for reasons best
known to himself, had studiously avoided the leader of the Vipers;
but he could no longer do so. He was contending, in
close strife, with Okonettee, or the One-Eyed—a stout warrior of
the Vipers—as Cheochee approached him. In the next moment,
One-Eyed sunk to the ground, as if in supplication, and, seizing
the legs of his conqueror, in spite of the repeated blows which
descended from the deadly instrument, each of which was a death,
while his head swam, and the blood filled his eyes, and his senses
were fast fleeting, he held on with a death-grasp which nothing
could compel him to forego. In this predicament, Cheochee confronted
the young brave of Estato. The strife was short, for
though Nagoochie fought as bravely as ever, yet he struck in
vain, while the dying wretch, grappling his legs, disordered,
by his convulsions, not less than by his efforts, every blow which
the strong hand of Nagoochie sought to give. One arm was already
disabled, and still the dying wretch held on to his legs. In
another moment, the One-Eyed was seized by the last spasms of
death, and in his struggles, he dragged the Estato chief to his
knees. This was the fatal disadvantage. Before any of the
Green Bird warriors could come to his succour, the blow was
given, and Nagoochie lay under the knee of the Brown Viper.
The knife was in his heart, and the life not yet gone, when the
same instrument encircled his head, and his swimming vision
could behold his own scalp waving in the grasp of his conqueror.
The gallant spirit of Nagoochie passed away in a vain effort to
utter his song of death—the song of a brave warrior conscious of
many victories.
“Jocassée looked up to the hills when she heard the fierce cry
of the descending Vipers. Their joy was madness, for they had
fought with—they had slain, the bravest of their enemies. The
intoxication of tone which Cheochee exhibited, when he told the
story of the strife, and announced his victory, went like a death-stroke
to the heart of the maiden. But she said not a word—she
uttered no complaint—she shed no tear. Gliding quietly into
the boat in which they were about to cross the river, she sat silent,
gazing, with the fixedness of a marble statue, upon the still dripping
scalp of her lover, as it dangled about the neck of his conqueror.
On a sudden, just as they had reached the middle of the
stream, she started, and her gaze was turned once more backward
interest had met her sight,—then, whether by accident or design,
with look still intent in the same direction, she fell over the side,
before they could save or prevent her, and was buried in the deep
waters of Sarratay for ever. She rose not once to the surface.
The stream, from that moment, lost the name of Sarratay, and
both whites and Indians, to this day, know it only as the river of
Jocassée. The girls of Cherokee, however, contend that she did
not sink, but walking `the waters like a thing of life,' that she
rejoined Nagoochie, whom she saw beckoning to her from the
shore. Nor is this the only tradition. The story goes on to
describe a beautiful lodge, one of the most select in the valleys of
Manneyto, the hunter of which is Nagoochie of the Green Bird,
while the maiden who dresses his venison is certainly known as
Jocassée.”
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