 | The coronal |  |
THE LONE INDIAN.
Would say a lovely spot was here,
And praise the lawns so fresh and green,
Between the hills so sheer.
I like it not—I would the plain
Lay in its tall old groves again.”
Bryant.
Powontonamo was the son of a mighty
chief. He looked on his tribe with such a
fiery glance, that they called him the Eagle
of the Mohawks. His eye never blinked in
the sunbeam; and he leaped along the chase
like the untiring waves of Niagara. Even
when a little boy, his tiny arrow would hit
the frisking squirrel in the ear, and bring
down the humming bird on her rapid wing.
He was his father's pride and joy. He loved
to toss him high in his sinewy arms, and
shout, “Look, Eagle-eye, look! and see the
big hunting-grounds of the Mohawks! Powontonamo
will be their chief. The winds
will tell his brave deeds. When men speak
the Great Spirit had breathed in thunder.”
The prophecy was fulfilled. When Powontonamo
became a man, the fame of his
beauty and courage reached the tribes of
Illinois; and even the distant Osage showed
his white teeth with delight, when he heard
the wild deeds of the Mohawk Eagle. Yet
was his spirit frank, chivalrous, and kind.
When the white men came to buy land, he
met them with an open palm, and spread
his buffalo for the traveller. The old chiefs
loved the bold youth, and offered their daughters
in marriage. The eyes of the young Indian
girls sparkled when he looked on them.
But he treated them all with the stern indifference
of a warrior, until he saw Soonseetah
raise her long dark eye-lash. Then
his heart melted beneath the beaming glance
of beauty. Soonseetah was the fairest of
the Oneidas. The young men of her tribe
called her the Sunny-eye. She was smaller
than her nation usually are; and her slight,
graceful figure was so elastic in its motions,
that the tall grass would rise up and shake off
pressed it. Many a famous chief had sought
her love; but when they brought the choicest
furs, she would smile disdainfully, and say,
“Soonseetah's foot is warm. Has not her
father an arrow?” When they offered her
food, according to the Indian custom, her
answer was, “Soonseetah has not seen all
the warriors. She will eat with the bravest.”
The hunters told the young Eagle, that
Sunny-eye of Oneida was beautiful as the
bright birds in the hunting-land beyond the
sky; but that her heart was proud, and she
said the great chiefs were not good enough
to dress venison for her. When Powontonamo
listened to these accounts, his lip would
curl slightly, as he threw back his fur-edged
mantle, and placed his firm, springy foot forward,
so that the beads and shells of his rich
moccasin might be seen to vibrate at every
sound of his tremendous war song. If there
was vanity in the act, there was likewise becoming
pride. Soonseetah heard of his
haughty smile, and resolved in her own
heart that no Oneida should sit beside her,
Before many moons had passed
away, he sought her father's wigwam, to
carry delicate furs and shining shells to the
young coquette of the wilderness. She did
not raise her bright melting eye to his, when
he came near her; but when he said, “Will
the Sunny-eye look on the gift of a Mohawk?
his barbed arrow is swift; his foot
never turned from the foe;” the colour on
her brown cheek was glowing as an autumnal
twilight. Her voice was like the troubled
note of the wren, as she answered, “The
furs of Powontonamo are soft and warm to
the foot of Soonseetah. She will weave the
shells in the wampum belt of the Mohawk
Eagle.” The exulting lover sat by her side,
and offered her venison and parched corn.
She raised her timid eye, as she tasted the
food; and then the young Eagle knew that
Sunny-eye would be his wife.
There was feasting and dancing, and the
marriage song rang merrily in Mohawk cabins,
when the Oneida came among them.
Powontonamo loved her as his own heart's
deers of the forest, and load her with the
ribbons and beads of the English. The
prophets of his people liked it not that the
strangers grew so numerous in the land.
They shook their heads mournfully, and
said, “The moose and the beaver will not
live within sound of the white man's gun.
They will go beyond the lakes, and the Indians
must follow their trail.” But the young
chief laughed them to scorn. He said,
“The land is very big. The mountain eagle
could not fly over it in many days. Surely
the wigwams of the English will never
cover it.” Yet when he held his son in his
arms, as his father had done before him, he
sighed to hear the strokes of the axe levelling
the old trees of his forests. Sometimes he
looked sorrowfully on his baby boy, and
thought he had perchance done him much
wrong, when he smoked a pipe in the wigwam
of the stranger.
One day, he left his home before the grey
mist of morning had gone from the hills,
to seek food for his wife and child. The
returned; yet his hands were empty. The
white man's gun had scared the beasts of
the forest, and the arrow of the Indian was
sharpened in vain. Powontonamo entered
his wigwam with a cloudy brow. He did
not look at Soonseetah; he did not speak to
her boy; but, silent and sullen, he sat leaning
on the head of his arrow. He wept not,
for an Indian may not weep; but the muscles
of his face betrayed the struggle within
his soul. The Sunny-eye approached fearfully,
and laid her little hand upon his
brawny shoulder, as she asked, “Why is the
Eagle's eye on the earth? What has Soonseetah
done, that her child dare not look in
the face of his father?” Slowly the warrior
turned his gaze upon her. The expression
of sadness deepened, as he answered, “The
Eagle has taken a snake to his nest: how
can his young sleep in it?” The Indian
boy, all unconscious of the forebodings which
stirred his father's spirit, moved to his side,
and peeped up in his face with a mingled
expression of love and fear.
The heart of the generous savage was full,
even to bursting. His hand trembled, as he
placed it on the sleek black hair of his only
son. “The Great Spirit bless thee! the
Great Spirit bless thee, and give thee back
the hunting ground of the Mohawk!” he
exclaimed. Then folding him, for an instant,
in an almost crushing embrace, he
gave him to his mother, and darted from
the wigwam.
Two hours he remained in the open air;
but the clear breath of heaven brought no
relief to his noble and suffering soul.
Wherever he looked abroad, the ravages of
the civilized destroyer met his eye. Where
were the trees, under which he had frolicked
in infancy, sported in boyhood, and rested
after the fatigues of battle? They formed
the English boat, or lined the English dwelling.
Where were the holy sacrifice-heaps of
his people? The stones were taken to fence
in the land, which the intruder dared to call
his own. Where was his father's grave?
The stranger's road passed over it, and his
cattle trampled on the ground where the
his once powerful tribe? Alas, in the white
man's wars they had joined with the British,
in the vain hope of recovering their lost privileges.
Hundreds had gone to their last
home; others had joined distant tribes; and
some pitiful wretches, whom he scorned to
call brethren, consented to live on the white
man's bounty. These were corroding reflections;
and well might fierce thoughts of
vengeance pass through the mind of the deserted
prince; but he was powerless now;
and the English swarmed, like vultures
around the dying. “It is the work of the
Great Spirit,” said he. “The Englishman's
God made the Indian's heart afraid; and
now he is like a wounded buffalo, when hungry
wolves are on his trail.”
When Powontonamo returned to his hut,
his countenance, though severe, was composed.
He spoke to the Sunny-eye with more
kindness than the savage generally addresses
the wife of his youth; but his look told her
that she must not ask the grief which had put
a woman's heart within the breast of the far-famed
Mohawk Eagle.
The next day, when the young chieftain
went out on a hunting expedition, he was
accosted by a rough, square-built farmer.
“Powow,” said he, “your squaw has been
stripping a dozen of my trees, and I don't
like it over much.” It was a moment when
the Indian could ill brook a white man's insolence.
“Listen, Buffalo-head!” shouted
he; and as he spoke he seized the shaggy
pate of the unconscious offender, and eyed
him with the concentrated venom of an ambushed
rattlesnake,—“Listen to the chief of
the Mohawks! These broad lands are all
his own. When the white man first left his
cursed foot-print in the forest, the Great Bear
looked down upon the big tribes of Iroquois
and Abnaquis. The wigwams of the noble
Delawares were thick, where the soft winds
dwell. The rising sun glanced on the fierce
Pequods; and the Illinois, the Miamies, and
warlike tribes like the hairs of your head,
marked his going down. Had the red man
struck you then, your tribes would have been
as dry grass to the lightning! Go—shall the
Sunny-eye of Oneida ask the pale face for a
laugh, and his white teeth showed
through his parted lips, as he shook the farmer
from him, with the strength and fury of a
raging panther.
After that, his path was unmolested, for no
one dared to awaken his wrath; but a smile
never again visited the dark countenance of
the degraded chief. The wild beasts had
fled so far from the settlements, that he would
hunt days and days without success. Soonseetah
sometimes begged him to join the
remnant of the Oneidas, and persuade them
to go far off, toward the setting sun. Powontonamo
replied, “This is the burial place
of my fathers;” and the Sunny-eye dared
say no more.
At last, their boy sickened and died, of a
fever he had taken among the English.
They buried him beneath a spreading oak,
on the banks of the Mohawk, and heaped
stones upon his grave, without a tear. “He
must lie near the water,” said the desolate
chief, “else the white man's horses will tread
on him.”
The young mother did not weep; but her
heart had received its death-wound. The
fever seized her, and she grew paler and
weaker every day. One morning, Powontonamo
returned with some delicate food he
had been seeking for her. “Will Soonseetah
eat?” said he. He spoke in a tone of subdued
tenderness; but she answered not.
The foot which was wont to bound forward
to meet him, lay motionless and cold. He
raised the blanket which partly concealed
her face, and saw that the Sunny-eye was
closed in death. One hand was pressed hard
against her heart, as if her last moments had
been painful. The other grasped the beads
which the young Eagle had given her in the
happy days of courtship. One heart-rending
shriek was rung from the bosom of the agonized
savage. He tossed his arms wildly
above his head, and threw himself beside the
body of her he had loved as fondly, deeply,
and passionately, as ever a white man loved.
After the first burst of grief had subsided, he
carefully untied the necklace from her full,
sacred relic, and put back the shining black
hair from her smooth forehead. For hours
he watched the corpse in silence. Then he
arose and carried it from the wigwam. He
dug a grave by the side of his lost boy; laid
the head of Soonseetah toward the rising sun;
heaped the earth upon it, and covered it with
stones, according to the custom of his people.
Night was closing in, and still the bereaved
Mohawk stood at the grave of Sunny-eye,
as motionless as its cold inmate. A white
man, as he passed, paused, and looked in
pity on him. “Are you sick?” asked he.
“Yes; me sick. Me very sick here,” answered
Powontonamo, laying his hand upon
his swelling heart. “Will you go home?”
“Home!” exclaimed the heart broken chief,
in tones so thrilling, that the white man
started. Then slowly, and with a half vacant
look, he added, “Yes; me go home.
By and by me go home.” Not another
word would he speak; and the white man
left him, and went his way. A little while
heavens; and then, with reluctant step, retired
to his solitary wigwam.
The next day, a tree, which Soonseetah
had often said was just as old as their boy,
was placed near the mother and child. A
wild vine was straggling among the loose
stones, and Powontonamo carefully twined it
around the tree. “The young oak is the
Eagle of the Mohawks,” he said; “and now
the Sunny-eye has her arms round him.”
He spoke in the wild music of his native
tongue; but there was none to answer.
“Yes; Powontonamo will go home,” sighed
he. “He will go where the sun sets in the
ocean, and the white man's eyes have never
looked upon it.” One long, one lingering
glance at the graves of his kindred, and the
Eagle of the Mohawks bade farewell to the
land of his fathers.
* * * * * *
For many a returning autumn, a lone Indian
was seen standing at the consecrated
spot we have mentioned; but, just thirty
noticed for the last time. His step was then
firm, and his figure erect, though he seemed
old and way-worn. Age had not dimmed
the fire of his eye, but an expression of deep
melancholy had settled on his wrinkled brow.
It was Powontonamo—he who had once been
the Eagle of the Mohawks! He came to
lie down and die beneath the broad oak,
which shadowed the grave of Sunny-eye.
Alas! the white man's axe had been there!
The tree he had planted was dead; and the
vine, which had leaped so vigorously from
branch to branch, now, yellow and withering,
was falling to the ground. A deep groan
burst from the soul of the savage. For thirty
wearisome years, he had watched that oak,
with its twining tendrils. They were the
only things left in the wide world for him to
love, and they were gone! He looked
abroad. The hunting land of his tribe was
changed, like its chieftain. No light canoe
now shot down the river, like a bird upon
the wing. The laden boat of the white man
alone broke its smooth surface. The Englishman's
the banks of the Mohawk; and iron hoofs
had so beaten down the war-path, that a
hawk's eye could not discover an Indian
track. The last wigwam was destroyed;
and the sun looked boldly down upon spots
he had visited only by stealth, during thousands
and thousands of moons. The few remaining
trees, clothed in the fantastic mourning
of autumn; the long line of heavy clouds,
melting away before the coming sun; and
the distant mountain, seen through the blue
mist of departing twilight, alone remained as
he had seen them in his boyhood. All
things spoke a sad language to the heart of
the desolate Indian. “Yes,” said he, “the
young oak and the vine are like the Eagle
and the Sunny-eye. The are cut down, torn,
and trampled on. The leaves are falling, and
the clouds are scattering, like my people. I
wish I could once more see the trees standing
thick, as they did when my mother held me
to her bosom, and sung the warlike deeds of
the Mohawks.”
A mingled expression of grief and anger
passed over his face, as he watched a loaded
boat in its passage across the stream. “The
white man carries food to his wife and children,
and he finds them in his home,” said he.
“Where is the squaw and the papoose of the
red man? They are here!” As he spoke,
he fixed his eye thoughtfully upon the grave.
After a gloomy silence, he again looked
round upon the fair scene, with a wandering
and troubled gaze. “The pale face may
like it,” murmered he; “but an Indian cannot
die here in peace.” So saying, he broke
his bow string, snapped his arrows, threw
them on the burial place of his fathers, and
departed for ever.
* * *
None ever knew where Powontonamo laid
his dying head. The hunters from the west
said, a red man had been among them, whose
tracks were far off toward the rising sun;
that he seemed like one who had lost his
way, and was sick to go home to the Great
where the distant Missisippi receives its hundred
streams. Alone, and unfriended, he
may have laid him down to die, where no
man called him brother; and the wolves of
the desert, long ere this, may have howled
the death-song of the Mohawk Eagle.
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