University of Virginia Library

HAIGLAR.
A STORY OF THE CATAWBA.

The Catawbas, now a miserable tribe of some three
hundred persons, occupying a territory of fifteen
square miles, in the upper part of the state of South
Carolina, was, at one period of American history, the
most chivalrous of all the savage nations. To the
warmth and courage of the southern character, they
added all the capacity of endurance peculiar to the
north; and among the Indians, bore a reputation,
which, for their qualities, had no competitor among
them. They were a lively, generous people, and fast
friends and allies of the Carolinians when the infant
white settlements were surrounded on all hands by
deadly enemies. The Carolinians were not ungrateful,
and have nothing with which to reproach themselves
in their treatment of this people. They have been
maintained in the state with a tolerance at once due
to humanity and former service, and grateful to the
now decaying but once powerful nation.

Many are the stories told of the Catawba, calculated
to do them credit for valour, enterprise and generosity.
The traditions, still preserved of them, are numerous,
and sufficiently lively and interesting to keep them in
memory. That they have not found their way into
print must be attributed rather to the want of the
novelist than the novel; rather to the deficiency of
bard than subject. They relate a story, among others,
of a young chief, who, though acknowledged to be
brave and manly, had nevertheless for a long time
failed to distinguish himself. His name was Haiglar.
His nation was at war with the Shawnese, and the
strife was waged with a deadly hostility between them;
but Haiglar joined not in the fray. Party after party
went forth upon the war-track, but Haiglar loitered
behind among the smoke of the cabins; and engaged
in no more perilous adventure than the bear-hunt.
He joined neither in the toil of war nor the song of
victory; and the field and the council and the dance
alike failed to attract the spirit of the nimble-footed
and strong-armed Haiglar. Still his courage was unquestioned.
They had seen it too often tested beyond
doubt or denial. They had beheld him in the fight.
They had seen him win the spoils, and secure the
honours of victory; and while they lamented his inaction
they failed to discover the motive. The chief
incentive to the Indian's valour being his personal
glory, his feats have a selfish origin. This being the
chief characteristic impulse among them, the patriotism
of Haiglar was never arraigned; and perhaps,
under no circumstances would have been, unless, indeed,
the very existence of his nation was endangered.

This was not the case in the present instance, and
Haiglar went not forth upon the war-track.

But where did Haiglar go? What course did he
take when he bent his steps from the cabins at dawn,
and with his hunting knife at his side, and armed
only with his bow and well-filled quiver, entered into
the forest, and returned not that day, or late at night,
or after the lapse of many days. He brought home
game most usually upon his shoulders when he did return,
but that was no hard task for the well-known skill
of the hunter; nor was it ever known in his more early
years that his spirit was so over-fond of the pleasures
of the chase, particularly when the glory of war was
to be acquired. Let us follow his steps.

It was a bright day in early spring that the young
hunter passed out of his clay cabin, and buckling his
knife to his side, took his bow from the caves of his
humble dwelling, and passed out of the town, that still
lay silent and in repose. He bent his way, seemingly
without a care for concealment, yet cautiously and with
a heedful regard to the slumbers of its inmates. He
was soon behind the precincts of the village, and the
forests thickened around him in their solitary yet seductive
grandeur. Onward did he pursue his way,
looking neither to the right nor the left; and though
the sluggish turkey, roused from his slumbers by the
approaching footfall, started up at his side, scarcely
giving a glance at the affrighted and retreating bird.
Sometimes a squirrel leaped from the tree before him
to one more remote; and now the bleatings of the
young fawn, just left by the doe, struck his ear, yet he
turned not aside. His spirit seemed not to recognise

these interruptions; though, perhaps, his physical senses
fully comprehended them. For an hour or more did
he thus tread the mazes of the forest that thickened
around him more deeply at every step; and in this
travel had he, with the swift foot common to the Indian,
proceeded many miles. He had penetrated into a
choice secluded amphitheatre of nature, formed by
large and umbrageous trees disposed in a circle, when
he suddenly paused in his journey, as if it were at an
end. And so it was. A shrill whistle brought him a
companion, beautiful as a star, in the Indian imagination.
A light and rather diminutive form emerged
from the cover of the woods, in a direction opposite
to that at which the young hunter had entered. Her
step was free and ethereal. Her figure approached the
delicacy of the white maiden when most delicate, and
if the brown of her skin was darker, there was a southern
glow and freshness upon it, and an eye shone
above it with a lustre that amply redeemed the dusky
loveliness of cheek and forehead. Her dress was
primitive, but served to conceal a form of even more
perfect symmetry than it is our lot usually to encounter
in the walks of civilisation. She was, indeed, the
beauty of her tribe; but this tribe was the Shawnee,
the deadly foe to the nation of her lover.

This may account in part for the absence of Haiglar
from the war path of his people; yet only in part, for
the father of Marramatté (that was the maiden's name)
was rather an outskirter of the Shawnee, and in no
good odour among them, He obeyed their laws, attended
their council, joined them in the chase, sometimes
in battle, but yet had little sympathy with them,

and they less confidence in him. To what causes this
relationship was owing it is not over important we
should know; it is enough that it was as we say,
and that from the operation of causes but partially
known even to his people, old Cunestoga found it
politic and proper to leave the usual shelter and clanship
of the town of his tribe, and pitch his abode in
the beautiful natural retreat in which we have found
him. His wigwam was embowered still deeper in the
recess of the amphitheatre, upon whose proscenium, if
we may be permitted so to style it, Marramatté went
forth at morning to meet the embraces of her lover.

We can readily imagine the difficulties placed, by
this condition of the parties, in the way of the lovers.
They could not form their union in the presence of
their people. Haiglar could not take his bride to his
own wigwam—nor call his children by his name, nor
be head of his family with the daughter of one
who fought with the war party of their enemy, and
who rallied at the war-whoop of the subtle Shawnee.
Nor, on the other hand, could the maiden take her
lover into her father's wigwam, and break the mystic
wand of union and perpetual love before him. The
Catawba was as odious in the sight of the Shawnee, as
the Shawnee in that of the Catawba. The barrier was
impassable between them. Still, the embarrassment of
the situation had its charm, and the mystery of their
loves almost compensated for all other privations.
She hung upon his bosom in the dim forest, and asked
for no witnesses; and we question whether there would
have been any addition to the happiness of Haiglar,
from the belief that his whole tribe was looking down

upon his love. The selfishness—the jealous exclusiveness
of their situation, was itself a luxury to them.

They had watchers however. Haiglar had not always
gone to his place of assignation unobserved and
unsuspected; nor had the charms of Marramatté been
without admirers. There was in her own tribe a youth,
who without any positively bad, was yet unpossessed
of any known good qualities. He was a tolerable
warrior and a sightly personage. His valour and person,
however, were not remarkable; and the love
which he proffered to Marramatté, with the sanction
of Cunestoga, her father, had gone unregarded. He
had not ceased to love altogether, but he had also
learned to hate. In foregoing his professions, therefore,
he did not forego his claims; and if he did not as
frequently show himself to the beauty, he contrived,
nevertheless, to keep her most commonly in his sight.
It was not long, therefore, before he discovered the
amour of our lovers. He discovered, and his anger
was doubly roused in finding in his rival the enemy
of his nation. He more than once had raised the arrow
to his eye for the destruction of Haiglar, but he
feared to injure the girl, or he dreaded the dangers of
an abortive attack, or he desired a moment, when, from
circumstances, he might secure all advantages to himself,
from the destruction of his foe.

The leaves rustled and there was no wind—not a
breath of air, and the stir was sudden and momentary;
not continued, as when the turkey runs from his cover.
The chief started upon his feet, while Marramatté
sat upon the long grass, and looked up anxiously in
his face.

“I hear sounds, my beloved; there are those upon
my track who mean me no good:” and he leaned his
ear to the ground, yet he heard nothing but the ripple
of the rivulet. Still, with the native caution of the
Indian, he tightened the belt at his waist, in which were
stuck his knife and tomahawk. He threw the loop of
the unfrayed sinews, which made his bowstring, over
the elastic yew, and prepared for any interruption. He
waited not long. Emerging at the same moment from
the woods, at equal distances around him, he beheld
the approach of a party of Shawnese, more than twenty
in number, among whom the rejected lover of Marramatté
was conspicuous. He paused for a second, as
if in hesitation, but seeing that they intercepted his
course homewards, he sprung off for a hollow rock in
an oblique direction, a few miles distant. The swiftness
of foot, for which he was renowned, stood him in
stead; and the light hunting dress of the Catawba gave
him also great advantage. Thus fleeing, however, he
kept up a running fight with his pursuers; and, by his
aim, and skill, and swiftness, he contrived to slay seven
of them before they were enabled to surround and take
him. They carried him in sad triumph to their country.
He had filled them with shame and grief; yet the
proverbial respect for valour which the savage entertains,
compelled the utmost respect and consideration
for their captive. But this could not save him from his
fate, and they condemned him to the fiery torture.
With a wild parade they took him to the place of punishment,
which lay near the banks of the Salutah river.
He was unpinioned, for they had so beaten and maltreated
him, and he had suffered so much from want of

food and the wooden stocks which had been placed
upon him, that it would have argued pusillanimity in
his captors to have shown apprehensions of his escape.
But Haiglar was not the warrior to perish thus. His
Indian education had taught him better; and while a
Christian would most probably have resigned himself
with prayers and tears to his fate, this brave warrior
was thinking of his freedom. They approached the
place of torment, and commenced their preparations.
When most employed, however, with a sudden and
powerful effort he dashed aside those who stood in his
way, and plunging into the river, swam like an otter
underneath the current, rising only to take breath. He
soon made the opposite shore and ascended its banks.
But he had no time for delay or hesitation. His enemies
were on his heels, running every way in pursuit of
him, and discharging their poisoned arrows. The
heart of the Catawba never yet failed him. He replied
to their cries by shouting the war-whoop of his tribe;
and cheerily urging his way, without pause or misgiving,
he soon took the lead of his pursuers. But the
Indian does not readily give up the pursuit, and it was
now a point of honour which deeply interested their
pride, to punish the Catawba who had worked them
such injury, and had so eluded their vigilance. They
pursued him all day—till night. Five of them were in
advance of their fellows, and at midnight they paused
in a small hollow of the woods for slumber and refreshment.
The Catawba, knowing his speed, took his
ease, and knew more of his pursuers than they of him.
He felt the pursuit relaxed, and was anxious to ascertain
the cause. He began to retrace his steps, and
came within sight of their encampment. He beheld
their repast, and watched them sink down to repose;
and hunger—a wolfish hunger, and revenge, and the
pride and passion of his nation came upon him, and he
bent his way down from the jungle where he had been
concealed, and placed his feet firmly among his enemies.

They were all in deep sleep around him. Fatigue
had drawn largely for repose upon their senses, and
they fell easy victims to the fury of the famishing Catawba,
with their own tomahawks, for they had taken
away his arms. He destroyed them all. He stripped
them of their scalps, selected arms for himself, and
partook, till refreshed, of the dried meats and parched
grain which had been left from their repast. He had
still a large distance to travel, for they had taken him
to the bosom of their tribe; so, setting off afresh, he
pursued his way to his own nation in a sort of running
march, resting by nights against a tree, and employing
every moment of the daylight in his perilous journey.
The residue of his pursuers, coming up to the place
where he had slain the five, in terror gave up the pursuit.
They set him down as a wizard, and concluded
it wise to have nothing further to do with him.

At length the old scenes came up before the eye of
the warrior. Here was the hill and here the grove,
and at the turn of the next coppice, and beyond the
next elevated ground, he would come upon the wigwam
of his beloved Marramatté. He knew the strong
heart of the Indian maiden, accustomed to a life of
peril; yet he felt that the grief of his beloved was not of
easy relief, and his steps grew more cautious, and his
heart throbbed more quickly, as he approached her

habitation. He entered the deep forest with light footstep.
He trod in the bed of the running water, and on
the short grass, and paused every now and then to see
that all was safe in his path. Thus did he come at
length to the small inner grove that sheltered the habitation;
and timely was his arrival, for the savage chief
whom Marramatté had rejected, stood before her in
insolent triumph, and her father lay bound and bleeding
at his feet. One of his creatures stood at his side,
ready to obey his bidding, and keeping close watch
above the body of the old man, who lay silent and uncomplaining,
though in pain and not speechless. The
girl pleaded for the life of her father, whom Onomatchee
brutally threatened, except upon the condition which
she as firmly continued to withhold. At length he
raised his uplifted tomahawk, and placed his heel upon
the bosom of Cunestoga. The girl threw herself upon
the body, and raised her uplifted arms in its defence.
The hatchet was, in fact, descending, when a swifter
arm than his, anticipated the blow by another, and the
skull of Onamatchee was cloven by the tomahawk of
his rival. In a moment the grasp of the avenging
Haiglar was upon the surviving Indian, who, with sullen
ferocity, avoiding his own defence, buried his knife in
the bosom of the old man at the very instant that Haiglar's
entered his own. And now the young warrior
forbore not the conflict with the Shawnee. He went
not now into the dim forest on the trail of turkeys, but
a young maiden sat singing on his wigwam floor,
through the long day, of the swift foot, and the strong
arm, and the brave true heart of her own Haiglar, the
young king of the Catawba.