University of Virginia Library

25. CHAPTER XXV.

It was a gloomy amphitheatre in the deep forests
to which the assembled multitude bore the unfortunate
Occonestoga. The whole scene was unique in that
solemn grandeur, that sombre hue, that deep spiritual
repose, in which the human imagination delights to
invest a scene which has been rendered remarkable
for the deed of punishment or crime. A small swamp
or morass hung upon one of its skirts, from the rank
bosom of which, in numberless millions, the flickering
fire-fly perpetually darted upwards, giving a brilliance
of animation to the spot, which, at that moment, no
assemblage of light or life could possibly enliven.
The ancient oak, a bearded Druid, was there to contribute
to the due solemnity of all associations—the
gnarled and stunted hickory, the ghostly cedar, and
here and there the overgrown pine,--all rose up in
their primitive strength, and with an undergrowth
around them of shrub and flower, that scarcely at any
time in that sheltered and congenial habitation had
found it necessary to shrink from winter. In the centre
of the area thus invested, rose a high and venerable
mound, the tumulus of many preceding ages, from the
washed sides of which might now and then be seen
protruding the bleached bones of some ancient warrior
or sage. A circle of trees, at a little distance, hedged

it in,—made secure and sacred by the performance
there of many of their religious rites and offices,—
themselves, as they bore the broad arrow of the Yemassee,
being free from all danger of overthrow or
desecration by Indian hands.

Amid the confused cries of the multitude, they
bore the captive to the foot of the tumulus, and bound
him backward, half reclining upon a tree. An hundred
warriors stood around, armed according to the manner
of the nation, each with tomahawk, and knife, and bow.
They stood up as for battle, but spectators simply, and
taking no part in the proceeding. In a wider and
denser circle, gathered hundreds more—not the warriors,
but the people—the old, the young, the women
and the children, all fiercely excited and anxious to see
and take part in a ceremony, so awfully exciting to an
Indian imagination; conferring, as it did, not only the
perpetual loss of human caste and national consideration,
but the eternal doom, the degradation, the denial of,
and the exile from, their simple forest heaven. Interspersed
with this latter crowd, seemingly at regular
intervals, and with an allotted labour, came a number of
old women, not unmeet representatives, individually,
for either of the weird sisters of the Scottish Thane,

and, regarding their cries and actions, of whom we may
safely affirm, that they looked like any thing but inhabitants
of earth! In their hands they bore, each of
them, a flaming torch, of the rich and gummy pine;
and these they waved over the heads of the multitude
in a thousand various evolutions, accompanying each
movement with a fearful cry, which, at regular periods,
was chorused by the assembled mass. A bugle, a
native instrument of sound, five feet or more in length,
hollowed out from the commonest timber, the cracks
and breaks of which were carefully sealed up with the
resinous gum oozing from their burning torches, and
which, to this day, borrowed from the natives, our
negroes employ on the southern waters with a peculiar
compass and variety of note—gave forth at intervals,
timed with much regularity, a long, protracted, single
blast, adding greatly to the solemnity of a scene, one
of the most imposing among their customs. At the
articulation of these sounds, the circles continued to
contract, though slowly; until, at length, but a brief
space lay between the armed warriors, the crowd, and
the unhappy victim.

The night grew dark of a sudden, and the sky was
obscured by one of the brief tempests that usually usher
in the summer, and mark the transition, in the south, of
one season to another. A wild gust rushed along the
wood. The leaves were whirled over the heads of the
assemblage, and the trees bent downward, until they
eracked and groaned again beneath the wind. A feeling
of natural superstition crossed the minds of the multitude,
as the hurricane, though common enough in that
region, passed hurriedly along; and a spontaneous and
universal chorus of prayer rose from their lips, in their
own wild and emphatic language, to the evil deity whose
presence they beheld in its progress.—

And, as the uncouth strain rose at the conclusion into
a diapason of unanimous and contending voices, of old
and young, male and female, the brief summer tempest
had gone by. A shout of self-gratulation, joined with
warm acknowledgments, testified the popular sense
and confidence in that especial Providence, which even
the most barbarous nations claim as for ever working
in their behalf.

At this moment, surrounded by the chiefs and preceded
by the great prophet or high-priest, Enoree-Mattee,
came Sanutee, the well-beloved of the Yemassee,
to preside over the destinies of his son. There
was a due and becoming solemnity, but nothing of the
peculiar feelings of the father, visible in his countenance.
Blocks of trees were placed around as seats
for the chiefs, but Sanutee and the prophet threw
themselves, with more of imposing veneration in the
proceeding, upon the edge of the tumulus, just where
an overcharged spot, bulging out with the crowding
bones of its inmates, had formed an elevation answering
such a purpose. They sat directly looking upon the
prisoner, who reclined, bound securely upon his back
to a decapitated tree, at a little distance before them.
A signal having been given, the women ceased their
shoutings, and approaching him, they waved their
torches to closely above his head as to make all his
features distinctly visible to that now watchful and
silent multitude. He bore the examination with a stern,
unmoved cast of expression, which the sculptor of
marble might well have desired for his block. While
the torches waved, one of the women now cried aloud,
in a barbarous chant, above him—

A second woman now approached him, waving her
torch in like manner, closely seeming to inspect his
features, and actually passing her fingers over the
emblem upon his shoulder, as if to ascertain more certainly
the truth of the image. Having done this, she
turned about to the crowd, and in the same barbarous
sort of strain with the preceding, replied as follows:—
As these words were uttered, the crowd of women and
children around cried out for the execution of the
judgment thus given, and once again flamed the torches
wildly, and the shoutings were general among the
multitude. When they had subsided, a huge Indian
came forward directly before the prisoner—smeared
with blood and covered with scalps which, connected
together by slight strings, formed a loose robe over his
shoulders. In one hand he carried a torch, in the
other a knife. This was Malatchie, the executioner
of the nation. He came forward, under the instructions
of Enoree-Mattee, the prophet, to claim the slave of
Opitchi-Manneyto,—that is, in our language, the slave
of hell. This he did in the following strain:—
And, as the besmeared and malignant executioner
howled his fierce demand in the very ears of his victim,
he hurled the knife which he carried, upwards,
with such dexterity into the air, that it rested, point
downward, and sticking fast on its descent, into the
tree and just above the head of the doomed Occonestoga.
With his hand, at the next instant, he laid a
resolute gripe upon the shoulder of the victim, as if to
confirm and strengthen his claim by actual possession;
while, at the same time, with a sort of malignant
pleasure, he thrust his besmeared and distorted visage
close into that of his prisoner. Writhing against the
ligaments which bound him fast, Occonestoga strove
to turn his head aside from the disgusting and obtrusive
presence; and the desperation of his effort, but that
he had been too carefully secured, might have resulted
in the release of some of his limbs; for the breast heaved
and laboured, and every muscle of his arms and legs
was wrought, by his severe action, into a rope, hard,
full, and indicative of prodigious strength.

There was one person in that crowd who sympathized
with the victim; and this was Hiwassee, the
maiden in whose ears he had uttered a word, which, in
her thoughtless scream and declaration of the event,
for she had identified him, had been the occasion which
led to his captivity. Something of self-reproach for
her share in his misfortune, and an old feeling of regard
for Occonestoga, who had once been a favourite with the
young of both sexes among his people, was at work in
her bosom; and, turning to Echotee, her newly-accepted
lover, as soon as the demand of Malatchie had been
heard, she prayed him to resist the demand. In such
cases, all that a warrior had to do was simply to join
issue upon the claim, and the popular will then determined
the question. Echotee could not resist an
application so put to him, and by one who had just
listened to a prayer of his own, so all-important to his
own happiness; and being himself a noble youth, one
who had been a rival of the captive in his better days,
a feeling of generosity combined with the request of
Hiwassee, and he boldly leaped forward. Seizing
the knife of Malatchie, which stuck in the tree, he
drew it forth and threw it upon the ground, thus
removing the sign of property which the executioner
had put up in behalf of the evil deity.

“Occonestoga is the brave of Yemassee,” exclaimed
the young Echotee, while the eyes of the captive looked
what his lips could not have said. “Occonestoga is
a brave of Yemassee—he is no dog of Malatchie.
Wherefore is the cord upon the limbs of a free warrior?
Is not Occonestoga a free warrior of Yemassee?
The eyes of Echotee have looked upon a warrior like
Occonestoga, when he took many scalps. Did not

Occonestoga lead the Yemassee against the Savannahs?
The eyes of Echotee saw him slay the red-eyed
Suwannee, the great chief of the Savannahs. Did
not Occonestoga go on the war-path with our young
braves against the Edistoes, the brown-foxes that came
out of the swamp? The eyes of Echotee beheld him.
Occonestoga is a brave, and a hunter of Yemassee—
he is not the dog of Malatchie. He knows not fear.
He hath an arrow with wings, and the panther he runs
down in chase. His tread is the tread of a sly serpent
that comes, so that he hears him not, upon the track of
the red deer, feeding down in the valley. Echotee
knows the warrior—Echotee knows the hunter—he
knows Occonestoga, but he knows no dog of Opitchi-Manneyto.”

“He hath drunk of the poison drink of the pale-faces
—his feet are gone from the good path of the Yemassee—he
would sell his people to the English for
a painted bird. He is the slave of Opitchi-Manneyto,”
cried Malatchie, in reply. Echotee was not satisfied
to yield the point so soon, and he responded accordingly.

“It is true. The feet of the young warrior have
gone away from the good paths of the Yemassee, but
I see not the weakness of the chief, when my eye
looks back upon the great deeds of the warrior. I
see nothing but the shrinking body of Suwannee under
the knee, under the knife of the Yemassee. I hear
nothing but the war-whoop of the Yemassee, when
we broke through the camp of the brown-foxes, and
scalped them where they skulked in the swamp. I
see this Yemassee strike the foe and take the scalp,
and I know Occonestoga—Occonestoga, the son of the
well-beloved—the great chief of the Yemassee.”

“It is good—Occonestoga has thanks for Echotee—
Echotee is a brave warrior!” murmured the captive to
his champion, in tones of melancholy acknowledgment.
The current of public feeling began to set
strongly towards an expression of sympathy in behalf
of the victim, and an occasional whisper to that
effect might be heard here and there among the multitude.

Even Malatchie himself looked for a moment
as if he thought it not improbable that he might be
defrauded of his prey; and, while a free shout from
many attested the compliment which all were willing
to pay Echotee for his magnanimous defence of one,
who had once been a successful rival in the general
estimation, the executioner turned to the prophet and
to Sanutee, as if doubtful whether or not to proceed
farther in his claim. But all doubt was soon quieted,
as the stern father rose before the assembly. Every
sound was stilled in expectation of his words on so
momentous an occasion. They waited not long.
The old man had tasked all the energies of the
patriot, not less than of the stoic, and having once
determined upon the necessity of the sacrifice, he had
no hesitating fears or scruples palsying his determination.
He seemed not to regard the imploring glance
of his son, seen and felt by all besides in the assembly;
but with a voice entirely unaffected by the circumstances
of his position, he spoke forth the doom
in confirmation with that originally expressed.

“Echotee has spoken like a brave warrior with a
tongue of truth, and a soul that has birth with the sun.
But he speaks out of his own heart—and does not
speak to the heart of the traitor. The Yemassee will
all say for Echotee, but who can say for Occonestoga
when Sanutee himself is silent? Does the Yemassee
speak with a double tongue? Did not the Yemassee
promise Occonestoga to Opitchi-Manneyto with the
other chiefs? Where are they? They are gone into the
swamp, where the sun shines not, and the eyes of
Opitchi-Manneyto are upon them. He knows them
for his slaves. The arrow is gone from their shoulders,
and the Yemassee knows them no longer. Shall
the dog escape, who led the way to the English—who
brought the poison drink to the chiefs, which made
them dogs to the English and slaves to Opitchi-Manneyto?
Shall he escape the doom the Yemassee
hath put upon them? Sanutee speaks the voice of
the Manneyto. Occonestoga is a dog, who would sell

his father—who would make us women to carry water
for the pale-faces. He is not the son of Sanutee—
Sanutee knows him no more. Look,—Yemassees—
the well-beloved has spoken!”

He paused, and turning away, sunk down silently
upon the little bank on which he had before rested;
while Malatchie, without further opposition—for the
renunciation of his own son by one so highly esteemed
as Sanutee, was conclusive against the youth—advanced
to execute the terrible judgment upon his victim.

“Oh! father, chief, Sanutee”—burst convulsively
from the lips of the prisoner—“hear me, father—Occonestoga
will go on the war-path with thee, and with
the Yemassee—against the Edisto, against the Spaniard—hear,
Sanutee—he will go with thee against the
English.”—But the old man bent not—yielded not, and
the crowd gathered nigher.

“Wilt thou have no ear, Sanutee?—it is Occonestoga—it
is the son of Matiwan that speaks to thee.”
Sanutee's head sunk as the reference was made to
Matiwan, but he showed no other sign of emotion.
He moved not—he spoke not, and bitterly and hopelessly
the youth exclaimed—

“Oh! thou art colder than the stone-house of the
adder—and deafer than his ears. Father, Sanutee,
wherefore wilt thou lose me, even as the tree its leaf,
when the storm smites it in summer? Save me,—
father.”

And his head sunk in despair, as he beheld the unchanging
look of stern resolve with which the unbending
sire regarded him. For a moment he was
unmanned; until a loud shout of derision from the
crowd, regarding his weakness, came to the support of
his pride. The Indian shrinks from humiliation,
where he would not shrink from death; and, as the
shout reached his ears, he shouted back his defiance,
raised his head loftily in air, and with the most perfect
composure, commenced singing his song of death, the
song of many victories.

“Wherefore sings he his death-song?” was the
general inquiry, “he is not to die!”

“Thou art the slave of Opitchi-Manneyto,” cried
Malatchie to the captive—“thou shalt sing no lie of
thy victories in the ear of Yemassee. The slave of
Opitchi-Manneyto has no triumph”—and the words of
the song were effectually drowned, if not silenced, in
the tremendous clamour which they raised about him.
It was then that Malatchie claimed his victim—the
doom had been already given, but the ceremony of
expatriation and outlawry was yet to follow, and under
the direction of the prophet, the various castes and
classes of the nation prepared to take a final leave of
one who could no longer be known among them.
First of all came a band of young, marriageable
women, who, wheeling in a circle three times about
him, sung together a wild apostrophe containing a
bitter farewell, which nothing in our language could
perfectly imbody.

“Go,—thou hast no wife in Yemassee—thou hast
given no lodge to the daughter of Yemassee—thou hast
slain no meat for thy children. Thou hast no name—
the women of Yemassee know thee no more. They
know thee no more.”

And the final sentence was reverberated from the
entire assembly—

“They know thee no more—they know thee no
more.”

Then came a number of the ancient men—the patriarchs
of the nation, who surrounded him in circular
mazes three several times, singing as they did so a
hymn of like import.

“Go—thou sittest not in the council of Yemassee—
thou shalt not speak wisdom to the boy that comes.
Thou hast no name in Yemassee—the fathers of
Yemassee, they know thee no more.”

And again the whole assembly cried out, as with
one voice—“they know thee no more, they know thee
no more.”

These were followed by the young warriors, his old
associates, who now, in a solemn band, approached
him to go through a like performance. His eyes sunk

gloomily as they came—his blood was chilled to his
heart, and the articulated farewell of their wild chant
failed seemingly to reach his ear. Nothing but the
last sentence he heard—

And the crowd cried with them—“they know thee
no more.”

“Is no hatchet sharp for Occonestoga?”—moaned
forth the suffering savage. But his trials were only then
begun. Enoree-Mattee now approached him with the
words, with which, as the representative of the good
Manneyto, he renounced him,—with which he denied
him access to the Indian heaven, and left him a slave
and an outcast, a miserable wanderer amid the shadows
and the swamps, and liable to all the dooms and
terrors which come with the service of Opitchi-Manneyto.

sung the high-priest in a solemn chant, and with a
deep-toned voice that thrilled strangely amid the silence
of the scene.
And the clustering multitude again gave back the last
line in wild chorus. The prophet continued his chant:

The despair of hell was in the face of the victim,
and he howled forth, in a cry of agony, that for a
moment silenced the wild chorus of the crowd around,
the terrible consciousness in his mind of that privation
which the doom entailed upon him. Every feature
was convulsed with emotion—and the terrors of Opitchi-Manneyto's
dominion seemed already in strong
exercise upon the muscles of his heart, when Sanutee,
the father, silently approached, and with a pause of a
few moments, stood gazing upon the son from whom
he was to be separated eternally—whom not even the
uniting, the restoring hand of death could possibly
restore to him. And he—his once noble son—the
pride of his heart, the gleam of his hope, the triumphant
warrior, who was even to increase his own
glory, and transmit the endearing title of well-beloved,
which the Yemassee had given him, to a succeeding
generation. These promises were all blasted, and
the father was now present to yield him up for ever—
to deny him—to forfeit him, in fearful penalty, to the
nation whose genius he had wronged, and whose rights
he had violated. The old man stood for a moment,
rather, we may suppose, for the recovery of resolution,
than with any desire for his contemplation. The pride
of the youth came back to him,—the pride of the
strong mind in its desolation—as his eye caught the
inflexible glance of his unswerving father; and he
exclaimed bitterly and loud:—

“Wherefore art thou come—thou hast been my foe,
not my father—away—I would not behold thee!” and
he closed his eyes after the speech, as if to relieve
himself from a disgusting presence.

“Thou hast said well, Occonestoga—Sanutee is thy
foe—he is not thy father. To say this in thy ears
has he come. Look on him, Occonestoga—look up,
and hear thy doom. The young and the old of the

Yemassee—the warrior and the chief,—they have all
forgotten thee. Occonestoga is no name for the
Yemassee. The Yemassee gives it to his dog. The
prophet of Manneyto has forgotten thee—thou art unknown
to those who are thy people. And I, thy father
—with this speech, I yield thee to Opitchi-Manneyto.
Sanutee is no longer thy father—thy father knows thee
no more”—and once more came to the ears of the
victim that melancholy chorus of the multitude—
“He knows thee no more—he knows thee no more.”
Sanutee turned quickly away as he had spoken, and,
as if he suffered more than he was willing to show,
the old man rapidly hastened to the little mound where
he had been previously sitting—his eyes diverted from
the further spectacle. Occonestoga, goaded to madness
by these several incidents, shrieked forth the bitterest
execrations, until Enoree-Mattee, preceding Malatchie,
again approached. Having given some directions in
an under-tone to the latter, he retired, leaving the
executioner alone with his victim. Malatchie, then,
while all was silence in the crowd—a thick silence,
in which even respiration seemed to be suspended—
proceeded to his duty; and, lifting the feet of Occonestoga
carefully from the ground, he placed a log
under them—then addressing him, as he again bared
his knife which he stuck in the tree above his head,
he sung—

“Yemassee knows thee no more,” cried the multitude,
and their universal shout was deafening upon
the ear. Occonestoga said no word now—he could
offer no resistance to the unnerving hands of Malatchie,
who now bared the arm more completely of its covering.
But his limbs were convulsed with the spasms
of that dreadful terror of the future which was racking
and raging in every nerve of his frame. The silence
of all indicated the general anxiety; and Malatchie

prepared to seize the knife and perform the operation,
when a confused murmur arose from the crowd around;
the mass gave way and parted, and, rushing wildly
into the area, came Matiwan, his mother—the long
black hair streaming—the features, an astonishing
likeness to his own, convulsed like his; and her action
that of one reckless of all things in the way of the forward
progress she was making to the person of her
child. She cried aloud as she came—with a voice
that rung like a sudden death-bell through the ring—

“Would you keep the mother from her boy, and he
to be lost to her for ever? Shall she have no parting
with the young brave she bore in her bosom? Away,
keep me not back—I will look upon, I will love him.
He shall have the blessing of Matiwan, though the
Yemassee and the Manneyto curse.”

The victim heard, and a momentary renovation of
mental life, perhaps a renovation of hope, spoke out
in the simple exclamation which fell from his lips.

“Oh, Matiwan—oh, mother.”

She rushed towards the spot where she heard his
appeal, and thrusting the executioner aside, threw her
arms desperately about his neck.

“Touch him not, Matiwan,” was the general cry
from the crowd.—“Touch him not, Matiwan—Manneyto
knows him no more.”

“But Matiwan knows him—the mother knows her
child, though the Manneyto denies him. Oh, boy—
oh, boy, boy, boy.” And she sobbed like an infant on
his neck.

“Thou art come, Matiwan—thou art come, but wherefore?—to
curse like the father—to curse like the
Manneyto,” mournfully said the captive.

“No, no, no! Not to curse—not to curse. When
did mother curse the child she bore? Not to curse,
but to bless thee.—To bless thee and forgive.”

“Tear her away,” cried the prophet; “let Opitchi-Manneyto
have his slave.”

“Tear her away, Malatchie,” cried the crowd, impatient
for the execution. Malatchie approached.

“Not yet—not yet,” appealed the woman. “Shall
not the mother say farewell to the child she shall see
no more?” and she waved Malatchie back, and in the
next instant, drew hastily from the drapery of her dress
a small hatchet, which she had there carefully concealed.

“What wouldst thou do, Matiwan?” asked Occonestoga,
as his eye caught the glare of the weapon.

“Save thee, my boy—save thee for thy mother,
Occonestoga—save thee for the happy valley.”

“Wouldst thou slay me, mother—wouldst strike the
heart of thy son?” he asked, with a something of reluctance
to receive death from the hands of a parent.

“I strike thee but to save thee, my son:—since they
cannot take the totem from thee after the life is gone.
Turn away from me thy head—let me not look upon
thine eyes as I strike, lest my hands grow weak and
tremble. Turn thine eyes away—I will not lose thee.”

His eyes closed, and the fatal instrument, lifted above
her head, was now visible in the sight of all. The
executioner rushed forward to interpose, but he came
too late. The tomahawk was driven deep into the
scull, and but a single sentence from his lips preceded
the final insensibility of the victim.

“It is good, Matiwan, it is good—thou hast saved me
—the death is in my heart.” And back he sunk as he
spoke, while a shriek of mingled joy and horror from
the lips of the mother announced the success of her
effort to defeat the doom, the most dreadful in the imagination
of the Yemassee.

“He is not lost—he is not lost. They may not
take the child from his mother. They may not keep
him from the valley of Manneyto. He is free—he is
free.” And she fell back in hysteries into the arms of
Sanutee, who by this time had approached. She had
defrauded Opitchi-Manneyto of his victim, for they
may not remove the badge of the nation from any but
the living victim.