University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.

The preparatory rites of battle were about to take
place around the tumulus. The warriors were about
to propitiate the Yemassee God of War—the Battle-Manneyto—and
the scene was now, if possible, more
imposing than ever. It was with a due solemnity that
they approached the awful rites with which they invoked
this stern principle—doubly solemn, as they
could not but feel that the existence of their nation
was the stake at issue. They were prostrate—the
thousand warriors of Yemassee—their wives, their
children—their faces to the ground, but their eyes upward,
bent upon the cone of the tumulus, where
a faint flame, dimly flickering under the breath of the
capricious winds, was struggling doubtfully into existence.
Enoree-Mattee the prophet stood in anxious
attendance—the only person in the neighbourhood of
the fire—for the spot upon which he stood was holy.
He moved around it, in attitudes now lofty, now grotesque—now
impassioned and now humbled—feeding
the flame at intervals as he did so with fragments of
wood, which had been consecrated by other rites, and
sprinkling it at the same time with the dried leaves of
the native and finely odorous vanella, which diffused
a grateful perfume upon the gale. All this time he
muttered a low, monotonous chant, which seemed an
incantation—now and then, at pauses in his song, turning

to the gathered multitude, over whose heads, as
they lay in thick groups around the tumulus, he extended
his arms as if in benediction. The flame
all this while gathered but slowly, and this was matter
of discontent to both prophet and people; for the
gathering of the fire was to indicate the satisfaction
of the Manneyto with their proposed design. While
its progress was doubtful, therefore, a silence entirely
unbroken, and full of awe, prevailed throughout the
crowd. But when it burst forth, growing and gathering—seizing
with a ravenous rapidity upon the sticks
and stubble with which it had been supplied—licking
the long grass as it progressed, and running down the
sides of the tumulus, until it completely encircled the
gorgeously decorated form of Enoree-Mattee as with a
wreath of fire—when it sent its votive and odorous smoke
in a thick, direct column, up to the heavens—a single,
unanimous shout, that thrilled through and through the
forest, even as the sudden uproar of one of its own
terrible hurricanes, burst forth from that now exhilarated
assembly, while each started at once to his feet,
brandished his weapons with a fierce joy, and all
united in that wild chorus of mixed strife and adoration,
the battle-hymn of their nation:

And as they repeated the fierce cry of onset, the
war-whoop of the Yemassees, another shout in chorus
followed from the great mass of the people beyond.
This cry, carried onwards by successive groups previously
stationed for that purpose, was announced to
the various allies in their different encampments, and
was equivalent to a permission of the Yemassee god
that they should appear, and join in the subsequent

ceremonial—a ceremonial which now affected them
equally with the Yemassees.

They came at length, the great body of that fierce
but motley gathering. In so many clans, each marched
apart, with the distinct emblem of its tribe. There
came the subtle and the active Coosaw, with his small
flaming black eye, in which gathered the most malignant
fires. A stuffed rattlesnake in coil, with protruded
fang, perched upon a staff, formed their emblem, and
no bad characteristic, for they were equally fearless
and equally fatal with that reptile. Then came the
Combahee and the Edistoh, the Santee and the Seratee
—the two latter kindred tribes bearing huge clubs,
which they wielded with equal strength and agility, in
addition to the knife and bow. Another and another
cluster forming around, completed a grouping at
once imposing and unique,—each body, as they severally
came to behold the sacred fire, swelling upwards
from the mound, precipitating themselves upon the
earth where first it met their sight. The prophet still
continued his incantations, until, at a given signal,
when Sanutee, as chief of his people, ascended the
tumulus, and bending his form reverently as he did
so, approached him to know the result of his auguries.
The appearance of the old chief was haggard in the
extreme—his countenance bore all the traces of that
anxiety which, at such a moment, the true patriot
would be likely to feel—and a close eye might discern
evidences of a deeper feeling working at his heart,
equally vexing and of a more personal nature. Still
his manner was firm and nobly commanding. He
listened to the words of the prophet, which were in
their own language. Then advancing in front, the
chief delivered his response to the people. It was
auspicious—Manneyto had promised them success
against their enemies, and their offerings had all been
accepted. He required but another, and that the
prophet assured them was at hand. Again the shout
went up to heaven, and the united warriors clashed
their weapons, and yelled aloud the triumph which
they anticipated over their foes.

In a neighbouring copse, well concealed by the
thicket, lay the person of Harrison. From this spot
he surveyed the entire proceedings. With the aid of
their numerous fires, he calculated their numbers and
the different nations engaged, whose emblems he generally
knew, and listened impatiently for some evidences
of their precise intention; but as they spoke only
in their own, or a mixed language of the several tribes,
he almost despaired of any discovery of this kind,
which would serve him much, when a new party appeared
upon the scene, in the person of Chorley the
captain of the sloop. He appeared dressed in a somewhat
gaudy uniform—a pair of pistols stuck in his
belt—a broad short sword at his side, and dagger—
and, though evidently in complete military array, without
having discarded the rich golden chain, which
hung suspended ostentatiously from his thick, short,
bull-shaped neck. The guise of Chorley was Spanish,
and over his head, carried by one of his seamen in a
group of twenty of them, which followed him, he bore
the flag of Spain, and this confirmed Harrison in all
his apprehensions. He saw that once again the
Spaniard was about to strike the colony, in assertion
of an old claim put in by his monarch to all the country
then in the possession of the English, northward
as far as Virginia, and to the southwest the entire
range, including the Mississippi and some even of the
territory beyond it, in the vague vastness of geographical
imaginings at that period. In support of this
claim, which, under the existing circumstances of
European convention, the Spanish monarch could not
proceed to urge by arms in any other manner—the two
countries being then at peace at home—the governor
of the one colony, that of Spain, was suffered and
instigated to do that which his monarch immediately
dared not; and from St. Augustine innumerable inroads
were daily projected into Georgia and the Carolinas,
penetrating with their Indian allies, in some instances
almost to the gates of Charlestown. The Carolinians
were not idle, and similar inroads were made upon

Florida; the two parents looking quietly on the strife
of the colonies, as it gratified the national animosity
of either nation, who, seeming quiet enough at home,
yet mutually contributed to the means of annoyance
and defence, as their colonies severally needed them.
This sort of warfare had been continued almost from
the commencement of either settlement, and the result
was a system of foray into the enemy's province from
time to time—now of the Spaniards, and now of the
Carolinians.

Harrison was soon taught to see by the evidence
before him, that the Spaniard on the present occasion
had more deeply matured his plans than he had ever
anticipated; and that—taking advantage of the known
discontents among the Indians, and of that unwise cessation
of watchfulness, which too much indicated the
confiding nature of the Carolinians, induced by a term
of repose, protracted somewhat longer than usual—he
had prepared a mine which he fondly hoped, and with
good reason, would result in the utter extermination
of the intruders, whom they loved to destroy, as on
one sanguinary occasion their own inscription phrased
it, not so much because they were Englishmen, but
“because they were heretics.” His success in the
present adventure, he felt assured, and correctly,
would place the entire province in the possession, as
in his thought it was already in the right, of his most
Catholic Majesty.

Captain Chorley, the bucanier and Spanish emissary,
for, in those times and that region, the two characters
were not always unlike, advanced boldly into the
centre of the various assemblage. He was followed
by twenty stout seamen, the greater part of his crew.
These were armed chiefly with pikes and cutlasses.
A few carried pistols, a few muskets; but, generally
speaking, the larger arms seemed to have been regarded
as unnecessary, and perhaps inconvenient, in
an affair requiring despatch and secrecy. As he approached,
Sanutee descended from the mound and advanced
towards him, with a degree of respect, which,

while it was marked and gracious, subtracted nothing
from the lofty carriage and the towering dignity
which at the same time accompanied it. In a few
words of broken English, he explained to Chorley
sundry of their present and future proceedings—detailed
what was required of him, in the rest of the
ceremony; and having made him understand, which
he did with some difficulty, he reascended the mound,
resuming his place at the side of the prophet, who,
all the while, as if without noticing any thing going
on around, had continued those fearful incantations to
the war-god, which seemed to make of himself a victim;
for his eye glared with the light of madness—
his tongue hung forth between his clinched teeth,
which seemed every moment, when parting and
gnashing, as if about to sever it in two, while the slaver
gathered about his mouth in thick foam, and all his
features were convulsed. At a signal which he gave,
while under this fury, a long procession of women,
headed by Malatchie, the executioner, made their appearance
from behind the hill, and advanced into the
area. In their arms six of them bore a gigantic figure,
rudely hewn out of a tree, with a head so carved as
in some sort to resemble that of a man. The hatchet
and fire had chopped out the face, if such it may be
called, and by means of one paint or another, it had
been stained into something like expression. The
scalp of some slaughtered enemy was stuck upon the
scull, and made to adhere, with pitch extracted from
the pine. The body, from the neck, was left unhewn.
This figure was stuck up in the midst of the assembly,
in the sight of all, while the old women danced in
wild contortions around it, uttering, as they did so, a
thousand invectives in their own wild language.
They charged it with all offences comprised in their
system of ethics. It was a liar, and a thief—a traitor,
and cheat—a murderer, and without a Manneyto—in
short, in a summary of their own—they called it
“English—English—English.” Having done this,
they receded, leaving the area clear of all but the unconscious
image which they had so denounced, and sinking
back behind the armed circle, they remained in silence.

Previously taught in what he was to do, Chorley now
advanced alone, and striking a hatchet full in the face
of the assembly, he cried aloud to the warriors around,

“Hark, at this English dog! I strike my hatchet
in his scull. Who will do thus for the King of
Spain?” Malatchie acted as interpreter in the present
instance, and the words had scarcely fallen from his
lips, when Chinnabar, a chief of the Coosaws, his
eyes darting fire, and his whole face full of malignant
delight, rushed out from his clan, and seizing the
hatchet, followed up the blow by another, which sunk
it deeply into the unconscious block, crying aloud, as
he did so, in his own language,

“The Coosaw,—ha! look, he strikes the scull of
the English!” and the fierce war-whoop of “Coosaw—
Sangarrah-me,” followed up the speech.

“So strikes the Cherah!—Cherah-hah, Cherahme!”
cried the head warrior of that tribe, following
the example of the Coosaw, and flinging his hatchet
also in the scull of the image. Another and another,
in like manner came forward, each chief, representing
a tribe or nation, being required to do so, showing
his assent to the war; until, in a moment of pause,
believing that all were done, Chorley reapproached,
and baring his cutlass as he did so, with a face full of
the passion which one might be supposed to exhibit,
when facing a deadly and a living foe, with a single
stroke he lodged the weapon so deeply into the wood,
that for a while its extrication was doubtful—at the
same time exclaiming fiercely,

“And so strikes Richard Chorley, not for Spain, nor
France, nor Indian—not for any body, but on his own
log—for his own wrong, and so would he strike again
if the necks of all England lay under his arm.”

A strong armed Santee, who had impatiently waited
his turn while Chorley spoke, now came forward with
his club—a monstrous mace, gathered from the swamps,
under the stroke of which the image went down prostrate.

Its fall was the signal for a general shout and
tumult among the crowd, scarcely quieted, as a new
incident was brought in to enliven a performance,
which, though of invariable exercise among the primitive
Indians, preparatory to all great occasions like
the present, was yet too monotonous not to need, in the
end, some stirring variation.