To Pauguk
(This is the impersonation of death in Indian mythology. He is represented with a bow and arrows.)
Pauguk! ’tis a scene of woe,
This world of troubles; let me go
Arm’d to show forth the Master’s will,
Strike on thy purpose to fulfil.
I fear not death—my only fear
Is ills and woes that press me here.
Want stares me in the face, or woe,
Where’er I dwell—where’er I go;
Fishing and hunting only give
The pinching means to let me live;
And if, at night, I lay me down,
In dreams and sleep my rest to crown,
Ere day awakes its slumbering eyes,
I start to hear the foe’s mad cries,
Louder and louder, as I clutch
My club, or lance, or bow and dart,
And, springing with a panther’s touch,
Display the red man’s bloody art.
Nay, I am sick of life and blood,
That drowns my country like a flood,
Pouring o’er hill, and vale, and lea,
Lodge, ville, and council, like a sea,
Where one must gasp and gasp for breath
To live—and stay the power of death.
Ah! life’s good things are all too poor,
Its daily hardships to endure.
My fathers told me, there’s a land
Where peace and joy abound in hand,
And plenty smiles, and sweetest scenes
Expand in lakes, and groves, and greens.
No pain or hunger there is known,
And pleasure reigns throughout alone—
I would go there, and taste and see
A life so beauteous, bless’d and free,
Where man has no more power to kill,
And the Great Spirit all things fills.
Blanch not, Pauguk, I have no fear,
And would not longer linger here;
But bend thy bow and aim thy dart,
Behold an honest hunter’s heart:
Thereby a dart, a boon may give,
A happy life on high to live.
’Tis all the same, in countries here,
Or where Pacific billows roar,
We roved in want, and woe and fear
Along the Mississippi shore.
And where Missouri’s waters rush,
To tell to man that God is strong,
We shrank as from a tiger’s touch,
To hear the white man’s shout or song.
O not for us is peace and joy
Arising from the race that spread,
Their purpose only’s to destroy—
Our only peace is with the dead.
Think not my heart is pale with fear,
But strike, Pauguk—strike boldly here.
Footnotes
1 If Edwards the younger, to whom the Mohican was familiar from his childhood, could say, that he doubted whether there were any true adjectives in that language, it can easily be imagined that the subtlety of the transitive principle had not been sufficiently analyzed; but the remark is here quoted in relation to the paucity of adjectives.
2 Vide Criterion.
3 When the volumes of Algic Researches, in 1839, were published, the book-trade had hardly awakened to that wide and diffusive impulse which it has since received. No attention had been given to topics so obscure as inquiries into the character of the Indian mind—if, indeed, it was thought the Indian had any mind at all. It was still supposed that the Indian was, at all times and in all places, “a stoic of the woods,” always statuesque, always formal, always passionless, always on stilts, always speaking in metaphors, a cold embodiment of bravery, endurance, and savage heroism. Writers depicted him as a man who uttered nothing but high principles of natural right, who always harangued eloquently, and was ready, with unmoved philosophy on all occasions, to sing his death song at the stake to show the world how a warrior should die.
4 The songs and chants which form so striking a part of the original legends, and also the poetic use of aboriginal ideas, are transferred to the end of the volume, and will thus, it is apprehended, relieve and simplify the text.
5 Gross.
6 An abbreviated term for “my grandmother,” derived from no-kó-miss.
7 This is a term for the west wind. It is a derivative from Kabian-oong, the proper appellation for the occident.
8 An interjection indicating pain.
9 The scirpus, or bulrush.
10 Do not—do not.
11 The Northern Indians, when travelling in company with each other, or with white persons who possess their confidence, so as to put them at ease, are in the habit of making frequent allusions to Manabozho and his exploits. “There,” said a young Chippewa, pointing to some huge boulders of greenstone, “are pieces of the rock broken off in Manabozho’s combat with his father.” “This is the duck,” said an Indian interpreter on the sources of the Mississippi, “that Manabozho kicked.” “Under that island,” said a friend conversant with their language, “under that island Manabozho lost a beaver.”
12 The term weendigo, translated here monster, is commonly applied, at this time, by the Indians, to cannibals. Its ancient use appears, however, to have embraced giants and anomalous voracious beasts of the land, to the former existence of which, on this Continent, their traditions refer.
The word genábik, rendered serpent, appears likewise to have been used in a generic sense for amphibious animals of large and venomous character. When applied to existing species of serpents, it requires an adjective prefix or qualifying term.
13 The wampum or pearl feather.
14 An interjection equivalent to shame! shame!
15 Animal tail, or bottom upward.
16 A free translation of this expression might be rendered, noble scratchers, or grabbers.
17 The conaus is the most ancient garment known to these tribes, being a simple extended single piece, without folds. The word is the apparent root of godaus, a female garment. Waub-e-wion, a blanket, is a comparatively modern phrase for a wrapper, signifying, literally, a white skin with the wool on.
18 Fasts. The rite of fasting is one of the most deep-seated and universal in the Indian ritual. It is practised among all the American tribes, and is deemed by them essential to their success in life in every situation. No young man is fitted and prepared to begin the career of life until he has accomplished his great fast. Seven days appear to have been the ancient maximum limit of endurance, and the success of the devotee is inferred from the length of continued abstinence to which he is known to have attained. These fasts are anticipated by youth as one of the most important events of life. They are awaited with interest, prepared for with solemnity, and endured with a self-devotion bordering on the heroic. Character is thought to be fixed from this period, and the primary fast, thus prepared for and successfully established, seems to hold that relative importance to subsequent years that is attached to a public profession of religious faith in civilized communities. It is at this period that the young men and the young women “see visions and dream dreams,” and fortune or misfortune is predicted from the guardian spirit chosen during this, to them, religious ordeal. The hallucinations of the mind are taken for divine inspiration. The effect is deeply felt and strongly impressed on the mind; too deeply, indeed, to be ever obliterated in after life. The father in the circle of his lodge, the hunter in the pursuit of the chase, and the warrior in the field of battle, think of the guardian genius which they fancy to accompany them, and trust to his power and benign influence under every circumstance. This genius is the absorbing theme of their silent meditations, and stands to them in all respects in place of the Christian’s hope, with the single difference that, however deeply mused upon, the name is never uttered, and every circumstance connected with its selection, and the devotion paid to it, is most studiously and professedly concealed even from their nearest friends.
Fasts in subsequent life appear to have for their object a renewal of the powers and virtues which they attribute to the rite. And they are observed more frequently by those who strive to preserve unaltered the ancient state of society among them, or by men who assume austere habits for the purpose of acquiring influence in the tribe, or as preparatives for war or some extraordinary feat. It is not known that there is any fixed day observed as a general fast. So far as a rule is followed, a general fast seems to have been observed in the spring, and to have preceded the general and customary feasts at that season.
It will be inferred from these facts, that the Indians believe fasts to be very meritorious. They are deemed most acceptable to the Manitoes or spirits whose influence and protection they wish to engage or preserve. And it is thus clearly deducible, that a very large proportion of the time devoted by the Indians to secret worship, so to say, is devoted to these guardian or intermediate spirits, and not to the Great Spirit or Creator.
19 The tuft feathers of the red-headed woodpecker are used to ornament the stems of the Indian pipe, and are symbolical of valor.
20 Abbreviated from Neshomiss, my grandfather.
21 That part of the intestines of a fish, which by its expansion from air in the first stage of decomposition, causes the body to rise and float. The expression here means float.
22 The Alcedo or Kingfisher.
23 This bird has a white spot on the breast, and a tufted head.
24 Shau-go-dai-a, i. e., a Coward.
25 The war-cry.
26 A burrow.
27 Diminutive form, plural number, of the noun Möz.
28 The dress of the females in the Odjibwa nation, consists of sleeves, open on the inner side of the arm from the elbow up, and terminating in large square folds, falling from the shoulders, which are tied at the back of the neck with ribbon or binding. The sleeves are separately made, and not attached to the breast garment, which consists of square folds of cloth, ornamented and sustained by shoulder straps. To untie the sleeves or armlets, as is here described, is therefore to expose the shoulders, but not the back—a simple device, quickly accomplished, by which the magician could readily exercise his art almost imperceptibly to the object.
29 Stop! stop!
30 It is difficult to throw into the English pronoun the whole of the meaning of the Indian. Pronouns in this language being, like other parts of speech, transitive; they are at once indicative both of the actor, personal, and relative, and the nature of the object, or subject of the action, or relation. This, and that, are not used in the elementary form these pronouns invariably possess in the English. Inflections are put to them indicating the class of natural objects to which they refer. A noun masculine or feminine, requiring an animate pronoun, a noun inanimate, a pronoun inanimate.
31 This word appears to be derived from the same root as Paup-puk-ke-nay, a grasshopper, the inflection iss making it personal. The Indian idea is that of harum scarum. He is regarded as a foil to Manabozho, with whom he is frequently brought in contact in aboriginal story craft.
32 This is an official who bears the pipe for the ruling chief, and is an inferior dignity in councils.
33 This is a studied perversion of the interjection Ho. In another instance (vide Wassamo) it is rendered Hoke.
34 We may mention, for the youth who may read these tales, that beavers live by gnawing the bark of trees.
35 Mats.
36 A species of lightning.
37 Pity me, my father.
38 The C. Sylvestris inhabits North America, north of latitude 46°.
39 Michilimackinac, the term alluded to, is the original French orthography of mish en i mok in ong, the local form (sing. and plu.), of Turtle Spirits.
40 i. e. Place of shallow cataract, named Sault de Ste. Marie on the arrival of the French. This is the local form of the word, the substantive proper terminates in eeg.
41 Nets are set in winter, in high northern latitudes, through orifices cut in the ice.
42 A kind of water spirits.
43 The fat of animals is esteemed by the N.A. Indians among the choicest parts.
44 The muscalunge.
45 The opinion that the earth is a square and level plain, and that the winds blow from its four corners, is a very ancient eastern opinion.
46 Such is the meaning of Wabose.
47 Oneóta.
48 Winter.
49 The Claytonia Virginica.
50 The Algic name for corn. The word is manifestly a trinary compound from monedo, spirit; min, a grain or berry; and iaw, the verb substantive.
51 The Zea mays, it will be recollected, is indigenous to America, and was unknown in Europe before 1495.
52 See Notes of the Pibbigwun.
53 A personification of the Northwest.
54 There is a group of stars in the Northern hemisphere which the Odjibwas call Ojeeg Annung, or the Fisher Stars. It is believed to be identical with the group of the Plough. They relate the following tale respecting it.
55 Baskets, or cages.
56 The idea here indicated is among the peculiar notions of these tribes, and is grafted in the forms of their language, which will be pointed out in the progress of these researches.
57 Family arms, or armorial mark.
58 Catfish.
59 Notes of the Pibbigwun.
60 Notes of the Pibbigwun.
61 Wesugaindum, meaning pain or bitterness of mind, is a single expression in the original. It is a trinary compound.
62 Notes of the Pibbigwun.
63 War-cry.
64 A gigantic she bear wearing the sacred necklace of wampum.
65 My grandfather.
66 Pai-gwud-aw-diz-zid.
67 Pungish-e-moo, falling or sinking to a position of repose.
68 My grandchild.
69 Enaw-baundum.
70 The Indian expression is, Awuss-Waubung—the day beyond to-morrow.
71 A species of hawk.
72 Cusic tells us there were thirteen of these magistrates before America was discovered. Here mythology takes the shape of historical tradition.
73 From Ienawdizzi, a wanderer.
74 The night-hawk.
75 A marten.
76 The common poplar, or P. tremuloides.
77 The beaver.
78 Here I will lie until I die.
79 This term means a man that lives on the surface of the earth, as contradistinguished from beings living underground.
80 He who lives in the city under ground.
81 People who live above ground.
82 The end wing feather.
83 Female spirit or prophetess.
84 A term indicative of the heir or successor to the first place in power.
85 A term compounded from sheegowiss, a widow, and mowigh, something nasty.
86 Pontiac told this story to the assembled Indians in 1763, to enlist them in his plan to resist the transfer of the country to the English authority, on the fall of the French power in the Canadas.
87 Owl.
88 This word has the sound of g hard, with a peculiarity as if followed by k.
89 This term appears to be a derivative from Addik, the reindeer, and the plural form of the generic Gumee, water, implying deer of the water.
90 Saut Ste. Marie.
91 i.e., the sudden stopping of a voice.
92 Grasshopper.
93 The East—i.e. place of light.
94 Ship and boat. These terms exhibit the simple and the diminutive forms of the name for ship or vessel. It is also the term for a woman’s needlework, and seems to imply a tangled thready mass, and was perhaps transferred in allusion to a ship’s ropes.
95 Wewaquonidjig, a term early and extensively applied to white men, by our Indians, and still frequently used.
96 Odawbon comprehends all vehicles between a dog train and a coach, whether on wheels or runners. The term is nearest allied to vehicle.
97 Massive silver.
98 My father.
99 A rattle.
100 A hard primitive stone, frequently found along the borders of the lakes and watercourses, generally fretted into image shapes. Hardness and indestructibility are regarded as its characteristics by the Indians. It is often granite.
101 This computation of time separates the day into four portions of six hours each—two of which, from 1 to 6, and from 6 to 12 A.M. compose the morning, and the other two, from 1 to 6, and from 6 to 12 P.M. compose the evening.
102 This is a verbal form, plural number, of the transitive adjective—foolish.
103 Midday, or middle line.
104 The idea attached to the use of these bones in the medicine dance is, that, by their magical influence, the actor can penetrate and go through any substance.
105 One who sits behind.
106 One who sits before.
107 Indian flute.
108 My sweetheart.
109 Claytonia Virginica.
110 Superior.
111 Michigan.
112 Huron.
113 St. Clair.
114 Erie.
115 An exclamation of wonder and surprise.—Odj. lan.
116 My father.—Ib.
117 Death.
118 White men.
119 Tlalcol, the keeper of the dead, corresponds to the Chebiabo of the Algonquins.
120 Spring beauty, C. Virg.
121 Robin.
122 Spring.
123 A child.
124 Claytonia Virginica.