XVIII The Death of Kwasind

Far and wide among the nations

Spread the name and fame of Kwasind;

No man dared to strive with Kwasind,

No man could compete with Kwasind.

But the mischievous Puk-Wudjies,

They the envious Little People,

They the fairies and the pygmies,

Plotted and conspired against him.

"If this hateful Kwasind," said they,

"If this great, outrageous fellow

Goes on thus a little longer,

Tearing everything he touches,

Rending everything to pieces,

Filling all the world with wonder,

What becomes of the Puk-Wudjies?

Who will care for the Puk-Wudjies?

He will tread us down like mushrooms,

Drive us all into the water,

Give our bodies to be eaten

By the wicked Nee-ba-naw-baigs,

By the Spirits of the water!"

So the angry Little People

All conspired against the Strong Man,

All conspired to murder Kwasind,

Yes, to rid the world of Kwasind,

The audacious, overbearing,

Heartless, haughty, dangerous Kwasind!

Now this wondrous strength of Kwasind

In his crown alone was seated;

In his crown too was his weakness;

There alone could he be wounded,

Nowhere else could weapon pierce him,

Nowhere else could weapon harm him.

Even there the only weapon

That could wound him, that could slay him,

Was the seed-cone of the pine-tree,

Was the blue cone of the fir-tree.

This was Kwasind's fatal secret,

Known to no man among mortals;

But the cunning Little People,

The Puk-Wudjies, knew the secret,

Knew the only way to kill him.

So they gathered cones together,

Gathered seed-cones of the pine-tree,

Gathered blue cones of the fir-tree,

In the woods by Taquamenaw,

Brought them to the river's margin,

Heaped them in great piles together,

Where the red rocks from the margin

Jutting overhang the river.

There they lay in wait for Kwasind,

The malicious Little People.

`T was an afternoon in Summer;

Very hot and still the air was,

Very smooth the gliding river,

Motionless the sleeping shadows:

Insects glistened in the sunshine,

Insects skated on the water,

Filled the drowsy air with buzzing,

With a far resounding war-cry.

Down the river came the Strong Man,

In his birch canoe came Kwasind,

Floating slowly down the current

Of the sluggish Taquamenaw,

Very languid with the weather,

Very sleepy with the silence.

From the overhanging branches,

From the tassels of the birch-trees,

Soft the Spirit of Sleep descended;

By his airy hosts surrounded,

His invisible attendants,

Came the Spirit of Sleep, Nepahwin;

Like a burnished Dush-kwo-ne-she,

Like a dragon-fly, he hovered

O'er the drowsy head of Kwasind.

To his ear there came a murmur

As of waves upon a sea-shore,

As of far-off tumbling waters,

As of winds among the pine-trees;

And he felt upon his forehead

Blows of little airy war-clubs,

Wielded by the slumbrous legions

Of the Spirit of Sleep, Nepahwin,

As of some one breathing on him.

At the first blow of their war-clubs,

Fell a drowsiness on Kwasind;

At the second blow they smote him,

Motionless his paddle rested;

At the third, before his vision

Reeled the landscape Into darkness,

Very sound asleep was Kwasind.

So he floated down the river,

Like a blind man seated upright,

Floated down the Taquamenaw,

Underneath the trembling birch-trees,

Underneath the wooded headlands,

Underneath the war encampment

Of the pygmies, the Puk-Wudjies.

There they stood, all armed and waiting,

Hurled the pine-cones down upon him,

Struck him on his brawny shoulders,

On his crown defenceless struck him.

"Death to Kwasind!" was the sudden

War-cry of the Little People.

And he sideways swayed and tumbled,

Sideways fell into the river,

Plunged beneath the sluggish water

Headlong, as an otter plunges;

And the birch canoe, abandoned,

Drifted empty down the river,

Bottom upward swerved and drifted:

Nothing more was seen of Kwasind.

But the memory of the Strong Man

Lingered long among the people,

And whenever through the forest

Raged and roared the wintry tempest,

And the branches, tossed and troubled,

Creaked and groaned and split asunder,

"Kwasind!" cried they; "that is Kwasind!

He is gathering in his fire-wood!"

XIX The Ghosts

Never stoops the soaring vulture

On his quarry in the desert,

On the sick or wounded bison,

But another vulture, watching

From his high aerial look-out,

Sees the downward plunge, and follows;

And a third pursues the second,

Coming from the invisible ether,

First a speck, and then a vulture,

Till the air is dark with pinions.

So disasters come not singly;

But as if they watched and waited,

Scanning one another's motions,

When the first descends, the others

Follow, follow, gathering flock-wise

Round their victim, sick and wounded,

First a shadow, then a sorrow,

Till the air is dark with anguish.

Now, o'er all the dreary North-land,

Mighty Peboan, the Winter,

Breathing on the lakes and rivers,

Into stone had changed their waters.

From his hair he shook the snow-flakes,

Till the plains were strewn with whiteness,

One uninterrupted level,

As if, stooping, the Creator

With his hand had smoothed them over.

Through the forest, wide and wailing,

Roamed the hunter on his snow-shoes;

In the village worked the women,

Pounded maize, or dressed the deer-skin;

And the young men played together

On the ice the noisy ball-play,

On the plain the dance of snow-shoes.

One dark evening, after sundown,

In her wigwam Laughing Water

Sat with old Nokomis, waiting

For the steps of Hiawatha

Homeward from the hunt returning.

On their faces gleamed the firelight,

Painting them with streaks of crimson,

In the eyes of old Nokomis

Glimmered like the watery moonlight,

In the eyes of Laughing Water

Glistened like the sun in water;

And behind them crouched their shadows

In the corners of the wigwam,

And the smoke In wreaths above them

Climbed and crowded through the smoke-flue.

Then the curtain of the doorway

From without was slowly lifted;

Brighter glowed the fire a moment,

And a moment swerved the smoke-wreath,

As two women entered softly,

Passed the doorway uninvited,

Without word of salutation,

Without sign of recognition,

Sat down in the farthest corner,

Crouching low among the shadows.

From their aspect and their garments,

Strangers seemed they in the village;

Very pale and haggard were they,

As they sat there sad and silent,

Trembling, cowering with the shadows.

Was it the wind above the smoke-flue,

Muttering down into the wigwam?

Was it the owl, the Koko-koho,

Hooting from the dismal forest?

Sure a voice said in the silence:

"These are corpses clad in garments,

These are ghosts that come to haunt you,

From the kingdom of Ponemah,

From the land of the Hereafter!"

Homeward now came Hiawatha

From his hunting in the forest,

With the snow upon his tresses,

And the red deer on his shoulders.

At the feet of Laughing Water

Down he threw his lifeless burden;

Nobler, handsomer she thought him,

Than when first he came to woo her,

First threw down the deer before her,

As a token of his wishes,

As a promise of the future.

Then he turned and saw the strangers,

Cowering, crouching with the shadows;

Said within himself, "Who are they?

What strange guests has Minnehaha?"

But he questioned not the strangers,

Only spake to bid them welcome

To his lodge, his food, his fireside.

When the evening meal was ready,

And the deer had been divided,

Both the pallid guests, the strangers,

Springing from among the shadows,

Seized upon the choicest portions,

Seized the white fat of the roebuck,

Set apart for Laughing Water,

For the wife of Hiawatha;

Without asking, without thanking,

Eagerly devoured the morsels,

Flitted back among the shadows

In the corner of the wigwam.

Not a word spake Hiawatha,

Not a motion made Nokomis,

Not a gesture Laughing Water;

Not a change came o'er their features;

Only Minnehaha softly

Whispered, saying, "They are famished;

Let them do what best delights them;

Let them eat, for they are famished."

Many a daylight dawned and darkened,

Many a night shook off the daylight

As the pine shakes off the snow-flakes

From the midnight of its branches;

Day by day the guests unmoving

Sat there silent in the wigwam;

But by night, in storm or starlight,

Forth they went into the forest,

Bringing fire-wood to the wigwam,

Bringing pine-cones for the burning,

Always sad and always silent.

And whenever Hiawatha

Came from fishing or from hunting,

When the evening meal was ready,

And the food had been divided,

Gliding from their darksome corner,

Came the pallid guests, the strangers,

Seized upon the choicest portions

Set aside for Laughing Water,

And without rebuke or question

Flitted back among the shadows.

Never once had Hiawatha

By a word or look reproved them;

Never once had old Nokomis

Made a gesture of impatience;

Never once had Laughing Water

Shown resentment at the outrage.

All had they endured in silence,

That the rights of guest and stranger,

That the virtue of free-giving,

By a look might not be lessened,

By a word might not be broken.

Once at midnight Hiawatha,

Ever wakeful, ever watchful,

In the wigwam, dimly lighted

By the brands that still were burning,

By the glimmering, flickering firelight

Heard a sighing, oft repeated,

From his couch rose Hiawatha,

From his shaggy hides of bison,

Pushed aside the deer-skin curtain,

Saw the pallid guests, the shadows,

Sitting upright on their couches,

Weeping in the silent midnight.

And he said: "O guests! why is it

That your hearts are so afflicted,

That you sob so in the midnight?

Has perchance the old Nokomis,

Has my wife, my Minnehaha,

Wronged or grieved you by unkindness,

Failed in hospitable duties?"

Then the shadows ceased from weeping,

Ceased from sobbing and lamenting,

And they said, with gentle voices:

"We are ghosts of the departed,

Souls of those who once were with you.

From the realms of Chibiabos

Hither have we come to try you,

Hither have we come to warn you.

"Cries of grief and lamentation

Reach us in the Blessed Islands;

Cries of anguish from the living,

Calling back their friends departed,

Sadden us with useless sorrow.

Therefore have we come to try you;

No one knows us, no one heeds us.

We are but a burden to you,

And we see that the departed

Have no place among the living.

"Think of this, O Hiawatha!

Speak of it to all the people,

That henceforward and forever

They no more with lamentations

Sadden the souls of the departed

In the Islands of the Blessed.

"Do not lay such heavy burdens

In the graves of those you bury,

Not such weight of furs and wampum,

Not such weight of pots and kettles,

For the spirits faint beneath them.

Only give them food to carry,

Only give them fire to light them.

"Four days is the spirit's journey

To the land of ghosts and shadows,

Four its lonely night encampments;

Four times must their fires be lighted.

Therefore, when the dead are buried,

Let a fire, as night approaches,

Four times on the grave be kindled,

That the soul upon its journey

May not lack the cheerful firelight,

May not grope about in darkness.

"Farewell, noble Hiawatha!

We have put you to the trial,

To the proof have put your patience,

By the insult of our presence,

By the outrage of our actions.

We have found you great and noble.

Fail not in the greater trial,

Faint not In the harder struggle."

When they ceased, a sudden darkness

Fell and filled the silent wigwam.

Hiawatha heard a rustle

As of garments trailing by him,

Heard the curtain of the doorway

Lifted by a hand he saw not,

Felt the cold breath of the night air,

For a moment saw the starlight;

But he saw the ghosts no longer,

Saw no more the wandering spirits

From the kingdom of Ponemah,

From the land of the Hereafter.

XX The Famine

Oh the long and dreary Winter!

Oh the cold and cruel Winter!

Ever thicker, thicker, thicker

Froze the ice on lake and river,

Ever deeper, deeper, deeper

Fell the snow o'er all the landscape,

Fell the covering snow, and drifted

Through the forest, round the village.

Hardly from his buried wigwam

Could the hunter force a passage;

With his mittens and his snow-shoes

Vainly walked he through the forest,

Sought for bird or beast and found none,

Saw no track of deer or rabbit,

In the snow beheld no footprints,

In the ghastly, gleaming forest

Fell, and could not rise from weakness,

Perished there from cold and hunger.

Oh the famine and the fever!

Oh the wasting of the famine!

Oh the blasting of the fever!

Oh the wailing of the children!

Oh the anguish of the women!

All the earth was sick and famished;

Hungry was the air around them,

Hungry was the sky above them,

And the hungry stars in heaven

Like the eyes of wolves glared at them!

Into Hiawatha's wigwam

Came two other guests, as silent

As the ghosts were, and as gloomy,

Waited not to be invited

Did not parley at the doorway

Sat there without word of welcome

In the seat of Laughing Water;

Looked with haggard eyes and hollow

At the face of Laughing Water.

And the foremost said: "Behold me!

I am Famine, Bukadawin!"

And the other said: "Behold me!

I am Fever, Ahkosewin!"

And the lovely Minnehaha

Shuddered as they looked upon her,

Shuddered at the words they uttered,

Lay down on her bed in silence,

Hid her face, but made no answer;

Lay there trembling, freezing, burning

At the looks they cast upon her,

At the fearful words they uttered.

Forth into the empty forest

Rushed the maddened Hiawatha;

In his heart was deadly sorrow,

In his face a stony firmness;

On his brow the sweat of anguish

Started, but it froze and fell not.

Wrapped in furs and armed for hunting,

With his mighty bow of ash-tree,

With his quiver full of arrows,

With his mittens, Minjekahwun,

Into the vast and vacant forest

On his snow-shoes strode he forward.

"Gitche Manito, the Mighty!"

Cried he with his face uplifted

In that bitter hour of anguish,

"Give your children food, O father!

Give us food, or we must perish!

Give me food for Minnehaha,

For my dying Minnehaha!"

Through the far-resounding forest,

Through the forest vast and vacant

Rang that cry of desolation,

But there came no other answer

Than the echo of his crying,

Than the echo of the woodlands,

"Minnehaha! Minnehaha!"

All day long roved Hiawatha

In that melancholy forest,

Through the shadow of whose thickets,

In the pleasant days of Summer,

Of that ne'er forgotten Summer,

He had brought his young wife homeward

From the land of the Dacotahs;

When the birds sang in the thickets,

And the streamlets laughed and glistened,

And the air was full of fragrance,

And the lovely Laughing Water

Said with voice that did not tremble,

"I will follow you, my husband!"

In the wigwam with Nokomis,

With those gloomy guests that watched her,

With the Famine and the Fever,

She was lying, the Beloved,

She, the dying Minnehaha.

"Hark!" she said; "I hear a rushing,

Hear a roaring and a rushing,

Hear the Falls of Minnehaha

Calling to me from a distance!"

"No, my child!" said old Nokomis,

"`T is the night-wind in the pine-trees!"

"Look!" she said; "I see my father

Standing lonely at his doorway,

Beckoning to me from his wigwam

In the land of the Dacotahs!"

"No, my child!" said old Nokomis.

"`T is the smoke, that waves and beckons!"

"Ah!" said she, "the eyes of Pauguk

Glare upon me in the darkness,

I can feel his icy fingers

Clasping mine amid the darkness!

Hiawatha! Hiawatha!"

And the desolate Hiawatha,

Far away amid the forest,

Miles away among the mountains,

Heard that sudden cry of anguish,

Heard the voice of Minnehaha

Calling to him in the darkness,

"Hiawatha! Hiawatha!"

Over snow-fields waste and pathless,

Under snow-encumbered branches,

Homeward hurried Hiawatha,

Empty-handed, heavy-hearted,

Heard Nokomis moaning, wailing:

"Wahonowin! Wahonowin!

Would that I had perished for you,

Would that I were dead as you are!

Wahonowin! Wahonowin!"

And he rushed into the wigwam,

Saw the old Nokomis slowly

Rocking to and fro and moaning,

Saw his lovely Minnehaha

Lying dead and cold before him,

And his bursting heart within him

Uttered such a cry of anguish,

That the forest moaned and shuddered,

That the very stars in heaven

Shook and trembled with his anguish.

Then he sat down, still and speechless,

On the bed of Minnehaha,

At the feet of Laughing Water,

At those willing feet, that never

More would lightly run to meet him,

Never more would lightly follow.

With both hands his face he covered,

Seven long days and nights he sat there,

As if in a swoon he sat there,

Speechless, motionless, unconscious

Of the daylight or the darkness.

Then they buried Minnehaha;

In the snow a grave they made her

In the forest deep and darksome

Underneath the moaning hemlocks;

Clothed her in her richest garments

Wrapped her in her robes of ermine,

Covered her with snow, like ermine;

Thus they buried Minnehaha.

And at night a fire was lighted,

On her grave four times was kindled,

For her soul upon its journey

To the Islands of the Blessed.

From his doorway Hiawatha

Saw it burning In the forest,

Lighting up the gloomy hemlocks;

From his sleepless bed uprising,

From the bed of Minnehaha,

Stood and watched it at the doorway,

That it might not be extinguished,

Might not leave her in the darkness.

"Farewell!" said he, "Minnehaha!

Farewell, O my Laughing Water!

All my heart is buried with you,

All my thoughts go onward with you!

Come not back again to labor,

Come not back again to suffer,

Where the Famine and the Fever

Wear the heart and waste the body.

Soon my task will be completed,

Soon your footsteps I shall follow

To the Islands of the Blessed,

To the Kingdom of Ponemah,

To the Land of the Hereafter!"

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 1240