Historical fiction; King Philip's War, 1675-1676 -- Fiction; War stories
"Chief of my people," she said, encouraged by his still calm and gentle
brow, to proceed, "what a girl of the clearings sees in her dreams, shall
not be hid. It is not the lodges of her race, for the wigwam of her
husband is warmer. It is not the food and clothes of a cunning people, for
who is richer than the wife of a great chief? It is not her fathers
speaking to their Spirit, for there is none stronger than Manitou.
Narra-mattah has forgotten all: she does not wish to think of things like
these. She knows how to hate a hungry and craving race. But she sees one
that the wives of the Narragansetts do not see. She sees a woman with a
white skin; her eye looks softly on her child in her dreams; it is not an
eye, it is a tongue! It says, what does the wife of Conanchet wish?--is
she cold? here are furs--is she hungry? here is venison--is she tired? the
arms of the pale woman open, that an Indian girl may sleep. When there is
silence in the lodges, when Conanchet and his young men lie down, then
does this pale woman speak. Sachem, she does not talk of the battles of
her people, nor of the scalps that her warriors have taken, nor of the
manner in which the Pequots and Mohicans fear her tribe. She does not tell
how a young Narragansett should obey her husband, nor how the women must
keep food in the lodges for the hunters that are wearied; her tongue useth
strange words. It names a Mighty and Just Spirit it telleth of peace, and
not of war; it soundeth as one talking from the clouds; it is like the
falling of the water among rocks. Narra-mattah loves to listen, for the
words seem to her like the Wish-Ton-Wish, when he whistles in the woods."
Conanchet had fastened a look of deep and affectionate interest on the
wild and sweet countenance of the being who stood before him. She had
spoken in that attitude of earnest and natural eloquence that no art can
equal; and when she ceased, he laid a hand, in kind but melancholy
fondness, on the half-inclined and motionless head, as he answered.
"This is the bird of night, singing to its young! The Great Spirit of
thy fathers is angry, that thou livest in the lodge of a Narragansett.
His sight is too cunning to be cheated. He knows that the moccason, and
the wampum, and the robe of fur are liars; he sees the color of the
skin beneath."
"Conanchet, no;" returned the female hurriedly, and with a decision her
timidity did not give reason to expect. "He seeth farther than the skin,
and knoweth the color of the mind. He hath forgotten that one of his girls
is missing."
"It is not so. The eagle of my people was taken into the lodges of the
Pale-faces. He was young, and they taught him to sing with another tongue.
The colors of his feathers were changed, and they thought to cheat the
Manitou. But when the door was open, he spread his wings and flew back to
his nest. It is not so. What hath been done is good and what will be done
is better. Come; there is a straight path before us."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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