Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

when with much solemnity he informed them that he had seen four beautiful young men, who had been sent from heaven by the Great Spirit, and who thus addressed him: "The Great Spirit is angry with you, and with all the red men; and unless you refrain from drunkenness, lying, and stealing, and turn yourselves to him, you shall never enter the beautiful place which we will now shew you." He stated that he was then conducted by these young men to the gate of heaven, which was opened, but he was not allowed to enter; that it was more beautiful than any thing which he could describe or they conceive; that the inhabitants appeared to be in a state of the most perfect happiness; that he was suffered to remain there three or four hours, and was then reconducted by the same young men, who, on taking their leave, promised they would visit him early, and commanded him to inform all other Indians of what he had seen and heard. He immediately visited the different tribes in the western states, with the exception of the Oneidas. They all put the most implicit faith in what he told them, and revered him as a prophet. The consequences were most providential; his tribe, from being filthy, lazy, and drunken, became a cleanly, industrious, sober, and happy people. The prophet asserted that he annually received those heavenly visitations, immediately after each of which he visited the tribes in person; and it was during one of those annual pilgrimages that he died. He was called "the Prophet of Peace," in contradistinction to a brother of their ferocious chief Tecumseh, who was designated as "the Prophet of War." Many of the Indians, however, consider the zeal of the missionaries as misplaced, and complain loudly on the subject.-On the approach of the late war between Great Britain and the United States, a formal "talk" was held before American commissioners, when Hauanossa, their orator, thus announced the determination of the tribes, and took this no impolitic opportunity to state their grievances on that subject.

"Brothers, we return thanks to the Great Spirit for the many favours he has bestowed on us, and we hope he will continue to cherish his children with his blessings. We rejoice that he has permitted us to meet you here to-day in friendship and in peace. We wish you to consider well what we are going to say to you; for we speak from the very bottom of our hearts, and not from the ends of our tongues, and we wish you to do the same. Brothers, we have been told that the King over the great waters has greatly injured our white brethren of the great council fires, and that war will soon take place. We have heard also that the supporters of this King are persuading our red brethren to join him, and to raise the tomahawk against the white brethren amongst whom we reside. We are told that he is endeavouring to win them by presents and by promises. Brothers, we do solemnly assure you that the agents of this King shall never succeed in destroying our affections for you.

We wish to live retired. Our highest ambition is to cultivate

our corn-fields in peace. War is our detestation. Our fathers have told us its dreadful evils. We well know that nothing is to be gained by spilling the blood of our fellow creatures, and our children are as dear to us as your children are to you. We value also our property, and by war we know we should lose it. Already, we are told, have the forces of the Prophet* made an attack on our white brethren towards the setting-sun. From our hearts we declare to you we shall not espouse his cause. We will never join his forces, or wield the tomahawk at the bidding of the King who lives beyond the waters. Brothers, we are not the terrible beings you have conceived us to be. We do not thirst for blood. We are men, and are clothed in the feelings of humanity. Let your women and your children sleep in quiet, and tell the white man that our wish is peace. Brothers, we have a complaint to make to you. Certain white men often come amongst us for the purpose of inducing us to kneel before their altars. They come to shake that faith which the Great Spirit has breathed into our souls, which is our greatest comfort and worldly consolation. Now, our religion is as dear to us as the religion of the white man is to him. Why then should they obstinately come amongst us. They tend not only to destroy our hopes of a future life, but to throw us into religious parties and confusion. We formerly stated this to the great father of the white people. We were admitted into his presence. We were pleased to find that he condemned the practice. He knew as well as we did that our red brethren had never prospered in their conversion to the religious faith of the white people. Brothers, we are happy to inform you that the resolution we adopted some years ago, to abolish the use of strong liquors, has not yet been violated. We wish we could say the same thing of our red brethren of the Buffaloe village. We are sorry to say that a barrel of whiskey is the god they worship. Brothers, we have another complaint to make to you: our white brethren often come and carry away our timber; and last year they cut down more than they did in all the years preceding! Once we owned the whole country-the great forest was our own:-the whites have taken part of it-the remainder is still ours; and is not property as dear to the red man and the red man's child as it is to white men? Brothers, make your laws known to them, and punish them. Make this talk known to all the white men, wherever they may be; and tell them, to live in harmony and peace is the wish of the heart and the tribe of Hauanossa."

Infinitely, however, the most simple, soul-stirring, energetic speech, in the annals of Indian eloquence, is the well-known speech of Logan, the celebrated Shawanee chieftain.+

Nothing more reconciles the spirits of savage life to its close than the probability of a splendid funeral. For this they will endure almost any privation; and even at this day, in the remote parts of Ireland, the scanty savings of laborious poverty are not unfrequently left by will to provide the wretched peasant

The brother of Tecumseh, before referred to. † Vide the Notes to " Gertrude of Wyoming."

the posthumous reputation of a merry wake and well-attended burial. The opinion of the North American Indians upon this subject is strikingly exemplified by the following oration, delivered by a chief of the Teton tribe, over the body of "Black Buffaloe," the flower of the warriors, who had died, at a conference held with the Americans at Portage de Sioux. It is pathetic in the extreme, and glows with a manly though mournful energy.

"Warriors, do not grieve; misfortunes will happen to the best of men. Death will come, and always comes out of season. It is the command of the Great Spirit, and all nations and people must obey. What is past and cannot be prevented should not be grieved for. Be not discouraged then, that in visiting your father here, you have lost your chief. Misfortunes are not peculiar to our path-they grow every where. What a misfortune for me that I did not die to-day instead of him who lies before us. My trifling loss would have been doubly repaid by the glories of my burial. They would have wiped away all tears. Instead of being covered with the cloud of sorrow, my warriors would have felt the sunshine of joy in their hearts. Hereafter when I die, instead of a noble grave and a grand procession, the rolling music and the thundering cannon, with a white flag waving at my head, I shall be wrapt in a robe and hoisted on a scaffold to the whistling winds, soon to be blown to the earth-my flesh to be devoured by wolves, and my bones rattled on the plains by the wild beasts of prey! (Addressing himself to Colonel Miller) Chief of the warriors, your labours have not been in vain-they shall not be forgotten-my nation shall hear of your honour to the dead. When I return, I will echo the sound of your guns."

There appears to us to be a very beautiful simplicity in the foregoing words; but by far the most pathetic of the Indian complaints are those addressed to the tribes, upon the daily encroachment of the white men on their villages. We seldom recollect reading any thing more affecting than the reproaches of Scauaudo, the old Oneida chieftain and convert, upon the discovery that their lands and improvements had been sold to the States, by the intrigue, as he imagined, of the white men. Scauaudo was then one hundred years of age, and had been blind for a long period before. While he spoke, the tears ran copiously down his cheeks and those of all his people. Even the missionary, who had settled among the Oneidas, could not refrain from the general sympathy excited by the murmurs of the forlorn patriarch. With his words we shall close this commu

nication.

My warriors and my children! hear! it is cruel-it is very cruel—– a heavy burden lies upon my heart! This is a dark day. The clouds are black and heavy over the Oneida nation, and a strong arm is pressing on us, and our hearts are groaning under it. The graves of

our fathers are destroyed, and our children are driven away. Our fires are put out, and our beds removed from under us. The Almighty is angry with us, for we have been very wicked, and therefore it is that his arm does not keep us. Where are the chiefs of the rising-sun? White chiefs now kindle their ancient fires! There no Indian sleeps but those who are sleeping in their graves. My house will soon be like theirs-soon will a white chief kindle his fire upon the hearth of Oneida! Your Scauaudo will soon be no more, and his village no more a village of Indians. The news that came last night by our men from Albany made this day a sick day in Oneida. All our children's hearts are sick, and our eyes rain like the black clouds that roar on the tops of the trees in the wilderness. Long did the loud voice of Scauaudo cry-children, take care, be wise, be straight. His feet were then like the deer's, and his arm like the bear's. He can now only mourn out a few words and be silent, and his voice will soon be heard no more in Oneida. But certainly he will be long in the minds of his children. In white men's land his name has gone far, and will not die. Long has he said to his children-drink no strong waters-it makes you mice for white men, who are cats. Many a meal have they eaten of you. Their mouth is a snare, and their way like the fox. Their lips are sweet, but their heart is bitter. Yet there are good whites and good Indians. Jesus, whom I love, sees all-his great day is coming; he will make straight; he will say to cheating whites and drinking Indians, Begone ye, begone ye, go, go, go. In that day I will rejoice, but, oh, great sorrow is now in my heart that so many of my children mourn. The Great Spirit has looked on, all the while the whites were cheating us, and it will remain in his mind—he is good; my blind eyes he will open. Children, his way is a good way. Hearken, my children, when this news sounds in the council-house towards the setting-sun, and the chiefs of the six nations hearken, and they send to the council by the great lake near the setting-sun, and they cry, make bows and arrows, sharpen the tomahawk, put the chain of friendship with the whites into the ground-warriors, kill, kill. The great chief* at the setting-sun won't kill any of the six nations that go into his land, because they have a chain of friendship with the whites; and he says, the whites have made us wicked like themselves, and that we have sold them our land. We have not sold it; we have been cheated: and my messengers shall speak true words in the great council towards the setting-sun, and say,-yet, bury the tomahawk; Oneidas must be children of peace. Children, some have said that your chiefs signed papers of white men that sold our fires. Your chiefs signed no papers; sooner would they let the tomahawk lay them low. We know one of our men was hired by white men to tell you this, and he will now say so. Papers are wicked things. Take care; sign none of them, but such as our minister reads to us; he is straight. The tears are running from his eyes. Father, dry up your tears. We know, if your arm could, it would help us. You suffer with us; but you are the

The President of the United States.

servant of the Great Spirit, and he will not love you less for loving Indians. Children, our two messengers will run and carry your sorrows to the great council fires beside the setting-sun. Run, my children, and tell our words. Give health to all the chiefs assembled round the great fire. And may the Great Spirit bring you back in safety !"

Two men immediately set off for Buffaloe; but Scauaudo was too true a prophet. In six years afterwards, the fires of his fathers ceased to burn in their village. He had removed himself three miles further into the woods, and the commissioners of the United States were busy laying out their improvements in his deserted or rather usurped inheritance. Scauaudo was blind and bed-ridden; he could not see the sorrows of his children. Alas, in a few years more perhaps this perishable record may be all that remains of the warrior of Oneida. May the arrow which ends his sorrows have its barbs smoothed by the reflection, that his name is not dead among "the white men."

"OUTALISSA."

ON THE COMEDIES OF THOMAS MAY.

THE beauty of old dramatic poetry is now so deeply felt and so widely understood; so many great critics have illustrated and adorned the subject, that it is rare to find a fine play that has not been as finely praised. One writer, nearly the last, of the great dramatic age, has been singularly unfortunate-I allude to Thomas May, the author of two charming tender comedies, "The Heir" and "The Old Couple," whose name I do not remember to have seen mentioned in any notice of the early English drama. Perhaps the nature of his merit may account for this neglect. The remarkable equability of his style is, in this point of view, a real disadvantage. His plays are essentially unquotable; and in spite of the excellence of the plots, the felicity of the situations, the constant grace and harmony of the language, and a certain indescribable charm of tenderness and loving kindness, which breathes through the whole and penetrates like incense, it would be difficult to select any single scene that might seem to justify the impression produced by the entire work. There is high poetry, but it is the poetry of feeling rather than of words; a deep humanity; a strong faith in virtue; an earnest repentence; a zealous atonement; every thing that is sweet, and genial, and soothing; nothing that is striking; little that is fanciful. Thomas May's writings resemble Mr. Macready's acting,

* The Congress.

« AnteriorContinuar »