III
HOW THE MASTODON HAPPENED FIRST TO BELONG TO A MAN, AS TOLD BY ARRUMPA
"In my time, everything, even the shape of the land was different. FromTwo Rivers it was all marsh, marsh and swamp with squidgy islands, withswamp and marsh again till you came to hills and hard land, beyond whichwas the sea. Nothing grew then but cane and coarse grass, and the waterrotting the land until there was no knowing where it was safe treadingfrom year to year. Not that it mattered to my people. We kept to thehills where there was plenty of good browse, and left the swamp to theGrass-Eaters--bunt-headed, woolly-haired eaters of grass!"
Up came Arrumpa's trunk to trumpet his contempt, and out from thehillslope like a picture on a screen stretched for a moment the flatreed-bed of Two Rivers, with great herds of silly, elephant-lookingcreatures feeding there, with huge incurving trunks and backs thatsloped absurdly from a high fore-hump. They rootled in the tall grass orshouldered in long, snaky lines through the canes, theirtrunks waggling.
"Mammoths they were called," said Arrumpa, "and they hid in the swampbecause their tusks curved in and they were afraid of Saber-Tooth, theTiger. There were a great many of them, though not so many as ourpeople, and also there was Man. It was the year my tusks began to growthat I first saw him. We were coming up from the river to thebedding-ground and there was a thin rim of the moon like a tusk over thehill's shoulder. I remember the damp smell of the earth and the goodsmell of the browse after the sun goes down, and between them a thinblue mist curling with a stinging smell that made prickles come alongthe back of my neck.
"'What is that?' I said, for I walked yet with my mother.
"'It is the smell which Man makes so that other people may know where heis and keep away from him,' she said, for my mother had never beenfriends with Man and she did not know any better.
"Then we came up over the ridge and saw them, about a score, naked anddancing on the naked front of the hill. They had a fire in their midstfrom which the blue smell went up, and as they danced they sang--
"'Hail, moon, young moon!Hail, hail, young moon!Bring me something that I wish,Hail, moon, hail!'
"--catching up fire-sticks in their hands and tossing them toward thetusk of the moon. That was how they made the moon grow, by working fireinto it, so my man told me afterwards. But it was not until I began towalk by myself that he found me.
"I had come up from the lower hills all one day," said the Mastodon."There was a feel in the air as if the Great Cold had breathed into it.It curdled blue as pond water, and under the blueness the forest colorshowed like weed under water. I walked by myself and did not care whoheard me. Now and then I tore up a young tree, for my tusks had grownfast that year and it was good to feel the tree tug at its roots andstruggle with me. Farther up, the wind walked on the dry leaves with asound like a thousand wapiti trooping down the mountain. Every littlewhile, for want of something to do, I charged it. Then I carried a pine,which I had torn up, on my tusks, until the butt struck a boulder whichwent down the hill with an avalanche of small stones that set all theechoes shouting.
"In the midst of it I lifted up my voice and said that I was I, Arrumpa,walking by myself,--and just then a dart struck me. The men had come upunder cover of the wind on either side so that there was nothing for meto do but to move forward, which I did, somewhat hurriedly.
"I had not come to my full size then, but I was a good weight for myyears," said Arrumpa modestly,--"a very good weight, and it was myweight that saved me, for the edge of the ravine that opened suddenly infront of me crumbled, so that I came down into the bottom of it with agreat mass of rubbish and broken stone, with a twisted knee, and verymuch astonished.
"I remember blowing to get the blood and dust out of my eyes,--there wasa dart stuck in my forehead,--and seeing the men come swarming over theedge of the ravine, which was all walled in on every side, shaking theirspears and singing. That was the way with men; whatever they did theyhad to sing about it. 'Ha-ahe-ah!' they sang--
"'Great Chief, you're about to die,The Gods have said it.'
"So they came capering, but there was blood in my eyes and my knee hurtme, so when one of them stuck his spear almost up to the haft in myside, I tossed him. I took him up lightly on my tusks and he lay stillat the far end of the ravine where I had dropped him. That stopped theshouting; but it broke out again suddenly, for the women had come downthe wild vines on the walls, with their young on their shoulders, andthe wife of the man I had tossed found him. The noise of the hunters wasas nothing to the noise she made at me. Madness overtook her; she leftoff howling over her man and seizing her son by the hand,--he was nomore than half-grown, not up to my shoulder,--she pushed him in front ofme. 'Take him! Take my son, Man-Killer!' she screamed. 'After you havetaken the best of the tribe, will you stop at a youngling?' Then all theothers screeched at her like gulls frightened from their rock, andstopped silent in great fear to see what I would do about it.
"I did not know what to do, for there was no way I could tell her I wassorry I had killed her husband; and the lad stood where she had pushedhim, not making any noise at all but a sharp, steady breathing. So Itook him up in my trunk, for, indeed, I did not know what to do, and asI held him at the level of my eyes, I saw a strange thing,--that the boywas not afraid. He was not in the least afraid, but very angry.
"'I hate you, Arrumpa,' he said, 'because you have killed my father. Iam too little to kill you for it now, but when I am a man I shall killyou.' He struck me with his fists. 'Put me down, Man-Killer!'
"So I put him down. What else was there to do? And there was a sensationin my breast, a sensation as of bending the knees and bowing theneck--not at all unpleasant--He stood where I placed him, between mytusks, and one of the hunters, who was a man in authority, called out tohim to come away while they killed me.
"'That you shall not,' said my manling, 'for he has killed my father,therefore he is mine to kill according to the custom of killing.'
"Then the man was angry.
"'Come away, little fool,' he said. 'He is our meat. Have we notfollowed him for three days and trapped him?'
"The boy looked at him under his brows, drawn level.
"'That was my father's spear that stuck in him, Opata,' he said.
"Now, as the man spoke, I began to see what they had done to me thesethree days, for there was no way out of the ravine, and the women hadbrought their fleshing-knives and baskets: but the boy was quicker eventhan my anger. He reached up a hand to either of my tusks,--he couldbarely lay hands on them,--and his voice shook, though I do not think itwas with anger. 'He is mine to kill,' he said, 'according to custom. Heis my Arrumpa, and I call the tribe to witness. Not one of you shall layhands on him until one of us has killed the other.'
"Then I lifted up my trunk over him, for my heart swelled against thehunters, and I gave voice as a bull should when he walks by himself.
"'Arr-rr-ump!' I said. And the people were all silent with astonishment.
"Finally the man who had first spoken, spoke again, very humbly, 'GreatChief, give us leave to take away your father.' So we gave them leave.They took the hurt man--his back was broken--away by the vine ladders,and my young man went and lay face down where his father had lain, andshook with many strange noises while water came out of his eyes. When hesat up at last and saw me blowing dust on the spear-cut in my side tostop the bleeding, he gathered broad leaves, dipped them in pine gum,and laid them on the cut. Then I blew dust on these, and seeing that Iwas more comfortable, Taku-Wakin--that was what I learned to callhim--saluted with both hands to his head, palms outward. 'Friend,' hesaid,--'for if you are not my friend I think I have not one other in theworld,--besides, I am too little to kill you,--I go to bury my father.'
"For three days I bathed my knee in the spring, and saw faces come topeer about the edge of it and heard the beat of the village drums. Thethird day my young man came, wearing his father's collar of bear'steeth, with neither fire-stick nor food nor weapon upon him. "'Now I amall the man my
mother has,' he said; 'I must do what is necessary tobecome a tribesman.'
"I did not know then what he meant, but it seems it was a custom."
All the Indians in the group that had gathered about the Mastodon,nodded at this.
"It was so in my time," said the Mound-Builder. "When a youth has cometo the age where he is counted a man, he goes apart and neither eats nordrinks until, in the shape of some living thing, the Great Mystery hasrevealed itself to him.
"It was so he explained it to me," agreed Arrumpa; "and for three dayshe ate and drank nothing, but walked by himself talking to his god.Other times he would talk to me, scratching my hurts and taking theticks out of my ears, until--I do not know what it was, but between meand Taku-Wakin it happened that we understood, each of us, what theother was thinking in his heart as well as if we had words--Is this alsoa custom?"
A look of intelligence passed between the members of his audience.
"Once to every man," said an Indian who leaned against Moke-icha'sboulder, "when he shuts all thought of killing out of his heart andgives himself to the beast as to a brother, knowledge which is differentfrom the knowledge of the chase comes to both of them.
"Oh," said Oliver, "I had a dog once--" But he became very muchembarrassed when he discovered that he had drawn the attention of thecompany. It had always been difficult for him to explain why it was hehad felt so certain that his dog and he had always known what the otherwas thinking; but the Indians and the animals understood him.
"All this Taku explained to me," went on Arrumpa. "The fourth day, whenTaku fainted for lack of food, I cradled him in my tusks and was greatlytroubled. At last I laid him on the fresh grass by the spring and blewwater on him. Then he sat up laughing and spluttering, but faintly.
"'Now am I twice a fool,' he said, 'not to know from the first that youare my Medicine, the voice of the Mystery.'
"Then he shouted for his mother, who came down from the top of theravine, very timidly, and fed him.
"After that he would come to me every day, sometimes with a bough ofwild apples or a basket of acorns, and I would set him on my neck so hecould scratch between my ears and tell me all his troubles. His father,he said, had been a strong man who put himself at the head of the fivechiefs of the tribe and persuaded them to leave off fighting one anotherand band together against the enemy tribes. Opata, the man who hadwished to kill me, was the man likeliest to be made High Chief in hisfather's place.
"'And then my bad days will begin,' said Taku-Wakin, 'for he hates mefor my father's sake, and also a little for yours, Old Two-Tails, and hewill persuade the Council to give my mother to another man and I shallbe made subject to him. Worse,' he said,--'the Great Plan of my fatherwill come to nothing.'
"He was always talking about this Great Plan and fretting over it, but Iwas too new to the customs of men to ask what he meant by it.
"'If I had but a Sign,' he said, 'then they would give me my father'splace in the Council ... but I am too little, and I have not yet killedanything worth mentioning.'
"So he would sit on my neck and drum with his heels while he thought,and there did not seem to be anything I could do about it. By this timemy knee was quite well. I had eaten all the brush in the ravine and wasbeginning to be lonely. Taku wasn't able to visit me so often, for hehad his mother and young brothers to kill for.
"So one night when the moon came walking red on the trail of the day,far down by Two Rivers I heard some of my friends trumpeting; thereforeI pulled down young trees along the sides of the ravine, with greatlumps of earth, and battered the rotten cliffs until they crumbled in aheap by which I scrambled up again.
"I must have traveled a quarter of the moon's course before I heard thepatter of bare feet in the trail and a voice calling:--
"'Up! Take me up, Arrumpa!'
"So I took him up, quite spent with running, and yet not so worn out butthat he could smack me soundly between the eyes, as no doubt I deserved.
"'Beast of a bad heart,' he said, 'did I not tell you that to-morrow themoon is full and the Five Chiefs hold Council?' So he had, but my thickwits had made nothing of it. 'If you leave me this night,' said Taku,'then they will say that my Medicine has left me and my father's placewill be given to Opata.'
"'Little Chief,' I said, 'I did not know that you had need of me, but itcame into my head that I also had need of my own people. Besides, thebrush is eaten.'
"'True, true!' he said, and drummed on my forehead. 'Take me home,' hesaid at last, 'for I have followed you half the night, and I must notseem wearied at the Council.'
"So I took him back as far as the Arch Rock which springs high over thetrail by which the men of Taku's village went out to the hunting. Therewas a cleft under the wing of the Arch, close to the cliff, and everyman going out to the hunt threw a dart at it, as an omen. If it stuck,the omen was good, but if the point of the dart broke against the faceof the cliff and fell back, the hunter returned to his hut, and if hehunted at all that day, he went out in another direction. We could seethe shafts of the darts fast in the cleft, bristling in the moonlight.
"'Wait here, under the Arch,' said Taku-Wakin, 'till I see if the arrowof my thought finds a cleft to stick into.'
"So we waited, watching the white, webby moons of the spiders, wet inthe grass, and the man huts sleeping on the hill, and felt the Dawn'sbreath pricking the skin of our shoulders. The huts were mere heaps ofbrush like rats' nests.
"'Shall I walk on the huts for a sign, Little Chief?' said I.
"'Not that, Old Hilltop,' he laughed; 'there are people under the huts,and what good is a Sign without people?'
"Then he told me how his father had become great by thinking, not forhis own clan alone, but for all the people--it was because of the longreach of his power that they called him Long-Hand. Now that he was gonethere would be nothing but quarrels and petty jealousies. 'They willhunt the same grounds twice over,' said Taku-Wakin; 'they will kill oneanother when they should be killing their enemies, and in the end theGreat Cold will get them.'
"Every year the Great Cold crept nearer. Itcame like a strong arm and pressed the people west and south so that thetribes bore hard on one another.
"'Since old time,' said Taku-Wakin, 'my people have been sea people. Butthe People of the Great Cold came down along the ice-rim and cut themoff from it. My father had a plan to get to the sea, and a Talking Stickwhich he was teaching me to understand, but I cannot find it in any ofthe places where he used to hide it. If I had the Stick I think theywould make me chief in my father's place. But if Opata is made chief,then I must give it to him if I find it, and Opata will have all theglory. If I had but a Sign to keep them from making Opata chief...' Sohe drummed on my head with his heels while I leaned against the ArchRock--oh, yes, I can sleep very comfortably, standing--and the moon sliddown the hill until it shone clear under the rock and touched thefeathered butts of the arrows. Then Taku woke me.
"'Up, put me up, Arrumpa! For now I have thought of a Sign that even theFive Chiefs will have respect for.'
"So I put him up until his foot caught in the cleft of the rock and hepried out five of the arrows.
"'Arrows of the Five Chiefs,' he said,--'that the chiefs gave to thegods to keep, and the gods have given to me again!'
"That was the way always with Taku-Wakin, he kept all the god customs ofthe people, but he never doubted, when he had found what he wanted todo, that the gods would be on his side. He showed me how every arrow wasa little different from the others in the way the blood drain was cut orthe shaft feathered.
"'No fear,' he said. 'Every man will know his own when I come to theCouncil.'
"He hugged the arrows to his breast and laughed over them, so I huggedhim with my trunk, and we agreed that once in every full moon I was tocome to Burnt Woods, and wait until he called me with something that hetook from his girdle and twirled on a thong. I do not know what it wascalled, but it had a voice like young thunder.
"Like this?" The Mound-Builder cut the air
with an oddly shaped bit ofwood swung on an arm's-length of string, once lightly, like a covey ofquail rising, and then loud like a wind in the full-branched forest.
"Just such another. Thrice he swung it so that I might not mistake thesound, and that was the last I saw of him, hugging his five arrows, withthe moon gone pale like a meal-cake, and the tame wolves that skulkbetween the huts for scraps, slinking off as he spoke to them."
"And did they--the Five Chiefs, I mean--have respect for his arrows?"Dorcas Jane wondered.
"So he told me. They came from all the nine villages and sat in acouncil ring, each with the elders of his village behind him, and infront his favorite weapon, tied with eagle feathers for enemies he hadslain, and red marks for battles, and other signs and trophies. At thehead of the circle there was the spear of Long-Hand, and a place leftfor the one who should be elected to sit in it. But before the Councilhad time to begin, came Taku-Wakin with his arms folded--though he toldme it was to hide how his heart jumped in his bosom--and took hisfather's seat. Around the ring of the chiefs and elders ran a growl likethe circling of thunder in sultry weather, and immediately it was turnedinto coughing; every man trying to eat his own exclamation, for, as hesat, Taku laid out, in place of a trophy, the five arrows.
"'Do we sit at a game of knuckle-bone?' said Opata at last, 'or is thisa Council of the Elders?'
"'Game or Council,' said Taku-Wakin, 'I sit in my father's place until Ihave a Sign from him whom he will have to sit there.'"
"But I don't understand--" began Oliver, looking about the circle oflistening Indians. "His father was dead, wasn't he?"
"What is 'dead'?" said the Lenni-Lenape; "Indians do not know. Ourfriends go out of their bodies; where? Into another--or into a beast?When I was still strapped in my basket my father set me on a bear thathe had killed and prayed that the bear's cunning and strength shouldpass into me. Taku-Wakin's people thought that the heart of Long-Handmight have gone into the Mastodon."
"Why not?" agreed Arrumpa gravely. "I remember that Taku would call meFather at times, and--if he was very fond of me--Grandfather. But all hewanted at that tune was to keep Opata from being elected in his father'splace, and Opata, who understood this perfectly, was very angry.
"'It is the custom,' he said, 'when a chief sleeps in the HighPlaces,'--he meant the hilltops where they left their dead on poles ortied to the tree branches,--'that we elect another to his place inthe Council.'
"'Also it is a custom,' said Taku-Wakin, 'to bring the token of hisgreat exploit into Council and quicken the heart by hearing of it. Youhave heard, O Chiefs," he said, "that my people had a plan for the goodof the people, and it has come to me in my heart that that plan wasstronger in him than death. For he was a man who finished what he hadbegun, and it may be that he is long-handed enough to reach back fromthe place where he has gone. And this is a Sign to me, that he has takenhis cut stick, which had the secret of his plan, with him.'
"Taku-Wakin fiddled with the arrows, laying them straight, hardly daringto look up at Opata, for if the chief had his father's cut stick, nowwould be the time that he would show it. Out of the tail of his eye hecould see that the rest of the Council were startled. That was the waywith men. Me they would trap, and take the skin of Saber-Tooth to wraptheir cubs in, but at the hint of a Sign, or an old custom slighted,they would grow suddenly afraid. Then Taku looked up and saw Opatastroking his face with his hand to hide what he was thinking. He was nofool, and he saw that if the election was pressed, Taku-Wakin, boy as hewas, would sit in his father's place because of the five arrows.Taku-Wakin stood up and stretched out his hand to the Council.
"'Is it agreed, O Chiefs, that you keep my father's place until there isa Sign?'--and a deep _Hu-huh_ ran all about the circle. It was signenough for them that the son of Long-Hand played unhurt with arrows thathad been given to the gods. Taku stretched his hand to Opata, 'Is itagreed, O Chief?'
"'So long as the tribe comes to no harm,' said Opata, making the best ofa bad business. 'It shall be kept until Long-Hand or his Talking Rodcomes back to us.'
"'And,' said Taku-Wakin to me, 'whether Opata or I first sits in it,depends on which one of us can first produce a Sign.'"
TAKU AND ARRUMPA.]