Arundel (14 page)

Consequently, when a white man asked an Abenaki sachem to sell property to him the sachem could comprehend the sale of nothing save the right which he himself possessed—the right to hunt and fish on that piece of land, and dwell on it, in company with its other possessors. For that reason the Abenakis, in good faith, showed their kindness to white men by repeatedly selling the same piece of land to different people. There was no dishonesty about it; for there are no people more honest or greater respecters of the rights of others. Until dishonest white men came among them, they hung their beaver and otter skins on racks in the forest, secure in the knowledge that no other Abenaki would ever take them.

That is why the Abenakis have sold, as the saying goes, their choicest tracts for next to nothing—for a keg of powder, or a bottle of rum, or a pair of blue cloth trousers.

Old Mattahannada, an Abenaki sachem of the Kennebec almost a hundred years before I was born, sold a million acres on the lower Kennebec to William Bradford of the Plymouth Company for two kegs of rum and a barrel of bread. Only an idiot could believe that a sachem—a wise man—would be so witless as to sell all the rights on a million acres of land for such a sum. Not even the worst robbers among the traders have been able to trick the Abenakis into selling beaver skins for a lower rate than one blanket for twenty pounds of beaver, one pair of scarlet cloth pantaloons for fifteen pounds of beaver, and one shirt for ten pounds of beaver.

I say again it was not the land that Indians sold, but the right to hunt or fish on the land. Every white man that bought land rights from Indians knew this was so, but persuaded the Indians to sign papers that would make an outright sale of the transaction when brought before a judge.

If the Plymouth Company were still in its full strength and vigor, as in the days when it persuaded Governor Shirley of Massachusetts to build the forts on the Kennebec, I would be less free with my words. It was the heads of the Plymouth Company that persecuted Roger Williams and drove him into the wilderness because he attacked the company and denounced it for robbing the Indians of their land. They were dangerous men, preying on weakness and hiding behind pulpits, and one needed to be wary with them unless he wished to lose his possessions and his good name.

At no time during my life, however, would it have been necessary for me to be wary with the Norridgewocks, even though they are known far and wide as savages, whereas the members of the Plymouth Company are admired as Christian gentlemen.

As we swept around the bend in the river and up to the pleasant point of Norridgewock, there was a movement of reds and blues among the cabins; for the Norridgewock braves, many of them, wear tunics of red or blue cloth except when hunting, having been encouraged in this manner of dress by Father Rale. The women wear mantles of red or blue cloth falling below the knee, and above their moccasins a sort of stocking of white deerskin. Around their heads they bind a light cloth knotted at the back and hanging to the waist or lower, peculiar but becoming, and not common to any other tribe of Indians anywhere.

The sachem of the Norridgewocks, Manatqua, was an old man with no hair, a rare thing among the Abenakis. He had taken from the cheek of a wildcat the piece of skin from which the whiskers sprout, and stuck it to the top of his head with pitch. The gray tuft was divided in three parts, like a scalp-lock, each part decorated with a wampum band and an eagle’s feather. In appearance it was unnatural, and seemingly there was an insecurity about it in Manatqua’s mind, for he dropped his forehead against the heel of his hand from time to time, as if in thought, and fingered the edges of his artificial scalp-lock to assure himself it was still there.

Some twenty of the Norridgewocks came to the river to see us disembark, Manatqua among them, and it seemed to me they proposed to prevent us from landing. They gathered in a half-circle on the pebbly shore and stared at us grimly, with no signs of welcome in their faces. My father drew out his Norridgewock belt and stepped from the canoe, holding the belt toward Manatqua, and said the Abenaki words of greeting—“You are my friend.”

Now the answer to this should be: “Truly, I am your friend!” but Manatqua did not say the words, only felt meditatively of his scalp-lock and said, “We have looked for you during the passage of ten suns,” this being their flowery and pompous way of speaking.

“Cousin,” said my father, continuing to dangle his belt before Manatqua, “I bring you the belt given to me by your people for sending corn when you had neither corn nor skins with which to buy it. Now when I come again with your belt, I am met with sour faces, as though I had poured sand in your sweetened bear’s fat.

“Cousin, I do not need to be a wise man to know that you have talked with the Frenchman Guerlac, and that he has lied to you about me. You have taken the word of a stranger concerning a friend to whom you have given a belt. You have done this without waiting to hear the explanation of the friend. It is not to the honor of Manatqua or the Norridgewock tribe that they should flutter to every wind that blows, like smoke above a wigwam.”

My father stopped and looked around the half-circle of faces, then dropped the wampum belt back into his shirt.

“You,” he said to Manatqua again, “are my friend.”

“Truly,” Manatqua replied grudgingly, “I am your friend, but the French are the brothers of Manatqua and his people. My friend has insulted our brother the French captain and lifted the knife against another brother who went from these lodges to St. Francis, wounding him so sorely that he must lie on his face in pain.”

My father made an impatient gesture. “Cousin,” he said, “the brother from St. Francis was unwilling to sit in your own lodges, and so went to St. Francis. Why, then, do you cry out because I make him unable to sit in a canoe?”

Now the frequency with which the braves from Norridgewock were leaving the tribe and departing for St. Francis was in no way pleasing to the Abenakis who remained behind, even though those who went were usually headstrong and quarrelsome; so there was silence at my father’s words until a squaw at the back of the circle tittered loudly and vainly attempted to cover the titter with a cough.

Manatqua glowered at the titterer, but spoke to us. “Cousins, come to the Long House where we can talk in peace, without the squalling of jays to distract us.”

He set off for the cabins, my father and I with him, while Natawammet and Woromquid and Hobomok carried our canoe to an empty cabin and overturned it above our packs.

My father lost no time. I heard him say to Manatqua: “Cousin, there came a man from Boston to my wigwam some moons ago, wearing fine hair on his head. The hair did not belong to him, yet it seemed to be real. Each morning he put on the hair, holding it to his head with a wafer of wax, and each night he put it off; yet no wind could blow it from him.”

“M’téoulin!”
the sachem cried, fingering his scalp-lock.

“No,” my father said, “it is the habit of the Bostoners to make these things, as they make shirts. If beaver skins should be sent to me by your braves, and you should return to Arundel with me to receive money and paint and shirts in payment, I could send a letter to Boston demanding that hair of this sort be returned for your wearing.”

“Brother,” the sachem asked, “what color is the hair?”

“The color you wish,” my father said. “Black or white; or red, for that matter, unless you desire blue or green.”

The sachem made no answer, but it seemed to me an eager light gleamed in his eye. He despatched a boy to ring the bell on the church, so that the braves might be summoned to a council; and all of us went to the council cabin, which was no larger than the other cabins, but contained more skins to sit on, and smelled more powerfully, though not badly enough to cause more than a heavy feeling in the head. My father had with him a rope of tobacco, and this he gave to Manatqua, who crumbled a part of it into a bowl containing powdered sumach leaves and red willow bark, which makes tobacco more to the taste of the Abenakis, though for my part the odor of the mixture is like a hot shoe pressed against a horse’s hoof.

When the pipe had been smoked Manatqua spoke to my father more amiably.

“You are our friend,” Manatqua said. “This we knew many years ago because of the winter when you gave us corn to replace the seed that was eaten. Also, we know it from our brothers on Swan Island, where you lived among our people and gave good advice. But twelve suns ago this Frenchman came here with eight of our brothers from St. Francis and a small child. He showed us the marks on his braves, and the torn ear and cheek you had inflicted on him without warning. Since we are his brothers in war, he laid upon us the duty of turning you back if you came in pursuit, or of raising the hatchet against you if you persisted in going on. This, he told us, would bring us great rewards from the white chief in Quebec.

“Cousin, you have been our brother in past years, and we cannot raise the hatchet against you. Yet if we do not turn you back we will suffer in two ways. We suffer now from the Bostonnais, who push farther and farther into our lands, building forts and destroying the game, so that we feed ourselves with greater and greater difficulty. If we do not turn you back, then the white chief in Quebec will send war parties against us, or close his lands to us when we have been crowded from these.

“Cousin, you can see empty cabins around you. When last you came among us, they were filled with braves. They have gone to St. Francis to live under the white chief in Quebec, for here they have been robbed of their hunting by your brothers from the south.

“Cousin, these are the thoughts in our minds. Now we will hear your thoughts.”

If I had been skilled in reading faces, I would have known, even before my father began to speak, that there was no anger against him among the Abenakis; for their heads were dropped a little forward and their lips not tightly closed as they looked up at him, showing they listened gladly to his words. But at that time I was too young to know, and so shivered for fear we would not be let to go in pursuit of Mary.

My father wore his Norridgewock belt tied around his arm, so that when he shook his fist at them, which he did to strengthen his statements, their own hieroglyphics of gratitude flashed blue and white and black before them.

“Brothers,” he said, “I have many times heard bitter words on the tongues of the Abenaki people because white men are liars. That is good. I have dealt with you and I have dealt with your brothers on Swan Island, not only in the buying of skins but in the giving of advice, and you know whether or not I am a liar.

“Now the French captain who came among you was a liar. I do not say he was a liar in all things. I do not say he lied to you about his name and about his business, though he may have done even that. Tell me, my brother, how he called himself, so I may know whether he lied in this also.”

“He did not lie,” said Manatqua craftily, “because we asked separately of our brothers from St. Francis who accompanied him. It was as he said. He is Henri Guerlac de Sabrevois, a captain in the regiment of Béarn, a wealthy captain with estates across the water, though he has bought a seigneurie on the Island of Orleans.”

My father shook his head reluctantly. “In this he was no liar, but it is probable he lied about his business.”

“No, no!” Manatqua said. “He pursued an officer of Rogers’ Rangers—may the Weewillmekq’ devour them! We saw the very man. He passed this point at the end of Wikkaikizoos, the moon in which there are heaps of eels on the sand. He stopped to pitch the seams of his canoe; then vanished like the shadow of a cloud. A Mohegan from Stockbridge paddled him in a small canoe, light as a feather.”

My father laughed. “An officer of Rogers’ Rangers! A likely tale! What was he doing here? Hunting the magic pouch of Glooskap?” At his words, his hearers laughed as well; for according to the Abenaki tale, the magic pouch of Glooskap is filled with hundreds of beautiful girls, all eager to overwhelm with love the rash person who releases them.

Manatqua shook his head. “He traveled to Quebec, bearing a letter to the white chief Wolfe from the white chief Amherst at Crown Point. He would have gone by the Richelieu and the St. Lawrence, but that road was blocked by Bourlamaque and his French regiments, who occupied Isle Aux Noix. Therefore he took the other road—from Crown Point to Massachusetts; thence up the Kennebec, over the Height of Land and down the Chaudière.”

My father stared hard at Manatqua. “And Guerlac knew about this officer of Rangers?” he asked incredulously.