THE PHANTOM WOMAN.
Reading edition
THE PHANTOM WOMAN.
A TRADITION OF THE WINNEBAGOES.
The days of Mishikinakwa, or the Little Turtle, were numbered, and the signs made visible of his approaching dissolution. There had been voices calling from the hills in the hour of the silent night, "Come, Mishikinakwa! she waits for thee." The Nant-e-na, or little spirits, which inhabit the earth, and the air, and the fire, and the water, according to their different natures, had all been busy, proclaiming the approaching translation of the chief from the troubles and hardships of this world to the happiness and quiet of another and a better. There were the rattling of their voices in the brook, and their whisperings in the air, and their hissings in the fire and their groanings in the earth. There were the falling of green leaves in the hour of calm, and the whirl of dry ones in the wind, the hoot of the grey owl on the ridge of his cabin, and the cry of the muckawiss in the hollow woods. The Hottuk Ishtohoollo or Holy People(1), with their relations the Nana Ishtohoollo, proclaimed from the clouds the threatened danger to the life of the warrior; while the Nana Ookproose, or accursed beings, howled out the tidings from their dwellings in the far west.
His years were not the years of an aged man; his hair was yet unstained by the frost of tune, his eye yet flashed with the fire of manhood, his step remained strong and steady. Yet, without hunger, without want, without pain, without disease, without a wound, in the prime of life, in the vigour of manhood, beloved by his friends, and feared by his enemies, the pride of the Winnebagoes was seen fast approaching the house of the dead.
None knew why, yet from one fatal day he was seen to droop, as a lily bends before, a fervid sun. From one fatal day his joy forsook him, and his eye became like a troubled water. His laugh had no more the joyousness of his healthful hour; his step was no more light and buoyant; food no more pleased his palate; sleep refreshed him no more. They came and sang the war-song at the door of his cabin, and he suffered them to depart without the answering shout. It was sung in his ears, "The Potowatomies are in in our war-path," but he raised not his head—"The Hurons have the scalp of thy brother's son," and no cry of vengeance burst from his lips. Slowly and gradually he faded away, and the time soon came that he could move no more from his bed of soft grass, but lay in silent expectation of the sound of the voice that calls the spirit home. It was while he was thus laid on the couch of death that he called the tribe around him, and told them why peace had departed from his soul, and why he waited anxiously the moment of his release from the chains of the flesh.
"I launched my canoe," said he, "upon the lake which has given its name to our nation, when the sun was getting low in the latter part of the month of the blooming lilies. Stilness was abroad upon the face of the waters, and the lake lay as calm as a babe rocked to sleep on the breast of its mother. Not the slightest ripple broke upon its surface, which was smooth as a field of ice frozen in a calm. Nothing marred its beauty, save now and then a sportive fish gliding over its bosom, or the swallow skimming along, catching the flies as they rose from the quenching of their thirst. The brown eagle was wheeling in spiral mazes towards his beloved sun, and I heard the chirping of the grasshopper, and the hum of the bee, each carolling away in his light-hearted labour. Afar lay the headlands, jutting into the lake, and the precipitous cliffs which rise over the deeper portion of its waters. Behind me were the smokes of the cabins of my people, and before me the beautiful expanse of the unruffled lake.
"As I brushed my light bark along, I saw, standing on the water at a distance from me, a very beautiful woman. My tongue has not the power to paint the charms of this stately and bright-eyed creature. She was tall, and as straight as a youthful fir, and her eyes shone with such brilliancy, that you could not endure to look upon them, any more than upon the sun, but turned away to contemplate other objects. She was clothed in a garment which glittered in the sun like the sparkling sand of the Spirits' Island[33], and her locks, which were yellow as the beams of that sun falling upon the folds of a cloud, flowed down her beautiful form till they swept the surface of the waters. Filled with sudden love for this beautiful creature, and anxious to secure her to myself, I spread the blanket of friendship to the wind[34], and paddled my canoe towards her. As I came near her, I could perceive a strange alteration in her appearance. Her shape gradually altered, her arms imperceptibly disappeared, her complexion assumed a different hue, her cheek no more glowed with life, her eyes had lost their brilliancy, her before glittering locks glittered no longer, and, when I came to the spot where she stood, I found only a shapeless monument of stone, having a human face and the fins and tail of a fish. For a long time I sat in amazement and uncertainly of purpose, fearing either to approach nearer, or to speak to the once loved, but now fearful object. At length, having made an offering of tobacco to propitiate the spirit, and deprecated its wrath for having dared to love it, I addressed it in these words:
"'Spirit, that wast beautiful but now, and hast only become divested of thy unequalled brilliancy because a poor mortal approaches thee! guardian spirit of our nation! messenger to myself from the Great Spirit! or whatever other name thou bearest, tell me why thou art changed. Why has thy form, but now straight as the fir and scarcely less tall, become crooked and misshapen, and no higher than the oak of two summers? why has thine eye, but now so bright that my own were pained by its brilliance, faded, and become of the lack-lustre colour of stone? And thy garments, which glittered like the folds of a cloud tinged by the beams of the setting sun—why have they partaken of the change? And thy locks, which were yellow and shining as the sparkling sand of the Spirits' Island, why have they become of the hue of the brown moth? Is it because I dared to think thee beautiful—because my heart dared to feel for thee the flame of sudden love! If thine anger hath been aroused at my presumption, forgive me, so thou wearest again the beautiful form that was thine when I first saw thee.'
"Having addressed the beautiful spirit thus, I paused for her reply. It came in tones soft and sweet as the wind of summer lightly sweeping the bosom of a prairie, and these were the words which belonged to them:
"'Mishikinakwa, it is not hatred of thee that makes me refuse to be seen by thee save at a distance, it is not hatred of thee which makes me refuse to re-animate that mass of stone and re-shape it to the proportions thou didst say were so beautiful. Oh no! I have seen thee before, chief of the Winnebagoes, and spirit as I am, have beheld thee with the eyes of love. But the beings which are not of clay are not allowed to associate with flesh and blood. I permitted thee a distant view of my face and form, that if thou thoughtest them worth the pains of death, thou mightst encounter those pains, and thy spirit, divested of its fleshly form, might fly to the arms of thy Light of the Shades, and rove with her through the valley of endless bliss. Choose, then, between me, and a longer stay upon earth—between the pains of a life which must be assailed by woes and sorrows, by continual storm, angry winter, parching thirst, pinching hunger, and chilling nakedness, and the joys which will attend thee when thou art clasped in the arms of her thou lovest, and who will return thy love with equal ardour. Unlike the maidens of the earth, my charms can never fade; never, like theirs, can my love be turned into hatred, or my heart grow cold, or my eyes cease to regard the beloved object with favour. Loving on through all changes, and loving on for ever, thy mind cannot fancy half the bliss which will be thine—mine—ours—if thou darest to die.'
"She ceased speaking, but my pleased ears remained listening long after her gentle voice had died away. And the delighted breeze softly returned from the calm and transparent waters, and the spirit of the echo gently repeated from the neighbouring hills, 'Unlike the maidens of the earth, my charms can never fade; never like theirs can my love be turned into hatred, or my heart grow cold, or my eyes cease to regard the beloved object with favour. Loving on through all changes, and loving on for ever, thy mind cannot fancy half the bliss which will be thine—mine—ours—if thou darest to die.
'Come to me, lover, come! I'll wait thy death, In the evening's breath, On the brow of the mountain, That shadows the fountain, Come, my lover, come! 'Come to me, lover, come! Again will I wear Bright gold in my hair, And my eyes shall be bright As the beam of light. Come, my lover, come! 'Come quick, my lover, come! And thou shall be prest To a faithful breast, And thou shalt be led To a bridal bed. Mishikinakwa, come!'
"Thus called to the shades of happiness by so bright, and beautiful, and beloved, a being, how can I remain on the earth? Since that moment I have wished much to die; every day have I asked the Master of Life to take from me the breath he has given, and permit me to go to the land that holds the spirit of my affianced wife. I loathe the vile chain which binds me from her; I hate all the things I see, for they are all less beautiful than she; and all sounds pain mine ear, for is it not filled with her voice, a hundred times sweeter than aught ever heard on earth? Ha! her voice again! She calls me to her arms! She bids me come and drink of the crystal streams in the land of souls; she bids me come and chase with her the fawn and the kid, to bring her berries from the hills, and flowers from the vales, and to brush with our mingled footsteps, in early morning, the dew from the glades, and to blend in early evening the music of our lips, and the breath of our sighs, by the sides of the grass-wrapt fountain. She bids me come, and be clasped to a faithful breast, and called to a bridal bed. I come, beautiful spirit, to the appointed spot,
To the brow of the mountain, That shadows the fountain.
Put then the bright gold in thy rolling locks, and let thine eyes shine as when I first saw thee. Be again as straight as the young fir, and array thyself in the garment which glittered like the sands of the Spirits' Island."
With a convulsive start, the warrior raised himself upon his couch to an upright posture. Gazing wildly around for a moment, he threw his arms forward, shouting "I come, beloved, I come!" and then falling back he lay a lifeless corpse. And so died Mishikinakwa, the Little Turtle of the Winnebagoes, of love for a phantom woman.
Note.
(1) The Hottuk Ishtohoollo, or Holy People.—p. 273.
Almost every hill and cavern has, in the eye of the Indian, its tutelary deity. The tradition entitled "The Mountain of Little Spirits" is one which paints a genuine belief.
Adair, in his History of the North American Indians, says, "They (viz. the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, &c.) believe the higher regions to be inhabited by good spirits, whom they call Hottuk Ishtohoollo, and Nana Ishtohoollo, 'Holy People,' and relations to the 'Great Holy One?' The Hottuk Ookproose, or Nana Ookproose, 'accursed people,' or 'accursed beings,' they say possess the dark regions of the West; the former attend and favour the virtuous; and the latter in like manner accompany and have power over the vicious. Several warriors have told me," he says, "that their Nana Ishtohoollo, 'concomitant Holy Spirits,' or angels, have forewarned them, as by intuition, of a dangerous ambuscade, which must have been attended with certain death, when they were alone and seemingly out of danger; and, by virtue of the impulse, they immediately darted off, and with extreme difficulty escaped the crafty, pursuing enemy."
All the Northern Indians are very superstitious with respect to the existence of fairies. One of their tribes, the Chepewyans, speak of a race whom they call Nant-e-na, whom they say they frequently see, and who are supposed by them to inhabit the different elements of earth, sea, and air, according to their several qualities. To one or the other of these fairies they usually attribute any change in their circumstances either for better or worse; and, as they are led into this way of thinking entirely by the art of the conjurors, there is no such thing as any general mode of belief; for those jugglers differ so much from each other in their accounts of these beings, that those who believe any thing they say have little to do but change their opinions according to the will and caprice of the conjuror, who is almost daily relating some new whim or extraordinary event.
Every thing which is not easily understood is a spirit. Among the Creek Indians the Whip-poor-will is a spirit; the Jack o' Lantern is the same: and, with regard to the latter, they agree with the remnant of the Massachusett Indians, who believe it is the shape which the Evil Spirit takes in his visits to the sons of men. An old Indian woman, who lived some time as a domestic in my father's family, and was possessed of all the genuine traits of Indian character, was nearly thrown into convulsions by being caught a few rods from the house when one of these meteors made its appearance.
Tonti, in his account of De la Salle's Expedition, says: "They are so extravagant as to believe that every thing in the world has a spirit. It is upon this principle that are grounded all the foolish superstitions of their jugglers or Manitous, who are their priests or magicians."