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diff --git a/35188-h/35188-h.htm b/35188-h/35188-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8ed22cc --- /dev/null +++ b/35188-h/35188-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2832 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Fire Bird, by Gene Stratton-Porter. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 65%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + width: 650px; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 2%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px; width: 18em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin: auto; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin: auto; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fire Bird, by Gene Stratton-Porter + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Fire Bird + +Author: Gene Stratton-Porter + +Illustrator: Gordon Grant + Lee Thayer + +Release Date: February 6, 2011 [EBook #35188] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIRE BIRD *** + + + + +Produced by Chris Curnow, Steve Read and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_cover.jpg" width="296" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + + +<h1>THE FIRE BIRD</h1> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 646px;"> +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/i_001.jpg" width="323" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/i_front_endpaper.jpg" width="323" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> +</div> + + +<hr /> +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/i_002.jpg" width="323" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="figright"> +<div class='bbox'> +<div class='center'> +<br /> +BOOKS BY<br /> +GENE STRATTON-PORTER +<br /> +<br /> +<i>Nature Books</i><br /> +<span class="smcap">The Song of the Cardinal</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Friends in Feathers</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Birds of the Bible</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Music of the Wild</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Moths of the Limberlost</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Morning Face</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Homing With the Birds</span><br /> +<br /> +<i>Nature Stories</i><br /> +<span class="smcap">Freckles</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">A Girl of the Limberlost</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">At the Foot of the Rainbow</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">The Harvester</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Laddie</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Michael O'Halloran</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">A Daughter of the Land</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Her Father's Daughter</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">The Fire Bird</span><br /> +<br /> +</div> +</div> +</div> + + +<hr /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_003.jpg" width="323" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<hr /> +<div class="figright"> +<a name="Frontispiece" id="Frontispiece"></a> +<img src="images/i_004.jpg" width="318" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<div class='center'> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>"<i>Medicine Man, O Medicine Man,</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>Make for me a new, a sure medicine</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>That will ease my scorched heart</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>Of the fire of a flaming red bird</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>And take from my tortured hands</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>Their burden of moon white lilies.</i>"</td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<hr /> +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/i_005.jpg" width="318" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<div class="center"> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<big><b>THE FIRE BIRD</b> +<br /> +<br /> +GENE<br /> +STRATTON-PORTER,</big> +<br /> +<br /> +<small>ILLUSTRATIONS<br /> +BY GORDON GRANT<br /> +<br /> +DECORATIONS BY<br /> +LEE THAYER</small><br /> +<br /> +<small>GARDEN CITY, N. Y., AND TORONTO</small><br /> +DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY<br /> +1922<br /> +</div> + + +<hr /> +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/i_006.jpg" width="318" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class='center'> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY<br /> +GENE STRATTON-PORTER<br /> +<br /> +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION +INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN<br /> +<br /> +<small>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES<br /> +AT<br /> +THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.</small><br /> +<br /> +<i>First Edition</i><br /> +</div> + + +<hr /> +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/i_007.jpg" width="318" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class='center'> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<small>TO</small><br /> +<br /> +EDWARD SHERIFF CURTIS<br /> +<br /> +<small>BLOOD BROTHER TO THE INDIANS BY CEREMONIAL<br /> +SPIRIT BROTHER TO HIS FELLOW MEN BY BIRTH</small><br /> +</div> + +<hr /> +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/i_008.jpg" width="318" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="CONTENTS"> +<caption><b>CONTENTS</b></caption> +<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'> </td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td align='right'><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'>PART I</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Love Dance of Princess Yiada</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'>PART II</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Coüy-oüy and Mountain Lion</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'>PART III</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Yiada's Flight to the Mandanas</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_49">49</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<hr /> +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/i_009.jpg" width="318" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="ILLUSTRATIONS"> +<caption><b>ILLUSTRATIONS</b></caption> +<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Princess Yiada and the Medicine Man</td><td align='left'><a href="#Frontispiece"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td><td align='right'><small>FACING PAGE</small></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Coüy-oüy and Mountain Lion</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Star Face and Dove Eye</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_49">49</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<hr /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_010.jpg" width="318" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> + + +<h1>THE FIRE BIRD</h1> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_011.jpg" width="400" height="179" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + +<h2>PART I</h2> + +<h3>THE LOVE DANCE OF YIADA</h3> + + +<p> +Medicine Man, O Medicine Man,<br /> +Make for me High Magic.<br /> +I, Yiada, daughter of White Wolf,<br /> +Mighty Chief of the Canawacs,<br /> +Mate of Star Face, Brave of the Mandanas,<br /> +I of your blood, I have said it!<br /> +<br /> +From the roots of the white toluache lilies<br /> +Make me a strong medicine<br /> +That will drown my scorching spirit-fire<br /> +And empty my hands of their fulness.<br /> +Beat your sacred turtle drums<br /> +Loud and threateningly.<br /> +Drive back to the fear peopled forest<br /> +Of the far and dread Shadow Land<br /> +The flaming ghost of the fire bird<br /> +And the white flower of the still water.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> +Heal me of the dread head-sickness<br /> +Like the midsummer madness<br /> +Of foaming-mouthed quiota.<br /> +<br /> +I, Yiada, proud daughter of the fierce Canawacs,<br /> +I, mate of the Brave, Star Face,<br /> +Chief of a forest of wigwams,<br /> +With ponies like the sands of the sea, have said it.<br /> +Hear me, for the healing of my sickened spirit!<br /> +<br /> +Where the triumphant blue sea water,<br /> +Sky-gold all day in the slanting sunlight,<br /> +Silver-white in the uncertain moonlight,<br /> +Teases the pale sands of the craggy beaches,<br /> +Lay the lodge of my Father, White Wolf,<br /> +The savage hunter of beast and enemy,<br /> +First at the kill, Chief of great wealth,<br /> +Next in power to the high Sachem,<br /> +Chief of all Chiefs.<br /> +<br /> +Many were the strong sons<br /> +Who sprang from White Wolf's loins—<br /> +I, Yiada, his one daughter, pride of Falcon Eye,<br /> +His daring chieftainess, from the far Mandanas.<br /> +<br /> +Tall our wigwams of deer and bear and elk skins,<br /> +Stout our warm lodges of cedar and pine tree,<br /> +Many our robes of beaver and buffalo and marten,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> +Heavy our necklaces with cunningly carved beads,<br /> +Polished elk teeth and eagle talons,<br /> +Shining black obsidian and precious blue shell;<br /> +Our war ponies flocking like birds fleeing winter.<br /> +<br /> +Always for me, the one daughter,<br /> +The warm spot by the storm fire,<br /> +The floating sweet fat from the cooking kettles,<br /> +The first crusty brown cake<br /> +From the smoking red baking stones,<br /> +The clear flowing gold sweet<br /> +From the tall nests of the wood bees;<br /> +The soft sun coloured robe of down fine doeskin<br /> +Embroidered with broad bands of white beads,<br /> +Luring beads of green, and blue, and yellow,<br /> +The red stained singing quills of the porcupine,<br /> +And downy snow white under feathers<br /> +From the breast of the white swan.<br /> +<br /> +I, first in the picking of the juicy berries<br /> +The fruits of earth and bush,<br /> +Most skilful in the weaving<br /> +Of the bright story baskets,<br /> +Swiftest at embroidering robes of doeskin<br /> +For chieftain or little fatling;<br /> +Leader in the ceremonial dances<br /> +Of the young women of our tribe,<br /> +In the great Assembly Lodge of our people.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span><br /> +I, of slim body, willow smooth, oak strong,<br /> +With thick long hair of crow-back blackness,<br /> +And keen far eyes like the high eagle<br /> +Of the top crag of the cloud country<br /> +Spying in the gold hunting grounds of the sun.<br /> +<br /> +Many the gaily dressed young Braves<br /> +Who nightly crept close our lodges<br /> +And made soft eyes and sang wooing songs,<br /> +When the moon of full womanhood shone on me.<br /> +But always, when she braided ornaments<br /> +In my hair, for dancing,<br /> +And oiled me for high ceremonials,<br /> +In my ear Falcon Eye, my Mother, whispered:<br /> +"Keep your body for Mountain Lion,<br /> +Son of the High Sachem,<br /> +Chief of Chiefs when his Father makes his journey<br /> +To the far country of the Great Spirit."<br /> +<br /> +Mountain Lion was the tallest,<br /> +The strongest of our young men,<br /> +The fastest rider, the most skilful dancer,<br /> +The surest hunter among us,<br /> +The spy who never failed,<br /> +The warrior who always returned in triumph.<br /> +<br /> +Like the young trees of the sea shore<br /> +He was slim and straight.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> +Like the water rolling up the white sands<br /> +He was ever tireless.<br /> +Like the shining of the spirit sun<br /> +He lighted all the day with gold magic;<br /> +Like the kindly silver moon<br /> +He peopled all the night with friendly shadows.<br /> +The heart of every maiden was wingéd<br /> +In the wild breast of her,<br /> +If he but looked where her footsteps led her.<br /> +<br /> +Medicine Man, O Medicine Man,<br /> +Make for me a new, a sure medicine<br /> +That will ease my scorched heart<br /> +Of the fire of a flaming red bird<br /> +And take from my tortured hands<br /> +Their burden of moon white lilies.<br /> +<br /> +In the cool night of the fat, bloody moon of harvest<br /> +When the tribal storehouses were full heaped<br /> +With dried fish and bear, buffalo and deer meat,<br /> +With little mountains of maize for winter;<br /> +When the cakes and candles of yellow tallow<br /> +Were moulded past numbering,<br /> +When the wide-mouthed seed baskets<br /> +Were high heaped with richness,<br /> +And many deep nut baskets were overflowing,<br /> +When the dried berries from far thickets<br /> +Made little sun painted hills—<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> +Then all of the tribe of our hunting grounds<br /> +Bathed their hard worked bodies,<br /> +Oiled their smooth skins, painted their happy faces<br /> +And put on the wealth of their richest robes<br /> +For the Great Dance of Thanksgiving.<br /> +<br /> +When the robins made love chase that season,<br /> +In the secret ceremonial of the wise old women<br /> +My Maiden's Hour had been celebrated.<br /> +<br /> +Always had my proud, savage Mother<br /> +Taken me alone to the forest,<br /> +And there, beating hands and chanting,<br /> +She had carefully taught me<br /> +The Wonder Dance of the Maidens' Hour<br /> +Of the Mandanas, her people.<br /> +<br /> +It was a dance of moonlight and moon madness,<br /> +Of sign love talk, of eyes asking great gifts,<br /> +Of swift feet stamping like the roebuck<br /> +And singing bead and shell trinket music,<br /> +So that all the night was softly lighted<br /> +With strange visions flower sweet.<br /> +<br /> +On the day of the Thanksgiving Ceremonial<br /> +When my Mother oiled me to leaf fine smoothness,<br /> +And hung me heavy with bracelets of bone beads<br /> +And a necklace of precious carved blue shell,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> +As her skilled hands of love flew,<br /> +In my ear she made Canawac talk:<br /> +<br /> +"To-night, before the Great Sachem<br /> +On his high throne of prideful authority,<br /> +With the son who follows him in Council,<br /> +Sitting beside his knee,<br /> +When thou leadest the Thanksgiving Dance<br /> +At the head of the young women<br /> +Thou shalt wave all of them back to their places,<br /> +And alone, before the assembled Chieftains,<br /> +Thou shalt dance the Mating Dance<br /> +Of the rich and powerful Mandanas,<br /> +Ever keeping thine eye of glad submission,<br /> +Fast on the eye of Mountain Lion.<br /> +<br /> +"If the soft light in his eye strike fire for thee,<br /> +Then shalt thou forget all others<br /> +And dance out thy heart for him alone<br /> +And bow low as the young cedar before him,<br /> +And as the serpent charm him.<br /> +If he arise and stand facing thee<br /> +And dance love manifest before thee,<br /> +Then is the hour come for thy union with him.<br /> +<br /> +"Then shall I fly to set up thy wigwam<br /> +Of down-fine doeskin, bleached with love,<br /> +That many suns I have worked on in hiding for thee,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> +And gladly in the sand before it<br /> +Thou shalt set thy lighted candle,<br /> +Thy tall proud candle of gold bear tallow;<br /> +And if he come to thee with soft words<br /> +With words of wooing magic,<br /> +Then shalt thou bury thy candle flame<br /> +In the yielding sands before him.<br /> +<br /> +"Then art thou our Chieftainess in seasons to come,<br /> +And high shall thy sure heart beat<br /> +With pride of love and power,<br /> +And swift shall thy red blood run in leaping streams<br /> +With the flood-high tide of mighty Chieftains.<br /> +<br /> +"Braves shall thy many straight sons be,<br /> +Great Chiefs who shall rule other far nations;<br /> +And sweet shall thy tall strong women be<br /> +As the red honey-flower that grows in the forest,<br /> +And swift shall their hearts be<br /> +As the heart of the frightened fawn<br /> +That leaps with feathered feet before the hunter."<br /> +<br /> +Medicine Man, make me a sure medicine,<br /> +A strong medicine, new to our people,<br /> +That shall ease my weary eyes<br /> +Of a red bird and a white lily.<br /> +<br /> +When the Harvest Ceremonial Dance<br /> +Was cried through all the village,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> +When night crept, silent as the bat's wing,<br /> +From the blanketed heart of the forest,<br /> +When the great Assembly Lodge<br /> +Was lighted and filled with happy faces,<br /> +When the old chiefs and the wise men<br /> +Had spoken thanksgivings for fat harvest,<br /> +And the time was come for all the tribe to rejoice,<br /> +First came the dance of the little stumbling children;<br /> +The little fat bellied round faced serious children,<br /> +With shining black hair and wonder eyes,<br /> +And flower red cheeks and mouths,<br /> +And stout breath like short gusts of North Wind.<br /> +<br /> +When, worn out with swift dances,<br /> +They rolled in their soft blankets,<br /> +Came the shy youths' dance,<br /> +And the uncertain growing maidens'<br /> +All bravely tinkling little necklaces<br /> +Of squirrel and rabbit teeth, and bright rare shells.<br /> +<br /> +Then danced the carefully trained young women,<br /> +Grown and ripe for the Harvest of love.<br /> +In their lead I did as my Mother had told me.<br /> +<br /> +Straight I stood before the Great Sachem<br /> +And the son of the pride of his heart.<br /> +High I lifted my head like a proud pine tree,<br /> +And softly I shook my bracelets of beads<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> +And rattled my necklace of blue shell,<br /> +And rustled the porcupine fringes<br /> +Of my fine robe of yellow,<br /> +In music like the little secret whispering<br /> +Among the dry grass under passing feet.<br /> +<br /> +I spoke as I had always been taught by my Mother:<br /> +"Great Chief, grant that I dance before thee<br /> +The Woman's Love Dance of the brave Mandanas,<br /> +A dance that I have learned<br /> +From the swift feet of my Mother."<br /> +<br /> +Searchingly, the Great Sachem looked at his son<br /> +And his son looked at me with understanding<br /> +And made a swift sign to his Father;<br /> +So raising his hands of authority,<br /> +The Great Sachem cried aloud:<br /> +"Yiada, daughter of Chief White Wolf,<br /> +Will dance the Woman's Dance of the Mandanas,<br /> +Let all others be seated. I have said it!"<br /> +<br /> +Alone, with the blood of heart red on lip and cheek<br /> +And with the pride of my asking heart<br /> +Beating like wings on my light feet,<br /> +With my Mother keeping time for me,<br /> +As she did in the secret forest,<br /> +Slowly I stepped into the great dance<br /> +Of the Mandanas, of the peace lands;<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> +The strongest love medicine<br /> +Ever measured by the feet of wild women.<br /> +<br /> +As I danced, even as my Mother had long told me<br /> +I kept my eyes ever spying<br /> +Deep into the eyes of Mountain Lion.<br /> +When the dance grew to its swiftest wildest note,<br /> +When my proud head of certainty<br /> +And my willing arms were high lifted,<br /> +And the beads and obsidian and blue shell<br /> +Tinkled soft singing, like falling rain,<br /> +Mountain Lion sprang to his feet<br /> +And came down in the firelight before me.<br /> +<br /> +With no knowledge of the dance of the Mandanas,<br /> +And no teaching of step or of posture,<br /> +He fell into the strange measures<br /> +That my Mother had taught me;<br /> +With eyes upon eyes and heart near to heart,<br /> +Facing in the wide fire flaming circle<br /> +Where envious faces kept watch upon us,<br /> +We danced the wonder dance<br /> +Of the hour of full womanhood.<br /> +<br /> +Medicine Man, O Medicine Man,<br /> +Healer of the hearts of the Mandanas,<br /> +There, facing the chiefs and maidens<br /> +Of a thousand lodges of our tribe,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> +With the Great Sachem keenly watching<br /> +On his high throne of great power,<br /> +Darest say that was not my hour<br /> +My rightful moon of exultation?<br /> +<br /> +When I looked, near the close of the dance,<br /> +Toward my Mother for guidance<br /> +She gave me the swift happy sign of birds flying;<br /> +So I caught that joyful sign<br /> +And I gave it to the waiting maidens.<br /> +Like homing swallows they swept around me;<br /> +The young Braves came stamping,<br /> +Like roebucks before the does of Spring,<br /> +Then all of us changed the dance<br /> +To the love measures of the Canawacs.<br /> +<br /> +When the chattering maidens<br /> +Went back to their waiting mothers,<br /> +I stood there tall and straight and proud<br /> +Fresh as the wing of the eagle,<br /> +From the highest peak of dawn<br /> +Eye to eye, face to face with Mountain Lion.<br /> +His eyes burned deep into my eyes<br /> +With a look of quivering power.<br /> +Medicine Man, darest thou say<br /> +That was not the great understanding?<br /> +<br /> +So when all of the others<br /> +Went on with the Dance of Thanksgiving,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> +Soft as the veiling mists<br /> +From the dim breast of evening meadows<br /> +I slipped from the Council House<br /> +And I flew to our lodge.<br /> +<br /> +With hands of high satisfaction<br /> +My Mother set my wigwam beside her lodge.<br /> +I lighted my tall happy candle of bear fat;<br /> +I opened my doorway wide to the friendly moon;<br /> +Deep in the sands I set my love light to burning.<br /> +And there I waited—long and long I waited,<br /> +In burning eagerness of heart<br /> +Tremblingly listening with each breath<br /> +For the sure step of Mountain Lion.<br /> +<br /> +Then, Medicine Man,<br /> +With black angered sign talk<br /> +And fierce eyes of leaping fire,<br /> +Came my storm driven Mother.<br /> +As she came toward me,<br /> +Like a killing wind uprooting the cedars,<br /> +Arose high clamour from the Council Lodge.<br /> +<br /> +She caught up my hopeful waiting candle,<br /> +My living love token to Mountain Lion, my man,<br /> +She buried its flame deep in the white sands,<br /> +In rage she thrust it from her,<br /> +She snatched shut the welcoming doors<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> +Before the eyes of anguish of my Mother<br /> +Of my willing doeskin wigwam,<br /> +And in the harsh low voiced Canawac tongue<br /> +She cried to me in choking anger:<br /> +<br /> +"Woe is upon us! Strangers have reached us.<br /> +Comes a great Chief from tribes of the far North,<br /> +From the camps of the powerful Killimacs,<br /> +From the home fires of the Ice God;<br /> +And with him on a snow white pony<br /> +Rides his beautiful raven haired daughter,<br /> +A tall proud Princess of a great warlike nation.<br /> +<br /> +"This night Mountain Lion will not come to thee:<br /> +His father has sent him to serve the rich strangers.<br /> +Get thee back to thy place in the Council Lodge<br /> +Before the venom tipped finger pointers miss thee,<br /> +For there will be great feasting and much talk,<br /> +The rejoicing will last for many suns and moons.<br /> +It was the wrong time for thy dance of allurement<br /> +Thy maiden proffer of prideful loving,<br /> +But I, thy Mother, taught thee thy undoing,<br /> +I, thy Mother, gave to thee the sign."<br /> +<br /> +Then, Medicine Man,<br /> +As fierce a storm as ever tore the forest,<br /> +As ever pitched the sea high in wild fury,<br /> +Broke in my heart, leaping to flee its lodging place.<br /> +I lifted my head high, and proudly and silently<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> +I stepped into the moon tide,<br /> +But I trembled and shook with all-over sickness,<br /> +My blood ran hot angry gushes,<br /> +And I, who had never known pain<br /> +In any part of my strong body,<br /> +Now felt its rending arrows<br /> +Tearing my heart in sick torture,<br /> +As I crept through the restless whispering forest<br /> +Where the wise old yellow leaves<br /> +Talked over my shame with each other<br /> +And every mocking finger of night<br /> +Pointed in derision at my wounded side.<br /> +<br /> +I crept back to the Council Lodge<br /> +Still as a panther fending for her cubs,<br /> +I slipped in unseen by any,<br /> +And took up my place among the young women.<br /> +On the high throne of power<br /> +Beside our Great Sachem, Storm Wind,<br /> +Sat a tall Chief trailing rich robes<br /> +Of white fox, sealskin, and white bear.<br /> +A proud Chief of savage face,<br /> +Weighted with a heavy necklace of eagles' claws,<br /> +Many elk teeth, and lion talons,<br /> +Hanging across his broad shoulders.<br /> +<br /> +Standing still and straight before them,<br /> +First, I saw the stranger woman.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> +I heard the deep voice of her father,<br /> +Toned to soft talk, as among peace councils,<br /> +When he told the Great Sachem and Chieftains<br /> +And all the watching Canawacs:<br /> +<br /> +"This is my daughter, a Princess of seven tribes,<br /> +She who can run with the foot of the hare,<br /> +Who can dance as the gold birch leaves,<br /> +When spring comes stealing from the Southland;<br /> +Who can guide the swift canoes surely<br /> +And ride the wild ponies on the chase,<br /> +Whose fingers are skilful in basket weaving,<br /> +In beading, and braiding, and polishing ornaments.<br /> +She comes with me to make the friendship<br /> +Of a people of her mother's blood;<br /> +And her name is a name held sacred<br /> +Among all the tribes at peace with us.<br /> +Like music there fell from his smooth tongue<br /> +A name well known to council wise Canawacs,<br /> +'Coüy-oüy'—a breath of sweetness—<br /> +He spoke it like the easy tongue of a lazy brook<br /> +Softly singing among the small stones of its bed.<br /> +<br /> +Then every Canawac remembered the dark days<br /> +When the Great Spirit became justly angered,<br /> +And in the height of his deep wrath<br /> +Against the treachery of all tribes<br /> +Drew up the waters of destruction<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> +Until they covered the earth's face,<br /> +Leaving upon the tallest tree<br /> +Only one Chief and his mate,<br /> +And one pair of every bird and climbing beast,<br /> +On the top of the highest mountain<br /> +Of all the earth known to man.<br /> +<br /> +When the water had come up to the top branches<br /> +Until only their heads were above it,<br /> +And had stood still for three weary suns,<br /> +Then slowly it drew back, and left the earth barren,<br /> +So there was no fire to cook food<br /> +For the hungry Sachem and his mate,<br /> +Nor to warm the water soaked camping grounds.<br /> +<br /> +Then the Sachem sent a beaver messenger<br /> +Far down to the underworld<br /> +To borrow only one coal<br /> +From the campfires of the dark spirits;<br /> +But the beaver was not able to bring it<br /> +For burning his mouth cruelly.<br /> +<br /> +Then he sent the fierce mountain lion,<br /> +Searching all over the earth for campfires,<br /> +But there was no fire to be found,<br /> +For the water had been everywhere.<br /> +<br /> +Then he sent a little gray bird to the spirit world<br /> +To bring from the campfires of the unseen country<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> +One living coal with which to make a fire<br /> +For the cooking kettles and light-signals,<br /> +And to warm the lodges of all the tribes<br /> +That would follow him in suns to come.<br /> +<br /> +So the dauntless little gray bird<br /> +Slowly winged across the far spaces.<br /> +Three suns arose and set, and at the red evening<br /> +When the third sun plunged its face in the sea,<br /> +With all of its plumage burned a flame-tongue red,<br /> +With a beak of red like hot coals<br /> +And its face blackened with fire,<br /> +Came the brave panting bird<br /> +With a living coal held fast in its mouth,<br /> +A coal snatched from the high altars<br /> +Of the far country of the spirits.<br /> +<br /> +And so the fire gift was brought back to earth<br /> +To warm the hearts and the wigwams<br /> +Of every nation, for all seasons to come.<br /> +<br /> +The bird was sent from a stranger tribe<br /> +Far to the south of our hunting grounds,<br /> +Where the hot suns shine and the grass withers;<br /> +But travellers journeying northward to see us,<br /> +Had told our grandfathers about it,<br /> +Had shown us the bird of bloody red beak<br /> +And face still blackened with fire,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> +Singing gaily in our summer forests,<br /> +Singing even in the ice of winter.<br /> +<br /> +Often when we chanted songs of thanksgiving<br /> +To the Great Spirit, for rich gifts,<br /> +When we thanked him for the buffalo and beaver,<br /> +For the deer meat and fish and corn for winter,<br /> +Then our tribes made a ceremonial of glad rejoicing<br /> +For the bird that brought back<br /> +The great wonder gift of fire.<br /> +<br /> +Its sacred name fell on our ears<br /> +Like the peace of the Great Spirit,<br /> +Fell soft as flying snowflakes<br /> +When first squaw winter comes,<br /> +Soft as the hunting wing of the thieving owl,<br /> +Sweet as the breath of flowers in the nesting moon,<br /> +From the lips of the Great Chief: "Coüy-oüy."<br /> +<br /> +Before him, her shining head bowed,<br /> +Our people watched her in silent wonder.<br /> +She was tall, taller than any of our women,<br /> +Tall and slender like the singing wind reeds<br /> +That grow around the magic pool<br /> +Of the white spirit lily of the still water,<br /> +Far back in the valley pastures.<br /> +<br /> +She moved like the night hawk<br /> +Slowly sweeping across the moon sky.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> +From the proud lift of her head<br /> +And the eagle look of her dark eye<br /> +From the red flower flame of her soft lips<br /> +And the sureness of her being,<br /> +I could see that the heart of her<br /> +Was like a wiry little war pony<br /> +Swiftly racing up the steep trail of her breast<br /> +With the hunt blood of the soft chase<br /> +Fevering its questing nostrils.<br /> +<br /> +No woman among our people,<br /> +Had seen the beauty of her robe,<br /> +For she stood in flower white, flower fine doeskin,<br /> +Bleached and tanned like winter snowdrift,<br /> +Like the shining water flower face of far lakes,<br /> +Like the wide wing of a homing white swan,<br /> +Like the silver rays of the big cold hunting moon.<br /> +<br /> +All around her feet fell soft knotted fringes<br /> +Cut deep as the height of the first upstanding<br /> +Of papooses ready to walk.<br /> +And her belt and her neck were deeply embroidered<br /> +With a thousand green stained quills<br /> +From the backs of many porcupines,<br /> +While her long heavy necklace<br /> +Was got from traders crossing far seas,<br /> +For it lay soft dull jade like the green wave meadow<br /> +In the deepest bay of the leaf tinted big sea water.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span><br /> +Medicine Man, O Medicine Man,<br /> +When one looked upon her searchingly,<br /> +As I looked long upon her,<br /> +That night of fat harvest thanksgiving,<br /> +Slowly one saw creeping from her bare arms,<br /> +From her firm high breasts,<br /> +Over the dark gleaming bowed head<br /> +And sure slender shoulders of her,<br /> +A faint waving cloud like fine blue mist<br /> +That could have been none other<br /> +Than the secret power of the Great Spirit,<br /> +Stealing from her breast to wrap around her<br /> +So that any evil spirit magic<br /> +Might not be strong to work against her.<br /> +<br /> +I could see that she was softer<br /> +Than our hard working women,<br /> +Though she had learned from the bee<br /> +To be busy and useful,<br /> +Though she had learned from the hunted fawn<br /> +To travel far journeys in daring wingéd leaps.<br /> +</p> + + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span></p> +<h2>PART II</h2> + +<h3>COÜY-OÜY AND MOUNTAIN LION</h3> + + +<p> +Medicine Man, it were not enough,<br /> +Ha! it were not enough<br /> +That the stranger bore the song name<br /> +Of the fire bird our tribe worshipped;<br /> +For on her breast, sheltered with one slim hand,<br /> +With flaming wings outspread,<br /> +And panting saw-edged beak like fire,<br /> +Lay a brother of the spirit bird,<br /> +Flame red, blood red, feathers like wounds—<br /> +Dead coal black of face;<br /> +A wild thing, sheltered and unafraid.<br /> +<br /> +In her language and with wave smooth sign talk<br /> +She told the Great Sachem and our Chiefs<br /> +That she had found it in the forest<br /> +Wounded from the missed kill of the night bird<br /> +Or bare escaped from the eager claws<br /> +Of the hunger driven wildcat.<br /> +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/033.jpg" width="296" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>"<i>Before the approving eyes of the watching Canawacs</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>Never had there been a sight so fair to see,</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>As when, clinging trustingly to her firm finger,</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>The broken bird fed from her hand of pity.</i>"</td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p><p> +Even as she told how she had found it,<br /> +She folded its wings against its full breast<br /> +And set it upright on her steady finger.<br /> +Medicine Man, it moved not, it fluttered not,<br /> +Though one bleeding wing hung broken.<br /> +<br /> +Where it had lain between her round breasts<br /> +Its red sign stained the front of her white robe,<br /> +The mark of her soft heart of pity.<br /> +<br /> +Medicine Man, the face of the Great Sachem<br /> +Changed slowly as he watched our visitor;<br /> +He looked with understanding upon her,<br /> +He marvelled at the quiet bird.<br /> +The heart of my Father, the White Wolf,<br /> +Grew tender as he studied her.<br /> +<br /> +My own heart lay strange in my tormented breast<br /> +Until swiftly she turned her face from the women<br /> +Ever the grinders of the meal in our jars,<br /> +Ever the curers of the deer meat, and salmon,<br /> +The fillers and the guardians of the storehouses;<br /> +And stretching her hand toward Mountain Lion,<br /> +By strange words and by pretty sign talk<br /> +She asked of him like coaxing birds:<br /> +"Coarse meal and water. Coüy-oüy is hungry."<br /> +<br /> +As a sudden wind bends a tall birch low,<br /> +Willing my man sprang to obey her bidding.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> +Before the approving eyes of the watching Canawacs<br /> +Never had there been a sight so fair to see,<br /> +As when, clinging trustingly to her firm finger,<br /> +The broken bird fed from her hand of pity.<br /> +<br /> +I could see the deep look, the inner trouble,<br /> +The battle in the heart of Mountain Lion,<br /> +When she held the bird toward him<br /> +That it should drink, as do the wounded,<br /> +From the polished mussel shell he had brought.<br /> +<br /> +He looked, not at the broken bird, as we did,<br /> +But far into the eyes of Coüy-oüy,<br /> +The Princess of the Killimacs.<br /> +Medicine Man, was it not a Brave's hour,<br /> +Was it not a Warrior's hour,<br /> +That hour in which I stood unflinching<br /> +And saw her take him from me?<br /> +I, whose heart had possessed him<br /> +Since we shot the play arrows of childhood,<br /> +And together chased the painted wings<br /> +Through the flower fields of the Canawacs.<br /> +<br /> +Then came Prairie Flower,<br /> +Mate of the Great Sachem,<br /> +To lead away the mighty strangers.<br /> +For many suns and as many moons<br /> +We feasted and danced gaily.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> +<br /> +Was I not brave to wear fine robes,<br /> +Nightly to chant boastful songs?<br /> +My breast was torn and bleeding<br /> +As the broken wing of the fire bird,<br /> +Yet many searing times<br /> +At the command of the Great Sachem<br /> +Was I made to smile in the Council Lodge,<br /> +And to dance the Love Dance of the Mandanas;<br /> +That dance that I had learned in secret<br /> +From the flying feet of my Mother,<br /> +Learned only for Mountain Lion,<br /> +For the great ceremonial of love giving.<br /> +<br /> +Medicine Man, Hear me!<br /> +Not again did the eyes of Mountain Lion<br /> +Travel across the Council Lodge<br /> +To seek my eyes in understanding.<br /> +Coüy-oüy had taken his eyes;<br /> +On her face she proudly kept them,<br /> +For he saw nought but the blue mist around her,<br /> +The gleam of her hair, the red bow of her lips.<br /> +He heard nought but the luring music<br /> +Of her echo sweet voice,<br /> +And the happy song of her quilled robe<br /> +As she hourly passed among our people;<br /> +While always clinging to her breast or shoulder<br /> +Proud and fearless as in freedom,<br /> +Rode the sacred wounded bird of blood redness.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> +<br /> +Her father homed in wigwams<br /> +Near the lodge of the Great Sachem,<br /> +Rode his hunting pony on the far chase beside him,<br /> +Sat on high in the councils of our Chieftains.<br /> +<br /> +When the dancing and feasting were over<br /> +It was known through the voices of the criers<br /> +That for many moons our visitors<br /> +Would home beside our campfires,<br /> +Learning of our wisdom from us,<br /> +Teaching, where their customs differed.<br /> +<br /> +The Great Sachem was swift to order,<br /> +The rarest fish from sea or river,<br /> +The juiciest of the small birds<br /> +From the snares of the children,<br /> +The tenderest fawn flesh<br /> +From the arrows of the hunters,<br /> +To be brought for the cooking kettles<br /> +Of the strangers who trusted us.<br /> +<br /> +Every day I watched the slow sun,<br /> +And at night I danced with the maidens,<br /> +But no sleep came to my eyes,<br /> +No hunger came to my body.<br /> +My Mother tempted me with bits as sweet<br /> +As the Sachem had commanded for Coüy-oüy,<br /> +But my parched throat refused them in scorn,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> +My dry tongue found no savour in juicy fatness,<br /> +My hot hands could not place the beads evenly.<br /> +<br /> +Then it was that my Mother came to my wigwam,<br /> +And closing the doorway she stood before me,<br /> +And long and long she looked far into my heart.<br /> +Deep in her eyes there gathered the black fury,<br /> +And a storm like the wildest storm<br /> +That ever twisted the cedars in wrath,<br /> +Raged in her rocking breasts<br /> +And her lightning flashing eyes.<br /> +<br /> +Fiercely in the silent Canawac motion tongue,<br /> +Her look burning into my living spirit,<br /> +She made the sign of the quick kill;<br /> +And turning she slipped like a vision<br /> +From my wigwam of torture.<br /> +As she crept into the mouth of darkness,<br /> +O Medicine Man,<br /> +I knew that she had but made the outward sign<br /> +For the savage inward purpose<br /> +Long hardening in my deepest heart.<br /> +<br /> +The next sun, when our mothers sent the maidens<br /> +With their baskets to the Fall nut gathering,<br /> +I kept ever close beside Coüy-oüy, my enemy,<br /> +And in my breast there flamed fierce anger,<br /> +That she had robbed my heart.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span><br /> + +Always at the door of her wigwam,<br /> +Rocking in the sunshine of each dawning,<br /> +Hung a yellow osier basket woven like a ball,<br /> +With its ribs placed wide enough apart<br /> +To give the gifts of light and air,<br /> +Close enough to prison a flame red bird.<br /> +<br /> +And there, healed of his wounds,<br /> +But forever broken for flight,<br /> +On a twig shaped and placed by Mountain Lion,<br /> +Coüy-oüy, the flame feathered voyager of air,<br /> +Sang a song filled with tears and wailing,<br /> +The cry of a broken bird heart<br /> +Pleading for wings and a mate.<br /> +<br /> +The Great Spirit heard his notes of sorrow,<br /> +But I hardened my heart against the sacred bird;<br /> +For his golden cage had been cunningly wrought<br /> +By hands of such great strength that naked<br /> +They had slain the mountain lion<br /> +And taken its yellow skin for a ceremonial robe,<br /> +Its fierce name for the sign of a great deed.<br /> +<br /> +Now I saw in dazed wonder<br /> +That Mountain Lion had grown papoose hearted.<br /> +He was not leading the hunters in the forest;<br /> +He was not at the head of the fishermen<br /> +Spearing and netting as of old.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> +He had proved his manhood in deadly combat;<br /> +He had won his name by the fiercest fight<br /> +Ever known among any of our warriors;<br /> +But now he chose to lie in his wigwam and dream,<br /> +And I knew what he dreamed, O Medicine Man!<br /> +<br /> +So with soft words and pretty sign talk<br /> +I led his evil spirit to the bright late flower;<br /> +I showed her the little flitting creatures.<br /> +And when I helped her fill her basket<br /> +With sweet nuts that were greatly desired,<br /> +My ear, quick for every sound of menace,<br /> +Marked the thing the softer one did not hear.<br /> +<br /> +By a slender beckoning blue flower,<br /> +I measured the distance,<br /> +And skilfully I led the other nut pickers<br /> +Far away from the spot of danger.<br /> +Then I dared her to race in turn with me<br /> +To leap the long leap across the nut bushes,<br /> +To land at the mark of the sky flower,<br /> +A fair thing to shelter death.<br /> +<br /> +I set down my heaped basket of furry nuts,<br /> +I gathered my robe to my knees and raced swiftly,<br /> +I made the leap to which I challenged her,<br /> +Before her and all of the wondering maidens.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span><br /> + +She followed my footsteps like a rift of white light.<br /> +She rose high in the air over the sweet nut bushes,<br /> +But she had not my strength, not my purpose.<br /> +My leap carried me far over the danger;<br /> +But as I turned quickly to watch her<br /> +I saw her touch earth in smiling confidence,<br /> +At the mark of the waving sky flower.<br /> +<br /> +When she tore away, her eyes wide in danger,<br /> +Dragging her robe from the clinging thicket,<br /> +With greedy eyed, death hungry heart<br /> +I watched her proud face.<br /> +<br /> +The Great Spirit had not pitied me,<br /> +If the curved death serpent had struck at her,<br /> +His awful fangs had missed her soft body.<br /> +O Medicine Man, make me magic for the fire bird,<br /> +Ease my spirit of the snaring water flower.<br /> +<br /> +Many suns I waited in hunger and spirit searching;<br /> +Far and alone I wandered over the meadows,<br /> +Beside the white sand shore of the sea water.<br /> +<br /> +One day I lost from my necklace<br /> +A carved piece of rare blue shell,<br /> +A beautiful heaven tinted shell, a treasure,<br /> +Got from traders from the Islands of the seas<br /> +Far to the south of us—across vast waters;<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> +A big shell so precious among us that only one<br /> +Cost us the weaving of fifty blankets;<br /> +The greatest wealth known to our people.<br /> +<br /> +Slipping unseen from all the others,<br /> +I went alone through a trail of deep forest<br /> +To the back of a far secret cavern I knew,<br /> +Where lay hidden my precious blue shell,<br /> +And I cut one small piece from it,<br /> +For the mending of my necklace.<br /> +When I came back to the sun, O Medicine Man,<br /> +And through the forest followed my trail,<br /> +I heard the rushing thunder footsteps<br /> +And the death growl of Black Bear.<br /> +<br /> +I looked, and I saw at the welcoming cavern mouth,<br /> +Hurrying in from the forest, the bloody killer,<br /> +Mother black bear, gaunt and hard chased,<br /> +With far hanging tongue and foam dripping jaws;<br /> +And behind her, panting and whimpering,<br /> +Her pair of travel worn hungry little children.<br /> +<br /> +Some far tribe had driven her from her home,<br /> +And with her crying small ones following<br /> +She was seeking shelter in my treasure lodge.<br /> +<br /> +I watched her turn and forbid her children to enter;<br /> +Alone, bravely to the inner recesses she went.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> +Her nose must have told her of my recent body,<br /> +But she could lead her sleepy cubs no farther,<br /> +For the death weariness was upon all of them.<br /> +<br /> +So she came back to the cave's homing mouth,<br /> +Drove her panting cubs to the farthest wall,<br /> +And making fierce boastful war talk,<br /> +There she claimed the homing rights of the wild.<br /> +<br /> +I went back to where our women were working<br /> +And I began the Brave's task of drilling my shell.<br /> +Coüy-oüy came and lay beside me, watching.<br /> +Her tribes had no knowledge<br /> +Of such rare precious ornaments.<br /> +She greatly desired to possess one<br /> +For her most precious bracelet.<br /> +<br /> +When we were alone, as I worked<br /> +I told her how to find my cavern<br /> +And where the shell was hidden on a high ledge.<br /> +<br /> +Her heart knew no fear;<br /> +Her eyes shone with gladness<br /> +When I told her my great secret of blue treasure<br /> +And that, if she would go alone,<br /> +She might take for herself one piece.<br /> +The one I was drilling so carefully I must use<br /> +For the mending of my rarest necklace.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span><br /> + +When I thought of the dripping jaws<br /> +Of the killer, ravenous, tormented to frenzy,<br /> +And looked at the smoothness of her body,<br /> +I relented; I knew mercy.<br /> +It was in my softened heart<br /> +To say that the hunters must go with her;<br /> +But before my lips of compassion<br /> +Could speak the words my heart said,<br /> +With the joy light shining on her face,<br /> +She told me in happy confidence:<br /> +"I will take but one small piece<br /> +To ornament my richest bracelet,<br /> +And I will polish it smooth even as you do,<br /> +And Mountain Lion shall carve it for me."<br /> +<br /> +O Medicine Man, look in mercy upon me!<br /> +Darest say she drove not her own stake,<br /> +Lighted her torture fire with fearless hands?<br /> +<br /> +Darest say she knew not that Mountain Lion<br /> +Would now make her our Chieftainess?<br /> +Darest say the buzzing of a swarm of maidens<br /> +Had not told her many suns past<br /> +That Mountain Lion was my man,<br /> +That he had danced the Mating Dance<br /> +Of the Mandanas with me,<br /> +Before the assembly in the Council House<br /> +On the night of her coming among us?<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span><br /> + +All that night my eyes surrounded her wigwam.<br /> +With first dawn ray she came slipping forth<br /> +And darted down the veiled trail<br /> +That led through the deep forest.<br /> +<br /> +Well had I marked the path<br /> +That ran to the cave's mouth.<br /> +When she had gone I closed the slender opening<br /> +Through which I had unceasingly watched<br /> +The moon's long journey for her,<br /> +And for the first time in many pitiless suns<br /> +I fell into the deep visionless sleep<br /> +Of the body tired past endurance.<br /> +<br /> +It was near evening when my Mother wakened me.<br /> +She told me, her eyes burning deep into mine,<br /> +How hunters in the forest had found Coüy-oüy<br /> +Fleeing like a doe before the furious black killer.<br /> +<br /> +When she fell, her utmost strength exhausted,<br /> +Over her raged the foaming black death.<br /> +Her beautiful breast and arms<br /> +Were forever shorn of their smoothness,<br /> +But she lived, and her hateful face of allurement<br /> +Her trouble-maker face, was untouched.<br /> +<br /> +I knew what my Mother knew<br /> +When she turned from my doorway.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> +Medicine Man, the killer had not struck<br /> +To the depth where life tented.<br /> +She had not sent my enemy to the Great Spirit.<br /> +She had only moved to compassion<br /> +The heart in the breast of Mountain Lion,<br /> +So that alone in his canoe he speared the rare fish,<br /> +Alone on the mountains he sought the tender bird,<br /> +Even the bright flower, the red leaf,<br /> +To lay at her doorway—love's offering.<br /> +<br /> +Well I knew that when she was healed<br /> +He would stand tall and straight before her,<br /> +And in his fierce pleading eyes<br /> +She would find the great understanding.<br /> +Then, Medicine Man, despair settled in my heart;<br /> +I shrivelled like the ungathered wild plum,<br /> +I burned with a fierce, hot inward fire.<br /> +<br /> +The day came when Coüy-oüy stood forth<br /> +Whitely robed in shining wonder,<br /> +Untouched in her courage and her beauty<br /> +Save that she hid her arms with deep fringes.<br /> +<br /> +In bitterness of spirit I turned from her,<br /> +I followed the long lonely trail<br /> +Through the fringed blue flower meadows.<br /> +I lay beside the small still waters of the flat lands,<br /> +And I talked to my sister, the tall blue Heron<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> +While she hunted food among the water flowers;<br /> +And I told the wise old Heron<br /> +For the easement of my torture,<br /> +I told her, O Medicine Man,<br /> +This same tale I tell you.<br /> +<br /> +And then, Medicine Man,<br /> +The Heron gave me a sure sign.<br /> +<br /> +She stalked to where a great white flower<br /> +Was resting in serene beauty,<br /> +Like a sheaf of fallen moons upon the water,<br /> +And from beneath the safety of its shelter<br /> +She picked out my little frog brother so easily.<br /> +<br /> +She tossed him clear and high in the air,<br /> +And head first he shot down her long red gullet.<br /> +Then she looked at me questioningly<br /> +And awaited my understanding.<br /> +<br /> +So I slipped from my robe of doeskin,<br /> +And fighting my way through the black muck,<br /> +And the snares of the entangling round leaves,<br /> +I gathered the white flower riding like a spirit canoe<br /> +That had sheltered fatness for my sister Heron.<br /> +<br /> +Clean and white as storm foam I washed it,<br /> +Carefully on the home trail I carried it,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> +Like a living thing to my wigwam I took it,<br /> +And I put it in a cooking kettle<br /> +Overflowing cold water from mountain torrent,<br /> +Then I waited for the spirit to make me a sure sign.<br /> +<br /> +That night, when Coüy-oüy's shadow touched me,<br /> +Like a star fallen from on high was her beauty.<br /> +Her eyes rested for the first time<br /> +On the white flower of the still waters.<br /> +On her knees she made a little medicine over it;<br /> +In her throat she chanted a hushed song<br /> +Of exultation and worship,<br /> +Over the wonder beauty of the white flower<br /> +That she had never known<br /> +In the far, cold land of the Killimacs.<br /> +<br /> +On her face there was a veiling breath mist<br /> +Like the softest ray from the lovers' moon;<br /> +All around her wrapped the blue light blanket<br /> +That seemed to steal from her body<br /> +Creeping through her white robe.<br /> +<br /> +Then, Medicine Man, I told her this fair tale:<br /> +That I loved a young Brave<br /> +Son of the mighty Eagle Feather,<br /> +The Chief of a high mountain tribe far north of us,<br /> +And that when he saw me in the deep forest<br /> +Holding up high the fair water flower<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> +The lure of its white magic<br /> +Would make in his cold heart<br /> +That strong medicine I needed,<br /> +To bring him face to face with me<br /> +In that great understanding<br /> +Which is followed by union, among our tribes.<br /> +<br /> +O Medicine Man, I told her by word<br /> +And by convincing sign talk<br /> +That if her heart ran soft as gold sweetness<br /> +At the coming of any of our young Braves,<br /> +And her roving eyes flew to them<br /> +Searching for loving understanding,<br /> +Until she feared they would betray her,<br /> +And the tongue of her heart pled for them,<br /> +And her willing hands thought sweet sign talk—<br /> +If she would hold aloft the white flower,<br /> +That she had gathered from the water,<br /> +Deep in the thickness of the forest<br /> +Where none but her Brave could see it,<br /> +It would surely make for her the great magic<br /> +That would draw him straight to the flame<br /> +Of the candle she set before her wigwam.<br /> +<br /> +Long and long and long again<br /> +She watched the white flower.<br /> +All her heart melted at its gold heart sweetness;<br /> +And then she looked deep into my eyes,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> +To spirit depths she searched me carefully,<br /> +But pride would not let me quail before her.<br /> +<br /> +She knew she had barely missed<br /> +The peril of the death snake:<br /> +She had sent hunters to bring its rattles for her.<br /> +She knew she had faced the red death<br /> +By the black killer of the treasure cave;<br /> +Yet was my spirit so strong over her doubting<br /> +That once again in the chill of early morning<br /> +She set her proud feet confidently<br /> +On the forest trail I pictured for her.<br /> +<br /> +She knew not how the white flower<br /> +Of the still water lifted to the sun,<br /> +She knew not the wind reeds and flute rushes.<br /> +<br /> +I told her the path her feet must follow alone,<br /> +That when she saw a white flower<br /> +Like a rocking canoe cradled by soft wind,<br /> +Riding on the breast of the blue water,<br /> +She should leave her robe in the deep forest,<br /> +She should run like the chased antelope,<br /> +And leap from the sand shore<br /> +To the resting place of the flower.<br /> +She should snatch it in her hand, hold it high,<br /> +And swim back to the red beach of dawning.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span><br /> + +But Medicine Man, O Medicine Man,<br /> +I sent her not on the meadow path<br /> +Where the war ponies fattened.<br /> +I sent her not to the still black water<br /> +Of the singing reeds and rushes,<br /> +Where the charmed spirit flowers<br /> +With sun hearts and snow faces<br /> +Spread in flocks like feeding gulls<br /> +Over the breast of the dark waters.<br /> +<br /> +Medicine Man, I sent her straight to that one spot<br /> +On the sands of the great sea water in the deep bay,<br /> +In the sheltered cove of the soundless depths<br /> +Where every Canawac knew there crouched waiting<br /> +The hungry Monster of the lazy sucking sands.<br /> +<br /> +Again I watched all the moon time<br /> +And in the gold red morning<br /> +She slipped from her wigwam<br /> +And entered the ancient forest.<br /> +Soft as flame ascending, swift as night bird flying,<br /> +I circled past her among my familiar tree brothers.<br /> +Long before her coming to the bay of torture,<br /> +I dropped the snaring white flower,<br /> +Fresh and lovely, a convincing decoy,<br /> +Far into the heart of the pitiless death pool<br /> +Where the eager mouths of the swallowing sands<br /> +Embrace and draw, quietly, but so surely<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> +That no strength of arm can lift,<br /> +No power of spirit can save their victim.<br /> +<br /> +Behind the rocks I hid and waited;<br /> +In anguish I prayed to the Great Spirit<br /> +That the luring white flower of wonder<br /> +Might rest on the gently heaving water<br /> +Until the time of the coming of my enemy.<br /> +<br /> +As I waited with my eyes ever watching, watching<br /> +The wave cradled flower white as swan feathers,<br /> +Through the air shot the slim scarred form<br /> +Of Coüy-oüy, my hated enemy.<br /> +<br /> +Her slender feet touched the water<br /> +And went down softly as a diving bird,<br /> +Her reaching hand caught the white flower surely.<br /> +<br /> +She lifted her face to the face of the morning;<br /> +The beauty that shone upon her<br /> +Was like the beauty of the Great Spirit<br /> +When he had first the vision of the flower world<br /> +And the wonder of flower magic was sent to him.<br /> +<br /> +Coüy-oüy held the water flower in high triumph;<br /> +She gazed at it, she laughed to it, she kissed it,<br /> +She laid it against her glad face like a papoose,<br /> +And chanted to it throaty words of lullaby.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> +Then with the other hand and with her quick feet<br /> +She began swimming to reach the certain shore.<br /> +<br /> +When her light feet would not lift to the surface<br /> +And her strong stroke would not move her body,<br /> +Slowly the dawn light faded from her face<br /> +And a look like the look of a little hurt papoose<br /> +Came over her in slow wonder—<br /> +A look of surprise, of doubt<br /> +That her strength could be unavailing.<br /> +<br /> +Then she struggled like an arrow stricken sea bird,<br /> +For the sure sands grip their captive cruelly.<br /> +<br /> +Then gray terrors came sweeping upon her,<br /> +And her face was white, white as the white flower<br /> +That she held at arm's length above her.<br /> +<br /> +Her black oiled braids floated out on the water,<br /> +While a cry, a shrill cry, a high screaming cry,<br /> +The voice of a wounded mountain lion,<br /> +Rang from her lips in quivering terror.<br /> +<br /> +I knew who had carefully taught her<br /> +To use that cry in time of trouble:<br /> +I knew that for my Brave she was calling.<br /> +And I knew, too, how the wood and the water<br /> +Carried sound far distances to wild ears.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span><br /> + +I wondered if Mountain Lion were on the water<br /> +Or if he were hunting the wide forest<br /> +Or if he were drilling ornaments of blue shell<br /> +Or weaving the sacred, singing fire bird<br /> +A new wigwam of gold osiers.<br /> +<br /> +Only once she screamed that awful wild cry,<br /> +Then her struggles were the final battle.<br /> +Already her face of anguish was even<br /> +With the treacherous water hiding death,<br /> +Already her slender body was forever encased.<br /> +<br /> +One arm slowly beat the fair bay helplessly;<br /> +But even as the gray terror closed in upon her,<br /> +The stealthy catlike death of the waves<br /> +And the little famished mouths of sand,<br /> +The slow mealy strangling sands,<br /> +She bravely held aloft the white flower.<br /> +<br /> +And then, Medicine Man, I cared not if he came,<br /> +The Mountain Lion, my faithless man!<br /> +The utmost reach of his strength could not save her,<br /> +He might go down to bottomless depths with her;<br /> +He might strive and bear me down to her.<br /> +Come was my just and rightful hour of triumph!<br /> +<br /> +I arose and went forth on the white shore<br /> +I smiled like a mother upon her,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> +Then I pointed my finger, I laughed in scorn,<br /> +I made bad sign talk at her,<br /> +I danced the Braves' triumph dance, with song,<br /> +I cried to her in the exultation of victory:<br /> +"He will not come again to you,<br /> +The faithless Mountain Lion, my man,<br /> +He who danced the sacred Mating Dance<br /> +Of the Mandanas with me in the Council Lodge,<br /> +He who read into my eyes the great understanding<br /> +Even upon the night of your coming among us.<br /> +Go thou back to the evil spirits who sent thee!"<br /> +<br /> +Until the last wave overran her eyes,<br /> +The slim thing of bone hardness,<br /> +Of arrow straightness, and sureness,<br /> +Of bird swiftness, would not look once upon me,<br /> +Would not plead with me for mercy<br /> +Nor sign for help at my hands.<br /> +When she saw me she suddenly ceased to struggle,<br /> +And with her eyes fixed upon the white flower,<br /> +The fallen moon that rides the still black water,<br /> +She went to bottomless depths silently;<br /> +Slowly, slowly, Medicine Man, she sank,<br /> +Until the flower again rested<br /> +On the breast of the unconscious water.<br /> +<br /> +Then I went into the forest on her trail,<br /> +I hunted her precious robe of snow white doeskin,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> +I rolled a heavy stone in its rich bead work:<br /> +I carried it back swiftly,<br /> +And upon the face of the white flower<br /> +Slowly sinking beneath the water I threw it.<br /> +<br /> +Then I knelt in cunning like the fox,<br /> +And swiftly working my way backward,<br /> +With my steady, careful fingers<br /> +I sifted the sands over our footsteps,<br /> +Until I came to the feather grass<br /> +And the dry leaves of the deep forest.<br /> +<br /> +Like the hunted I ran to the safety of my wigwam,<br /> +I buried myself in my soft robes of satisfaction,<br /> +My heart laughed in victory,<br /> +The sleep I had lost for many mocking moons<br /> +While my brain thought snares,<br /> +Now settled heavy, like sickness upon me.<br /> +<br /> +Even as I slept in deep stupor,<br /> +There came dreams and yet again dreams,<br /> +But they were not familiar dreams<br /> +Of the low humming rattler<br /> +Nor the foaming mouth of the knife footed killer.<br /> +I dreamed that over my heart flamed and scorched<br /> +And burned Coüy-oüy, the little sacred red bird;<br /> +While my hands could not braid<br /> +And put the gay ornaments in my hair,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> +Could not put on my robe,<br /> +Could not tie my moccasins,<br /> +Could not lift food to my hungry mouth,<br /> +Because they were full of the white flowers<br /> +From the land of the still water.<br /> +<br /> +When the alarum cries sounded<br /> +And the ponies' feet thundered,<br /> +When the hunting dogs raged<br /> +And shrill clamour arose in the camp,<br /> +My Mother shook me,<br /> +And long she looked deep into my eyes<br /> +And I looked into her eyes;<br /> +And then in the silent talk of our tribe<br /> +I made the swift going down sign<br /> +Of the Monster sands of the far bay.<br /> +<br /> +There was no triumph on her face<br /> +When she slowly turned from me,<br /> +And fear was born in my heart<br /> +Because I clearly saw its awful image<br /> +When it sprang into life in the deeps of her eyes.<br /> +<br /> +When the scouts and hunters were gathering,<br /> +When the visiting Chief was threatening,<br /> +And all of our Chiefs were in secret council,<br /> +While the women were wailing the death cry,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> +There came to my lodge in that hour,<br /> +The footsteps I had always awaited.<br /> +So I passed through my doorway<br /> +And in the revealing sunlight<br /> +I stood before Mountain Lion,<br /> +Terrible to face in his deep rage.<br /> +<br /> +With dazed hand I drew sleep from my eyes;<br /> +I met his gaze stupidly with smiling face;<br /> +When he saw this he was forced to doubt<br /> +The thing he had come expecting to see.<br /> +When he tried to look far into my eyes for a sign<br /> +He saw only stupid Old Man Sleep sitting there<br /> +Mocking the tortured heart in his breast.<br /> +<br /> +Then he caught me fiercely by the shoulders,<br /> +He drew me close to him,<br /> +He forced my eyes to meet his,<br /> +And low and hoarse he cried to me in torture:<br /> +"She jumped to the mark of the sky flower,<br /> +And the snake with death in its mouth was there;<br /> +The mark was the mark you set for her, Yiada.<br /> +<br /> +"She went to the far, lonely cave<br /> +Of the chased and hungry black death,<br /> +And the rare shell that she sought<br /> +Was a part of your treasure, Yiada.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span><br /> + +"Again she is missing, evil spirits know how long,<br /> +What torture death have you sent her seeking now—<br /> +Coüy-oüy, my brave fire bird, my woman?"<br /> +<br /> +O Medicine Man, if he had not said soft words,<br /> +I might have told him as he held me before him.<br /> +I might have braved the storm of his wrath<br /> +And made my journey to the Great Spirit<br /> +In that menacing breath.<br /> +When I saw that she lived in my place<br /> +In the secret tent of his heart<br /> +I laughed at him and I cried tauntingly:<br /> +"She is chasing painted wings<br /> +In the pasture meadows of the valley.<br /> +She is at the still pool hunting the water flower:<br /> +She would use its white magic<br /> +To snare your wild heart,<br /> +Even as she used the red magic of the fire bird.<br /> +Go and seek her, O mighty hunter!<br /> +Go and seek—until you find her!"<br /> +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p> +<h2>PART III</h2> + +<h3>YIADA'S FLIGHT TO THE MANDANAS</h3> + + +<p> +When the hunters had raced from our village<br /> +Toward the land of ice,<br /> +Toward the land of hot suns,<br /> +Toward the land of dawn,<br /> +And where the sun dives in the sea,<br /> +In the conflicting cross winds<br /> +Between the paths of their going,<br /> +On their stoutest ponies<br /> +Rode the young women and the squaws<br /> +Who could be spared with safety<br /> +From the watch of the campfires<br /> +And the care of the little happy children.<br /> +</p> + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/062.jpg" width="299" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>"<i>Like the wings of a snow white sea swallow</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>Writing mating signs on the blue sky of Heaven</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>Flashed his quick hands of entreaty,</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>In the little love sign talk he taught her.</i>"</td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> +Foremost among these I rode on my fastest pony,<br /> +But to my Mother I made a secret sign<br /> +To remain in waiting by her campfire<br /> +And yet the swifter sign of the quick return.<br /> +<br /> +Because I was first in the fish drying<br /> +The berry picking of earth and mountain,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> +The gathering of seeds of all kinds<br /> +And the work of the women,<br /> +The other maidens went where I sent them.<br /> +Then swiftly I made a wide circle<br /> +And slipped back to the lodge of my Mother,<br /> +And leaving my pony in the tented forest<br /> +I crept to the door of my Father,<br /> +Unseen by any of the watchers.<br /> +<br /> +There I lay in hiding<br /> +While my Mother worked silently.<br /> +She rolled a bundle of my finest robes,<br /> +My moccasins, my best bow and full quiver,<br /> +Big strips of smoked venison,<br /> +Dried fish and bear and deer meat,<br /> +Nuts and tallow cake and dried berries,<br /> +And the last little sweet meal cake<br /> +That her hands would ever make me.<br /> +<br /> +When Old Man Moon made soft talk<br /> +In his canoe among the clouds,<br /> +From the back of the lodge of my Father I crept<br /> +After I had stood long and again long<br /> +Before my Mother, racked in fierce anguish,<br /> +And made her many signs of the great crossing,<br /> +For we knew that never again should I see her.<br /> +<br /> +We made long straight talk between us<br /> +That when the others returned from the search<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> +I should be missing, as was Coüy-oüy,<br /> +So that a new search would be made for my body.<br /> +Then should she cry the death wail<br /> +Through the length of all our village for me;<br /> +And make high prayer to the Great Spirit<br /> +For my safe crossing to the Happy Lands.<br /> +<br /> +Thus her lodge and wigwams<br /> +And my Father and brothers<br /> +Would be saved from all suspicion of treachery,<br /> +And to the mourning of the Great Chief<br /> +Who visited our campfires in confidence,<br /> +Would be added the wailing of our tribe for Yiada.<br /> +<br /> +I rode my Father's swiftest remaining pony,<br /> +I turned my face between the sun's rising<br /> +And the hot suns of the South.<br /> +I slipped through the forest and on, and on,<br /> +Each moon on, and again on,<br /> +Fast and far as the pony could run, I journeyed<br /> +In the direction where my Mother had told me<br /> +Lay the encampment of her people, the Mandanas.<br /> +<br /> +When the tired pony could travel no farther<br /> +I let him feed and rest and drink;<br /> +And then again I rode, moon after moon,<br /> +Until he grew lean as deep snow gray wolf.<br /> +When I had eaten the last crumb of meal cake,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> +And there was nothing left in my bundle,<br /> +But tough strings of deer meat,<br /> +I came one sun-rising to signs of the Mandanas.<br /> +<br /> +Then, O Medicine Man,<br /> +I slipped from the pony and bathed carefully,<br /> +I oiled my body, braided my hair with ornaments<br /> +And I put on a snow white robe<br /> +Whose bleaching had been taught my Mother<br /> +By Coüy-oüy as a secret art.<br /> +I stripped the beads and the obsidian<br /> +From my heaviest necklace for ceremonials<br /> +And wore only the sky water blue<br /> +Of the precious blue shell.<br /> +<br /> +When I looked into the shining water<br /> +Above the white sands of the lake bed,<br /> +I saw in my face great beauty like high magic,<br /> +Wrought by the fear painter, the hunger moon,<br /> +The far stealthy journey, the anxious heart—<br /> +Beauty even greater than the beauty of Coüy-oüy.<br /> +<br /> +And so, O Medicine Man,<br /> +At fire lighting I rode into the village.<br /> +The spies and the couriers raced before me,<br /> +Crying the wonder of my coming,<br /> +The fierce, snarling dogs yapped after me,<br /> +The frightened children ran from me,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> +Angered squaws with harsh voices<br /> +Cried threatening, forbidding words at me.<br /> +<br /> +When I came to the door of the Council House<br /> +At the head of the long village of fatness,<br /> +I slipped from my pony, and leading him after me<br /> +I walked to the feet of the Great Chief<br /> +Sitting in solemn state on his throne;<br /> +I gave him the deeps of my troubled spirit.<br /> +<br /> +My eyes slowly unfolded to his eyes<br /> +The tale of the robbed heart,<br /> +Of the tortured sleep, of the lone moon trail,<br /> +Of a fugitive from the arrows of an enemy.<br /> +<br /> +With Mandan speech and by the sign language<br /> +I told him that I was of his blood,<br /> +Of his tribe through my Mother;<br /> +Seeking refuge with her people,<br /> +And I told him, O Medicine Man,<br /> +These things of woe, I now tell you.<br /> +<br /> +Beside him came the Great Chiefs and wise men,<br /> +Around him the warriors, the spies and hunters;<br /> +While back of the chiefs, dim in the firelight,<br /> +Again and again I felt the eye of a mighty hunter,<br /> +A young Brave, with the broad shoulders<br /> +The round face of compassion,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> +And the softer eye of the Mandanas<br /> +Of the lands where peace homed securely.<br /> +<br /> +Little of my story had I told the Chieftain,<br /> +As straight and fearless I faced him,<br /> +Before I knew in my heart that over his head<br /> +I was speaking to the stirred heart of his son.<br /> +I was asking of him rest and meat, and tribe rights,<br /> +Even as Coüy-oüy had asked meal and water<br /> +Of Mountain Lion, instead of our women,<br /> +For the broken fire bird that rested on her breast.<br /> +<br /> +As I asked I knew the answer in his heart;<br /> +For I was tall and I was seasoned,<br /> +And I was tortured beyond bearing,<br /> +And I was beautiful with a living spirit beauty<br /> +Far above that of the Mandan women around me.<br /> +<br /> +When they learned that my Mother<br /> +Was of their tribe in her youth,<br /> +That I had fled as the hunted for cave rights,<br /> +They held counsel, and they set me a tall wigwam;<br /> +They gave me the rich food of a welcome guest,<br /> +And they led me to my wrinkled, gray grandfather.<br /> +<br /> +The great council of Chiefs and Medicine Men,<br /> +The wise men and all of the young Braves<br /> +Made Mandan sign talk to hold me securely,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> +As if born of their tribe and village,<br /> +Even if Mountain Lion suspected treachery<br /> +And rode in war paint against them for vengeance.<br /> +<br /> +Then was my body lazy with rich comfort<br /> +But my spirit was gray ashes<br /> +Burned out by the flames of the fire bird<br /> +Nesting in the heart of my breast.<br /> +I was all over sick for my Mother,<br /> +For my brothers and my Father, who loved me,<br /> +For the clear sky, the heavy clouds,<br /> +And the taunting water of the restless sea,<br /> +For the fat grass, the flower valleys<br /> +And the tall mountains, with head-bands of snow,<br /> +For the night fires of village and Council Lodge,<br /> +And the little honey cakes of my Mother;<br /> +While I dared not even remember<br /> +The face of Mountain Lion's agony,<br /> +As I tortured him in derision,<br /> +And he turned from me in hot anger.<br /> +<br /> +As the sign was in the deep eyes of Star Face,<br /> +Son of the Great Chief, the night of my coming,<br /> +So it was in the suns that followed.<br /> +Well I knew that in the day<br /> +When he saw candle lighting in my eyes<br /> +His willing feet would dance before me<br /> +The hated Love Dance of the Mandanas.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span><br /> +He was a broad Brave, a fierce Brave, a warrior.<br /> +He would sit at the council in the seat of his father<br /> +When he had made his last journey<br /> +To the far Spirit Lands of final peace.<br /> +His earth-lodge would be warm<br /> +With the skins of beaver, mink and otter;<br /> +While the white dress of a great Princess<br /> +From the bleached and softened doeskin,<br /> +Beaded with the sign of the Chief's mate,<br /> +Would cover my sick heart with the robe of pride.<br /> +<br /> +So hard I worked, O Medicine Man,<br /> +From the lifting to the setting of every sun,<br /> +So long I danced at night in the Assembly Lodge,<br /> +That when I walked to my wigwam<br /> +Sleep came swift and deep upon me.<br /> +<br /> +Sometimes I lay visionless,<br /> +My body worn to stone heaviness;<br /> +Sometimes the flaming bird burned my breast<br /> +To gray ashes, like dead campfires,<br /> +And the white lilies overflowed my unwilling hands<br /> +Until I fought to keep from choking among them,<br /> +Even as Coüy-oüy was smothered<br /> +By the little yielding wave hidden sands.<br /> +<br /> +When I had worked that season<br /> +Until the troubling mating moon<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> +Sailed like a polished pearl canoe in the Spring sky,<br /> +When the hurrying blood of the trees<br /> +Ran fast in the red and yellow osiers,<br /> +When the birches, givers of large gifts,<br /> +Put out their little talking leaves of gold,<br /> +When strange birds made love chase in the forest<br /> +And the fish leaped high from the shallow water<br /> +As the yellow spawn they planted and quickened,<br /> +There came a night of quivering moon magic<br /> +When, after all the others had assembled,<br /> +Star Face entered the Council Lodge,<br /> +His head lifted to face the star country,<br /> +And the great wealth of his riches<br /> +Rode flauntingly from head-band to moccasins.<br /> +<br /> +He had scoured his skin to fatling softness,<br /> +He had oiled his body to birch bark smoothness,<br /> +His braided hair was filled with eagle feathers,<br /> +With quill feathers of white swan<br /> +And wing pinions of wild turkey.<br /> +<br /> +He was robed in the soft gray skins of the otter;<br /> +On his feet were beaded moccasins of deerskin;<br /> +In his hand was a broad fan of the wing feathers<br /> +Of the proud and contented white swan,<br /> +Round his neck lay heavy shining ornaments<br /> +Made from the teeth and the cutting claws<br /> +Of many black and brown bear,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> +Of fierce mountain lion and wildcat,<br /> +And the big teeth of the elk and moose,<br /> +Carved copper and cunningly pierced bone beads,<br /> +From obsidian and little singing shells.<br /> +<br /> +The dance of the maidens was beginning<br /> +When he entered in high pride.<br /> +He came through the long Lodge<br /> +And stood with compelling eye before me,<br /> +And before his Father on the throne,<br /> +And his Mother, his brothers and sisters,<br /> +The whole council of Chiefs and wise men<br /> +And all the assembled people of his tribe.<br /> +<br /> +Slowly he began the Mating Dance<br /> +Of the Mandana who would prevail,<br /> +While his eyes like coals from the campfire<br /> +Seared my body to action—<br /> +The eyes of black bear when he is facing the hunter,<br /> +The fierce eyes of the starving panther<br /> +When the hunger moon is shining,<br /> +The scouting eyes of the eagle of high spaces,<br /> +Seeking a mate in the far country of the stars.<br /> +<br /> +When he had danced the dance of allurement<br /> +To the last stamped out measure,<br /> +Straightway I walked to the feet<br /> +Of his powerful Father, on his throne,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> +And in the speech of the Mandanas I said to him:<br /> +"Great Chief, thou hast seen the dance<br /> +Of thy mighty son, Star Face.<br /> +If I dance the ancient Mating Dance<br /> +Of the unconquered Mandanas<br /> +This night before thee, for Star Face,<br /> +Even as he has danced before thee, for me,<br /> +Great and powerful Chief, am I of thy people?"<br /> +<br /> +The Great Chief looked into my eyes and said:<br /> +"Thou art of mine, even as Star Face is my son;<br /> +With our last arrow, with our last battle axe,<br /> +With the stoutest blood of our hearts<br /> +Will our Braves defend thee forever."<br /> +<br /> +The next sun, the young women<br /> +Set me a tall prideful wigwam apart.<br /> +They bathed and oiled my heart sick body;<br /> +They beaded and feathered fine robes<br /> +For the mating ceremonials of a rich Brave.<br /> +<br /> +In another tent all of the young men<br /> +Were busy preparing Star Face for our union.<br /> +<br /> +Down the long wide trail<br /> +Of the swarming, bee like village<br /> +The painted criers on swift horses<br /> +Were announcing the marriage of Yiada,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> +Daughter of the far and friendly Canawacs,<br /> +And Star Face, the son of the Head Chief<br /> +Of the boastful Mandanas—the proud ones!<br /> +<br /> +So, with the full Mandan ceremonial,<br /> +I gave my tortured body to Star Face.<br /> +<br /> +There was no heart left in me, O Medicine Man,<br /> +And that Star Face might not miss it,<br /> +When he looked in my eyes in tenderness,<br /> +I gave to him such willing and sure service<br /> +As no other Chief of the Mandanas had ever known.<br /> +<br /> +Soft were the skins that bedded his wigwams,<br /> +Warm his earth-lodge against the sting of winter,<br /> +Sweet was the crisp squaw bread<br /> +That bubbled in his fat kettles,<br /> +Gold was the mountain of tallow<br /> +Stacked in his storehouse for winter,<br /> +High heaped were the nuts of tree and bush<br /> +Gathered and husked against the Ice Chief,<br /> +Rich were the berries dried with sunshine,<br /> +Boiled back to tenderness, honey sweetened.<br /> +<br /> +And, Medicine Man,<br /> +No other Brave served his mate as Star Face.<br /> +High and boastful was his pride<br /> +When I gave him a straight little chieftain,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> +And great to pain was my joy<br /> +When I oiled the little fatling:<br /> +For the fire ever burning in my heart<br /> +Had not scorched his small body,<br /> +The fulness of my hands had set no mark upon him.<br /> +<br /> +He was a young chieftain of spirit magic<br /> +Who in suns before his coming to my lodge,<br /> +Had ridden on the backs of milk white fawns<br /> +Over the floating thistle seed trail<br /> +That we saw nightly in the country of the stars,<br /> +Who had played with baby beavers<br /> +In their village at the creek's mouth,<br /> +Who had hunted canyon ways,<br /> +Stout heart with bear and panther,<br /> +Who had sailed over tall mountains with the eagle,<br /> +Who had hung in the eye of the sun<br /> +With the silver winged falcon,<br /> +Who had fished angry waters with the crafty mink,<br /> +Who had raced among the white birches<br /> +With the soft eyed does of Spring,<br /> +And slept deep with his tall blue heron brothers<br /> +In their rough nests among the wailing cedars.<br /> +<br /> +Every sun I watched him,<br /> +Every moon my fear-filled hand was on him.<br /> +Ever his gay cradle was light in my eye<br /> +Its tinkling shells sweet music in my ears.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> +When he could walk with strength<br /> +I led him to the meadows, to the forest,<br /> +And I taught him—thou knowest,<br /> +O Medicine Man, thou knowest well,<br /> +How carefully I taught him<br /> +Our every custom and tradition;<br /> +And how Star Face trained him with the bow,<br /> +To fish the rough waters, to ride the wild ponies,<br /> +And how he taught him all the laws and customs<br /> +For young Braves who would be warriors.<br /> +<br /> +Thou knowest how all of the tribe shouted<br /> +When first he sat his pony alone,<br /> +And rode it through the village at its racing speed.<br /> +And then, O Medicine Man, thou knowest the day<br /> +When first he strayed far from me<br /> +With the little curious feet of childhood,<br /> +And now, now, I hear the wild shrieks of terror<br /> +When the snake that has death in its mouth<br /> +Struck its pitiless fangs into his tender flesh.<br /> +<br /> +When his little blanket wrapped body,<br /> +Looking so long and straight, and lonely,<br /> +Was carried to the far, haunted death village<br /> +All the forest echoed wild cries of mourning<br /> +From a thousand wigwams of desolation<br /> +And earth-lodges that loved him.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span><br /> +My stiff lips made no sound,<br /> +My robbed hands lay death's captive,<br /> +For my eyes saw again the nut thicket,<br /> +And the thing the sky flower sheltered,<br /> +My ears again heard the soft buzzing menace.<br /> +Well I knew that Coüy-oüy<br /> +Had escaped the watchful Great Spirit,<br /> +That she had come back to earth<br /> +To strike me through the death snake,<br /> +That hers were the fangs of poison<br /> +Buried deep in my little fatling.<br /> +<br /> +Thou knowest, Medicine Man,<br /> +How another little chief came to me,<br /> +And how again, with all the wild magic<br /> +All the wisdom of our tribe,<br /> +All the strength in our power<br /> +And the cunning of our hearts of love,<br /> +The great Star Face, and I, his strong mate,<br /> +Strove over the life of our son.<br /> +<br /> +Thou knowest how he shouted<br /> +When to us there came a little sister.<br /> +And then the black day, that dread day<br /> +Thou knowest well as any,<br /> +When tall and straight he entered the forest alone<br /> +To strive for the first vision from the Great Spirit.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span><br /> +Without food and without sleep<br /> +I knelt silent in my lonely wigwam;<br /> +With one hand ever easing my burning breast<br /> +With the other I fought back<br /> +The slowly rising tide of the white flowers,<br /> +The luring spirit flowers of destruction<br /> +That home on the still lake waters.<br /> +I needed not the chilling death cry<br /> +That came to my ears three suns later:<br /> +I knew surely that my little chieftain<br /> +Would not come back to me from the forest.<br /> +<br /> +He still breathed when the hunters<br /> +Brought before me his stout body<br /> +Ripped deep by the cruel knives of the killer.<br /> +<br /> +The black death, man's height and buffalo heavy,<br /> +Lay dead in the far uptorn pitying forest<br /> +Where they had battled for their lives.<br /> +It had been the greatest fight<br /> +That youth had ever waged in our tribe.<br /> +<br /> +All night the anxious Medicine Men<br /> +Made their strongest Medicine for him;<br /> +But the green sickness was eating his slender body.<br /> +In the morning, O Medicine Man,<br /> +Coüy-oüy again danced her triumph dance,<br /> +Again scored victory over me,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> +When our unavailing death wail<br /> +Beat against the copper face of heaven<br /> +For my little chieftain, my brave little warrior.<br /> +<br /> +Because of her pointing finger no cry would I utter.<br /> +Silently in my tortured wigwam<br /> +I writhed in the flame of the fire bird<br /> +And choked with the rising sick sweetness<br /> +Of the hated water flower of the pasture lands.<br /> +<br /> +But ever I held in a tight grasp<br /> +The clutching hand of little fat face,<br /> +And my ears ached with her shrill wail<br /> +For the long journey of her brother;<br /> +For she had ridden his racing pony<br /> +Before him on the saddle on far trails,<br /> +And gathered gay flowers in the valleys<br /> +On the coloured faces of high hills,<br /> +And brought me the little juicy birds<br /> +From the snares of cunning set in the valleys,<br /> +And chased the war painted wings<br /> +Where the hunting ponies pastured.<br /> +Medicine Man, O Medicine Man,<br /> +Darest say I had not killing torture?<br /> +<br /> +When the burning of the fire bird was past bearing,<br /> +When the stifling cloud of the white flowers<br /> +Sickened my body to leanness,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> +I arose and began skin dressing and fish drying<br /> +And seed grinding and weaving blankets.<br /> +<br /> +All of the squaws and the young women<br /> +Pointed taunting mischievous fingers<br /> +When, silent, I passed among them.<br /> +They said: "She is possessed of a devil;<br /> +Evil spirits drive her with secret arrows,<br /> +It is with strength stolen from the Spirits<br /> +That she works every sun at the fish drying,<br /> +The meat curing, the seed gathering<br /> +And the making of tents not needed.<br /> +<br /> +But ever, when far grown I carried little Dove Eye,<br /> +Little cooing bird, on my aching shoulders,<br /> +Ever I pressed her against my burning heart:<br /> +I would not trust her to the stoutest cradle.<br /> +Tightly I held her that from my fear strong hands<br /> +She might not be pushed out by the white flowers.<br /> +<br /> +When her stumbling little feet of uncertainty<br /> +Carried her to the willing knees of Star Face,<br /> +Like the first dawn of Spring long awaited<br /> +Came the light to his hungry eyes,<br /> +Like the soft talking brook water<br /> +Came the sweet words in his throat;<br /> +Like the wings of a snow white sea swallow<br /> +Writing mating signs on the blue sky of heaven<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> +Flashed his quick hands of entreaty,<br /> +In the little love sign talk he taught her.<br /> +Many suns he sat grinding small beads of bone<br /> +Every little rare white shell he found,<br /> +And polishing squirrel and otter teeth<br /> +For the necklace she wore so proudly.<br /> +<br /> +Never did I leave my hands free of her<br /> +Unless the hands of Star Face were upon her.<br /> +When he made signs of soft pale-faces<br /> +I made signs of the passing of spirits,<br /> +So he saw that my hands ever upon her<br /> +Were only that I might hold her back<br /> +From the land of the great Unseen;<br /> +For only these three, Medicine Man,<br /> +Only these three little people,<br /> +The Great Spirit sent to my lodge,<br /> +From the far land of cradle filling.<br /> +<br /> +Always when we came near still or running water<br /> +I held her with the hug of black bear.<br /> +Before she might chase the little fishes,<br /> +Even in the shallow inshore water of the bays,<br /> +Or hunt the clinging mussel for food,<br /> +Or bathe with the small people,<br /> +I went before her every step<br /> +And always my feet were feeling, searching,<br /> +For any sign of the sands of treachery.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> +In my heart I said: "They shall not have her,<br /> +The ravenous Monster mouths,<br /> +They shall not have her, the pitiless death sands!"<br /> +<br /> +Thou knowest, Medicine Man,<br /> +The season of the great pow-wow<br /> +When I was needed at the fires roasting deer meat,<br /> +When I was needed to set the forest of wigwams<br /> +For seven tribes, seeking our welcome,<br /> +When I was needed to make swift preparation,<br /> +To use all the store of my knowledge,<br /> +For the coming of a cloud of peoples<br /> +From far countries to our village,<br /> +To teach us of their experience<br /> +And to learn of our wisdom from us,<br /> +Thou knowest that day, Medicine Man—<br /> +The greatest day of the life of our nation.<br /> +<br /> +I held little Dove Eye tight<br /> +Then set her on the pony of Star Face before him<br /> +That she might ride to meet the friendly people.<br /> +Thou knowest how she danced to him,<br /> +And beat her little hands in triumph,<br /> +How she snatched at the sunbeams<br /> +And fluttered her fingers to me,<br /> +Like the flying painted wings<br /> +Honey gathering over the valley pastures;<br /> +How she made me the sign of birds far flying,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> +When she rode away at the head of our Braves,<br /> +On the proud pony of Star Face.<br /> +<br /> +Thou knowest how again and again, harshly,<br /> +I made the sign of full cradling arms,<br /> +Of tight holding, of unsleeping spying,<br /> +To Star Face as he left me.<br /> +<br /> +All day the fire bird burned my heart<br /> +All day I heard his prison song;<br /> +I stopped work at the smoking baking stones,<br /> +To push back the hated water flowers<br /> +Like fulling wool from the wild sheep's back.<br /> +Ever I pleadingly prayed the Great Spirit<br /> +To have her in his safe keeping.<br /> +<br /> +And thou knowest how the mighty Chiefs<br /> +Rode with bowed, sorrowing heads before me.<br /> +Thou knowest how Star Face, my man,<br /> +Stood stricken and mourning at our doorway,<br /> +His empty hands turned down in sign of torture.<br /> +<br /> +Thou knowest the tale the old wise man made<br /> +Of how her glad voice chanted with the birds<br /> +And her little hands clamoured and begged,<br /> +When they passed the white flowered still pool,<br /> +The magic ornament of the valley breast,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> +Where first she saw the flowers of dawn growing.<br /> +Thou knowest how she whimpered,<br /> +How she reached pleading hungry hands,<br /> +How she fought to be put down to pick them.<br /> +<br /> +On his pony, Star-Face left her with the Braves,<br /> +While he made the welcome sign talk to the visitors,<br /> +While he spoke the brothers' friendly greeting,<br /> +While he smoked the contented peace pipe<br /> +That warmed the hearts of our visitors.<br /> +Thou knowest how she turned his war pony<br /> +And flew back over the trail, wind driven.<br /> +Thou knowest how the frightened hunters<br /> +Rode at racing speed to catch her,<br /> +And how they saw only one little hand<br /> +Not yet swallowed by the sand mouths<br /> +The living sign of coming mourning,<br /> +Tightly clutching the white flower of destruction<br /> +With its lying heart of the gold of happiness.<br /> +<br /> +And thou knowest how three of our young Braves<br /> +Went down in the fierce sand mouths,<br /> +Fighting with full man strength to save her,<br /> +Until the mighty Chief, her grandfather, cried:<br /> +"It is enough. The Great Spirit has spoken.<br /> +He has taken her back to the land of short shadows.<br /> +We cannot have her. I have said it!"<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span><br /> +Medicine Man, O Medicine Man,<br /> +Is there no magic in the toluache lily?<br /> +Is there no medicine in thy heaped storehouse,<br /> +Fat with all the harvest of field and forest,<br /> +That will quench the flaming fire bird,<br /> +That will ease its coal hot scorching?<br /> +<br /> +Medicine Man, O Medicine Man,<br /> +Is there no magic granted by the Great Spirit<br /> +That will take from my tortured hands<br /> +This curse of snowy sweetness?<br /> +Call Coüy-oüy and ask if she has finished.<br /> +Tell her she has taken my all, my last little fatling,<br /> +Ask her, O Medicine Man, ask her in mercy<br /> +To send you High Magic from the Spirits,<br /> +That will empty my hands of the white flower,<br /> +That will ease from my sickened heart<br /> +The gnawing flame of the Fire Bird.<br /> +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<div class="blockquot"><p>The names of the tribes used in "The Fire Bird" are fictitious. +The country described begins in the land of the Salish +tribes of Alaska, runs south to the lowest extent of British +Columbia, and east to the vicinity north of North Dakota. +All tribes and country described are Alaskan or Canadian.</p></div> +<div class="center"> +THE END +</div> + + +<hr /> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 646px;"> +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/i_back_endpaper_a.jpg" width="323" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/i_back_endpaper_b.jpg" width="323" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> +</div> + + +<p> </p> +<h4>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES</h4> + +<p>The following changes have been made in the text:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p> +Page 2: comma added +<br /> +Pages 16, 66: closing quote missing - no alteration +<br /> +Page 26: printer typo - name spelling corrected +<br /> +Page 34: printer typo - kille changed to killer +</p></div> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fire Bird, by Gene Stratton-Porter + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIRE BIRD *** + +***** This file should be named 35188-h.htm or 35188-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/1/8/35188/ + +Produced by Chris Curnow, Steve Read and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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