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XIV
In
those days said Hiawatha,
"Lo! how all things fade
and perish!
From the memory of the old men
Pass
away the great traditions,
The achievements of the
warriors,
The adventures of the hunters,
All the
wisdom of the Medas,
All the craft of the Wabenos,
All the marvellous dreams and visions
Of the
Jossakeeds, the Prophets!
"Great men die and are
forgotten,
Wise men speak; their words of wisdom
Perish in the ears that hear them,
Do not reach the
generations
That, as yet unborn, are waiting
In
the great, mysterious darkness
Of the speechless days
that shall be!
"On the grave-posts of our fathers
Are no signs, no figures painted;
Who are in those
graves we know not,
Only know they are our fathers.
Of what kith they are and kindred,
From what old,
ancestral Totem,
Be it Eagle, Bear, or Beaver,
They descended, this we know not,
Only know they are
our fathers.
"Face to face we speak together,
But
we cannot speak when absent,
Cannot send our voices
from us
To the friends that dwell afar off;
Cannot
send a secret message,
But the bearer learns our
secret,
May pervert it, may betray it,
May reveal
it unto others."
Thus said Hiawatha, walking
In
the solitary forest,
Pondering, musing in the forest,
On the welfare of his people.
From his pouch he took
his colors,
Took his paints of different colors,
On the smooth bark of a birch-tree
Painted many
shapes and figures,
Wonderful and mystic figures,
And each figure had a meaning,
Each some word or
thought suggested.
Gitche Manito the Mighty,
He,
the Master of Life, was painted
As an egg, with
points projecting
To the four winds of the heavens.
Everywhere is the Great Spirit,
Was the meaning of
this symbol.
Gitche Manito the Mighty,
He the
dreadful Spirit of Evil,
As a serpent was depicted,
As Kenabeek, the great serpent.
Very crafty, very
cunning,
Is the creeping Spirit of Evil,
Was the
meaning of this symbol.
Life and Death he drew as
circles,
Life was white, but Death was darkened;
Sun and moon and stars he painted,
Man and beast, and
fish and reptile,
Forests, mountains, lakes, and
rivers.
For the earth he drew a straight line,
For
the sky a bow above it;
White the space between for
daytime,
Filled with little stars for night-time;
On the left a point for sunrise,
On the right a point
for sunset,
On the top a point for noontide,
And
for rain and cloudy weather
Waving lines descending
from it.
Footprints pointing towards a wigwam
Were
a sign of invitation,
Were a sign of guests
assembling;
Bloody hands with palms uplifted
Were
a symbol of destruction,
Were a hostile sign and
symbol.
All these things did Hiawatha
Show unto
his wondering people,
And interpreted their meaning,
And he said: "Behold, your grave-posts
Have no mark,
no sign, nor symbol,
Go and paint them all with
figures;
Each one with its household symbol,
With
its own ancestral Totem;
So that those who follow
after
May distinguish them and know them."
And
they painted on the grave-posts
On the graves yet
unforgotten,
Each his own ancestral Totem,
Each
the symbol of his household;
Figures of the Bear and
Reindeer,
Of the Turtle, Crane, and Beaver,
Each
inverted as a token
That the owner was departed,
That the chief who bore the symbol
Lay beneath in
dust and ashes.
And the Jossakeeds, the Prophets,
The Wabenos, the Magicians,
And the Medicine-men, the
Medas,
Painted upon bark and deer-skin
Figures for
the songs they chanted,
For each song a separate
symbol,
Figures mystical and awful,
Figures
strange and brightly colored;
And each figure had its
meaning,
Each some magic song suggested.
The Great
Spirit, the Creator,
Flashing light through all the
heaven;
The Great Serpent, the Kenabeek,
With his
bloody crest erected,
Creeping, looking into heaven;
In the sky the sun, that listens,
And the moon
eclipsed and dying;
Owl and eagle, crane and
hen-hawk,
And the cormorant, bird of magic;
Headless men, that walk the heavens,
Bodies lying
pierced with arrows,
Bloody hands of death uplifted,
Flags on graves, and great war-captains
Grasping both
the earth and heaven!
Such as these the shapes they
painted
On the birch-bark and the deer-skin;
Songs
of war and songs of hunting,
Songs of medicine and of
magic,
All were written in these figures,
For each
figure had its meaning,
Each its separate song
recorded.
Nor forgotten was the Love-Song,
The
most subtle of all medicines,
The most potent spell
of magic,
Dangerous more than war or hunting!
Thus
the Love-Song was recorded,
Symbol and
interpretation.
First a human figure standing,
Painted in the brightest scarlet;
`T Is the lover,
the musician,
And the meaning is, "My painting
Makes me powerful over others."
Then the figure
seated, singing,
Playing on a drum of magic,
And
the interpretation, "Listen!
`T Is my voice you hear,
my singing!"
Then the same red figure seated
In
the shelter of a wigwam,
And the meaning of the
symbol,
"I will come and sit beside you
In the
mystery of my passion!"
Then two figures, man and
woman,
Standing hand in hand together
With their
hands so clasped together
That they seemed in one
united,
And the words thus represented
Are, "I see
your heart within you,
And your cheeks are red with
blushes!"
Next the maiden on an island,
In the
centre of an Island;
And the song this shape
suggested
Was, "Though you were at a distance,
Were upon some far-off island,
Such the spell I cast
upon you,
Such the magic power of passion,
I could
straightway draw you to me!"
Then the figure of the
maiden
Sleeping, and the lover near her,
Whispering to her in her slumbers,
Saying, "Though
you were far from me
In the land of Sleep and
Silence,
Still the voice of love would reach you!"
And the last of all the figures
Was a heart within a
circle,
Drawn within a magic circle;
And the image
had this meaning:
"Naked lies your heart before me,
To your naked heart I whisper!"
Thus it was that
Hiawatha,
In his wisdom, taught the people
All the
mysteries of painting,
All the art of
Picture-Writing,
On the smooth bark of the
birch-tree,
On the white skin of the reindeer,
On
the grave-posts of the village.
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