For instance, there was the legend of ‘The Undying Head.’
He could not tell it, for many of the details had grown dim
in his memory; but he would recommend me to find it and enlarge
my respect for the Indian imagination. He said that this tale,
and most of the others in the book, were current among the Indians
along this part of the Mississippi when he first came here;
and that the contributors to Schoolcraft’s book had got them directly
from Indian lips, and had written them down with strict exactness,
and without embellishments of their own.
I have found the book. The lecturer was right. There are several
legends in it which confirm what he said. I will offer two of them–‘The
Undying Head,’ and ‘Peboan and Seegwun, an Allegory of the Seasons.’
The latter is used in Hiawatha; but it is worth reading in the original form,
if only that one may see how effective a genuine poem can be without
the helps and graces of poetic measure and rhythm–
PEBOAN AND SEEGWUN.
An old man was sitting alone in his lodge, by the side
of a frozen stream. It was the close of winter, and his fire
was almost out, He appeared very old and very desolate.
His locks were white with age, and he trembled in every joint.
Day after day passed in solitude, and he heard nothing but the sound
of the tempest, sweeping before it the new-fallen snow.
One day, as his fire was just dying, a handsome young man approached
and entered his dwelling. His cheeks were red with the blood of youth,
his eyes sparkled with animation, and a smile played upon his lips.
He walked with a light and quick step. His forehead was bound
with a wreath of sweet grass, in place of a warrior’s frontlet,
and he carried a bunch of flowers in his hand.
‘Ah, my son,’ said the old man, ‘I am happy to see you.
Come in. Come and tell me of your adventures, and what strange
lands you have been to see. Let us pass the night together.
I will tell you of my prowess and exploits, and what I can perform.
You shall do the same, and we will amuse ourselves.’
He then drew from his sack a curiously wrought antique pipe,
and having filled it with tobacco, rendered mild by a mixture
of certain leaves, handed it to his guest. When this ceremony
was concluded they began to speak.
‘I blow my breath,’ said the old man, ‘and the stream stands still.
The water becomes stiff and hard as clear stone.’
‘I breathe,’ said the young man, ‘and flowers spring up over the plain.’
‘I shake my locks,’ retorted the old man, ‘and snow covers the land.
The leaves fall from the trees at my command, and my breath blows them away.
The birds get up from the water, and fly to a distant land.
The animals hide themselves from my breath, and the very ground becomes as
hard as flint.’
‘I shake my ringlets,’ rejoined the young man, ‘and warm showers
of soft rain fall upon the earth. The plants lift up their heads
out of the earth, like the eyes of children glistening with delight.
My voice recalls the birds. The warmth of my breath unlocks the streams.
Music fills the groves wherever I walk, and all nature rejoices.’
At length the sun began to rise. A gentle warmth came
over the place. The tongue of the old man became silent.
The robin and bluebird began to sing on the top of the lodge.
The stream began to murmur by the door, and the fragrance of growing
herbs and flowers came softly on the vernal breeze.
Daylight fully revealed to the young man the character of his entertainer.
When he looked upon him, he had the icy visage of Peboan.
he grew less and less in stature, and anon had melted completely away.
Nothing remained on the place of his lodge-fire but the miskodeed,
one of the earliest species of northern plants.