The Prairie Flower: A Tale of the Indian Border

At the period our story begins, Prairie Flower was fourteen years of age; she was a charming creature, gentle and simple, lovely as the princess of a fairy tale. Her large blue eyes, veiled by long brown lashes, reflected the azure of the heaven, and she ran about, careless and wild, through the forests and over the prairie, dreaming at times beneath the shady recesses of the giant trees, living as the birds live, forgetting the past, which was to her as yesterday, caring nothing for the future, which to her had no existence, and only thinking of the present to be happy.

The charming girl had unconsciously become the idol of the tribe. The old White Buffalo more especially felt an unbounded affection for her; but the experiment he had made with Natah Otann disgusted him with a second trial at education. He only watched over her with truly paternal care, correcting any fault he might notice in her with a patience and kindness nothing could weary. This old tribune, like all energetic and implacable men, had the heart of a lamb; having entirely renounced the world which mistook him, he had refreshed his soul in the desert, and recovered the illusions and generous impulses of his youth.

Prairie Flower had retained no remembrance of her early years; as no one ever alluded in her presence to the terrible scenes which introduced her to the tribe, fresher impressions had completely effaced them. Loved and petted by all, Prairie Flower fancied herself a child of the tribe. Her long tresses of light hair, gilded like ripe corn, and the dazzling whiteness of her skin, could not enlighten her, for in many Indian nations these anomalies are found; the Mandans, among others, have many women and warriors who, if they put on European clothes, might easily pass for whites.

The Blackfeet, seduced by the charms of this gentle young creature, attached the destinies of the tribe to her. They considered her their tutelary genius, their palladium: their faith in her was deep, serene, and simple. Prairie Flower was truly the Queen of the Blackfeet; a sign from her rosy fingers, a word from her dainty lips, was obeyed with unbounded promptitude and devotion. She could do anything, say everything, demand everything, without fearing even a second's hesitation to her will. She exercised this despotic authority unsuspectingly; she alone was unaware of the immense power she possessed over these brutal natives, who in her presence became gentle and devoted.

Natah Otann was attached to his adopted daughter, so far as organizations like his are capable of yielding to any feeling. At first he sported with the girl as with an unimportant plaything; but gradually, as the child was transformed and became a woman, these sports became more serious, and his heart was attracted. For the first time in his life, this man, with his indomitable soul, felt a feeling stir in him which he could not analyze, but which, through its force and violence, astonished and terrified him.

Then, a dumb struggle began between the chiefs head and heart. He revolted against this influence which subjugated him: he, hitherto accustomed to break through every obstacle, was now powerless before a child, who disarmed him with a smile, when he tried to overpower her. This struggle lasted a long time; at length, the terrible Indian confessed himself vanquished, that is to say, he allowed the current to carry him away, and without attempting a resistance, which he felt to be useless, he began to love the young maiden madly. But this love at times caused him sufferings so terrible, when he thought of the manner in which Prairie Flower had become his adopted daughter, that he asked himself with terror, whether this deep love which had seized on his brain, and mastered him, was not a chastisement imposed by Heaven.

Then, he fell back in his usual state of fury, redoubled his ferocity with those unhappy beings whose plantations he surprised, and, all reeking with blood, his girdle hung with scalps, he returned to the village, and displayed the hideous trophies before the girl. Prairie Flower, astonished at the state in which she saw a man whom she believed to be – not her father, for he was too young – but a relative, lavished on him all the consolations and simple caresses which her attachment to him suggested to her: unfortunately, these caresses heightened his suffering, and he would rush away half mad with grief, leaving her sad and almost terrified by this conduct, which was so incomprehensible to her.

Matters reached such a pitch, that the White Buffalo, whose vigilant eye was constantly fixed on his pupil, considered that he must, at all risks, cut away the evil at the root, and withdraw the son of his friend from the deadly fascination exercised over him by this innocent enchantress. When he felt convinced of the chiefs love for Prairie Flower, the old sachem asked for a private interview with his pupil: the latter granted it, quite unsuspecting the reason which urged the White Buffalo to take this step.

One morning the chief presented himself at the entrance of his friend's lodge. The White Buffalo was reading by the side of a fire kindled in the middle of the hut.

"You are welcome, my son," he said to the young man. "I have only a few words to say to you, but I consider them sufficiently serious for you to hear them without delay; sit down by my side."

The young man obeyed. The White Buffalo then carefully changed his tactics: he, who had so long combated the chief's views as to the regeneration of the Indian race, entered completely into his views, with an ardour and conviction carried so far, that the young man was astonished, and could not refrain from asking what produced this sudden change in his opinion?

"The cause is very simple," the old man answered. "So long as I considered that these views were only suggested by the impetuosity of youth, I merely regarded them as the dreams of a generous heart, which was deceiving itself, and not taking the trouble to weigh the chances of success."

"What now?" the young man asked, quickly.

"Now, I recognize all the earnestness, nobility, and grandeur, contained in your plans; and not only admit their possibility, but I wish to aid you, so as to ensure success."

"Is what you say quite true, my father?" the young man asked, with exultation.

"I swear it: still we must set to work immediately." The chief examined him for a moment carefully, but the old man remained impassive.

"I understand you," he at length said, slowly, and in a deep voice; "you offer me your hand on the verge of an abyss. Thanks, my father, I will not be unworthy of you; I swear to you by the Wacondah."

"Good; believe me, my son, I recognize you," the old man said, shaking his head mournfully. "One's country is often an ungrateful mistress; but it is the only one which gives us true enjoyment of mind, if we serve her disinterestedly for herself alone."

The two men shook hands affectionately; the compact was sealed. We shall soon see whether Natah Otann had really conquered his love as he imagined.

CHAPTER X

THE GREAT COUNCIL

Natah Otann set to work immediately, with that feverish ardour that distinguished him. He sent emissaries in every direction to the principal chiefs of the western prairies, and convoked them to a great plain in the valley of the Missouri, at a spot called "The Tree of the Master of Life," on the fourth day of the moon of the hardened snow. This spot was held in great veneration by the Missouri Indians, who went there constantly to hang up presents. It was an immense sandy plain, completely denuded of vegetation; in the centre of the desert rose a gigantic tree, an oak, twenty feet in circumference at least, the trunk being hollow, and the tufted branches covering an enormous superficies. This tree, which was a hundred and twenty feet in height, and which grew there by accident, necessarily was regarded by the Indians as something miraculous; hence the name they gave it.

On the appointed day, the Indians arrived from all sides, marching in good order, and camping at a short distance from the spot selected for the council. An immense fire had been kindled at the foot of the tree, and at a signal given by the drummers, or Chichikouès, the chiefs collected around it, a few paces behind the sachems. The Blackfeet, Nez Percés, Assiniboins, Mandans, and other horsemen, formed a tremendous cordon round the council fire; while scouts traversed the desert in every direction, to keep off intruders, and insure the secrecy of the deliberations.

In the east the sun was pouring forth its beams; the desert, parched and naked, was mingled with the boundless horizon; to the south, the Rocky Mountains displayed the eternal snow of the summits; while in the north-west, a silvery ribbon indicated the course of the old Missouri. Such was the landscape, if we may call it so, where the barbarous warriors, clothed in their strange costumes, were assembled near the symbolic tree. This majestic sight involuntarily reminded the observer of other times and climes, when, by the light of the incendiary fires they kindled, the ferocious comrades of Attila rushed to conquer and rejuvenate the Roman Empire.

Generally the natives of America have a Divinity, or more correctly, a Genius, at times beneficent, but more frequently hostile. The worship of the savage is less veneration than fear. The Master of Life is an evil genius, rather than kind; hence the Indians give his name to the tree to which they attribute the same powers. Indian religions, being all primitive, make no account of the moral being, and only dwell on the accidents of nature, which they make into gods. These different tribes strive to secure the favour of the deserts, where fatigue and thirst entail death, and of the rivers, which may swallow them up.

The chiefs, as we have said, were crouching round the fire, in a state of contemplative immobility, from which it might be inferred that they were preparing for an important ceremony of their worship. Presently Natah Otann raised to his lips the long war pipe, made of a human thighbone, which he wore hanging round his neck, and produced a piercing and prolonged sound. At this signal, for it was one, the chiefs rose, and forming in Indian file, marched twice round the tree, singing, in a low voice, a hymn, to implore its assistance for the success of their plans. At the third time of marching round, Natah Otann took off a magnificent collar of grizzly bears' claws from his neck, and hung it to the branches of the tree, saying, —

"Master of Life, look on us with a favourable eye. I offer thee this present."

The other chiefs imitated his example each in turn; then they resumed their scats round the council fire. The pipe bearer then entered the circle, and after the customary ceremonies, offered the calumet to the chiefs, and when each had smoked, the oldest sachem invited Natah Otann to take the word.

The Indian chief's plan was probably the most daring ever formed against the whites, and, as the White Buffalo said, mockingly, must offer chances of success through its improbability, because it flattered the superstitious ideas of the Indians, who, like all primitive nations, place great faith in the marvellous. It is besides, the quality of oppressed nations, to whom reality never offers aught but disillusions and suffering, to take refuge in the supernatural, which alone offers them consolation. Natah Otann had drawn the first idea of his plan from one of the oldest and most inveterate traditions of the Comanches, his ancestors. This tradition, by reciting which his father often lulled him to sleep in his childhood, pleased his adventurous mind; and when the hour arrived to put in execution the projects which he had so long revolved, he invoked it, and resolved to employ it, in order to collect the other Indian nations around him in one common whole.

When Motecuhzoma (whom Spanish writers improperly call Montezuma, a name which has no meaning, while the first signifies the stern lord) found himself imprisoned in his palace by that talented adventurer, Cortez, who, a few days later, tore his kingdom from him, the Emperor, who preferred to confide in greedy strangers than take refuge in the midst of his people, had a presentiment of the fate reserved for him. A few days prior to his death, he assembled the principal Mexican chiefs who shared his prison, and addressed them thus: —

"Listen! My father, the Sun, has warned me that I shall soon return to him. I know not how or when I am destined to die, but I am certain that my last hour is close at hand."

As the chiefs burst into tears at these words, for they held him in great veneration, he consoled them by saying —

"My last hour is near on this earth, but I shall not die, as I am returning to my father, the Sun, where I shall enjoy a felicity unknown in this world; weep not, therefore, my faithful friends, but, on the contrary, rejoice at the happiness which awaits me. The bearded white men have treacherously seized the greater portion of my empire, and they will soon be masters of the remainder. Who can stop them? Their weapons render them invulnerable, and they dispose at their will of the fire from heaven; but their power will end one day; they, too, will be the victims of treachery; the penalty of retaliation will be inflicted on them in all its rigour. Listen, then, attentively, to what I am about to ask of you; the safety of our country depends on the fidelity with which you execute my last orders. Each of you take a title of the sacred fire which was formerly kindled by the Sun himself, and on which the white men have not yet dared to lay a sacrilegious hand to extinguish it. This fire burns before you in this golden censer; take it unto you, not letting your enemies know what has become of it. You will divide the fire among you, so that each may have a sufficiency; preserve it religiously, ant never let it go out. Each morning, alter adoring it mount on the roof of your house, at sunrise, and look toward the east; one day you will see me appear, giving my right hand to my father, the Sun; then you will rejoice, for the moment of your deliverance will be at hand. My father and I will come to restore you to liberty, and deliver you for ever from these enemies, who have come from a perverse world, that rejected them from its bosom."

The Mexican chiefs obeyed the orders of their well-beloved Emperor on the spot, for time pressed. A few days later, Motecuhzoma mounted on the roof of his palace, and prepared to address his mutinous people, when he was struck by an arrow, it was never known by whom, and fell into the arms of the Spanish soldiery who accompanied him. Before breathing his last sigh, the Emperor sat up, and raising his hands to heaven, said, with a supreme effort, to his friends assembled round him – "The fire! the fire! think of the fire."

These were his last words: ten minutes later he had ceased to breathe. In vain did the Spaniards, whose curiosity was strongly aroused by this mysterious recommendation, try by all the means in their power to penetrate its meaning; but they did not succeed in making one of the Mexicans they interrogated speak. All religiously preserved their secret, and several, indeed, died of torture, rather than reveal it.

The Comanches, and nearly all the nations of the Far West, have kept this belief intact. In all the Indian villages, the fire of Motecuhzoma, which burns eternally is guarded by two warriors, who remain by it for twenty-four hours without eating or drinking, when they are relieved by two others. Formerly the guardians remained forty-eight hours instead of twenty-four. It frequently happened that they were found dead when the reliefs came, either through the mephitic gases of the fire, which had great effect on them, owing to their long fast, or for some other reason. The bodies were taken away, and placed in a cavern, where, as the Comanches say, a serpent devoured them.

This belief is so general, that it is not only found among the Red Indians, but also among the Manzos. Many men, considered to be well educated, keep up, in hidden corners, the fire of Motecuhzoma, visit it every day, and do not fail at sunrise to mount on the roof of their houses and look towards the east, in the hope of seeing their well-beloved emperor coming to restore them that liberty for which they have sighed during so many ages, and which the Mexican Republic is far from having granted them.

Natah Otann's idea was this: – To tell the Indians, after narrating the legend to them, that the time had arrived when Motecuhzoma would appear and act as their chief; to form a powerful band of warriors, whom he would spread along the whole American frontier, so as to attack his enemies at every point simultaneously, and not give them the time to look about them. This project, mad as it was, especially in having to be executed by Indians, or men the least capable of forming alliances, which have ever caused them defeats; this project, we say, was deficient neither in boldness nor in nobility, and Natah Otann was really the only man capable of carrying it out, could he but find, among the persons he wished to arouse, two or three docile and intelligent instruments, that would understand his idea, and heartily cooperate with him.

The Comanches, Pawnees, and Sioux were of great utility to the chief, as well as the majority of the Indians of the Far West, for they shared in the belief on which Natah Otann based his plans, and not only did not need to be persuaded, but would help him in persuading the Missouri Indians by their assent to his assertions. But in so large an assembly of nations, divided by a multitude of interests, speaking different languages, generally hostile to each other, how would it be possible to establish a tie sufficiently strong to attach them in an indissoluble manner? How convince them to march together without jealousy? Lastly, was it reasonable to suppose that there would not be a traitor to sell his brothers, and reveal their plans to the Yankees, whoever have an eye on the movements of the Indians, for they are so anxious to be rid of them?

Still, Natah Otann did not recoil; he did not conceal from himself the difficulties which he should have to overcome; but his courage grew with obstacles. His resolution was strengthened, if we may use the term, in proportion to the responsibilities which must every moment rise before him. When the sachems made him the signal to rise; Natah Otann saw that the moment had arrived to begin the difficult game he wished to play. He took the word resolutely, certain that, with the men he had before him, all depended on the manner in which he handled the question, and that, the first impression once made, success was almost certain.

"Chiefs of the Comanches, Osages, Sioux, Pawnees, Mandans, Assiniboins, Missouris, and all you that listen to me. Redskin brothers," he said, in a firm and deeply accentuated voice, "for many moons my spirit has been sad. I see, with sorrow, our hunting grounds, invaded by the white men, grow smaller every day. We, whose innumerable peoples covered, scarce four centuries back, the immense extent of territory compassed between the two seas, are now reduced to a small party of warriors who, timid as antelopes, fly before our despoilers. Our sacred cities, the last refuge of the civilization of our fathers, the Incas, will become the prey of those monsters with human faces who have no other god but gold. Our dispersed race will possibly soon disappear from that world which it has so long possessed and governed alone. Tracked like wild animals; brutalized by firewater, that corrosive poison invented by the white men for our ruin; decimated by the sword and white diseases, our wandering tribes are now but the shadow of a people. Our conquerors despise our religion, and wish to bow us beneath the laws of the crucified One. They outrage our wives; kill our children; burn our villages; and will reduce us, if they can, to the state of wild beasts, under the pretext of civilizing us. Indians, all you who hear me, is our blood so impoverished in our veins, and have you all renounced your independence! Reply, will you die as slaves, or live free?"

At these words, pronounced in aloud tone, and heightened by an energetic gesture, a tremor ran through the assembly; brows were bent firmly, all eyes sparkled.

"Speak, speak again, sachem of the Blackfeet," all the chiefs shouted unanimously.

Natah Otann smiled proudly, his power over the masses was revealed to him. He continued: —

"The hour has at length arrived, after so many hesitations, to shake off the shameful yoke that presses on us. Within a few days, if you please, we will drive the whites far from our frontiers, and repay them all the evil they have done us. For a long time I have watched the Americans and Spaniards. I know their tactics, their resources: to utterly destroy them, what do we need, my well-beloved brothers? two things alone – skill and courage!"

The Indians interrupted him with shouts of joy.

"You shall be free," Natah Otann continued. "I will restore to you the valleys of your ancestors, the fields where their bones are buried, and which the sacrilegious plough disperses in every direction. This project, ever since I became a man, has fermented in my heart, and become my life. Far from me and from you the thought that I intend to force myself on you as chief, especially since the prodigy of which I have been witness, in the appearance of the great emperor! No; after that supreme chief, who must guide you to liberty, you are free to choose the man who will execute his orders, and communicate them to you. When you have chosen him, you will obey him; follow him everywhere; and pass with him through the most insurmountable dangers, for he will be the elect of the Sun; the lieutenant of Motecuhzoma! Do not deceive yourselves, warriors; our enemy is powerful, numerous, well disciplined, warlike, and has, before all, the habit of conquering us, which is a great advantage to him. Name, then, this lieutenant; let his election be free; take the most worthy, and I will joyfully march under his orders!"

And, after saluting the sachems, Natah Otann disappeared in a crowd of warriors, with calm brow, but with a heart devoured by restlessness. His eloquence, so novel to the Indians, had seduced them, and thrown them into a species of frenzy. They considered the daring Blackfoot chief a genius superior to themselves, and almost bowed the knee to him in adoration, so cleverly had he struck the chord which must touch their hearts. For a long time the council gave way to a sort of madness, and all spoke at once; when this emotion was calmed, the wisest of the sachems discussed the opportunity for taking up arms, and the chances of success. It was now that the tribes of the Far West, who believed in the legend of the sacred fire, became so useful; at length, after a protracted discussion, opinions were unanimous for a general uprising. The ranks, momentarily broken, were reformed, and the White Buffalo, invited by the chiefs to express the opinions of the council, spoke as follows: —

"Chiefs of the allied Indian tribes, listen! This day it has been resolved by the following chiefs: – Little Panther, Spotted Dog, White Buffalo, Grizzly Bear, Red Wolf, White Fox, Tawny Vulture, Glistening Snake, and others, each representing a nation and a tribe, that war has been declared against the white men, our plunderers; and as this war is holy, and has liberty for its object, all men, women, and children must take part in it, each according to their strength. This very day the wampums will be sent by the chiefs to all the Indian tribes that, owing to the distance of these hunting grounds, were unable to be present at this great council, in spite of their great desire to be so. I have spoken."

A long cry of enthusiasm interrupted the White Buffalo, who continued, soon after: —

"The chiefs, after ripe deliberation, assenting to the request made to the council by Natah Otann, the first sachem of the Blackfeet, that they should appoint a lieutenant to the Emperor Motecuhzoma, sovereign-chief of the Indian warriors, have chosen, as supreme leader under the sole orders of the said Emperor, the wisest, most prudent, and most worthy to command us. That warrior is the sachem of the Blackfoot Indians, of the tribe of the Kenhas, whose race is so ancient, Natah Otann, the cousin of the Sun, that dazzling planet which illumines us."

A thunder of applause greeted the last words. Natah Otann saluted the sachems, walked into the circle, and said, in a haughty voice, —