| WE-HRO
was a small Onondaga Indian boy, a good-looking, black-eyed
little chap with as pagan a heart as ever beat under
a copper-colored skin. His father and grandfathers were
pagans. His ancestors for a thousand years back, and
yet a thousand years back of that, had been pagans,
and We-hro, with the pride of his religion and his race,
would not have turned from the faith of his fathers
for all the world. But the world, as he knew it, consisted
entirely of the Great Indian Reserve, that lay on the
banks of the beautiful Grand River, sixty miles west
of the great Canadian city of Toronto.
Now, the boys that read this
tale must not confuse a pagan with a heathen. The heathen
nations that worship idols are terribly pitied and despised
by the pagan Indians, who are worshippers of “The
Great Spirit,” a kind and loving God, who, they
say, will reward them by giving them happy hunting grounds
to live in after they die; that is, if they live good,
honest, upright lives in this world.
We-hro would have scolded blackly
if anyone had dared to name him a heathen. He thoroughly
ignored the little Delaware boys, whose fathers worshipped
idols fifty years ago, and on all the feast days and
dance days he would accompany his parents to the “Longhouse”
(which was their church), and take his little part in
the religious festivities. He could remember well as
a tiny child being carried in his mother’s blanket
“pick-a-back,” while she dropped into the
soft swinging movement of the dance, for We-hro’s
people did not worship their [Page 96]
“Great Spirit” with hymns of praise and
lowly prayers, the way the Christian Indians did. We-hro’s
people worshipped their God by dancing beautiful, soft,
dignified steps, with no noisy clicking heels to annoy
one, but only the velvety shuffle of the moccasined
feet, the weird beat of the Indian drums, the mournful
chanting of the old chiefs, keeping time with the throb
of their devoted hearts.
Then, when he grew too big to
be carried, he was allowed to clasp his mother’s
hand, and himself learn the pretty steps, following
his father, who danced ahead, dressed in full costume
of scarlet cloth and buckskin, with gay beads and bear
claws about his neck, and wonderful carven silver ornaments,
massive and solid, decorating his shirt and leggings.
We-hro loved the tawny fringes and the hammered silver
quite as much as a white lady loves diamonds and pearls;
he loved to see his father’s face painted in fierce
reds, yellows and blacks, but most of all he loved the
unvarying chuck-a, chuck-a, chuck-a
of the great mud-turtle rattles that the “musicians”
skillfully beat upon the benches before them. Oh, he
was a thorough little pagan, was We-hro! His loves and
his hates were as decided as his comical but stately
step in the dance of his ancestors’ religion.
Those were great days for the small Onondaga boy. His
father taught him to shape axe-handles, to curve lacrosse
sticks, to weave their deer-sinew netting, to tan skins,
to plant corn, to model arrows and—most difficult
of all—to “feather” them, to “season”
bows, to chop trees, to burn, hollow, fashion, and “man”
a dugout canoe, to use the paddle, to gauge the wind
and current of that treacherous Grand river, to learn
wild cries to decoy bird and beast for food. Oh, little
pagan We-hro had his life filled to overflowing with
much that the civilized white boy would give all his
dimes and dollars to know.
And it was then that the great
day came, the marvelous day when We-hro discovered his
second self, his [Page 97]
playmate, his loyal, unselfish, loving friend—his
underbred, unwashed, hungry, vagabond dog, born white
and spotless, but begrimed by contact with the world,
the mud, and the white man’s hovel.
It happened this way:
We-hro was cleaning his father’s
dugout canoe, after a night of fish spearing. The soot,
the scales, the fire ashes, the mud—all had to
be “swabbed” out at the river’s brink
by means of much water and an Indian “slat”
broom. We-hro was up to his little ears in work, when
suddenly, above him, on the river road, he heard the
coarse voice and thundering whipfalls of a man urging
and beating his horse—a white man, for no Indian
used such language, no Indian beat an animal that served
him. We-hro looked up. Stuck in the mud of the river
road was a huge wagon, grain-filled. The driver, purple
of face, was whaling the poor team, and shouting to
a cringing little drab-white dog, of fox-terrier lineage,
to “Get out of there or I’ll—!”
The horses were dragging and
tugging. The little dog, terrified, was sneaking off
with tail between its hind legs. Then the brutal driver’s
whip came down, curling its lash about the dog’s
thin body, forcing from the little speechless brute
a howl of agony. Then We-hro spoke—spoke in all
the English he knew.
“Bad! bad! You die some
day—you! You hurt that dog. White man’s
God, he no like you. Indian’s Great Spirit, he
not let you shoot in happy hunting grounds. You die
some day—you bad!”
“Well, if I am
bad I’m no pagan Indian Hottentot like you!”
yelled the angry driver. “Take the dog, and begone!”
“Me no Hottnetot,”
said We-hro, slowly. “Me Onondaga, all right.
Me take dog;” and from that hour the poor little
white cur and the copper-colored little boy were friends
for all time. [Page 98]
*
* *
* *
*
The
Superintendent of Indian Affairs was taking his periodical
drive about the Reserve when he chanced to meet old
“Ten-Canoes,” We-hro’s father.
The
superintendent was a very important person. He was a
great white gentleman, who lived in the city of Brantford,
fifteen miles away. He was a kindly, handsome man, who
loved and honored every Indian on the Grand River Reserve.
He had a genial smile, a warm hand-shake, so when he
stopped his horse and greeted the old pagan, Ten-Canoes
smiled too.
“Ah,
Ten-Canoes!” cried the superintendent, “a
great man told me he was coming to see your people—a
big man, none less than Great Black-Coat, the bishop
of the Anglican Church. He thinks you are a bad lot,
because you are pagans; he wonders why it is that you
have never turned Christian. Some of the missionaries
have told him you pagans are no good, so the great man
wants to come and see for himself. He wants to see some
of your religious dances—the ‘Dance of the
White Dog,’ if you will have him; he wants to
see if it is really bad.”
Ten-Canoes laughed. “I
welcome him” he said, earnestly, “Welcome
the ‘Great Black-Coat.’ I honor him, though
I do not think as he does. He is a good man, a just
man; I welcome him, bid him come.”
Thus
was his lordship, the Bishop, invited to see the great
pagan Onondaga “Festival of the White Dog.”
But
what was this that happened?
Never
yet had a February moon waned but that the powerful
Onondaga tribe had offered the burnt “Sacrifice
of the White Dog,” that most devout of all native
rites. But now, search as they might, not a single spotlessly
white dog could be found. No other animal would do.
It was the law of this great Indian tribe that no other
burnt sacrifice could possibly be offered than the strangled
body of a white dog.
We-hro
heard all the great chiefs talking of it all. He listened
to plans for searching the entire Reserve for [Page
99] a dog, and the following morning he arose
at dawn, took his own pet dog down to the river and
washed him as he had seen white men wash their sheep.
Then out of the water dashed the gay little animal,
yelping and barking in play, rolling in the snow, tearing
madly about, and finally rushing off towards the log
house which was We-hro’s home, and scratching
at the door to get in by the warm fire to dry his shaggy
coat. Oh! what an ache that coat caused in We-hro’s
heart. From a dull drab grey, the dog’s hair had
washed pure white, not a spot or a blemish on it, and
in an agony of grief the little pagan boy realized that
through his own action he had endangered the life of
his dog friend; that should his father and his father’s
friends see that small white terrier, they would take
it away for the nation’s sacrifice.
Stumbling
and panting and breathless, We-hro hurried after his
pet, and, seizing the dog in his arms, he wrapped his
own shabby coat about the trembling, half-dry creature,
and carried him to where the cedars grew thick at the
back of the house. Crouched in their shadows he hugged
his treasured companion, thinking with horror of the
hour when the blow would surely fall.
For
days the boy kept his dog in the shelter of the cedars,
tied up tightly with an old rope, and sleeping in a
warm raccoon skin, which We-hro smuggled away from his
own simple bed. The dog contented himself with what
little food We-hro managed to carry to him, but the
hiding could not keep up forever, and one dark, dreaded
day We-hro’s father came into the house and sat
smoking in silence for many minutes. When at last he
spoke, he said:
“We-hro,
your dog is known to me. I have seen him, white as the
snow that fell last night. It is the law that someone
must always suffer for the good of the people. We-hro,
would you have the great ‘Black-Coat,’ the
great white preacher, come to see our beautiful ceremony,
and would you have the great Onondaga tribe fail to
show [Page 100] the white man how we
worship our ancient Great Spirit? Would you have us
fail to burn the sacrifice? Or will you give your white
dog for the honor of our people?”
The world is full of heroes,
but at that moment it held none greater than the little
pagan boy, who crushed down his grief and battled back
his tears as he answered:
“Father,
you are old and honored and wise. For you and for my
people alone would I give the dog.”
At
last the wonderful Dance Day arrived. His lordship,
the Bishop of the Anglican Church, drove down from the
city of Brantford; with him the Superintendent of Indian
Affairs, and a man who understood both the English and
the Onondaga languages. Long before they reached the
“Longhouse” they could hear the wild beat
of the drum, could count the beats of the dance rattles,
could distinguish the half-sad chant of the worshippers.
The kind face of the great bishop was very grave. It
pained his gentle heart to know that this great tribe
of Indians were pagans—savages, as he thought—but
when he entered that plain log building that the Onondagas
held as their church, he took off his hat with the beautiful
reverence all great men pay to other great men’s
religion, and he stood bareheaded while old Ten-Canoes
chanted forth this speech:
“Oh,
brothers of mine! We welcome the white man’s friend,
the great ‘Black-Coat,’ to this, our solemn
worship. We offer to the red man’s God—the
Great Spirit—a burnt offering. We do not think
that anything save what is pure and faithful and without
blemish can go into the sight of the Great Spirit. Therefore
do we offer this dog, pure as we hope our spirits are,
that the God of the red man may accept it with our devotion,
knowing that we, too, would gladly be as spotless as
this sacrifice.”
Then
was a dog carried in dead, and beautifully decorated
with wampum, beads and porcupine embroidery. Oh! so
mercifully dead and out of pain, gently strangled [Page
101] by reverent fingers, for an Indian is
never unkind to an animal. And far over in a corner
of the room was a little brown figure, twisted with
agony, choking back the sobs and tears—for was
he not taught that tears were for babies alone, and
not for boys that grew up into warriors?
“Oh,
my dog! my dog!” he muttered. “They have
taken you away from me, but it was for the honor of
my father and my own people.”
The
great Anglican bishop turned at that moment, and, catching
the sight of suffering on little We-hro’s face,
said aloud to the man who spoke both languages:
“That
little boy over there seems in torture. Can I do anything
for him, do you think?”
“That little boy,”
replied the man who spoke both languages, “is
the son of the great Onondaga chief. No white dog could
be found for this ceremony but his. This dog was his
pet, but for the honor of his father and of his tribe
he has given up his pet as a sacrifice.”
For
a moment the great Anglican bishop was blinded by his
own tears. Then he walked slowly across the wide log
building and laid his white hand tenderly on the head
of the little Onondaga boy. His kindly old eyes closed,
and his lips moved—noiselessly, for a space, then
he said aloud:
“Oh,
that the white boys of my great city church knew and
practised half as much of self-denial as has this little
pagan Indian lad, who has given up his heart’s
dearest because his father and the honor of his people
required it.” [Page 102]
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