Snowflakes and Sunbeams; Or, The Young Fur-traders: A Tale of the Far North, - [best summer reads .txt] 📗

The feast—Charley makes his first speech in public, and meets with an old friend—An evening in the grass.

Savages, not less than civilized men, are fond of a good dinner. In saying this, we do not expect our reader to be overwhelmed with astonishment. He might have guessed as much; but when we state that savages, upon particular occasions, eat six dinners in one, and make it a point of honour to do so, we apprehend that we have thrown a slightly new light on an old subject. Doubtless there are men in civilised society who would do likewise if they could; but they cannot, fortunately, as great gastronomic powers are dependent on severe, healthful, and prolonged physical exertion. Therefore it is that in England we find men capable only of eating about two dinners at once, and suffering a good deal for it afterwards; while in the backwoods we see men consume a week’s dinners in one, without any evil consequences following the act.

The feast which was given by the Knisteneux in honour of the visit of our two friends was provided on a more moderate scale than usual, in order to accommodate the capacities of the “white men;” three days’ allowance being cooked for each man. (Women are never admitted to the public feasts.) On the day preceding the ceremony, Charley and Jacques had received cards of invitation from the principal chief in the shape of two quills; similar invites being issued at the same time to all the braves. Jacques being accustomed to the doings of the Indians, and aware of the fact that whatever was provided for each man must be eaten before he quitted the scene of operations, advised Charley to eat no breakfast, and to take a good walk as a preparative. Charley had strong faith, however, in his digestive powers, and felt much inclined, when morning came, to satisfy the cravings of his appetite as usual; but Jacques drew such a graphic picture of the work that lay before him, that he forbore to urge the matter, and went off to walk with a light step, and an uncomfortable feeling of vacuity about the region of the stomach.

About noon, the chiefs and braves assembled in an open enclosure situated in an exposed place on the banks of the river, where the proceedings were watched by the women, children, and dogs. The oldest chief sat himself down on the turf at one end of the enclosure, with Jacques Caradoc on his right hand, and next to him Charley Kennedy, who had ornamented himself with a blue stripe painted down the middle of his nose, and a red bar across his chin. Charley’s propensity for fun had led him thus to decorate his face, in spite of his companion’s remonstrances,—urging, by way of excuse, that worthy’s former argument, “that it was well to fall in with the ways o’ the people a man happened to be among, so long as these ways and customs were not contrary to what was right.” Now Charley was sure there was nothing wrong in his painting his nose sky blue, if he thought fit.

Jacques thought it was absurd, and entertained the opinion that it would be more dignified to leave his face “its nat’ral colour.”

Charley didn’t agree with him at all. He thought it would be paying the Indians a high compliment to follow their customs as far as possible, and said that, after all, his blue nose would not be very conspicuous, as he (Jacques) had told him that he would “look blue” at any rate when he saw the quantity of deer’s meat he should have to devour.

Jacques laughed at this, but suggested that the bar across his chin was red. Whereupon Charley said that he could easily neutralise that by putting a green star under each eye; and then uttered a fervent wish that his friend Harry Somerville could only see him in that guise. Finding him incorrigible, Jacques, who, notwithstanding his remonstrances, was more than half imbued with Charley’s spirit, gave in, and accompanied him to the feast, himself decorated with the additional ornament of a red night-cap, to whose crown was attached a tuft of white feathers.

A fire burned in the centre of the enclosure, round which the Indians seated themselves according to seniority, and with deep solemnity; for it is a trait in the Indian’s character that all his ceremonies are performed with extreme gravity. Each man brought a dish or platter, and a wooden spoon.

The old chief, whose hair was very gray, and his face covered with old wounds and scars, received either in war or in hunting, having seated himself, allowed a few minutes to elapse in silence, during which the company sat motionless, gazing at their plates as if they half expected them to become converted into beefsteaks. While they were seated thus, another party of Indians, who had been absent on a hunting expedition, strode rapidly but noiselessly into the enclosure, and seated themselves in the circle. One of these passed close to Charley, and in doing so stooped, took his hand, and pressed it. Charley looked up in surprise, and beheld the face of his old friend Redfeather, gazing at him with an expression in which were mingled affection, surprise, and amusement at the peculiar alteration in his visage.

“Redfeather!” exclaimed Charlie, in delight, half rising, but the Indian pressed him down.

“You must not rise,” he whispered, and giving his hand another squeeze, passed round the circle, and took his place directly opposite.

Having continued motionless for five minutes with becoming gravity, the company began operations by proceeding to smoke out of the sacred stem—a ceremony which precedes—all occasions of importance, and is conducted as follows:—The sacred stem is placed on two forked sticks to prevent its touching the ground, as that would be considered a great evil. A stone pipe is then filled with tobacco, by an attendant specially appointed to that office, and affixed to the stem, which is presented to the principal chief. That individual, with a gravity and hauteur that is unsurpassed in the annals of pomposity, receives the pipe in both hands, blows a puff to the east (probably in consequence of its being the quarter whence the sun rises), and thereafter pays a similar mark of attention to the other three points. He then raises the pipe above his head, points and balances it in various directions (for what reason and with what end in view is best known to himself), and replaces it again on the forks. The company meanwhile observe his proceedings with sedate interest, evidently imbued with the idea that they are deriving from the ceremony a vast amount of edification—an idea which is helped out, doubtless, by the appearance of the women and children, who surround the enclosure, and gaze at the proceedings with looks of awe-struck seriousness that is quite solemnizing to behold.

The chief then makes a speech relative to the circumstance which has called them together; and which is always more or less interlarded with boastful reference to his own deeds, past, present, and prospective, eulogistic remarks on those of his forefathers, and a general condemnation of all other Indian tribes whatever. These speeches are usually delivered with great animation, and contain much poetic allusion to the objects of nature that surround the homes of the savage. The speech being finished, the chief sits down amid a universal “Ho!” uttered by the company with an emphatic prolongation of the last letter—this syllable being the Indian substitute, we presume, for “rapturous applause.”

The chief who officiated on the present occasion, having accomplished the opening ceremonies thus far, sat down; while the pipe-bearer presented the sacred stem to the members of the company in succession, each of whom drew a few whiffs and mumbled a few words.

“Do as you see the red-skins, Mr. Charles,” whispered Jacques, while the pipe was going round.

“That’s impossible,” replied Charley, in a tone that could not be heard except by his friend. “I couldn’t make a face of hideous solemnity like that black thief opposite if I was to try ever so hard.”

“Don’t let them think you’re laughing at them,” returned the hunter; “they would be ill-pleased if they thought so.”

“I’ll try,” said Charley, “but it is hard work, Jacques, to keep from laughing; I feel like a high-pressure steam-engine already. There’s a woman standing out there with a little brown baby on her back; she has quite fascinated me; I can’t keep my eyes off her, and if she goes on contorting her visage much longer, I feel that I shall give way.”

“Hush!”

At this moment the pipe was presented to Charley, who put it to his lips, drew three whiffs, and returned it with a bland smile to the bearer.

The smile was a very sweet one, for that was a peculiar trait in the native urbanity of Charley’s disposition, and it would have gone far in civilized society to prepossess strangers in his favour; but it lowered him considerably in the estimation of his red friends, who entertained a wholesome feeling of contempt for any appearance of levity on high occasions. But Charley’s face was of that agreeable stamp that, though gentle and bland when lighted up with a smile, is particularly masculine and manly in expression when in repose, and the frown that knit his brows when he observed the bad impression he had given almost reinstated him in their esteem. But his popularity became great, and the admiration of his swarthy friends greater, when he rose and made an eloquent speech in English, which Jacques translated into the Indian language.

He told them, in reply to the chief’s oration (wherein that warrior had complimented his pale-faced brothers on their numerous good qualities), that he was delighted and proud to meet with his Indian friends; that the object of his mission was to acquaint them with the fact that a new trading-fort was established not far off, by himself and his comrades, for their special benefit and behoof; that the stores were full of goods which he hoped they would soon obtain possession of, in exchange for furs; that he had travelled a great distance on purpose to see their land and ascertain its capabilities in the way of fur-bearing animals and game; that he had not been disappointed in his expectations, as he had found the animals to be as numerous as bees, the fish plentiful in the rivers and lakes, and the country at large a perfect paradise. He proceeded to tell them further that he expected they would justify the report he had heard of them, that they were a brave nation and good hunters, by bringing in large quantities of furs.

Being strongly urged by Jacques to compliment them, on their various good qualities, Charley launched out into an extravagantly poetic vein, said that he had heard (but he hoped to have many opportunities of seeing it proved) that there was no nation under the sun equal to them in bravery, activity, and perseverance; that he had heard of men in olden times who made it their profession to fight with wild bulls for the amusement of their friends, but he had no doubt whatever their courage would be made conspicuous in the way of fighting wild bears and buffaloes, not for the amusement but the benefit of their wives and children (he might have added of the Hudson’s Bay Company, but he didn’t, supposing that that was self-evident, probably). He complimented them on the way in which they had conducted themselves in war in times past, comparing their stealthy approach to enemies’ camps to the insidious snake that glides among the bushes, and darts unexpectedly on