"He must be helped by the Great Spirit," said old Boreas. "I can neither freeze him nor starve him. I will let him alone."
There is a love story, which shows that the instincts and sentiments of woman were the same in those rude states of society as among the most highly civilized nations on the globe. It is as follows:
The Story of Ampata
Ampata was the wife of a brave young warrior. She had two children. She lived for a time with her husband and children in great happiness. Sometimes their home was on the prairie, sometimes they built their wigwam in the forest near the banks of a stream. Ampata used to paddle her canoe up and down the rivers in search of bulrushes for mats, or bark for her wigwam, or fuel for her fire. In summer they lived in open ground, but in the winter they chose a more sheltered position on the margin of a wood, where it opened toward the sun. Thus their lives flowed on a very smoothly and happily.
Ampata's husband gradually increased in influence in his tribe, until finally he came to be a chief. This filled Ampata's heart with pride and she loved her husband more than ever.
But the increased rank and importance to which her husband attained, as Ampata soon discovered, interfered very much with the domestic peace and quietness which they had before enjoyed. He now became a public man. His wigwam was always filled with visitors, and as his consequence in the nation increased, his ambition, instead of being satisfied, became excited more and more. At length, in order to widen and extend his influence, he conceived the idea of taking a second wife, the daughter of a noted chieftain who lived near.
When Ampata heard this she was greatly alarmed. She remonstrated with her husband, but he would not listen to her. It would give him greater influence in the tribe to marry another wife, he said, and marry her he would.
When Ampata heard this she was greatly alarmed. She remonstrated with her husband, but he would not listen to her. It would give him greater influence in the tribe to marry another wife, he said, and marry her he would.
Ampata immediately resolved that she would not stay in the lodge to be thus humiliated by her husband. Accordingly, before he brought his new wife home, she fled, taking her two children with her, and returned to her father's lodge almost broken-hearted.
She remained with her father and with his connections during the winter, but her grief and despondency were not at all relieved by the lapse of time. In the spring, when her farther's party were coming down the Mississippi with the furs which they had taken during the winter, she came with them. She had her two children with her in her canoe. When at length the boats began to draw near the falls of St. Anthony, and turned aside at the commencement of the rapids to go to the land, She did not turn with them, but pressed on into the middle of the stream.
The whirl and turmoil of the water became now so violent that the boat was borne onward with great speed, and the paddle was no longer of any avail. So Ampata rose from her seat, and holding the paddle extended in her arms made her farewell lament in the following terms:
"It was him only that I loved, and I loved him with all my heart. It was for him that I prepared the fresh-killed game, and swept with boughs the hearth before my wigwam fire. It was for him that I dressed and sewed the skin of the deer, and embroidered the mocassins that adorned his feet. "How I waited in my lodge the live-long day for his return from the chase, and how my heart was filled with joy when I heard his footsteps coming!
"My heart was bound up in him. He was all the world to me. But he has left me for another, and life is now a burden which I cannot bear. Even my children add to my grief. I see in their faces him image, and they bring him continually to my mind.
"I have prayed to the Great Spirit to take back the life that he gave, as I do not desire it any longer, and I am now on the current by means of which he is going to fulfill my prayer. I see the white foam of the water - it is my shroud. I hear the roaring of the fall - it is my funeral song. Farewell."
It was too late for her friends to arrest her course. They saw the canoe enter the foam; they saw it poise itself for a moment on the brink of the cataract, and then it disappeared in the awful abyss below.
The story concludes by saying that sometimes now, the benighted traveler, standing at midnight on the shores of the river, sees by the light of the moonbeams, in the opening of the mist and spray, the form of Ampata's canoe just ready to take the fearful plunge. It appears there for a moment on the brink, and then the mist closing over it shuts it out from view.
This story of the poor, disappointed, and forsaken wife may have been true, precisely as it is here related. The next is of a very different character, being an old tradition of a very decidedly marvelous type. it explains how it happens that the dormouse is so small.
Trap Set for Catching the Sun
In former times, when the animals that lived on the earth were more powerful than men, they killed and devoured all but two persons - a girl and her little brother. These two made their escape, and, flying far away into the forests, they lived there in a secret place, in great fear.
The girl was the oldest of the two, the boy being so small that he was utterly helpless. A big bird might have flown away with him, The girl took all the care of providing food for both, but when she went into the woods to get food or fuel she always took her little brother with her, for he was too small to be left alone.
At last she made him a bow and arrow of a size adapted to his strength, and when she went next into the woods she said to him: "When I have done chopping in the woods and am ready to go home, I will leave you behind a little while with your bow and arrow, to shoot little snow birds that come to pick up the worms that drop out of the wood that I have been chopping."
The Child and the Snow Birds
So she left him in the woods and went home. He staid and did his best to kill the snow birds, but he did not succeed.
When he came home he looked disappointed and discouraged, but his sister told him that he must not despair. "You must try again to-morrow," said she. The next day she left him in the woods again, and toward nightfall she heard his little footsteps on the snow, outside the lodge, as he was coming home. When he came in he threw down a snow bird that he had killed, and seemed very much pleased.
His sister cut the bird in two and used it, half one day and half the next, to season the broth or porridge which she made for supper.
After a time the boy killed ten birds, and their skins, sewed together by his sister, made him a little coat.
He was very much pleased with his coat, but one day having lain down in the sun and gone to sleep in a place where the snow had been melted away and the ground was dry, the sun singed his coat and made it shrink, so that when he woke up it was too tight for him.
He was very angry with the sun for this, and he declared he would set a snare for him and catch him, to prevent his doing such mischief any more. he asked his sister to make him a cord.
After several trials she succeeded in making a cord that he though would do, and so he set out one night a little after midnight and went through the woods to a place where the sun rose. He made a slip noose in one end of his cord, and then set it slyly in the trees, in the place where the sun was to come up.
He succeeded very well in his design. The sun, in coming up through the trees, got caught in the noose, and his beams became so entangled in it that he could not rise.
The animals in the forests were all very much frightened when they found that it continued dark that day. They ran to and fro and made great inquiry, and at last they found out what the difficulty was. The sun had been caught in a snare.
At first they did not know what to do. They soon concluded, however, that the only remedy was for them to send some gnawing animals to gnaw off the noose. But none dared to go for fear of being burnt to death by the sun.