IROQUOIS MYTHS AND LEGENDS 



55 



And the Tall Pine said: " Once I walked the earth a warrior 

 chief, and in my quiver was death. My arrows cried shrill and strong 

 on their journeys to kill. They were feathered for blood. They 

 were plunged with the poison that slays. They were winged to the 

 winds that found the way in their swift death flight, and they 

 never came back to me ! 



I was strong and bold, and hated my foe. I was stealthy, and 

 haughty, and strode like the stag on my path. To my listening ear 

 the death moan was soft as the call of the doe. 



When I hunted my foe my footfall was still as the feather that 

 drops from the flying bird, and the earth knew no sign of the 

 moccasin track. 



Like a wolf J scented the blood of my foe and his heart that 

 dripped sweet as the sunrise dew, and I followed him swift in my 

 hungry hunt. 



No coward was I to skulk in my path. I counted my deaths as 

 the great eagle numbers his feathers to the morning sun. My 

 heart grew bigger with hate in its thirst for blood when my brave 

 warriors followed wherever I led, winding in trails as the gliding 

 snake bends, or straight as the way to the sky. 



I was vengeful and fleet, when captured for death, and walked 

 through the dead my arrows had left and scorned their weak 

 stillness and cowardly sleep. 



I knew no pain of the torture brand, I sang to its flame my fore- 

 father's song as I welcomed the fire and red death with scorn, and 

 the sun glared glad as it looked down on me. 



I knew no bruise as the blood ran down to the waiting earth, 

 I knew no sting when my quivering flesh curled in the blaze and 

 the thongs shrunk deep to my blackening bones, for my spirit was 

 strong and dared my doom that the foe had said. 



My spirit was strong, and could not die. It led my blood on 

 its wasting way and nourished its flow as my veins throbbed fast 

 for the seeding roots of my branches that boast. 



My spirit was strong and guided each branch to the sun and 

 winds as it lifted my tower higher and higher, and knotted my 

 tents where wandering snows and the flying light of the summer 

 sun halts and hides. 



And my spirit said when it builded me: ' I will make you tall, 

 and forever the tower and guide of your forest kin. On your top- 

 most reach I will hang the horns that as warrior you wore, and I 

 will set them high. When the sun sleeps and clouds blanket low, 

 the kin of your forest will know where the east trail winds and the 

 west trail guides.' 



