Nebraska History and Record of Pioneer Days

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NE History & Record of Pioneer Days
Vol VI, no 2 (part 3)

NEBRASKA HISTORY

He seize me suddenly. That danger past,
We may conclude this matter happily
In council, tribe with tribe."

     Forthwith replied
Nacoumah's uncle, Chief Watonashie--
Watonashie, among the Omahas
Highest in rank: "0 Sananona, hear!
No harm shall reach you without due offense.
I, these our kinfolk, all our warlike tribe,
Will take due care that bold Shosguscan comes
Not here, nor plays at force near us, unless--
Indeed," and now Watonashie looked grave
As one abstracted in a passing thought,
And fingered with his mighty hand the plumes
Fixed in the tough, smooth handle of his spear"--
Unless, indeed, he try a game of war,
And do his worst, and hazard all."

     Thus, then,
The Omahas, alert to aid the youth
Whose fault seemed but the natural human way,
Stood forth to champion him 'gainst his own tribe,
And kept a wary watch.

     Meanwhile the two
Sent by Shosguscan for the Iron-Eyed
Came empty-handed back and told their tale.
Then from his seat wrathful Shosguscan rose--
Zealous for his despised authority--
And, gathering a score of stalwart braves
Strode o'er the hills and neared the wealthy tents
Of the stout-hearted Omahas. And, when
Not turning right or left, as bent to work
Only his errand and no parley hold,
He pushed direct for Sananona's lodge,
Sudden, across his pathway, shot a bar--
Large-limbed Watonashie and warriors fierce,
A host, who never turned away from war.
So said then Watonashie: "Friend, wherefore here?
What means this show of force? This is no place
To venture in rude guise of war."

     As when
A gaunt wolf, wandering near the guarded folds,
Falls in a trap of close serrated steel,
And, stung by pain and maddened in his mind,
Pulls at the chain and tests the firm trap's strength,
But, mastered, yields at last, the Otoe chief

NEBRASKA HISTORY

Paused in the presence of superior force,
His keen eye flashing forth impatient wrath,
And thus replied: "I come to claim my right,
Great chief, you know me well. Within your tents
There lurks one Sananona, who is mine.
For him alone I come. No blade of grass
That's yours would we disturb. We ask our own--
Just that. Give me the hiding fugitive
And let our tribes be friends as heretofore."

Then spoke Watonashie, a great-hearted chief:
"Young Sananona is, indeed, with us,
And wedded to a maiden of our blood-
Nacoumah, niece of mine. A nobler pair
Were never matched;--he, tall and lithe of form
As panther bred 'mid Black Hills pines, and she
Soft as the moonlight of a night in May.
Much do I love them--I who have no sons
Or daughters, childless chief. So I do pray
If Sananona, for some venial fault,
Has merited your wrath, this timely day
You speak his pardon and receive his thanks,
And make him happy in his sweet-faced bride
For his sake and for mine. So shall there be
Peace and happy auspice for both tribes."

But promptly sage Shosguscan answered him:
"This youth, great chief, for whom you plead so well,
With headstrong purpose and for boyish whim
Has broken rule, and furnished precedent
To other youths and maids and sturdy braves
To scorn authority. In every tribe
Order stands only in obedience;
And he who rules soon loses just respect
If culprits may escape unscathed. So no
I cannot fault like his condone. All men
Have friends to plead in their excuse; and faults,
Beginning small, pass quickly on to worse,
Confusions come, and anarchy and hate.
A fountain, as it rises, may be choked,
But none, can quell a river."

Slowly, then,
Watonashie, as one half-musing, said:
"How much man prizes selfish sovereignty.
He makes a rule accordant with his thought,

NEBRASKA HISTORY

And none shall break it with impunity.
The happiness of units is a toy
Weighed 'gainst a chief's command. This is not well.
Better relax a rule, than break a heart
Where no crime is." And then he paused, as one
Who offers opportunity of speech.
But silence reigned; no word the Otoe chief
Uttered; but stood defiant in his post.
As one who will not yield. Then to his height
The mighty-limbed Watonashie drew up
His length enormous, and his fearful hand,
Bony and vast, with threatening gesture raised,
And flashed his furious eyes like shooting-stars,
And in a voice of winter thunder cried,
"He you seek, hard-hearted warrior, sits
At ease within my tent. Go, take him now;
Go, take him if you can; but, ere you go,
Weigh well the outcome. You shall bite the dust
Sooner than he, unless my might prove less
Than yours; of that make trial when you will!"

To him Shosguscan, with a baleful face,
But calmly, answered: "Do not doubt that I
Will take young Sananora from your tent.
I will not yield the right, except to force
I am unequal to oppose." So, then,
He turned, and with him went the Otoe braves
Back o'er the hills, and sought the Otoe tents.
Then did Watonashie, restraining those
Who longed to slay Shosguscan where he stood,
Or chase him homeward like a flying stag,
Gather together all the chiefs and braves
Among the Omahas, and council hold
And war-like, preparation make.

So, too,
Shosguscan called his Otoe warriors forth,
And bade them summon up their utmost might,
And fail not to avenge their chief's affront.

But when next morning, timorous and cold,
Flushed o'er the east like one who, half-awake,
Unfolds a drowsy eye, puts forth an arm,
And takes the glimmering prospect of his room,

NEBRASKA HISTORY

The Otoe and the Omaha, well-armed,
Banded for fight and swept across the hills--
Seeking, not waiting, for the foe. And as
Along that green and dewy-gleaming land
The level sunrise streamed an amber flood,
The very prairie seem to move and slip,
As in an earthquake. Host drew near to host,
Masses opaque, swart, thundering on fierce steeds,
Or running with fleet foot. 'Gainst the low sun
Their cold spears glittering like a snow-glazed plain,
Brandished with threats and hate. Then with a crash
As when in August-storms, among the bluffs
Above the Platte, or on its heated plain,
Reverberating thunders peal and bound,
The fierce tribes met, and each to each with whoop
Answered--whoop dire as shriek of hopeless fiends
Weltering upon the surges of remorse.

Then deeds of daring might were done, and hosts
Battled for sovereign rites, and for the laws
Of hospitality. The vanquished asked
No quarter; none the victors gave. The war
was no pretence, no hollow sham disguised,
To gain a footing for diplomacy;
But every blow mean death, and death rejoiced
And spread his bloody meshes wide for all.
But Sananona who from far had watched
The progress of the battle, and the death
Of many warriors saw, turned, sick at heart
And moaning in his grief, and sought the tent
That hid his bride, Nacoumah. Her he found
Engaged in sweet domestic ways, alone
In the wide tent. Within his arms her waist
He drew, and fondly kissed her beauteous cheek,
And wept and said, "Farewell, dear bride, farewell.
My time has come; the tribes too long have fought;
Too long death ravened on the innocent--
And I sole cause of war. But if I die
No need of battle or of blood remains.
No other family must forever mourn
For my offense, or all will curse my name,
And in the coming times will haply say,
He loved himself; he lived and saw the sun
But had no will to spare the braves who died,
No pity on their children or their wives'."
And him Nacoumah answered through her tears:

NEBRASKA HISTORY

"Dear, noble heart, go, battle with our friends;
Go do great deeds, and win a name for me.
Why speak of death? The grave is dark and foul--
Forgotten soon, and no man loves the grave.
Have I no charms? and care you not to see
Your prattling children playing at the door
Of the dear lodge? O speak no more of death."
But he replied: "I am not left to choose
Or life or death, the arms of wife and babe,
Or the fierce worm. Fate has made choice for me.
Through all last night, while you slept at my side,
A shadow, with moon-eyes and chilly touch
Stood over me, and breathed, in hollow voice,
'Come, Sananona, come; the grave is made,
The worm awaits!' But just at morning light
A sun-bright figure with a happy face
Displaced the bodiless spectre of the night,
And told me that to-day my life shall be
Far, far away, among the prairie-hills
And blooming valleys of the land of souls.
I go to meet my fate; but I shall look
Athwart the gates of morning year by year,
And peer in every coming woman's face,
Matron or maiden, hoping e'er for you.
Farewell, dear bride, farewell."

So in the long
And painful rapture of a last embrace,
They clung with tears and bitter, aching hearts,
Till Sananona, summoning his strength,
His sweet Nacoumah's fond arms disengaged,
Put on the stolid look an Indian wears,
And turned away and sought the bloody field.
Where fiercest strained the fight he came, and cried,
"Hold, Otoes, Omahas, ye warriors brave!
No further need is there of blood and hate.
I come to end this cruel war, and save
Your women's eyes from tears, your babes from want.
Live you, but let me die--mine the war's cause,
Mine be its latest wo. But you henceforth
Be friends!"

Then from the conflict paused the hosts
At gaze, while Sananona, well-beloved
By either tribe, fixed in the yielding soil
The polished handle of his keen-edged spear,

NEBRASKA HISTORY

And pulled aside his robe, and bared his breast,
And fell upon the spear-point. Straight it drove
To his brave heart, and the hot blood was seen,
And he fell backwards, like a bird that flies
Against the wires suspended in mid-air
On poles of inland telegraphs, and died.
But a wan cloud, that in the midmost heaven
Had gathered unperceived in the sun's path,
Sent forth a frightful wail of frightened winds
And scattered tearful drops, and, from its edge
Sulphureous, whirled a luminous, hissing bolt,
Along whose wake the thunder cracked and roared
Above the hosts. Great horror fell on all.
But the cloud slipped away into thin air,
The sweet wild winds sang a sweet song of June,
And the sun shone.

Then to the Omahas
Shosguscan said: "Why do we stand at war?
The end I sought is reached; due penalty
Exacted from the insubordinate.
Had I myself for Sananona's fault
Awarded punishment, his life, no doubt,
Would be untouched. But now I do rejoice
That he, by his own act, before you all
His blame confesses and my sentence spares.
In after years when these vast hosts are gone,
And other warriors roam these flowery plains,
It shall be told by many an evening fire,
For youth's instruction, how this young man brought
Two peaceful tribes to fearful chance of war.
And compassed his own death by headlong lust
That mocked at duty. Sananona's name
Shall then be synonym of scorn of law,
Of disobedience. So others all,
By his sad fate and this brief war forewarned,
Shall settle to their places with content,
And just authority no more be spurned.
Now let the calumet be lit and passed,
And Omaha and Otoe be sure friends,
As heretofore."

But stout Watonashie,
Turning half-way to his own men, replied:
"'Twixt me and that fierce wolf can be no peace!
What was this Sananona's fault? His fault--

NEBRASKA HISTORY

He wed a daughter of the Omaha,
Nacoumah, whom I, childless, love as well
As if she were my own. For this alone--
Because he followed where love's instinct led,
And prized the natural hunger of the heart
As something better than a beast's desire,
As all too sacred for another's will
To guide or thwart, he lies here dead to-day.
But now this crafty chief, Shosguscan, he
Who is at blame for all this bloody work,
Would point a moral with the young man's name--
Victim of pitiless vengeance--and ourselves
Having dishonored by this show of war,
From which he gains his end, would pause and smoke
The Peace-Pipe in a handsome covenant,
And crawl away, himself secure from harm.
This must not be. Good friends it shall not be!
My arm aches for reprisal, and my will
Exacts from battle you disturber's blood.
No talk of peace be here!"

Then flew the spears:
The barbed sharp arrows hissed along the air,
And the hot hosts stained to death's furious work.
As when along the bottoms by the streams
In Autumn, when the dense tall grass is dry,
Two surging fires, by opposite currents driven,
Eat all before them over untold miles,
And leave behind them no thick tall spire of grass,
Or tough brown weed, but charred black clumps of roots,
Unsightly, on the desolated fields,
So all day long, through feverish hours of noon
Till the great sun lay low above the hills,
The adverse hosts each through the other whirled,
And death made brutal havoc, and the field
Was black and bloody with the fallen dead.
But as the sun, descending, touched the hills,
And the last breath of winds that die away
With sunset sighed across the world, two chiefs--
One Omaha, one Otoe, now the sole
Survivors of that brave, infuriate day--
Bleeding with many wounds, but black with hate,
Drew to each other o'er the slippery field.
Then spoke Watonashie: "Shosguscan, fiend,
I joy to meet thee thus; come, find thy death;

NEBRASKA HISTORY

And by the evening fire in after times
It shall be told their children by the old
How Sananona died for hapless love,
Forbidden by his chief; and also how
The fierce Shosguscan, who held hearts as cheap,
And felt no sympathy with others' pain,
Destroyed two tribes entire, and died himself
And left his carcass to the croaking crows."
To him Shosguscan, weary with his wounds
And sick at heart for all his warriors slain,
Yet full of wrath, "I know that death is near,
Nor would I live, survivor sole and sad
Of all I mourn. For them alone I lived:
With them 'tis sweet to die. I stood to-day
A champion of authority and law,
But thou of wilfulness and anarchy.
And both have lost. But I would fight again
This dreadful fray, and sacrifice; besides,
The tender mother and her prattling child,
Unconscicous (sic) of my thought, rather than yield
This cause. I could not brook that each should be
And individual law, for turbulence
And personal assertion, more than death,
I dread. But thou, Watonashie, stand forth!
The hour demands far else than braggart words,
For I am proved in battle and have seen
Thy whole tribe fall. Thou, too, shalt die; the sun
Shall never look upon thy face again
Living. Now share thy tribesmen's fate!"

As when
Upon the broad, smooth current of a stream,
Two iron rams, with long, steel-pointed beaks,
Lunge at each other's sides, or sterns, or keels
Below the water-line, seeking some place
Vulnerable to open to the flood,
Or hurl against the iron-plated mail
Of their thick sides enormous weight of shot,
Or ponderous shell, screaming and glad for death,
Till both crushed in their seams by monstrous blows,
Settle and sink sudden in-to depths,
And death o'ertakes the crews, and all is still,
The fierce chiefs plied each other with their spears,
And, coming closer, drew their fearful knives
And grappled in-a struggle fierce but short,
And fell, close-locked, in death.

Vol VI, no 2, part 2

Vol VI, no 2, part 4 Return to NE History & Record of Pioneer Days