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Updated: October 2, 2025
Day by day, these strange communings with unseen beings drew away the heart of Leelinau more and more from the simple duties of the lodge, and she walked among her people, melancholy and silent, like a spirit who had visited them from another land. The pastimes which engaged the frolic moments of her young companions, passed by her as little trivial pageants in which she had no concern.
"Can Leelinau be happier." asked the young hunter, "because another is made miserable? Were I to kill a warrior for her sake, would not her dreams be disturbed by the groans of his mother?" The eyes of the Sachem flashed when he heard such language. "Go," he said, "if thou art a dove, seek not to mate with the hawk."
He was quite advanced in years; but he enjoyed such renown in battle, and his name was so famous in the hunt, that the parents accepted him as a suitor for their daughter. They hoped that his shining qualities would draw back the thoughts of Leelinau from that spirit-land whither she seemed to have wholly directed her affections.
Wampum-hair approached, and before his calm, sorrowing eyes, her own sunk to the ground. Searching was his look, as if to descry the secrets of her soul, and at last he spoke. "Leelinau," he said, "the Great Spirit created thee loveliest among the daughters of women; wherefore gave he thee not a heart? "Leelinau, Wampum-hair will sigh no more for thee.
Her heart was fixed. No warrior's son should clasp her hand. She listened in the hope to hear the airy voice speak more; but it only repeated, "Again! again!" and entirely ceased. On the eve of the day fixed for her marriage, Leelinau decked herself in her best garments. She arranged her hair according to the fashion of her tribe, and put on all of her maiden ornaments in beautiful array.
She represented to her father that lightly won, was lightly prized, and that the daughter of a great chief like him, was not to be wooed like other maidens, and obtained from him, to whom her voice was sweeter than the notes of the mocking-bird, his consent to her scheme. The conditions on which Leelinau consented to follow a husband to his lodge were soon known.
He turned suddenly where she sat in the circle, pensively regarding the crooked ear which she held in her hand, and exclaimed: "Leelinau, the old man is thine!" Laughter rung merrily through the corn-field, but Leelinau, casting down upon the ground the crooked ear of maize, walked pensively away. The next morning the eldest son of a neighboring chief called at her father's lodge.
Before commencing the adventure, he performed the customary ceremony to propitiate the Great Spirit, pointing to the heavens, the earth, and the four winds, and invoking with a loud voice the Master of Life to smile upon the undertaking. This being done, he cast his eyes over the assembled crowd, till they fell upon Leelinau.
When the girls of the neighboring lodges assembled to play at the favorite female game of pappus-e-ko-waun, or the block and string, before the lodge-door, Leelinau would sit vacantly by, or enter so feebly into the spirit of the play as to show that it was irksome to her.
When he pointed to the beautiful scalps that adorned the sides of his wigwam, he could with truth say, there was not one of them but had graced the head of a warrior. The Sachem had several children, sons and daughters, and among the latter, the lovely Leelinau was the darling of his heart.
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