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Updated: May 23, 2025
They do not fight as we fight, with bows and arrows and with war-axes, but with spears which thunder and lighten, and send unseen death. The Shawanos fall before it as the berries and acorns fall when the forest is shaken by the wind in the beaver-moon. Look at the arm nearest my heart.
Many of them fell, but the buffalo-king, being stronger and swifter than the others, escaped, and, flying to the west, was never seen more. A great while ago the Shawanos nation took up the war-talk against the Walkullas, who lived on their own lands on the borders of the Great Salt Lake, and near the Burning Water. Part of the nation were not well pleased with the war.
The whole nation had come to the dance; there were none left behind save the sick and the very old. None were painted; they were all for peace, and were as women. We crept close to them, and hid in the thick bushes which grew upon the edge of their camp, for the Shawanos are the cunning adder and not the foolish rattlesnake. We saw them preparing to offer a sacrifice to the Great Spirit.
We saw them clean the deer, and hang his head, horns, and entrails upon the great white pole with a forked top, which stood over the roof of the council wigwam. They did not know that the Master of Life had sent the Shawanos to mix blood with the sacrifices. We saw them take the new corn and rub it upon their hands, breasts, and faces.
Never, since the time that he chewed the bitter root and put on the new moccasins, has he lied or fled from his foes. He has neither a forked tongue nor a faint heart. Fathers, the Walkullas are weaker than us. Their arms are not so strong, their hearts are not so big, as ours. As well might the timid deer make war upon the hungry wolf, as the Walkullas upon the Shawanos.
It was not like the beautiful lands the lands blessed with soft suns and ever-green vales in which the Shawanos now dwell, yet it was well stocked with deer, and the waters with fat seals and great fish, which were caught just when the people pleased to go after them. Still, the nation were discontented, and wished to leave their barren and inhospitable shores.
When he had finished these words he began to swell until he had reached his former bulk and stature. Then at each of his shoulders came out a wing of the colour of the gold-headed pigeon. Gently shaking these, he took flight from the land of the Shawanos, and was never seen in those beautiful regions again. The Shawanos did as he bade them.
A very great while ago the ancestors of the Shawanos nation lived on the other side of the Great Lake, half-way between the rising sun and the evening star. It was a land of deep snows and much frost, of winds which whistled in the clear, cold nights, and storms which travelled from seas no eyes could reach.
They said that our fathers had beaten their fathers in many battles, that the Shawanos were as brave and strong as they ever were, and the Walkullas much weaker and more cowardly.
The orthography of the word by which they are generally designated, is not very well settled. It has been written Shawanos, Sawanos, Shawaneu, Shawnees and Shawanoes, which last method of spelling the word, will be followed in the pages of this work. The original seats of the Shawanoes have been placed in different sections of the country.
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