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Updated: May 11, 2025
Slowly, laboriously the tenth year dawned; day by day it dragged its long weeks across his waiting heart, for Nature had not yet given the sign that his long probation was over. "Then, one hot summer day, the Thunder-bird came crashing through the mountains about him.
He could see it arching overhead, before it took its long journey to the Happy Hunting Grounds, for the soul of the Thunder-bird was a radiant half-circle of glorious color spanning from peak to peak. He lifted his head then, for he knew it was the sign the ancient medicine-man had told him to wait for the sign that his long banishment was ended.
In a very interesting paper of A.F. Chamberlain, on "The Thunder-Bird among the Algonquins," in the "American Anthropologist," January, 1890, reference is made to the belief in this being among the Passamaquoddy Indians. On my recent visit to Calais I obtained from Peter Selmore a story of the origin of the Thunder-Bird, which is different from any mentioned by Leland.
She took the Fort took it the first day! Took me, too; took the colonels, the captains, the women, the children, and the dumb brutes; took Buffalo Bill, and all his scouts; took the garrison to the last man; and in forty-eight hours the Indian encampment was hers, illustrious old Thunder-Bird and all. Do I seem to have lost my solemnity, my gravity, my poise, my dignity?
"Why," declared my informant, "those who saw this monster move said that it flew from mountain to mountain when it seemed to be excited. They said also that they believed it carried a thunder-bird, for they frequently heard his usual war-whoop as the creature sped along!"
"My father told me when I was a little boy it was because they sheltered and warmed the Star-girl, who was the sister of the Thunder-bird." "I never heard that; tell me about it." "Sometime maybe, not now." Hunting the Woodchucks Cornmeal and potatoes, with tea and apples, three times a day, are apt to lose their charm. Even fish did not entirely satisfy the craving for flesh meat.
Thunder-Bird put on his Sunday-best war outfit to let me see him, and he was splendid to look at, with his face painted red and bright and intense like a fire-coal and a valance of eagle feathers from the top of his head all down his back, and he had his tomahawk, too, and his pipe, which has a stem which is longer than my arm, and I never had such a good time in an Indian camp in my life, and I learned a lot of words of the language, and next day BB took me to the camp out on the Plains, four miles, and I had another good time and got acquainted with some more Indians and dogs; and the big chief, by the name of White Cloud, gave me a pretty little bow and arrows and I gave him my red sash-ribbon, and in four days I could shoot very well with it and beat any white boy of my size at the post; and I have been to those camps plenty of times since; and I have learned to ride, too, BB taught me, and every day he practises me and praises me, and every time I do better than ever he lets me have a scamper on Soldier Boy, and THAT'S the last agony of pleasure! for he is the charmingest horse, and so beautiful and shiny and black, and hasn't another color on him anywhere, except a white star in his forehead, not just an imitation star, but a real one, with four points, shaped exactly like a star that's hand-made, and if you should cover him all up but his star you would know him anywhere, even in Jerusalem or Australia, by that.
"These Indians of the Little Sticks are a fierce and cruel people, full of superstitions, and living up to the old law of 'blood revenge. There's only one thing in our favor: they have a superstition about a giant creature, known as the Thunder-bird. The stories of this terrible bird are known to almost all Indian tribes, but the Little Sticks believe them literally.
"I haven't a doubt," said the Major, "that they still believe that we rode here on the back of old Thunder-bird himself. And why not? If we can build schooners many times as large as their largest skin-boats and run them by noise alone, if we can kill at a distance by a magic of great noises, why couldn't we tame the Thunder-bird himself and make him carry us?
At the foot of the column was the bear, who guards the entrance of their lodges; at the top, the crow, who presides over every thing. On some were frogs and lizards. One was surmounted by the "thunder-bird," a mythological combination of man and bird, who lives among the mountains.
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