Authors: Joseph Bruchac
Even then, all did not go easy for us. The waves were high and most aboard knew little of sailing. Their fears were as great as their stomachs were weak. My oft-told tales of my own adventures, of how I managed to overcome far greater hardships than this voyage, gave comfort to many of our company. When a blazing star did arc above our heads on the night of February twelfth, some among us saw it as an omen of doom. Yet our good captains continued on. At last, nearly ten weeks after setting forth, we had sailed no farther than the Canary Islands. The greater part of our ocean journey still lay before us when, on the first of March, we landed on those islands and took on water.
That half of those among us were gentlemen, and more accustomed to give orders than to engage in work, would cause much sorrow, both on ship and in Virginia. Not only I, but others took note of how the gentlemen would not dirty their hands with work of any sort on ship or land. So it was that I, who did not forswear either labor or the company of our good sailors, came to be in the disfavor of those perfumed dandies who lazed about. It was whilst in the Canaries that an incident occurred and the haughty wrath of certain of those gentlemen was settled upon me.
Vincere est vivere.
To conquer is to live. Such has been my motto since I first earned my coat of arms. There were many among our gentlemen planters who un-gently did elevate themselves in my presence. Yet they had no answer when I asked which of them had done battle against the Turk, as did John Smith. There was, indeed, little courage among those who styled themselves my betters.
The most puffed up among them, Edward Maria Wingfield, went so far as to lie that I had begged across Ireland. True it is that I am of good family but not of noble birth. Unlike Wingfield, a man impressed by his own sense of superior birth
and position, I fully earned whatever rank I have held. Edward Maria Wingfield was born into a knightly family, their seat at the castle Kimbolton in Huntingdonshire. Yet his father was a papist and he, himself, has been suspected of Popery. It was perhaps his wish to appear a good Protestant that led him to become a soldier by profession. (Though we have also heard it voiced that he suffered from youthful excesses and premature debt and escaped both by taking up arms.) He then served in Ireland and in the Netherlands. Who did he fight there but other Christians (servants of Rome though they might be)? And how did Wingfield distinguish himself but by being taken captive at Lisle in 1588 to be exchanged for Spanish prisoners taken by Drake?
I, myself, also did battle in the low countries against other Christians when I was but nineteen. However, I found little joy in such work. I was both lamenting and repenting to have seen so many Christians slaughter one another. So when I returned home, I repaired to a woody pasture. There I made a pavilion of boughs and lived the life of a hermit with but one man to serve as my squire. With me I had but two books. The former was a collection of the sayings of the Roman philosopher and emperor Marcus Aurelius. The latter was Niccolo Machiavelli's
The Art of War.
In that humble field, with my horse and lance, I practiced the arts and crafts of knighthood. Lord Willoughby, my father's neighbor and noble friend, was so impressed by my devotion that he sent to me Master Theodore Paloga, the most famous horseman in Europe. I grew in skill under Paloga's tutelage until my horse and I were one creature. I could wield both sword and lance while riding at full gallop and force my steed to turn on a shilling. Then, well prepared for battle, I set out again into the world, vowing to fight only the enemies of Christendom, like
those knights of old who were far nobler than I could ever hope to be. Perhaps, dear reader, I shall later tell more of those adventures. But now I must return to my own restraint.
What then can be said about those circumstances that led to this humble knight's confinement aboard ship during those first days in distant Virginia? Two words alone may suffice. Envy and spite. To explain this I must go back and tell of what befell before we touched on the soil of the new world.
The great strain of our voyage had made tempers short. Immoderate words were oft spoken. As I have earlier told, by the time we fell with the Canaries, we had been at sea a full two and a half months. Through the skillfullness of our Admiral, we had suffered no great loss or danger. Having taken sail many times before, I was not as affected by the sea as were others on board. Some were close to death from seasickness. So, when we came to those whistling islands, I chose to tell yet another of my entertaining stories to take their minds from their troubles.
I modestly told of how in Hungary I, John Smith, engaged, one after the other, three Turkish champions. These were, to wit, the Lord Turbashaw, one Grualgo, and Bonny Mulgro. By the skill of my sword I defeated each and took their heads as trophy. I then related the instructive tale of how, in dismal battle late in 1602, not long after winning my coat of arms, our forces were so overwhelmed that at the end I stood alone among the slaughtered dead bodies of my comrades, who had resolutely ended their days in defense of Christ and his Gospel. Then captured, I was delivered to the young and beauteous Turkish noblewoman Chratza Tragabigzanda, who took much compassion on me.
Even as I related these tales to an appreciative throng of planters and mariners alike, those haughty gentlemen mostly un-gently came upon me.
"Take the traitor," Wingfield snarled.
I forebore from struggle, though my sword was at my side. In truth, I knew I had done no wrong and could not imagine their charges would be believed.
Envying both the admiration of our crew and my repute, Wingfield and his cronies then accused me of diverse crimes. The orders for government had been put in a box not to be opened, nor the governors known, until our arrival in Virginia. The petty plotters feigned that I, John Smith, intended to usurp the government, murder the council, and make myself king. They scandalously suggested that my confederates were dispersed in all the three ships and that diverse of my confederates who had revealed my plot would affirm it. So, though there was never no such matter, I was committed as a prisoner.
The penalty for such mutiny is death. This was the aim of their plan, and failing that, they hoped to make the name of John Smith so odious to the world as to touch his life or utterly overthrow his reputation. The importance and reputation of those gentlemen who sought my ruin was so great that I was restrained from then on. Our good Captain and many others misdoubted those words spoken against me. So, though restrained, I was not kept in irons norâmost fortunatelyârelieved of my personal arms.
When we fell with the island of Nevis, on the twenty-seventh of March, the eight days that we stayed there gave opportunity for those who hated John Smith to complete their plan. Upon the third day, I was informed, most casually, I would be suffered to go ashore. I was curious to see this island. Indeed, I wondered also what labors had been taking place upon the shore, for the sound of sawing and hammering had drifted over the calm water. Ere I climbed down into the longboat, good John Collson, one of the mariners who had befriended me and harked to my stories, plucked my sleeve.
"Captain," Collson whispered, "I beg ye to be cautelous. I doubt the subtlety of them who doth hate ye."
I feigned not to hear his words, grateful though I was. The warning surprised me not. I had yet made sure that I was well braced and ready. I stood in the front of the longboat and sprang onto the beach before any man could close with me. Seeing their erstwhile victim so ready, no one was ready to see him restrained, least of all those gentlemen who were waiting my arrival by the foot of their construction. Not seeing me before I was upon them, their conversation was how they would now for once and all have done with the odious Smith. They shrank back in shock when I came upon them. The warrior Wingfield was chief of those to lead their hasty retreat.
I walked about their construction, whistling a small merry tune. My hand on the hilt of my cutlass, I gave their work a most careful examination. Well built that structure was, indeed. It was as fine a pair of gallows as might be seen in the Indies. Having satisfied my curiosity, I then did walk up from the beach and hewed a limb from a tree. Thrusting my sword point first in the sand before me, I took out my sharp poignard and carved that branch into a lovely bastinado, a club well suited for the cracking of thick skulls. I waited with great patience, but none approached me.
Alas, though they had labored hard upon that pair of gallows, Captain Smith, for whom they were intended, could not be persuaded to use them.
Thus it was that I spent a pleasant and unmolested several days upon the island of Nevis. When we set sail on April fifth, it was noted that someone had fired that subtle construction. The smoke that rose from the unused gallows was visible for many miles as we continued on our way.
The Great Circle of the five good seasons then was made for the people, made by Great Ahone. The first of the seasons is Cattapeuk, when all of the leaves swell again on the trees. The second is sweet Cohattayough, when the berries are ripe and sweet. Nepinough is the season when the corn forms ears. Good Taquitock is the harvest season, when the leaves fall from the trees. Last of all is Cohonk, when the Geese fly in with the coming of the cold. Hardest of all the seasons, still it may seem the shortest of all. For we know well that when it is done, Cattapeuk and the leaves shall return again.
COHATTAYOUGH
TIME OF RIPE BERRIES
EARLY MAY
1607
T
HE NEW
T
ASSANTASSUK
have now made a camp for themselves. They have tied their swan canoes to the big trees along our river and put up small shelters made of white skins that look like the wings of their big boats. The place they have chosen to camp was once also a camping place of our people, close to the village of Paspahegh.
Because of the place they have chosen, it seems that they do not intend to grow crops. The soil is poor on that head of land,
too marshy and close to the salt. Also, as my father noted, there seem to be no women among them. Women know the plants and can coax the corn and beans and squash from the soil. Only the tobacco likes best the touch of a mans hands. Since there are no women, my father believes that these men may be here to fight. Men without women are more likely to make war and behave recklessly. Women are always a sign and a means of peace.
Still, I am greatly curious about these Coatmen. I would like very much to visit them. As the daughter of the Great Chief, I can go where I choose, well protected by those who travel with me. And surely even these new Coatmen would not dare to mistreat someone such as myself.
***
My father has three times seen the death of nearly all his people. It is true that he has watched the leaves return eighty times. Most of those who were young with him have gone to the high place and stepped onto the road to the sunset. But it is not because of his age that this is true. Nor did so many of his people die because of the wars through which he forged our great alliance of seventy tribes. It was the sicknesses. New diseases came among us after the Tassantassuk touched our shore. Those sicknesses burned through our villages like fire through the dry grasses in summer. Some of our people believe that those sicknesses will continue to come as long as the Coatmen keep arriving.
Death does seem to follow the Tassantassuk. Each time the Coatmen arrive, soon after we see new illnesses that our medicines cannot touch. My father says that we must watch the new Coatmen closely and see if they are already sick. Some in the village want to just wipe them out, but my wise father believes we must watch and wait.
I do not doubt that our warriors could defeat the Coatmen, even with their thunder weapons. Our fighters are the strongest and bravest of all men. To make them so strong and brave, we have the ceremony of the
Huskanaw
âwhich gives one a new body. During that long ordeal, a boy is taken by his keeper into the forest to die and be reborn as a warrior. But even our bravest warriors do not want to kill all our enemies. We know that even the worst enemies may be made into allies. The only nation of which I know that has been wiped from the Great Circle of the earth is that of the Chesepiock, because of the prophecy that a nation would arise from the Chesepiock Bay that would bring an end to my father's great confederacy.
But even then, all the Chesepiocks were not killed when my father made war on them to defeat that prophecy. It was not the people but their nation that was seen by my father as a great threat. After the Chesepiock warriors were defeated, their name as a tribe was extinguished like a burning log dropped into the river. Their women and children were not harmed but adopted among us. Their people were scattered among our other nations and given new names so that the prophecy could not come to pass.
***
This morning, I rose, as I always do, before Kefgawes, the Great Sun, showed itself. I walked down to the river and washed myself in its cold, clean water. I sat by its banks. I made a small circle of tobacco around me. Then I spoke to Kefgawes, giving thanks that I was able to see a new day, that there is strength in my body to move about, that my people and I have been given the things needed to live.
I then went back to my place in my father's house and took out my paint. I chose red paint, made from puccoon, the
bloodroot, and the oil crushed from hickory nuts. I stirred it well to make it even and smooth, and I painted my whole face, from the top of my head down to my chin. As is the case for all girls before they reach the age of marriage, my hair is all cut off except for the single long braid at the back of my head. I also painted my shoulders, but I stopped applying paint before reaching the intricate tattoos of intertwined flowers that circle the upper parts of my arms. Those tattoos were made only two seasons ago. I remember the feeling of the sharp bone awl piercing my skin again and again as drops of paint were applied to the places where blood welled up. Of course, I did not cry out or show in any way that I felt the pain. I appreciated the great care that my aunts and my mothers took to make me so beautiful by giving me the tattoos.