Chapter 8
The Birth of Tecumseh From The Story of Tecumseh by Norman S. Gurd Reading by Bologna Times The Birth of Tecumseh by Norman S. Gurd In the latter part of the 18th century there stood on the banks of the Mad River, a tributary
of the Ohio, about seven miles below the site of the present city of Springfield, a village of the Chihuahua Indians called Pequah. This village had been built on the site of an ancient Indian town known as Chilikothet. Near the river, the banks of which at this point were about twenty feet high, stood a rude fort, built of logs and surrounded by a stockade of cedar pickets.
Outside the stockade were grouped the huts and wigwams of the inhabitants, and surrounding the village were the cornfields and orchards. Looking to the southward, there met the eye a stretch of prairie land hemmed in by the forest. On this prairie roamed occasional herds of buffalo, wanderers from the great plains of
the west. Deer and antelope were to be seen in great numbers, feeding on the rich prairie grass. Beyond the village to the westward lay the unbroken forest. On the north the land was rough and broken, rising abruptly into rocky cliffs. There and there a dwarfed cedar or pine clung to the face of the precipice with gnarled
and twisted roots, or a hardy vine hung its green curtain over the naked rock. To the eastward ran the Mad River in its impetuous descent to the Ohio. Amid these scenes the young Tikamsa was born in the year 1768. His father, Pukkeshenwa, was the chief of the Kiskapoke, and his mother, Metbowatuski, a member of the Turtle Band, both clans of the Shawano tribe, which was itself a sub-tribe
of the great Algonquin nation. The name Tikamsa, the primary meaning of which is a panther springing upon its prey, also signifies a shooting star, the vivid imagination of the Indians picturing a falling star as the panther of the sky. Tikamsa was the fourth child, and three other children were born after him.
Chisika, the eldest of the family, achieved some fame as a warrior. Laliwasika, later known as the Prophet, was closely associated with Tikamsa throughout his life. Of the other members of the family little is known save their names. According to the Indian custom, the young Tikamsa, immediately after his birth, was
placed in a sack made of soft deer skin, laced up the front with leather thongs, and decorated with embroidery of colored quills. This was strapped to a flat board, having a wooden bow extending over the infant's head. Even though she was the wife of the chief, Tikamsa's mother had little time to devote
to her child. She must gather firewood, prepare and cook the food brought in by the hunters, make and men the deer skin clothing and moccasins, care the skins of deer and other animals, and sow and cultivate and reap their little harvest of Indian corn. For the first year of his life the little Tikamsa was carried about by his mother in
the odd little cradle strapped to her back. When she worked in the fields she would place the cradle against a tree, or pass the loop over a branch so that the cradle might swing to and fro in the breeze. After the lad was a year old he was fed on soup made of venison or fish thickened with wild rice or corn.
In the fall the Indian women gathered the rice and stored it for food during the long winter months. Paddling their canoes into the marsh they would pull the rice stalks over the side and thresh out the grain with the paddles into the bottom until the frail crafts were loaded as deep as safely permitted.
Thousands of wild ducks came to feed on the rice. Disturbed by the canoes they rose, their wings sounding like thunder, and whirling in the air betook themselves to the deeper solitudes of the marshes. Passenger pigeons flew northward in the spring and returned southward again in the fall in such vast numbers that the sun was darkened at midday.
It was a very wonderful and interesting world to the young Tecumseh. He was soon able to run about the village and to ask countless questions about everything he saw or heard. His school days had begun. Yet he did not study out of books.
His teachers were his parents and elder brothers. In them he learned the names of the plants and trees and how they were useful to man. He learned, too, the names of the animals and their habits. Walking through the woods his father would tell him what animals had passed and how long since they had gone by.
It was easy to read the tracks in the snow, but hard to decipher the trail in the summer woods. He learned, quote, how the beavers built their lodges where the squirrels hid their acorns, how the red deer ran so swiftly, why the rabbit was so timid, unquote. Of the birds he, quote, learned their names and all their secrets, how they built their
nests in summer, where they hid themselves in winter, unquote. Like all Indian children, Tecumseh had to shift more or less for himself. In and out through the village he went, swimming in the river, creeping through the forest in some mimic war play, watching the building of canoes, greeting the hunters on their return from the chase here, there, and everywhere, full of the boundless energy which goes with
a happy heart and a strong and healthy young body. He watched the women stretching the fresh skins of the deer, flesh side uppermost, on the ground by pegs driven in the edges. He saw them scrape off the fat and rub in salt to preserve the skin, and the brains of the animal to make the leather soft and pliable.
Thus he learned how the animals supplied him with clothing as well as food. He joined the other boys in their play, shooting his tiny arrows at the birds and squirrels, or what he liked best of all, playing at war. In the winter evenings, as he sat by the fire, wrapped in warm furs, listening to the howling of the north wind through the forest, his mother would tell him old Indian tales and
legends. She told him that long ago the world was covered with water, so that not even the highest hills were visible. Whiskoteek, who was a great magician, saved himself from the flood by building a raft. The beaver, the otter, and the musk rat climbed upon the raft.
Whiskoteek said to the beaver, "'Go down to the bottom and see if you can bring up a little earth.' The beaver dived deep under the water, and after a long time came to the surface, dead. Then Whiskoteek said to the otter, "'Go down to the bottom and see if you can bring up a little earth.'
But the otter, too, came up and floated dead on the water. Then Whiskoteek said to the little musk rat, "'Go down to the bottom and see if you can bring up a little earth.' The musk rat remained under the water a very long time, and when he came up, he too was dead, but in his claws was a little mud.
Then Whiskoteek restored the three animals to life, and taking the mud brought up by the musk rat, rolled it into a little ball and laid it on the raft. He then blew upon it, and the ball became very large. Then Whiskoteek said to the wolf, "'My brother, run around the world and see how large it is.'
The wolf ran around the world, and after a long time came back and said, "'The world is very large.' But Whiskoteek thought that the world was still too small, so he blew again and made it much larger. Then he said to the crow,
"'Fly around the world and see how large it is.' But the crow never came back, so Whiskoteek decided that the world was large enough. The little Tecumseh watched the flashing northern lights in the cold winter sky. His mother told him that these were the spirits of the departed, dancing the ghost dances as they journeyed to the happy hunting grounds.
He loved to hear the old, old Indian fairy tale of Shingabis, the brave little duck. Shingabis lived in a tiny wigwam near a northern lake. He prepared four logs that he might have fire in his lodge through the four cold wintered months, one log for each month. Every morning Shingabis left his lodge and went out on the frozen lake.
When he came to the rushes, he pulled them out with his strong bill, and diving through the hole in the ice caught many fish. The north wind watched Shingabis and was angry to see how little he cared for the cold, so the north wind blew stronger and stronger and sent the snow to cover the land deeper and deeper.
Yet Shingabis was not frightened, but caught fish as before. Then the north wind was still more angry. He came himself and stood at the doorway of Shingabis' lodge, and the biting air crept in and the wigwam crackled with the cold, but Shingabis only laughed and stirred the fire, saying,
Then the north wind came into the wigwam and sat by the fire, but little Shingabis did not seem to notice him. He only stirred the fire till the flames leapt up in the air and sang more loudly his brave little song. Presently, it was too hot for the north wind, so he left the lodge and went away.
At night, when Tikhamsa lay sleepless, looking up through the smoke hole in the wigwam at the stars twinkling in the sky, he thought of brave little Shingabis. Even when he was frightened, he did not cry at night. His mother had told him that bad Indians might hear him and come out of the dark forest. The hoot of an owl might be the signal to hidden foes.
He never heard it at night without a quickened beating of the heart. The night breeze, laden with the scent of the sleeping woods, softly moving the flap of the wigwam, startled him, but he made no outcry. Was he not the son of a chief, and was he not to be a great warrior himself? So he would fall asleep to be awakened by the early rays of the sun and the stir of
life about the camp.
