to john thoreau (at taunton).
(Written as from one Indian to another.)
Musketaquid, 202 Summers, two Moons, eleven Suns,
—since the coming of the Pale Faces.
(November 11, 1837.)
Tahatawan, Sachimaussan, to his brother sachem, Hopeful of Hopewell,—hoping that he is well:—
Brother: It is many suns that I have not seen the print of thy moccasins by our council-fire; the Great Spirit has blown more leaves from the trees, and many clouds from the land of snows have visited our lodge; the earth has become hard, like a frozen buffalo-skin, so that the trampling of many herds is like the Great Spirit's thunder; the grass on the great fields is like the old man of many winters, and the small song-sparrow prepares for his flight to the land whence the summer comes.
Brother: I write these things because I know that thou lovest the Great Spirit's creatures, and wast wont to sit at thy lodge-door, when the maize was green, to hear the bluebird's song. So shalt thou, in the land of spirits, not only find good hunting grounds and sharp arrowheads, but much music of birds.
Brother: I have been thinking how the Pale Faces have taken away our lands,—and was a
