A legend of the Native Americans
While many people know of Sequoya, the Native American genius who developed the Cherokee alphabet, fewer have heard of another visionary – yet he made a discovery no less groundbreaking, owing nothing to the white man’s knowledge.
It fell out like this: In the early 1800s, a certain chief, renowned among his people for his wise leadership, skilful hunting and (when necessary) prowess in battle, went to his medicine man with a highly personal problem: Despite many years of marriage and three beautiful wives, the chief had no children to follow after him, and he had no idea why. The medicine man, after lengthy research, told him what the matter was. According to custom and tradition, the chief should have presented each of his wives with a rare and precious animal skin to lie upon when they were seeking to make a baby, and because he had omitted to do this, the wrathful spirits had closed the wombs of all three. After so many years, the chief would need to resort to heroic measures to appease the spirits – yet, said the medicine man, to such a great chief this should be well within his compass.
The task, he was told, was to journey further than any chief of legend, and find three animals that no red man had ever seen or imagined, and return with their hides to present to his wives. Then, and only then, would the spirits be satisfied. Accordingly, the chief prepared himself a great canoe and loaded it with supplies of all kind ready for the great journey; and one fine day he set off into the western ocean, not knowing where he was bound.
After a long voyage, the chief found himself in a land of arid deserts where black men threw strange sticks for weapons, and hunted a strange animal like a deer that went in great bounds upon its hind legs. Learning that this was a *kangaroo*, the chief hunted one, killed it, skinned it, and put the hide in his canoe.
Journeying on, the chief came to another land of brown men and tall grasses where there roamed a mighty creature far exceeding in size and power the mountain lion of his homeland, decked in a coat of orange and black. Learning that this was a *tiger*, the chief hunted one, killed it, skinned it, and put the hide in his canoe.
Finally, in a land of rivers and swamps, the chief learned of a monstrous grey terror with a maw as large as a tepee, with tusks that could rend a man limb from limb, and that this creature was a *hippopotamus*. Therefore he hunted one, killed it, skinned it, and put the hide in his canoe.
Returning home, the chief presented each of his wives with one of the wondrous hides, and the spirits were at last appeased, and within the year the chief was the proud father of four strong babies. The squaw who received the kangaroo skin bore a maiden as beautiful as the first dawn of Spring, the squaw who received the tiger skin bore a son as splendid as the tallest tree in the forest, while the third squaw bore twins, each as admirable as their brother and sister.
History has shamefully lost the name of this pioneer, who by his magnificent deeds unlocked a great secret for his people: that the squaw on the hippopotamus is equal to the sum of the squaws on the other two hides.
0