: The Lily and the Totem; or The Huguenots in Florida by Simms William Gilmore - Florida History Huguenot colony 1562-1565 Fiction

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of whom has always subdued, and the latter usually debased or destroyed, the races with which they came in conflict.

The policy of Albert did not vary from that which usually distinguished his countrymen in like situations. The French Protestant was, by no means, of the faith and temper of the English Puritan. In simplifying his religion, he did not clothe his exterior in gloom; he did not deny that there should be sunshine and blossoms in the land. Our colonists at Fort Charles did not perplex the Indians with doctrinal questions. It is greatly to be feared, indeed, that religion did not, in any way, disturb them in their solitudes. At all events, it was not of such a freezing temper as to deny them the indulgence of an intercourse with the natives, which, for a season, was very agreeable and very inspiriting to both the parties.

But smiles and sunshine cannot last forever. The granaries of the Indians began to fail under their own profligacy and the demands of the Frenchmen. The resources of the former, never abundant, were soon exhausted in providing for the additional hungry mouths which had come among them. Shrinking from labor, they addressed as little of it as they well could, to the cultivation of their petty maize fields. They planted them, as we do now, a couple of grains of corn to each hill, at intervals of three or four square feet, and as the corn grew to a sufficient height, peas were distributed among the roots, to twine about the stalks when the vines could no longer impair its growth. They cropped the same land twice in each summer. The supplies, thus procured, would have been totally inadequate to their wants, but for the abundant game, the masts of the forest, and such harsh but wholesome roots as they could pulverize and convert into breadstuffs. Their store was thus limited always, and adapted to their own wants simply. Any additional demand, however small, produced a scarcity in their granaries. The improvidence of Audusta, or his liberality, prevented him from considering this danger, until it began to be felt. He had supplied the Frenchmen until his stock was exhausted; no more being left in his possession than would suffice to sow his fields.

The advice was taken. The Frenchmen had no alternative. They addressed themselves first to Ouade. His territories lay along the river Belle, some twenty-five leagues south of Port Royal. He received them with the greatest favor and filled their pinnace with maize and beans. He welcomed them to his abode with equal state and hospitality. His house is described as being hung with a tapestry richly wrought of feathers. The couch upon which he slept, was dressed with "white coverlettes, embroidered with devises of very wittie and fine workmanship, and fringed round about with a fringe dyed in the colour of scarlet." His gifts to our Frenchmen were not limited to the commodities they craved. He gave them six coverlets, and tapestry such as decorated his couch and dwelling; specimens of a domestic manufacture which declare for tastes and a degree of art which seems, in some degree, to prove their intimacy with the more polished and powerful nations of the south. In regard to food hereafter, king Ouade promised that his new acquaintance should never want.

Thus was the first intercourse maintained by our Huguenots with their savage neighbors. It was during this intimacy, and while all things seemed to promise fair in regard to the colony, that the tragical events took place which furnish the materials for the legend which follows, the narrative of which requires that we should mingle events together, those which occurred in the periods already noted, and those which belong to our future chapters. Let it suffice, here, that, with his pinnace stored with abundance, the mil , corn and peas, of Ouade, Albert returned in safety to Fort Charles.

Showing how Guernache, the Musician, a great favorite with our Frenchmen, lost the favor of Captain Albert, and how cruelly he was punished by the latter.

At first, and when it was doubtful to what extent the favor of the red-men might be secured for the colony, Captain Albert readily countenanced the growing popularity of his fiddler among them. His permission was frequently given to Guernache, when king Audusta solicited his presence. His policy prompted him to regard it as highly fortunate that so excellent an agent for his purposes was to be found among his followers; and, for some months, it needed only a suggestion of Guernache, himself, to procure for him leave of absence. The worthy fellow never abused his privileges--never was unfaithful to his trust--never grew insolent upon indulgence. But Captain Albert, though claiming to be the cadet of a noble house, was yet a person of a mean and ignoble nature. Small and unimposing of person, effeminate of habit, and accustomed to low indulgences, he was not only deficient in the higher resources of intellect, but he was exceedingly querulous and tyrannical of temper. His aristocratical connexions alone had secured him the charge of the colony, for which nature and education had equally unfitted him. His mind was contracted and full of bitter prejudices; and, as is the case commonly with very small persons, he was always tenacious, to the very letter, of the nicest observances of etiquette. After a little while, and when he no longer had reason to question the fidelity of the red men, he began to exhibit some share of dislike towards Guernache; and to withhold the privileges which he had hitherto permitted him to enjoy. He had become jealous of the degree of favor in which his musician was held among the savages, and betrayed this change in his temper, by instances of occasional severity and denial, the secret of which the companions of Guernache divined much sooner than himself. Though not prepared, absolutely, to withhold his consent, when king Audusta entreated that the fiddler might be spared him, he yet accorded it ungraciously; and Guernache was made to suffer, in some way, for these concessions, as if they had been so many favors granted to himself.

They were, indeed, favors to the musician, though, to what extent, Albert entertained no suspicion. It so happened that among his other conquests, Guernache had made that of a very lovely dark-eyed damsel, a niece of Audusta, and a resident of the king's own village. After the informal fashion of the country, into which our Frenchmen were apt readily to fall, he had made the damsel his wife. She was a beautiful creature, scarcely more than sixteen; tall and slender, and so naturally agile and graceful, that it needed but a moderate degree of instruction to make her a dancer whose airy movements would not greatly have misbeseemed the most courtly theatres of Paris. Monaletta,--for such was the sweet name of the Indian damsel,--was an apt pupil, because she was a loving one. She heartily responded to that sentiment of wonder--common among the savages--that the Frenchmen should place themselves under the command of a chief, so mean of person as Albert, and so inferior in gifts, when they had among them a fellow of such noble presence as Guernache, whose qualities were so irresistible. The opinions of her head were but echoes from the feelings in her heart. Her preference for our musician was soon apparent and avowed; but, in taking her to wife, Guernache kept his secret from his best friend. No one in Fort Charles ever suspected that he had been wived in the depth of the great forests, through pagan ceremonies, by an Indian Iawa, to the lovely Monaletta. Whatever may have been his motive for keeping the secret, whether he feared the ridicule of his comrades, or the hostility of his superior, or apprehended a difficulty with rivals among the red men, by a discovery of the fact, it is yet very certain that he succeeded in persuading Monaletta, herself, and those who were present at his wild betrothal, to keep the secret also. It did not lessen, perhaps, the pleasure of his visits to the settlements of Audusta, that the peculiar joys which he desired had all the relish of a stolen fruit. It was now, only in this manner that Monaletta could be seen. Captain Albert, with a rigid austerity, which contributed also to his evil odor among his people, had interdicted the visits of all Indian women at the fort. This interdict was one, however, which gave little annoyance to Guernache. A peculiar, but not unnatural jealousy, had already prompted him repeatedly to deny this privilege to Monaletta. The simple savage had frequently expressed her desire to see the fortress of the white man, to behold his foreign curiosities, and, in particular, to hearken to the roar of that mimic thunder which he had always at command, and which, when heard, had so frequently shaken the very hearts of the men of her people.

Iawa was the title of the priest or prophet of the Floridian. The word is thus written by Laudonniere in Hakluyt. It is probably a misprint only which, in Charlevoix, writes it "Iona."

THE FESTIVAL OF TOYA.

Being a continuation of the legend of Guernache; showing the superstitions of the Red-Men; how Guernache offended Captain Albert, and what followed from the secret efforts of the Frenchmen to penetrate the mysteries of Toya!

It would be difficult to say, from the imperfect narratives afforded us by the chroniclers, what were the precise objects of the present ceremonials;--what gods were to be invoked;--what evil beings implored;--what wrath and anger to be deprecated and diverted from the devoted tribes. As the Frenchmen received no explanation of their mystic preparations, so are we left unenlightened by their revelations. They do not even amuse us by their conjectures, and Laudonniere stops short in his narrative of what did happen, apologizing for having said so much on so trifling a matter. We certainly owe him no gratitude for his forbearance. What he tells us affords but little clue to the motive of their fantastic proceedings. The difficulty, which is at present ours, was not less that of Albert and his Frenchmen. They were compelled to behold the outlines of a foreign ritual whose mysteries they were not permitted to explore, and had their curiosity provoked by shows of a most exciting character, which only mocked their desires, and tantalized their appetites. On the first arrival of Albert, and after he had been rested and refreshed, Audusta himself had conducted him, with his followers, to the spot which had been selected for the ceremonies of the morrow. "This was a great circuit of ground with open prospect and round in figure." Here they saw "many women roundabout, which labored by all means to make the place cleane and neate." The ceremonies began early on the morning of the ensuing day. Hither they repaired in season, and found "all they which were chosen to celebrate the feast," already "painted and trimmed with rich feathers of divers colours." These led the way in a procession from the dwelling of Audusta to the "place of Toya." Here, when they had come, they set themselves in new order under the guidance of three Indians, who were distinguished by plumes, paint, and a costume entirely superior to the rest. Each of them carried a tabret, to the plaintive and lamenting music of which they sang in wild, strange, melancholy accents; and, in slow measures, dancing the while, they passed gradually into the very centre of the sacred circle. They were followed by successive groups, which answered to their strains, and to whose songs they, in turn, responded with like echoes. This continued for awhile, the music gradually rising and swelling from the slow to the swift, from the sad to the passionate, while the moods of the actors and the spectators, also varying, the character of the scene changed to one of the wildest excitement. Suddenly, the characters--those who were chief officiators in this apparent hymn of fate--broke from the enchanted circle--darted through the ranks of the spectators, and dashed, headlong, with frantic cries, into the depths of the neighboring thickets. Then followed another class of actors. As if a sudden and terrible doom overhung the nation, the Indian women set up cries of grief and lamentation. Their passion grew to madness. In their rage, the mothers seized upon the young virgins of the tribe, and, with the sharp edges of muscle shells, they lanced their arms, till the blood gushed forth in free streams, which they eagerly flung into the air, crying aloud at every moment, "He-to-yah! He-to-yah! He-to-yah!"

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