ACT V.
FAMINE, FEVER AND
MINNEHAHA’S DEATH.
Scenery:
Forest and Lake, same as Act IV, but WINTER.
Interior of Nokomis’ Tepee. Present, Hiawatha, Nokomis and Minnehaha
all of whose appearance indicate starvation and great suffering. Fever
and Famine, the ghosts, two tall, slim girls, with white, haggard
faces, dressed entirely in black drapery with no lines to break
effect.
Hiawatha: (with great depth of feeling.)
O this long and dreary Winter
O this cold and cruel Winter!
Ever thicker, thicker, thicker
Grows the ice on lake and river,
Ever deeper, deeper, deeper
Falls the snow o’er all the landscape,
Falls the covering snow, and drifting
Through the forest, round the village,
Hardly from his buried wigwam
Can the hunter force a passage;
With my mittens and my snowshoes
Vainly walked I through the forest,
Sought for bird or beast and found none,
Saw no track of deer or rabbit,
In the snow beheld no footprints,
In the ghastly, gleaming forest
Fell, and could not rise from weakness,
Almost perished there from cold and hunger.
O the famine and the fever!
O the wasting of the famine!
O the blasting of the fever!
O the wailing of the children!
O the anguish of the women!
All the earth is sick and famished;
Hungry is the air around them,
Hungry is the sky above them,
And the hungry stars in heaven
Like the eyes of wolves glare at them!
Minnehaha, (turning to Hiawatha, reaching out her
hands and piteously beseeching of him:)
Give me food, O Hiawatha,
Give us food, for we are starving,
Give us food, or we must perish.
Act, Fever and Famine:
Then the curtain of the doorway
From without was slowly lifted;
And two women entered softly,
Passed the doorway uninvited,
Without word of salutation,
Without sign of recognition,
Sat down in the farthest corner,
Crouching low among the shadows.
Very pale and haggard were they,
As they sat there sad and silent,
Trembling, cowering with the shadows,
Sobbing, weeping, wailing.
Minnehaha, Softly:
They are famished;
Let them do what best delights them;
Let them eat, for they are famished.
Hiawatha, musingly to himself:
Who are they?
What strange guests has Minnehaha?
Hiawatha, to Fever and Famine:
I bid you welcome
To my lodge, to my fireside;
O guests! why is it
That your hearts are so afflicted,
That you sob so in the sunlight?
Has perchance the old Nokomis,
Has my wife, my Minnehaha,
Ever wronged or grieved you by unkindness,
Ever failed in hospitable duties?
Fever and Famine:
We are ghosts of the departed,
Souls of those who once were with you.
Hither have we come to try you.
These are corpses clad in garments,
These are ghosts that come to haunt you,
From the kingdom of Ponemah,
From the land of the Hereafter!
Cries of grief and lamentation
Reach us in the Blessed Islands;
Cries of anguish from the living,
Calling back their friends departed,
Sadden us with useless sorrow.
Therefore have we come to try you;
No one knows us, no one heeds us.
We are but a burden to you,
And we see that the departed
Have no place among the living.
Think of this, O Hiawatha!
Speak of it to all the people,
That henceforward and forever
They no more with lamentations
Sadden the souls of the departed
In the Islands of the Blessed.
Do not lay such heavy burdens
In the graves of those you bury.
Farewell, noble Hiawatha!
We have put you to the trial,
To the proof have put your patience,
By the insult of our presence,
By the outrage of our actions.
We have found you great and noble,
Faint not in the greater trial,
Faint not in the hardest struggle.
Fever and Famine, with haggard and hollow eyes,
turn toward and approach Minnehaha, meanwhile Hiawatha,
Nokomis and Minnehaha trying to ward them off.
Famine,
Behold me!
I am Famine, Bukadawin!
Fever,
Behold me!
I am Fever, Ahkosewin!
Act, Minnehaha:
And the lovely Minnehaha
Shuddered as they looked upon her,
Shuddered at the words they uttered,
Lay down on her bed in silence,
Hid her face but made no answer;
Lay there trembling, Freezing, burning
At the looks they cast upon her,
At the fearful words they uttered.
Act, Hiawatha, first preparing for journey,
Wrapped in furs and armed for hunting,
With his mighty bow of ash-tree,
With his quiver full of arrows,
With his mittens, Minjekahwun,
Forth into the empty forest
Rushed the maddened Hiawatha;
In his heart was deadly sorrow,
In his face a stony firmness;
On his brow the sweat of anguish
Started, but it froze and fell not.
Into the vast and vacant forest
On his snowshoes strode he forward.
Scene shifts, showing Hiawatha in a dense
forest, with trees covered with snow and ice, hunting food for
Minnehaha, becoming discouraged, he sits down on a log or rock, ponders
and talks to himself.
Hiawatha, despondently, ruminating,
Lo! how all things fade and perish!
From the memory of the old men
Pass away the great traditions,
On the grave-posts of our fathers
Are no signs, no figures painted;
Who are in those graves we know not,
Only know they are our fathers,
Of what kith they are and kindred,
From what old, ancestral Totem,
Be it Eagle, Bear or Beaver,
They descended, this we know not,
Only know they are our fathers.
Face to face we speak together,
But we cannot speak when absent,
Cannot send our voices from us
To the friends that dwell afar off;
Cannot send a secret message,
But the bearer learns our secret,
May pervert it, may betray it,
May reveal it unto others.
’Twas through this forest, dark and gloomy,
In the balmy days of summer
That I brought my bride, Laughing Water,
From the land of the Dakotahs,
Through this forest, bleak and frozen,
Brought my moonlight, starlight, firelight,
Brought the sunshine of my people,
Minnehaha, Laughing Water,
Handsomest of all the women
In the land of the Dacotahs,
In the land of handsome women.
When she followed me, her husband.
Buries his head in his hands, then rising,
stretching his hands toward Heaven with head uplifted cries aloud with
great feeling.
“Gitche Manitou, the Mighty!”
In this bitter hour of anguish,
Give your children food, O father!
Give us food, or we must perish!
Give me food for Minnehaha,
For my dying Minnehaha!
Act, Hiawatha:
Through the far-resounding forest,
Through the forest vast and vacant
Rang that cry of desolation,
But there came no other answer
Than the echo of his crying,
Than the echo of the woodlands.
Echo.
Minnehaha! Minnehaha! Ha! Ha!
Hiawatha disappears in the forest looking for game.
Scene changes showing the interior of the
tepee where Minnehaha lies sick and dying. Fever sitting at her head,
Famine at her feet, both staring at her. Old Nokomis sitting at the
back of the couch, watching over and caring for her with maternal love
and pity.
Minnehaha, feebly,
To Fever and Famine.
To-morrow
Is the last day of my conflict,
Is the last day of my fasting.
You will conquer and o’ercome me;
Turning to Nokomis, pathetically:
Dear old Nokomis,
Make a bed for me to lie in,
Where the rain may fall upon me,
Where the sun may come and warm me;
Lay me in the earth, and make it
Soft and loose and light above me.
Let no hand disturb my slumber,
Only come yourself to watch me,
Till I wake, and start, and quicken,
Till I leap into the sunshine.
After a silence.
Ah me! think of my beloved,
In the bleak and frozen forest
My heart is thinking of him.
Another silence.
Far away, away,
Very far away,
Ah me! is my native country.
Half raising herself and speaking wildly:
Hark! I hear a rushing,
Hear a roaring and a rushing,
Hear the Falls of Minnehaha
Calling to me from a distance!
Nokomis, soothingly:
No, no, my child!
’Tis only the night-wind in the pine-trees!
Minnehaha, deliriously, pointing:
Look! I see my father
Standing lonely at his doorway,
Beckoning to me from his wigwam
In the land of the Dakotahs!
Nokomis:
No, no, my child!
’Tis only the smoke, that waves and beckons!
Minnehaha, wildly, raving:
Ah! The eyes of Pauguk
Glare upon me in the darkness,
I can feel his icy fingers
Clasping mine amid the darkness!
Hiawatha! Hiawatha!
Shrieking loudly and falls back dead.
Fever and Famine at Minnehaha’s death, glide
out, Nokomis changes position taking a seat at her feet, then rocking
back and forth wails and moans.
Nokomis:
Wahonowin! Wahonowin!
Would that I had perished for you,
Would that I were dead as you are!
Wahonowin! Wahonowin!
Ah! why do the living,
Lay such heavy burdens on us!
Better were it to go naked,
Better were it to go fasting,
Than to bear such heavy burdens
On our long and weary journey!
O that I were dead!
O that I were dead, as thou art?
No more work, and no more weeping,
Wahonowin! Wahonowin!
During this scene a low, soft dirge should
be played behind the scenes. Indians are to be seen peeping from
behind trees and rocks, some after the death coming to look into the
wigwam.
Indian chiefs, wailing and shaking their
medicine-pouches over the head of Minnehaha.
Hi-au-ha!
Way-ha-way!
She has gone
To the land of ghosts and shadows.
Hi-au-ha!
Way-ha-way!
Act, Hiawatha:
Hiawatha rushed into the wigwam,
Saw the old Nokomis slowly
Rocking to and fro and moaning,
Saw his lovely Minnehaha
Lying dead and cold before him,
And his bursting heart within him
Uttered such a cry of Anguish,
That the forest moaned and shuddered,
That the very stars in heaven
Shook and trembled with his anguish.
Hiawatha, astounded, shocked, then mournfully.
Dead out of the empty heaven,
Dead among the starving people,
Calling to Heaven, despairingly:
Master of Life!
Must our lives depend on these things?
Moans, cries, then softly murmurs.
Ah, showain nemeshin, Nosa!
Pity, pity me, my father!
Pathetically beseeching Minnehaha:
O! my Minnehaha; O, my Laughing Water,
Do not leave me thus;
You were my moonlight, starlight, firelight
You were the sunshine of my life,
Whispering to her in her slumbers:
Though you are far from me
In the land of Sleep and Silence,
Still the voice of love should reach you!
Nokomis, sorrowfully, resignedly:
She is dead, the Laughing Water!
She the dearest of all creatures!
She has gone from us forever,
She has moved a little nearer
To the Master of all life,
To the Master of all sunshine!
She has gone
To the regions of the home-wind,
Of the Northwest wind Keewaydin,
To the Islands of the Blessed,
To the kingdom of Ponemah,
To the land of the Hereafter!
Hiawatha, sitting down, looking lovingly and
mournfully at her meditates,
Oh! those willing feet, that never
More will lightly run to meet me,
Never more will lightly follow.
Act, Hiawatha:
Then he sat down, still and speechless
On the bed of Minnehaha
At the head of Laughing Water,
As if in a swoon he sat there,
Speechless, motionless, unconscious.
After awhile, rising, he goes back of the
couch, thus standing, looks down upon her, saying with sorrow and deep
pathos,
Farewell! Minnehaha!
Farewell, O my Laughing Water!
All my heart is buried with you,
All my thoughts go onward with you!
Come not back again to labor,
Come not back again to suffer,
Where the Famine and the Fever,
Wear the heart and waste the body.
Soon my task will be completed,
Soon your footsteps I shall follow
To the Islands of the Blessed,
To the Kingdom of Ponemah,
To the Land of the Hereafter!
A reproduction of an Indian death scene and an
Indian funeral could here be given. Soft music behind scenes. Colored
lights should be thrown upon the scene making a very effective tableau,
showing interior of the tepee with Indians seen scattered here and
there outside in the wintry forest.
CURTAIN.
