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How American Indians Love, a non-fiction book by Henry Theophilus Finck |
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The Buffalo King |
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_ Aggodagauda was an Indian who lived in the forest. Though he had accidentally lost the use of one of his two legs he was a famous hunter. But he had a great enemy in the king of buffaloes, who frequently passed over the plain with the force of a tempest. The chief object of the wily buffalo was to carry off Aggodagauda's daughter, who was very beautiful. To prevent this Aggodagauda had built a log cabin, and it was only on the roof of this that he permitted his daughter to take the open air and disport herself. Now her hair was so long that when she untied it the raven locks hung down to the ground. One day, when her father was off on a hunt, she went out on top of the house and sat combing her long and beautiful hair, on the eaves of the lodge, when the buffalo king, coming suddenly by, caught her glossy hair, and winding it about his horns, tossed her onto his shoulders and carried her to his village. Here he _paid every attention to gain her affections_, but all to no purpose, for she sat pensively and disconsolate in the lodge among the other females, and scarcely ever spoke, and took no part in the domestic cares of her lover the king. He, on the contrary, _did everything he could think of to please her and win her affections_. He told the others in his lodge to give her everything she wanted, and to be _careful not to displease her_. They set before her the choicest food. They _gave her the seat of honor in the lodge_. The king himself went out hunting to obtain the most dainty bits of meat. And not content with these proofs of his attachment _he fasted himself_, and would often take his flute and sit near the lodge indulging his mind in repeating a few pensive notes:
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