Home > Authors Index > Henry Theophilus Finck > How American Indians Love > This page
How American Indians Love, a non-fiction book by Henry Theophilus Finck |
||
The Haunted Grove |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ Leelinau was the favorite daughter of an Odjibwa hunter, living on the shore of Lake Superior. From her earliest youth she was observed to be pensive and timid, and to spend much of her time _in solitude and fasting_. Whenever she could leave her father's lodge she would fly to the remote haunts and recesses of the woods, or _sit upon some high promontory of rock overhanging the lake_. But her favorite place was a forest of pines known as the Sacred Grove. It was supposed to be inhabited by a class of _fairies who love romantic scenes_. This spot Leelinau visited often, _gathering on the way strange flowers or plants_ to bring home. It was there that she fasted, supplicated, and strolled. The effect of these visits was to make the girl melancholy and dissatisfied with the realities of life. She did not care to play with the other young people. Nor did she favor the plan of her parents to marry her to a man much her senior in years, but a reputed chief. No attention was paid to her disinclination, and the man was informed that his offer had been favorably received. The day for the marriage was fixed and the guests invited. The girl had told her parents that she would never consent to the match. On the evening preceding the day fixed for her marriage she dressed herself in her best garments and put on all her ornaments. Then she told her parents she was going to meet her little lover, the chieftain of the green plume, who was waiting for her at the Spirit Grove. Supposing she was going to act some harmless freak, they let her go. When she did not return at sunset alarm was felt; with lighted torches the gloomy pine forest was searched, but no trace of the girl was ever found, and the parents mourned the loss of a daughter whose inclinations they had, in the end, too violently thwarted. _ |
||