Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1857-12-24
The Fawn of Pascagoula.
AN INDIAN TALE.


Shall tell you story of real life as roman
tic and affecting as any you will find in fiction
Well-listen ! Every citizen of Mobile is IA
miliar with the sight of the Indsn girls who
are in our streets in the winter. With their .
little bundles of lightwood upon their backs,
they mark the advent of cold weather as reg
ularly as the mocking bird and the cardinal
chronicle the approach Of spring. They ped
die their small parcels of pine from door to
door, and oil are familiar with the soft, quick
peittondry voice in which they exclaim Chun'-
pa" as they offer their cheap burdens for
sale.
These Indian girls, it IS we'll known, belong
to certain Choctaw families who refused to EN-
ig-ate with their tribe beyond the Mississippi,
and yet linger upon their aboriginal hunting
grounds on the waters of the Pearl and Pas
cagoula. Though they thus exhibit an un-
conauerable attachment to their native soil,
they have yet refused to adopt the habits, Ian
guage Or pursuits of the whites by whom they
surrounded, and are perversely Indifferent to all
the inducements of civilization. They persist
in leaiing species of savage gipsy==;the men
sustaining themselves by hunting, and She wo-
men, by vending whortleberries, and other wild
fruits in the summer and bundles of pine in
the winter. With these simple productions,
they visit Mobile semi annually, and for the
time reside in the vicinity, in small huts or
camps constructed of bark, boards, or the
limbs of trees. This has been their custo m
from time immemorial, and it yet continues.
These Indians are generally miserable and
ignorant race, but with all their degradation
they possess some eff the virtues in singula
degree. The women are proverbially chas te
and modest, and, of all the young girls that an
nually visit our city, none have been known tt
depart from the paths of rectitude. A strong
interest therefore surrounds these simp
daughters of the woods, who resist all tn
Establishments of their station, and pass un
harmed through the streets of our city. Man
of them are quite handsome, and possess be
meath their rustic garb-the calico and the re
blanket--considerabl graces of manner an
appearance AS they invariably refuse to tal
: English, very little conversation can be ha
with them, and that only in reference to tn
!, small bargains which they desire to make
" Chumpa, +" and " picayuns, )" are almostthe or
}. y words which they employ in their intereour'
with our inhabitants Still they are not n
! served in their movements where they wish
IS make bargain, and enter the different hous'
l. of the city, stores, dwellings and Offices will
out ceremony hesitation or announcement
Who has not been startled many morning
ID by voice, at the chamber door, exclaimir
g Chumpa."
IN The stoical deme.nor of these Choctaw ma
lie dens has often led to the impression that tn
are destitute of the natural sensibilities a.
~ sentiments of their sex. They have brigl
US flashing eyes, well developed, symmetrical al
nexile forms, beautiful small hands and fe'
u and show in their love for brilliant articles
dress, rings, and beads and other personal d'
n orations the taste and vanity of their civili2
n sisters : it is possible that they are destitute
no those delicate sympathies and tender afectit
we which have marked women in all other elias
and condition of life! This question
he doubtless suggested itself to many, as an
teresting problem OF character. In one
u" stance, at least, an attempt-perhaps hea
less one-was made to solve it, and it is to Il
ion the story which have TO tell refers 1t ca
,ou to my knowledge in all its details, but '
7" attempt to narrate it in such manner as
yn. to detain the reader with particulars which
can imagine for himself
his Among the Choctaw gipsies, visited Mol
in sthe winter of 1856, was one of unus
He beauty and attractiveness A Though scar
you developed into womanhood-not more 3
me seventeen g suns - having kissed the r
bronze of her chcek-she was yet tall, rou
ven lmbed, straight and gracefull--a very mode
On feminine form. Her features, more promlr
5 in and regular than is usual with her tribe, WI
AVE delicately scup ptured, and the erect attit
: as of her head, with her large fawn-like eyes,
rge abundant coal-black hair, always neatly pia
ak, in massive folds, gave to her appearance an
You of sereriority such as the youthful PoeahoI
you is said to have possessed Her dress was
that tremely neat, though with large number
lioh silver and wanpum ornaments, and her 81
feet. which any of the fair promenaders
that Dauph might have envied, were invari'
dressed in moecasns, ornameuted in the u