St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1888-06-30
AN ESQUIMAUx BATTLE.
1 Fierce Engagement the Laquenay
Between Two Northern Tribes.

q flefce Engagement on the aquenay
Between Two Northern Tribes.
eve went into it one thousand war
riors on a side, and in either army were
twenty chiefs of fame. We fought the
fight at Mamelons, where at sunset we
met the Esquimaux coming up as we
were going down. The Montaignais
whose fathers wigWams stood at Name
Ions, had fought the Esquimaux one
thousand years, and both had wrongs
to right. My father died that summer,
and |, fresh from the fields of France,
headed my tribe. You know how
small it was the last remnant of the
old Lenape root, but every man war
rior. | knew not the right or wrong
of it, nor did l care. | only
knew our tribe was pledged to the
Nasquapees of frozen Ungava, and they
were allies of the Mountaineers, and
hence the fight held us to its edge.
That night we slept under truce, but
when the sun came up, went at it.
see that morning now. The sun from
out the eastern sea rose red as blood.
The Nasquapees, who lived as atheists
without medicine man, cared not for
this, but the prophet of the Mountain
GERS painted his face and body black as
night, tore his blanket into shreds. and
lay in the sand as one dead. The Mas
quapees laughed, but we of the mount
aims knew by that dread sign that our
faces looked toward our last battle.
We made it a brave doom. We fought
till noon upon the shifting sands, nor
gained an inch, nor did our foes, when
suddenly the sun was clouded and
great wind arose that drove the sand
so thickly that it hid the battle The
firing and the shouting ceased along
the terrace where we fought,
and a great, dread silence
fell on the mighty mounds,
save when the fierce gusts smote them.
Thus living and dead, friend and foe.
we lay together, our faces plunged into
the coarse gravel, our hands clutching
the rounded stones. that we might
breathe and stay until the wind might
pass. And such wind was never
blown on man before, for it was hot
and came straight down from heaven,
so that our backs WINGED as we Law
tlattened. Thus mixed and mingled,
we chung to the hot stones, while some
of them crept in beneath the dead for
shelter. So both armies chung to the
ground for an hours space. Then,
suddenly, the sun rushed out, and
shaking the sand from eyes and hair,
and splitting it from our mouths, at il
we went again.
''ln the pauses of the wind we,
who fought on either side, heard
shrieks and shouts and tramplings as
OF ten thousand feet, and over us were
roarings and blowings and hollow
noises, dreadful to hear, and through |
all the battle went the word that the |
old dead were fighting, too!' and that |
made us wild. Both sides went mad. |
The dying cheered the living, and the
living cheered the dead. So went the |
battle-the fathers and the sons, the |
dead and the living, hard at it. The |
waters of the Saguenay, a thousand
feet below, were beaten into foam by
the rush of fighting feet and the roar
ing of great battle filled its mouth.
Its dark tide whitened with strange
death froth from shore to shore, while
ever and anon its surface shivered and
shook. And under us on the high
crest, cloud wrapped, the earth
5rembled as we fought, so that more
han once as we stood clinched, we
,wo, the foe and I, still gripned
or death, would pause until the
ground grew steady, for its trem-
olings made us dizzy, then clinch the
iercer, mad with great madness at be-
ng stopped in such death-grapple.
Under US all the long afternoon the
treat mounds rose and sunk like waves
hat have no base to stand upon. The
LIQUIDS showed ashes. Mud fell in
howers. The air we breathed stank
With birthstone and burned bones.
md still it thickened, and still both
ides, now but scattered few, fought
n, until at last, with crash, as if the
7orld had split apart, darkness deep
$ death fell suddenly, so that eyes
7ere vain, and we, who were not dead,
nable to find the foe, stood still. And
bus the battle ended, even drawn, be-
ause God stopped the fight at Name
ons. 1.-THE Doom Of the Mamelons.