The Republic of Indian Stream
We arrived back at the farmhouse just before dusk and made an effort to help with the chores, I lent a hand in milking while the girls gathered eggs and firewood. After a simple, hearty dinner we all joined together in the kitchen around the old stone hearth that centered the house. Harry and Charlie, the farm hands, sang and played a plaintive New Brunswick tune with a battered fiddle. Horsehairs swayed gently as the music soared then faded and the bow jumped and swayed. Archibald disappeared in and out of the darkened doorway, checking on the calving cows and the sugaring off that continued through the night hours. Deep in the shadows, but lightly Illuminated by the glow of the fire, was the old women, her face framed by an enormous lace bonnet as she sat speechless in her corner. The only sound from her was an a audible squeak from the rocking chair in an un-nerving irregular beat. Just when your mind had become accustomed to a steady rythmic squeak from the old chair on the floorboards it would stop suddenly, only to begin again moments later at a different pace.
Out in the night the great spring thaw had begun in earnest, the drip of the melting snow off the roof joined the constant rush of the river breaking free from the hold of winter. We sat in the darkness the only light provided by the dancing flames, As the music died down we listened as Molly told us a story:
When my ancestors, the Wampanoag. lived in these northern woods, they knew that there were some places intended for them, and there were lands that were intended for the Others. The Others, to my people, were known as the Oonahgemessuk or “Oonah”, the little men, the dwellers of the rock. Their territory was not to be entered by any of our kind, they dwelled in the land of the headwaters, and their homes were in the ancient maples. Man has adapted to live in many surrounding, be it the frigid white of the Nordic snows, or the steaming heat of the tropics. But the Others are far more finely tuned to their surroundings and are slow to adapt to change. The Oonah live within a small eco system – their own “family tree”. The great northern cathedral maples of the headwaters are the Oonahgenassuk’s home, and they cannot live without them, they cannot survive much further out than the shadows thrown from their heavy branches. My ancestors have known for hundreds of years not to disturb this woodland world; not to follow game into the headwater woods, not to camp on the river shores, not to cut the sacred timbers.
But, when the men of Europe first came here they did not read the native trees, they did not heed the warnings from my people and entered the forest as if they owned them. For the first time the sounds of saws and axes rang through the woods. The Oonah were not pleased. The Englishmen’s compass spun uselessly when in the headwater woods, The frontiersman and mapmakers became easily confused and lost in the dark forests, many trappers and lumberjacks entering the forest and were never seen again, Only boots or camp packs would emerge from the forests, washed down the river with the spring thaw. Surveyors marks were shifted and moved by the little men, making early maps of the region inaccurate, leaving the region off the charts altogether, establishing the boundaries vaguely as “the headwaters of the Connecticut River” in the Treaty of Paris.
One spring a northern explorer named Luther Parker canoed north up the river and approached the Indian tribe making a friends of tMassasoiy the Wampanoag chief. Parker asked for a guide into the dark area. Pleased with the respect shown by the explorer the chief told him of the inhabitants of the forest, and agreed to take him to council with the little people. After long negotiations a treaty was made between the chief and the little men. A band of Europeans lead by Parker agreed that they would protect the Oonah and create an independent republic in exchange for use of their lands, in this way the little people could live in their forest independently, under the authority of neither the French or the Americans who had earned disdain for their disrespect and arrogance.
In 1832 the borders of the Republic of Indian Stream were established and for three short years the Oonahgenassuk and the human inhabitants of the new republic lived in peace. Travel and trade was restricted to protect the little people of the Northern woods from a nosey outside world. But, before long, many of the people longed for an organized religion and a Catholic Minister by the name of Reuben Sawyer came to preach to the “Streamers” but learned of the agreement between the settlers and the Oonah. The priest was convinced that the agreement was paramount to a contract with the devil; the little people were Pagans, in league with the savage evil forces of the woods. He secretly arranged for the arrest of the small republic’s president by the forces of British Canada on trumped up charges of bad debt.
At the urging of the priest, elders of the community formed a posse and invaded Canadian territory to retrieve their friend, shooting up the home of a judge where their comrade was being held. In the absence of the sheriff and town elders the priest convened a truncated congress and took charge of the local government by convinced the citizenry that the evil influence of the Oonah had brought them to the brink of imminent international incident and possibly war. For their own safety he convinced the “Streamers” to join the young nation of the United States under the auspices of state of New Hampshire. By the time the Elders had returned the seeds of division had been planted, it was too late to turn back. The priest constructed a lumberyard and supervised the felling of great swaths of the Northern forest, Timbers from the old trees were used to build a church on the stumped roots of one of grandest and oldest of the Cathedral Maples. The following year the building was consecrated with enormous fanfare. But in the night, after celebratory dances and feasts, flames welled up and burned the church to the ground. The citizens immediately set about rebuilding only to see maple seedlings push up through the floorboards; tilting the pews, buckling the alter, and finally collapsing the structure in a great heap of timbers. Not to be deterred the priest organized yet another rebuilding of the church during the winter months with enormous stones of granite quarried on the west side of the river and pulled across the ice of the frozen headwaters. Near completion of the church a rare January thaw saw the river grow soft. As a team of oxen pulled a massive capstone across the river the ice gave way with a thunderous crack and groan, the chains around the stone snapped and lashed the ankles of the priest, pulling the him down into the cold blue depths of the Connecticut river. Without the Priest the men and women of the North woods turned away from the religion and left the building unfinished. The skeleton of the church still stands, with a congregation of young maples soaring up to heaven within roofless walls.
The loss of so many trees saw a decline in the Oonah, they faded into the shadows, until there were only stories handed down from father to son, mother to daughter. But willed and deeded with the old farmlands are stands of forest. Old farmers keep these groups of old maples untouched deep within their properties, on angled hillsides and in dark forest. There remains an understanding of times past and promises made by the fathers.
Silence filled the room – embers popped in the fireplace and outside the clear night echoed with a boom of cracking ice on the river.
Composed by Dr. G on Wednesday, Apr. 16, 2008
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