TO THE CHILDREN.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXV, Issue LXV, 2 August 1913, Page 12

TO THE CHILDREN.

TWO CANOES

The sun shone. The birds _ang. The ! leaves on the trees quivered in the soft wind. The river was blue and its tiny waves lapped gently against its banks. Everything was still. This was out west one hundred years ago. The Indians lived there iv their wig-warns. The white men, with their factories and their sawmills and all the work and bustle ' they bring, had not yet come to that place in the west where those Indians were living. But they were coming. They, were only a few miles away. This w_*-wiiy the Indians were going further off where they could live in their own way and keep their lands and hunting which the white men were always taking from them. ! That bright morning two Indian boywere going up river to join the others. j Their canoe was filled with corn; and ( they felt very proud to be trusted with j the food that the Indians were so fond j of. Mahaka, twelve years old, the 6on Jof the chief of the tribe, said to his little comrade who was ten: I "Jump in, Waha, and sit firm. Don't tilt the canoe; it is so full. I'll paddle." Waha laughed. "I'll take care," he answered. And the two started up tho river toward the new home of the tribe. It was slow work against the current :of the river. But they were happy, and they went on talking and laughing. They had not gone far when Waha saw a canoe coming up behind them. "There is. Mah-te-he-ha," he called. "Hewavte is with him. They have their canoe full of bows and arrows." For a few minutes he watched the other boat. Then he said: "Oh, Mahaka, they're coming so fast! They're going to pass us. Don't let them get ahead of us." "No, indeed!" cried Mahaka. And he paddled With all his might. But the canoe behind kept gaining upon them, and , soon it came alongside. Howaxte who was Mahaka's age called out: "What's the matter with yoiu Mahaka? We're beating you. Good-by." Then he laughed ; and the canoe that he was in shot ahead, Mahaka was looking at that, and not at the river. "No! You shall'not beat , me!" he cried. And he gave his own canoe a hard push straight into a 6nag. The poor little canoe twirled around, and in another moment over it went, upside down, and the boys were in the water. "Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Mah-te-he-ha and Howaxte. "You can handle a ca- ! noe, Mahaka, can't you? Ha! ha! ha! Where's all that corn now?" Th'*r9 was no danger of the boys drowning; they could swim as well as the fish in the river. So could all Indians. Each boy caught hold of one side .of the canoe and drew it in to shore. I "Where's your corn now?" laughed j the other Indians again. The boys tip- , ped the water out of the canoe; and j then they looked at one another, two .very sorrowful little fellows. "In the .bottom of the river!" shouted Mah-te-he-ha and Howaxte as they paddled on ; out of sight. Yes, the corn was at the j bottom of the river and could not be got up. And if the boys went into camp with an empty canoe, all the Indians would laugh and hoot at them and Mahaka's father would be ashamed of his son. They must do something. But what ? "I know," said Waha. And he said something to Mahaka. The elder boy stood thinking. Then he said, "That's ' right, Waha. We'll do it. But we can't get to camp to-night." i "That's no matter," answered Waha. He was pleased that the elder boy liked j what he had proposed to do. The boys ' pulled the canoe up on the bank, so . that it would not float back into tho river. Then they started up the cliff. I which rose up fro-n the river, and then they went back through the woods beyond. )It was afternoon when Mah-te-he-ha and Hewaxte reached the Indian en- • campment. They told what had happened to Mahaka and Waha, and all the Indians laughed and were ready to make fun of the two boys when they came to ( camp. That night the little fellows ; slept beside their canoe pulled up on : the bank; for they had gone only a little way upstream from the place where they had upset. i The next morning as they went on, they passed a boat coming down the stream. Two men were in it. They look hard at the boys, and the boys stared back at them. J "These are white men," said MaI haka. "We hate white men. Ma'h-te-he-ha ought to be hero with his arrows." | "There are two Indians," said one of ! the white men. And he raised his gun. "Don't fire," said the other man. "They are only little fellows—children." The first man laid down his gun; ' and the boat and the canoe passed one ( another in silence. Tho white men could not talk Indian, and the l>oys could not talk English. |It was near night when the canoo reached the encampment. The Indians . ran together to laugh at the boys who i had lost their corn. But when they saw i them, they stared. At first they said , nothing, Then Mah-te-he-ha cried out, "Look at them with their arms full of j • ""M. grapes and plums!" I "And berries, tool"- said Howaxte. { "And plenty more in the canoe," ans- | wered Mahaka. "Go and see." ! The Indians ran. And sure enough, ! the boys had searched the woods and ! fields and had filled their canoe with ' fruits that the Indians loved. They had j not come to camp empty-handed, to be laughed at. Instead, everybody praised ' them, and ate the fruit. The chief said to his son, "You did well, Mahaka." j "We saw two white men," said the boys. "We wished we were big Indians and had our arrows." j From, thousands of years before this t time wild people in different lands had used canoes somewhat like those of the i Indians. They were the earliest boats. i Sometimes they were made of parts of J trunks of trees hollowed out in the middle, jlt is one hundred years since Mahaka i and Waha went up stream to their new ■ camp. In this time the white men have > gone everywhere over the country, and i they are living side by side with the Indians. Ther. have been many wars bei tween them, and many wrong acts have . j been done by white men and by Indians • also. But in all this time Indians and i ■ white men have been getting better ac- • ! quainted; and many white men have ■ thought that Indian boys and girls i ' ought to be educated like white chil■di .n and live in the same way. The , Government of the United States has built many schools for them, and now | Indian childven are taught what white i children learn. But although the white I men have railroads and steamboats and •' motor cars, they have been glad to learn , ' from the Indians how to use canoes. :In June, 1912, a little white boy, 12 , j years old, came with his father to visit . a great school where hundreds of In- ■ dian boys and girls are learning what . white children learn. The little visitor liked the Indian boys very much; they could all talk ' English with him. Once he went out with one of them in a canoe on the river

near the school. The canoe was not just like the one that the Indian boys had taken up stream so long before, "but it was made in much the same way. The Indian boy knew how to manage it, and the two children had a fine time together. "I like you," said the little white fellow to the Indian boy. But nobody told them that this was the very river on which Mahaka and Waha had paddled one hundred years ago. And nobody told —for nobody knew it—that this little Indian boy who had a white boy's name and was called John Waters, was the great-great-grandson of Mahaka. And nobody told—for nobody knew it—that the little boy talking to the Indian in the same canoe was the great-great-grandson of the white man whom Mahaka and Waha had passed in the boat and who had said to the man with him: "Don't fire. They are only children." These boys were not passing one another, they were going along together; they did not think of guns and arrows to hurt one another. Indians and white men used to be enemies. Now they are friends. Some things are better than they were one hundred years ago.