would they live in the swamps of the south with the Tuscarora and the big lizards, when they could be dwelling among the Yar-Ons? One morning, when I was still a young brave, I was out fishing, alone, when I saw some very big war canoes coming on the water. It looked as if they sailing out of the sunrise. I ran back and told everyone, and they came down to the shore to see. I did not know it, but this was the coming of the Whitemen, and I had been the first to see the ‘dis- covery’ they write about in their books. (We had been living in our land forever, but we had never discovered it! Think of that!) That night, there was a great Council Meeting among the Shining People. We human beings hid our eyes from all the Spirits who gathered in our village. The tall-as-jack-pine ones came, and the gold-skinned ones. People who were half-goat, half-horse, half-fish. Very small people, wearing red hats. Their moccasins curled up at the toes. People from under the sea, who dressed in clam shells and seaweed and smelled strange because of it Tall people with horns on their heads. No·wonder we hid our eyes! The Council lasted all night, and we could hear them shouting horribly and breaking pots in their long house. In the morning, one of the Shining People came to us and explained that those war canoes out on the water belonged to Men from the Old World, the land they had run away from.* He said it was time now for all the Shining People to say goodbye to us and to disappear. I myself said to him that I would kill all the Men who were coming if
