tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12912388508252142342024-03-13T06:55:16.379-10:00I think I went mad then...This is the home for House of Yig, a short story from my collection<br><b>By the Light of a Gibbous Moon.</b>Scott Hammhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05145711733486579327noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1291238850825214234.post-32561112114302476982011-08-22T03:19:00.000-10:002011-08-22T03:19:19.090-10:00Mike Bukowski<div style="text-align: justify;">Mike Bukowski has since 2010 been illustrating HP Lovecraft's terrifying monstrosities on <a href="http://yog-blogsoth.blogspot.com/">Yog-Blogsoth</a>. Mike's selections aren't restricted to mainstays like Cthulhu, Ghouls and Wilbur Whateley, but cover the entire canon of creatures, no matter how obscure. Click on Nyarlathotep, Misshapen Faun or the Unnamable at right to see the full-size image on Mike's blog, along with a related quote from the source.</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR4Hr4FwsQ_qeCpoGsf0v4tjKpZW6oxRqrMrr77EQn93XhPLob8bdb4aKC6CL4kLFmA3iNtYsVpUR1wLArNncx-oOsX1T9Ja-uj4eWFoiBXyHVE6MyM8CKXdwtpDyNKquL80_p1UK5pynL/s1600/fungusvampire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR4Hr4FwsQ_qeCpoGsf0v4tjKpZW6oxRqrMrr77EQn93XhPLob8bdb4aKC6CL4kLFmA3iNtYsVpUR1wLArNncx-oOsX1T9Ja-uj4eWFoiBXyHVE6MyM8CKXdwtpDyNKquL80_p1UK5pynL/s1600/fungusvampire.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://yog-blogsoth.blogspot.com/2011/06/fungus-vampire.html">Fungus Vampire</a><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And keep checking back on Yog-Blogsoth. We should make a sacrifice to some nameless god when he's finished. </div></div>Scott Hammhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05145711733486579327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1291238850825214234.post-37122933835664262662011-08-19T04:57:00.000-10:002011-08-19T04:57:40.753-10:00By the Light of a Gibbous Moon takes world by storm, wins five awards!!Well, no, actually it hasn't, but it has generated some interest among Lovecraft fans and that's really the best reward for writing I can think of, with the exception of the financial kind.<br />
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People are also asking when I will write more. Answer: I am. I'm currently working on a novella/short novel, much of which is set in Lovecraft's Dreamlands.<br />
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I'd say <i>Watch this space!</i>, but although I will announce it here it won't be for a good long while yet, and I'm not going to be doing much else on the blog.Scott Hammhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05145711733486579327noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1291238850825214234.post-5295607459907697172009-10-09T03:52:00.007-10:002009-10-09T04:37:31.033-10:00House of Yig<span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" >I, Father John Marylebone, have promised to record the statement of the Pocumtuck Indian called ‘Blind Crow’ exactly as spoken. This particular Pocumtuck is a fine reader of the English language, and has some letters as well, but he insists that his tale be recorded by a more learned man. He has done much work with the Church as we help the Pocumtuck people come into the Light of Christ, so I am happy to oblige.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Firstly I must set down, at my subject’s grave insistence, that he is not called ‘Blind Crow’ because he is old and sightless.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>It is an affectionate jibe chosen for him because of his clumsiness with tools and, I speculate, also because of his croaking laugh.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>It is a laugh unheard in Deerfield Township for many a long month now.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 150%;" align="center"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" >****<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" >I am Blind Crow, of the Pocumtuck people.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>I swear before Our Lord Jesus Christ that everything I speak here is an account of what I have seen and done, and is in all particulars the truth.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>In the late days of the past Autumn, I and two friends from my village made west to hunt.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Their names are Tall Pine and Ahanu.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>We were headed for the Bent River Valley, hoping to find muskrat or hare, deer if we were lucky.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The Good Fathers would prefer we give up hunting for mating animals, but I loved hunting and still engaged in from time to time.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Deerfield has seen so many White Men these seasons past that the game all around has been hunted out.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Even two days travel from the Township there was no game, small, big, or of any other size.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The life of the forest had vanished and the conditions for hunting were getting worse, not better, as we followed the darkening sun.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Even the birdsong had died off, something I had never witnessed in that season.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The bit of salt pork we had brought with us was gone and my companions pushed me to turn back, but I told them I was too hungry to go back.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>In truth I was proud.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The Good Fathers had warned me of Pride many a time, but I was a fool.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>I insisted we carry on a day more, even though I sensed we were already treading land claimed by the Manuxet.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The Manuxet, the Reader will know, are the Pocumtuck’s worst enemy, and as far as I know the worst enemy of all Indian peoples.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The Manuxet have not one medicine man, but are all medicine men.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>My Christian Brothers say some of the old Indian ways are wicked and heathen, but the Manuxet’s ways are unholy.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Their shadows are said to be cursed, and wither the plants wherever they tread.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>It is known from men who have dared to raid their camps that they eat the flesh of their enemies.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>This is a sin not only to Christians.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>It is whispered that a man captured by the Manuxet does not only face torture and death, but will rise up and walk again when the first full moon shines on his resting place.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>From then on he will turn his face from the sun, and serve a new master not of this land or earth.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Only hours after I insisted we continue into their territory, our enemies found us.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>They had surrounded us in perfect silence, then made a great shouting and racket near at hand, perhaps to confuse us.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Tall Pine, his rifle out and cocked, fired at once, no doubt thinking some fierce animal was upon him.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The grey-faced brave who leapt from the bush was hit dead center and knocked back two yards.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>When he came at once to his feet again, I thought that he must somehow have avoided the bullet’s path.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Then I saw the hole in his breastbone, big enough for two fingers, and that as he yelled his war-chant black blood sprayed from his lips.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Bad medicine.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Ahanu drew his knife and fought to his death.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>I later thought this a very wise decision.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>At the time, Tall Pine and I stood and gaped like gutted fish at the holed man dancing about us, and were captured.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Stripped of our weapons and gear, and our hands bound with leather thongs, we were marched several leagues further west, to a small settlement at the foot of a hill, not a proper village but a rough camp where dozens of slaves were already at work.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Many different tribes were represented:<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Narragansett, Tunxis, Wappinger, but no other Pocumtuck.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>No more than a half-dozen men from any one tribe was used.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>This was deliberate, I think.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>It appeared our fate would not be death, but hard labour, and the Manuxet surely worked us as hard as any devil of Hell works the Damned.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>We were to dig.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>And dig.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>And dig.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>For this work we had shiny tools –White Man’s tools looking very new and expensive– and as much food and water as we desired.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>This food was a foul-smelling but invigorating stew, always thick with roots and meat, and tended constantly in an iron cauldron by a hideously scarred warrior.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Our one other luxury was a few hours of sleep on the bare ground around noonday.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Our captors hated this part of the day, and it seemed to be the only time they were not on their feet.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>They sat and brooded on the work which was not being done.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Them, I never saw sleep. <span style="font=Arial;"> </span>No mention was made of the reason for digging.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The work was slow going, for the ground was rocky and sewn with the roots of many trees, which had been pulled up prior to my arrival.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The goal did not appear to be a ditch or trench, or a cellar, for whenever I reached a certain depth, I was nudged to start digging in some unexplored spot, or to deepen a hole already started elsewhere.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>All my fellows were terrified of failing the Manuxet, but after not many days of digging, I saw a man collapse from exhaustion.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>He was dragged from sight and did not return, the fate of any who could not dig.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Our masters moved ceaselessly about the ragged holes like drunken bedbugs.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>They talked loudly with each other and constantly declaimed in words I did not understand.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>I had not thought the Manuxet language much different from my own, but the sounds of their words I could not myself produce at all.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Speaking amongst ourselves was forbidden, but one day, seeing our guards distracted with their inexplicable discussion, I wiped away the sweat pouring from the top of my head like a bitter spring and suggested to a fellow of the Mohican nation that perhaps we would find Hell itself at the bottom of these pits.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>He indicated to me that we were being made to dig in a widening circle, and said our captors were searching for some kind of underground house, but did not know its exact location.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Even from a white man, I would have considered this crazy.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Keeping one eye on our guards, I questioned him about this house.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>He told me we were digging for something called <i style="">Yig</i>.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>It is an ugly word, as all things of the Manuxet are ugly, and when I tried to speak it, it squirmed on my tongue as if I had bitten into maggoty meat. <span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Although my companion’s eyes were wild, I nodded and accepted his words, for all that they made no sense.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The nights grew colder and the moon’s face, which had been hidden from us, began to grow anew.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Time passed, and over the days and nights of our capture, Tall Pine grew weak.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>He had got a fever some days after our arrival, brought on by too much night air I thought.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>I leaned for a moment on my shovel, pretending to study a stone that was in the way of my work, and he spoke these words to me, in a voice I did not think his at all:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span><i style="">It is true, what the slaves have said:<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>we go to Yig.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>I see His eyes.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>I feel His breath.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>We will serve in His house underground all the days of the earth.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><i style=""><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span></span></i><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" >Having spoken these awful words, Tall Pine’s body buckled like a mature stalk of wheat cut down by the scythe, and he fell dead.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>All but knocking me aside, two warriors leapt up to tend him, as if they had waited all night for that moment. <span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Paying me no mind, one of them slipped some tiny bundle from out his belt and into Tall Pine’s mouth.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>He was most certain to push it into Tall Pine’s throat where it would not come loose, and I knew somehow that this was a sacrilege to my friend’s body.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>I had had enough by that time of digging, and swung my shovel at the nearest of the braves.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The force of my anger was such that the top of his skull came free and took flight like some bloody bird across the open pits.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>This man did not rise.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Then I went after his partner and the others.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>So crushed with despair had I been, I had not noticed how careless our guards were about their weapons, which lay discarded here and there.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Against my fury they could not stand at all and I vowed to fight until I, or their entire tribe, were dead!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>That is what the Blind Crow in my head did then, what Blind Crow dreamed.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>I woke from this dream to see that I had returned to my labour, and that what had been Tall Pine was gone. <span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Had the Manuxet taken my soul already? I wondered. <span style="font=Arial;"> </span>I told myself my soul was consecrated to Christ, but found little solace in this.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Then I brooded blackly through many unchanging days and spoke to no one.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>When I lifted my head to study my surroundings once more, perhaps to decide at last to lay down and die, I saw that only a few workers remained.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Those who had been worked into collapse or sickness or death were not replaced.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The work area had grown and the holes were many, some as deep as a man, some as deep as three.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>There was only one silent brave watching four toiling men now, but such an awful weight sat on my shoulders that thought of escape did not enter the whistling chamber of my empty skull.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Another, less welcome observation, however, did take seed:<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>the moon began to peek over the horizon, and I noted how great and fat it was, that indeed this night it was at its fullest.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>I shivered as I worked, feeling her stare, as if she looked upon me not with pity or care, as I thought she should, but with grinning malice.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The moon rose, and other figures joined me in her harsh glare.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Still I worked.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Even without looking up from my labour, I could not help but note that my new companions worked harder and faster than any man, slave or free, ever did.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The field of holes would soon be one massive opening in the earth.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>I swallowed my screams and worked, in some chamber of my brain wishing my heart would rupture with the strain and Blind Crow drop stone dead.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>My shovel flashed and flew as I tried to match the pace of the thing digging beside me, until a chip of stone from that demon’s shovel cut my cheek and I looked up into Tall Pine’s dead dead eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The world went from me then, and I descended into a blackness of which I remember nothing but an endless yearning to forsake this earth for the world of my ancestors.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>What followed I have since assembled from several dim fragments of waking.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Everything I witnessed was at night, but I do not know if it was one night or several that I was bound to the tree trunk.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>It was the nearest sturdy tree to the dig site, and the Manuxet had tied me in such a way that any time I woke I must at once witness everything taking place.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Truly there is no limit to their cruelty.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>At one time I awoke to the hoarse and ugly voices of every one of the devil tribesmen raised in ululation to the many-starred sky, as they danced in supplication to what the digging had finally uncovered.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The returned slaves had made furious progress and the object of the great work was now revealed to me: <span style="font=Arial;"> </span>a massive structure built of greenish stones.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The blocks were smooth and close-fitted, and of a workmanship finer than any White Man’s building I had seen.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>It was equal on four sides, which sides rose up in great square steps.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Father Marylebone has told me this structure is called a ‘pyramid’.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Near the top of this pyramid a small stone slab, about three feet high, was being forced open.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>A hush descended all at once when the portal toppled, and a fierce exhalation of greenish cloud poured straight up from the black hole.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>I had never thought of a cloud underground before, but by this time such a marvel fazed me not at all.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The Indians gathered around the summit of the pyramid screamed horribly and were struck down.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>I did not know if they lived or died, but here my mind went black.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>When next I woke, the stars and moon were hidden with cloud.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>I think now that to this smallest of mercies I owe what remains of my sanity.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The Manuxet cavorted once more about their temple, but a group of lean, dark-skinned figures had joined them, which wherever they were placed stayed always in shadow. <span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Silence reigned over this dance but for the stamp of bare feet on earth and an occasional low clicking and clacking unlike any sound I had heard before.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>From time to time one of the shadowy new-comers emerged from the tiny black doorway of the pyramid, and at other times returned, taking one of the tribesmen by the hand.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Those men who entered the pyramid did not appear again.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The final time I was roused, it was to a cacophony of booming retorts that shook the very trees about: <span style="font=Arial;"> </span>gunfire!<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>A small army of motley white settlers had appeared, and to me they were as welcome as a host of angels.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>They rained lead shot of all kinds upon the Manuxet still assembled around the stone pyramid.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Would the slaves raise their tools against the white men? <span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Who could say whether in their new and horrid aspect they would do their masters’ bidding?<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>But I saw then that the slaves were to a man laid flat and motionless.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The shadow men also were absent, and the tiny door to their house back in its place.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Many of the Manuxet showed the same resilience as the man Tall Pine had shot down when we had been captured, but the white men’s storm of buckshot and lead balls tore them apart. <span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Although their ruined corpses stirred and twitched much longer than any dying thing ought, in the end they were destroyed utterly.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>I was concerned at first that my saviours might mistake me as one of the Manuxet and kill me as well, but I was released from my bonds and kindly made comfortable.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>It was then I caught a glimpse of the three men with stiff high collars watching from beyond.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>One of them was the Reverend Snow himself, an important Churchman from Boston who I had seen preach in Deerfield.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Though I had seen him only once before, he had a powerful, hawkish nose I would never forget.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>From their attitude towards the mercenaries, I saw these men were in charge.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>When they noticed me however, they hastily retreated from sight and I did not see them again.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Very soon after the gun smoke had lifted, the white men took up shovels and picks to fill in the great hole around the blasphemous temple.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>They would be long at this task, I thought, but as the first blade struck dirt, the earth itself started to shake.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>I believed that we had angered this horrible <i style="">Yig</i><span style="font=Arial;"> and asked God how much more tribulation would he rain down on my head</span>.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The earth did not rise up against us however, but in a great wash of dirt, stones and broken trees the hillside above the camp rushed down to bury the strange green stones.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>I and the men who had shot down the Manuxet got well out of the way of the landslide and none were injured.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>All agreed it was the Hand of God which had wiped out the rogue tribe’s evil works.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The pyramid was indeed covered, all but the very highest tier, which still rose just high enough for the portal to show above ground.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>A brief effort was made to break apart the protruding portion of the stone house, but the men were tired, and eager to be on the trail home lest more of our dreaded enemy arrive seeking vengeance.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>As for the slaves who had been laid out in the dirt, I was later assured that from all appearances they were quite dead, most of them for weeks.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Whilst they did not benefit from a Christian burial, they are indeed buried and for that I am glad.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>It must be plain to you, Reader, as it is to me that my rescuers had been specifically employed to eliminate this group of Manuxet, and that the attack had been very carefully planned, but on this account my new companions remained as silent as the grave.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>After they returned me to Deerfield Township, these men vanished back into the woods and of them I know nothing else.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>I am much reduced since my captivity, in both body and mind.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Most of my hair has fallen out, my bones show through the skin everywhere, and I have a sickening pallor like that of the Manuxet.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>My people shun me now, and call me <i>Tchibai</i>, Ghost.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>They say that a Manuxet is living in my skull, watching through my eyes.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>They say that I stink of the Manuxet, like the places where the White Man has buried his dead, but not deep enough.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>In the face of such injustice, the old Blind Crow would have turned to Our Lord Jesus Christ.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>He would gather strength from Christian belief.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>He would call on Christ for protection and hope.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>I reach for Christ now, but I find nothing.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>In my heart, I know He must still be there, but I know too that no Christ, lamb or lion, could ever protect me from the underground God of the Manuxet, the foul thing they called <i>Yig</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 150%;" align="center"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" >****<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" >That is the extent of Blind Crow’s statement.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Although I have never before doubted this Indian’s honesty, I naturally must question the veracity of his outrageous tale.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>It is indisputable that Blind Crow vanished for about a month after a hunting trip in the deep woods, perilously close to the territory of the Manuxet, and that his companions have never returned.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>It is also true that a massacre of the Manuxet was reported to our Order by a pair of <span style="font=Arial;">Narragansett</span> hunters at about the time specified in this narrative, but the agents of this violence have never been revealed.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Blind Crow has asked for my assistance in petitioning the Colonial Government for funds and men to eradicate the Manuxet entirely, and to excavate and destroy this fanciful <i>House of Yig</i> of which he speaks.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Needless to say, such a petition will accomplish nothing.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>The Manuxet have never been a threat to white colonists, and whatever danger they are to their fellow Indian is reduced day by day by the Evils which sadly afflict all of the Native people:<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>smallpox and drink.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font=Arial;line-height: 150%;font-size:11;" ><span style="font=Arial;"> </span>Finally, regarding the assertion that a representative of the Church –especially as highly respected a man as Reverend Snow!—had some responsibility for such a massacre, or even stood by to witness it, I cannot credit.<span style="font=Arial;"> </span>However, I did promise to transcribe Blind Crow’s statement word-by-word, and I have faithfully done so.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Scott Hammhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05145711733486579327noreply@blogger.com2