Tag: Longfellow and beavers

Be Careful what you wish for…

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, History April 18, 2011

XVII.

On the dam stood Pau-Puk-Keewis,

O’er his ankles flowed the streamlet,

Flowed the bright and silvery water,

And he spake unto the beaver,

With a smile he spake in this wise:

“O my friend Ahmeek, the beaver,

Cool and pleasant Is the water;

Let me dive into the water,

Let me rest there in your lodges;

Change me, too, into a beaver!”

Cautiously replied the beaver,

With reserve he thus made answer:

“Let me first consult the others,

Let me ask the other beavers.”

Down he sank into the water,

Heavily sank he, as a stone sinks,

Down among the leaves and branches,

Brown and matted at the bottom.

Artist WH Gibson - Engraver John Filmer

From the bottom rose the beavers,

Silently above the surface

Rose one head and then another,

Till the pond seemed full of beavers,

Full of black and shining faces.

To the beavers Pau-Puk-Keewis

Spake entreating, said in this wise:

“Very pleasant Is your dwelling,

O my friends! and safe from danger;

Can you not, with all your cunning,

All your wisdom and contrivance,

Change me, too, into a beaver?”

“Yes!” replied Ahmeek, the beaver,

He the King of all the beavers,

“Let yourself slide down among us,

Down into the tranquil water.”

Down into the pond among them

Silently sank Pau-Puk-Keewis;

Black became his shirt of deer-skin,

Black his moccasins and leggings,

In a broad black tail behind him

Spread his fox-tails and his fringes;

He was changed into a beaver.

“Make me large,” said Pau-Puk-Keewis,

“Make me large and make me larger,

Larger than the other beavers.”

“Yes,” the beaver chief responded,

“When our lodge below you enter,

In our wigwam we will make you

Ten times larger than the others.”

Thus into the clear, brown water

Silently sank Pau-Puk-Keewis:

Found the bottom covered over

With the trunks of trees and branches,

Hoards of food against the winter,

Piles and heaps against the famine;

Found the lodge with arching doorway,

Leading into spacious chambers.

Here they made him large and larger,

Made him largest of the beavers,

Ten times larger than the others.

“You shall be our ruler,” said they;

“Chief and King of all the beavers.”

So I’m thinking that it might be a problem to become a beaver that is ten times larger than the other beavers INSIDE the lodge, since lodges are small spaces designed for normal-sized beavers but what do I know? It’s poetry. Poof, he gets changed into a monster beaver, and he thinks how lucky he is to have hidden from Hiawatha, who suddenly shows up on the scene, rips out the lodge the way we read about and comes to get him. All the other beavers scatter but he’s too big to fit through the plunge hole and he’s a sitting duck for the hunters.

With their clubs they beat and bruised him,

Beat to death poor Pau-Puk-Keewis,

Pounded him as maize is pounded,

Till his skull was crushed to pieces.

Artist FOC Darley – Engraver Russell and Richardson

I guess from the beavers point of view, this was a test that he failed. Think about it. They agreed to change him into a beaver without conditions or payment. But the role of the beaver is to be a member of the colony, to work for the greater good and value others as highly as you value yourself. Ahmeek even demonstrated this when he answered his inital request with “lemme go ask the other beavers what they think”. (Doesn’t sound much like a ‘king’ to me.) When Pau-puk-keewis asked to be ten times larger, he failed the test. When they hailed him as ‘king’ they were probably humoring his ego and writing him off. They stopped thinking of him as a beaver and a member of the colony, because even though he still had a flat tail, he wasn’t one of them any more. So in the end all the other beavers left him to his kingdom and swam to safety.

Hmm

Hiawatha: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow