Savage Love
This is the year of our lord, eighteen hundred and eight. The Indian nations have been at war with the European settlers for one hundred and eighty-eight-years, since the formation of the Powhatan confederacy, when they declared war on the colonists.
I did not yet know that my story would be the story of my love for a race of people who were called savages, and who I found had far more dignity than the bible bashing oppressors who used their Sunday sermons to instigate a hatred of another culture.
Savage love
Claire, August 1808. Diary entry.
I remember back to the year of 1807 which now seemed so long ago, when I lay on a bed in a log cabin close to the American-Canadian border, with my frilly dress occupying the space between my navel and my nose. I could see young Tommy’s face above all the frills and had his body between my legs, with an expression on his face that I had never seen before. Tommy said that he was going to enlightened me to a world that I was not yet aware of. It was only four months-previous to this event, that I had no idea that the private parts of men and women were used for any other purpose than to pee with.
Tommy had said that he would introduce me to womanhood and had explained that his private part had to be put into my private part, and that I would enjoy the feeling immensely. After some enlightening discussions with Tommy, he had persuaded me to experiment with what he said, every couple did most every night. I could feel his manhood pushing against my leg, knowing that this part of him wished to go into my body, which I did not really feel was a very natural act at all.
Tommy had told me that it was quite a pleasant act, and that humanity could not survive without this process, which made me wondered how it was possible for me not to know the basics of reproduction, especially since my father was a doctor and I was his nurse.
It was then that I thought back to my beginnings as a young child, back to the year seventeen hundred and ninety-eight, when I was just six years of age and I lived with my Mother. My Father was a doctor who travelled and plied his trade in many faraway places, and it was only seldom that he was at home with my mother and me.
Claire, August 1808. My first diary entry.
Father has just given me a diary and said that I should document my adventures through life as he does, and so I will backtrack a little to 1798 when I was just six years old. I was very close to my Mother who I loved with all my young heart while my father was almost a stranger, even though I was always happy to see him when he arrived home. Mother was always faithful to Father and waited patiently until he came home again, but it was always only a short stay until he had another place to visit, and other group of people to save from disease and death.
Father should have stayed at home, for when mother became ill, he was nowhere to be found. Mother passed away quietly in her bed and was buried after a small ceremony, after which I was temporally placed with a caring family until my father finally arrived home.
My mother’s parents had died some time ago, and I never knew of father’s parents, so it was that my Father was presented with a major problem, as I had no relatives that could look after me. I was now just seven years old and with no other options, father bought me my own horse and saddle and took me with him on an adventure that he said would be an adventure that would last my whole life.
Father and I rode together, and at first, I knew that I slowed him down and was a burden to him, but after only a short time, it was Father that was often trailing behind me.
After we left the settlements in Maine, I saw some beautiful scenery during the following months, as there were mountains with magnificent views, and flowers, and shrubs, and picturesque little villages. There were fast flowing streams with cool waters in the summertime and cold waters in the winter, and animals that were shy of humans, but could often be spotted if one was observant enough. I was not ignorant of nature, but never did I think that it could be as beautiful as I was now experiencing.
It was at first scary at night for a young girl when we camped at night beside an open fire, where I could hear unfamiliar animal sounds in the forests. It was not long until I became accustomed to them, and after some time felt that the sounds were soothing. We could only move as fast as our slowest mule, so travelling was always at a slow pace. At night when there was no rain, we slept under the stars and during wet weather we slept under some skins that father had obtained by trading with some Indians and other times we slept in the wagon.
After the initial horror of having to leave my secure lodgings in Maine, I soon warmed to life in the outdoors with my Father. At first, Father found that I was a burden to him, but later found that we worked very well as a team and even at my tender young age I became his nurse.
We stopped at many small settlements and farms and workers camps and were always welcome, as someone always had an ailment that needed treating. This was the beginning of the adventure that father prophetically promised would last my entire life.
I never had any permanent friends other than Father, but as children need no introductions, I played easily with other children who often spoke different languages, so as a result, I learnt a bit if this and a bit of that. The main languages were English and French but there was also German and Dutch and Spanish and Danish and more,
As children, we managed to communicate, as we all knew a bit of each language which seemed to create a language of its own. I always had chores to do, but not as much as other children, as I had to help take care of patients and help father with operations.
We often camped beside streams and when that occurred which was often, our dishes and pans would be done by placing them into a sack with holes and inserting them into the flowing stream and by morning they would be clean. I missed my Mother, but Father was trying his best to fulfil both parental jobs, and as I grew older I found that he had some important shortcomings.
Father and I had travelled north-west from Maine where we started from, and just seemed to continue westwards. Sometimes we were in what is now Canada but mostly we were below the border, and it was sometimes hard to tell even for father as there were no borders drawn in the soil, especially since no borders existed.
We often slept under the stars but when we came to any settlement, the townspeople would always provide us with accommodation, as they were always in dire need of a doctor. We attended to all the needs of the patients from childbirth to gunshot wounds and I learnt a great deal from my father and became very knowledgeable in the practice of medicine.
Even though my father was very articulate in all his explanations of all facets of health and medicine, he always avoided the subject of the reproductive process. I knew that a married couple would have a child and I often helped with childbirth, but I mistakenly thought that producing a child was automatic after marriage. I was of course aware that sometimes things went wrong, and an unmarried girl could sometimes give birth even though she was unwed.
This change of life for me in the wilderness areas at such a young age was at first strange, but after some time I enjoyed it, especially as the people of the west loved us, as we could provide them with the basics of medical care.
Father became an expert in the use of medicinal herbs and plants that provided medicinal benefits, as often we would have to wait extended periods to obtain traditional medicines. We would often forage through the dense forests and open spaces and riversides, to find herbs and plants that father wound dry and turn into medicines. Father often told me that he had learned much of this by listening to the owners of the lands, before we stole their lands from them.
As I aged, I did more and more of the operations, such as cuts and wounds and was a much neater stitcher that father ever was. I also became very competent in using the traditional medicines of the native cultures.
We were at an outpost one day when I heard everyone discussing the dangerous heathen savages that would kill you as quick as look at you, so I asked father what they were on about, and he informed me that they were talking about the Indians, in that they could be very dangerous and often took women captive and did terrible things to them. I asked father what sort of things they did to their captives.
Father was always very protective of me and I could see that he was short of words. Father was seldom short of words, especially when he was drunk, but I believe that it was only that he did not wish to scare me. He informed me that the savages would cut off a woman’s hair and make them do manual labour. I thought that was not so bad as everyone had to do manual labour of some sorts while surviving in the West.
Father, noticing that I was not frightened by his reply, continued, “They often scalp people and kill them with their tomahawks.” That reply did make me sit up and take notice, and so I concluded, that to avoid the Indians would be the wiser move for me. That was perhaps the last day that I fully believed what people told me without question.
One day we came to another outpost with a small village attached to it, and I saw my first real Indians who had come to trade with the townsfolk. At first, I was afraid of them, but everything went very harmoniously and when the deals were done, the Indians disappeared into the forest. I thought that they seemed to be very accommodating, but the townsfolk said that they were not to be trusted. I thought that the Indians should then fit right in with the general population, as I no longer trusted anyone anymore, as father and I more often than not, did not get paid for our services.
One day when I was sixteen years of age, I met a young man who I treated for wounds that he had received from a bear. He told me that he had tackled a bear and had put up quite a fight and that the bear was ten foot tall and that he was lucky to still be alive.
I asked why, if he had fought the bear as he said, that all the claw marks were all on his back. The young man whose name was Tommy smiled when he was caught out, “I was just trying to impress you, but in fact I was running like the wind and although the bear wanted to have me for his lunch, he got tired out long before I did.”
Tommy was a nice young man and we became friendly and would often walk together and go riding together. One day while sitting beside a stream trying to catch some fish, Tommy put his mouth on mine and kissed me. This was the first time that I had been kissed in such a manor. I had of course kissed many people over the years, but this was different. I enjoyed it as it was my first with a boy, and I remember that many people had told me that they could always remember their first kiss.
Over the next months, Tommy kissed me many times and I had no objections, but one day he put his hand on my knee when my dress had ridden up to allow bare leg to protrude below the hem line. I pushed him away and asked what he was doing. Tommy was at first embarrassed at my response, but then replied, “I was wanting to turn you into a woman.”
With a confused expression I asked, “What do you mean, ‘turn me into a woman’, I am sixteen years old; I am a woman.”
Tommy who was also confused, “I wanted to make love with you.”
Even more confused, I asked, “What do you mean? We always kiss and make love and you always hold me and hold my hand.”
Tommy just sat there in silence for some time and after quite a long time enquired if I knew what intercourse was.”
I replied, “Of course I do; that is when people have a conversation on a certain topic.”
A bright light must have ignited in Tommy’s brain when he realized that I had no knowledge at all, of what all other people took for granted, and so Tommy explained all that was to be known about sexual relations between men and women.
I was none too happy with the thought that he had wanted to put the implement that he uses to pee with, into the opening in my body that I also use to pee with.
I was confused and annoyed that my father had not instructed me in the basics of human beings, and the processes involved in their very existence. Tommy and I often spoke on this subject and I finally said that I would like to try it out to see if it was as enjoyable as he said it was.
Diary entry, Claire, September 1808.
And now we again come to the part where I am looking over my bunched-up frilly dress and finding the eager face of Tommy, who looked like he had just won a prise at the Town Fare. I could feel Tommy’s manhood which was much harder than I ever expected that it could be, as it moved up my leg. I had tended to many private parts that were injured or damage and even dressed a few, and stitched a few, but I had never seen one that became as stiff and large as what I could now feel travelling up my leg. Tommy moved into my private world and moved violently, and I soon felt a warm fluid inside me.
Tommy then asked, “Did you enjoy that?”, to which I replied that it was okay, and I could see that Tommy was disappointed in my reply.
Tommy and I did it many times after the first time, and I believe that Tommy was not the expert that he pretended to be, as he became a little better each time we made love. One-day, Tommy said that he wished to marry me, to which I replied that I would give it some thought and let him know.
I asked Father if I should marry Tommy, as Tommy had asked me, and I didn’t know if I should say yes or no. Father seemed perplexed, “If you love him then you should marry him, but if you have to ask me then perhaps you are not ready to marry.” Father then said to me, “Claire I have always avoided talking to you about male-female relations. Do you fully understand what is involved in marriage in that you will be required to have intercourse with Tommy and one day give him children?”
I replied without any reservations, as I now thought that there should be no reservedness in this type of dialog, “Father, Tommy and I has been having relations all over the place and we are getting very good at it.”
I felt no embarrassment in telling father, as I thought that it was just a natural act, as Tommy had told me, but I could see in father’s demeanour that he was none too pleased with my candour. After some time, he asked, “If you love Tommy and you wish to spend your entire life with him then you should marry him and then the sooner the better or you will end up with child.”
Father then, because of my prodding, explained the cycle of a woman’s egg production and fertilization, in that if a child is not wanted immediately, then when to abstain from relations.
I thanked Father for his belated explanation on womanhood that would have been handy if given to me many years previously, and I now realized that my Mother would not have let me go so long without the knowledge that had just belatedly been given to me by my father. I also realized that I needed a Mother’s guidance perhaps more now than in any year’s past, but she was gone and so my womanly guidance was also gone.
Diary entry, Claire, March 1809.
In March, the snows had just subsided and the sun had warmed the ground when one-day my Father and I had to visit the outlying farms to tend to any ailments that were being experienced by the farmers and their children. We were just finishing our rounds when we were set upon by a group of savage Indians who easily overpowered us. Father and I rode in a buckboard driven by mules, and as we could not run, we were soon their captives.
They whooped and hollered but did little else while two Indians held our mules, thus stopping us from travelling forward. I experienced more fear at that moment than I had ever before even imagined.
I was just realizing that they seemed more interested in scaring us than in killing us, when one of the savages lifted his tomahawk in order to drive it deep into Father’s skull, but another young brave pushed him and made him miss his intended target.
I later found that the young brave who saved my Father was named Ahote, who loosely tied my Father to a tree as a delaying act, so that after some time Father would be able to free himself from his bonds and escape.
Ahote then pushed me and spoke to me in his native tongue which I did not understand, and I was forced to go with them. We soon met up with other Indians who had captured other women and children, after which the Indians drove us all mercilessly until we could go no further with the children.
One of the women with a baby in her arms and a two-year-old boy in tow, could not keep up. It was then that one of the Indian braves grabbed the child and put his knife to the child’s throat. We were all in panic at the barbarity of these savages, and the Child’s Mother, who must then have received an adrenalin rush and found the extra stamina to continue, but after two more miles she collapsed on the ground. The same Indian then put the knife to the two-year-old child again, but this time the mother could not go on.
This same savage then fashioned a sling and put the child on his back and helped the mother stand and continue.
We travelled for another mile or so and then we made camp beside a small stream where I realized that the savages were already showing some form of compassion, and I realized that the knife to the child’s throat was only to persuade the mother to find the energy to continue on her way.
The women spoke amongst themselves, and all feared that they would be brutally raped by the braves and perhaps killed afterwards. It was during this conversation, that Ahote came over to me and then drew his knife and pushed me to the ground with my frillie petticoats facing upwards. The other women screamed as Ahote stood at my feet with knife in hand, but instead of lifting my skirt, he lightly sat on me with his back towards my face and then undid the waist cord that held my skirt in place.
With the cord loosened, Ahote made me stand, but the petticoats still held the skirt in place. I was standing there realizing the worst, when this savage knelt before me and put his hands on the top of the skirt and aided its path towards the ground. He then removed my full-length skirt, while I stood there trembling with the other women, who realized that the same may be in store for them.
This act of barbarity was done in front of the other women, who now cowered in fear, while thinking they were watching a preview of what would soon be happening to them.
I stood there in my petticoats which were shorter than the outer garment and had bottoms that were still clean compared to the longer skirt that was tattered and dirty from getting caught in the undergrowth of the forest.
I expected to be stripped naked and raped by this muscular brave and perhaps killed afterwards, so I stood there trembling as Ahote cut about six inches off the hemline and returned my skirt to me.
Having done this, Ahote motioned me to put the skirt back on which gave me a sigh of relief, but I also wondered if I did not appeal to this heathen savage. I was glad that I would not be forcefully taken, but at the same time was perhaps disappointed that I did not appeal to him. I was inexperienced in the lustful ways of men, but I thought that I could see the look of wanting that I had seen in Tommy, so many times before.
This huge Indian then motioned the other braves to do likewise which they did and then returned the dresses and skirts to the fearful women. We were all amazed that not one of the women had been molested, especially as there was no defence that we could have put up against such actions.
I soon realized that this was done because the full skirts and dresses were a hindrance in making good time through the forests. Ahote spoke to us in his native tongue and sat close to us as we spoke of our fears for ourselves and the children. I realized that he could not understand us, so I paid attention when he spoke in his dialect, as I wished to be able to understand him.
Realizing that I may be with the savages for an extended period, I tried to remember the odd Indian word when I realized the meaning of it, in order that I would soon be able to converse with them. It seemed strange to me that before the possible rape, I was fearful and disgusted that this savage was going to rip off my clothes and molest me in front of the other women, but now that that fear had gone, I was hurt in that I seemed to have no appeal to this savage.
Ahote was a fine-looking brave who seemed to have the respect of the others, but that respect did not seem to be as with the English or French soldiers, where rank was to be observed above all else. With the Indians, the respect was continually being tested and questioned and one had to enforce his will on almost every command.
I thought to myself that if Ahote were not an Indian, then I could easily have been attracted to him, not because he had the shape of an athlete, but because of his dark penetrating all-knowing eyes and his peaceful and yet commanding attitude. It was early morning when Ahote woke me and I saw that the other women were being woken by the other braves. They made known that we had to get our belongings together and make haste, as it was obvious that they wanted to create as much distance between us and any possible rescue parties that may be pursuing us.