Ojibway Man, "Strong Wind" In St. Martin's Church, 1844

Ojibway Man, "Strong Wind" In St. Martin's Church, 1844

PUNCH has the pleasure to record an interesting event which occurred on Tuesday, the 9th instant. NOT-EN-A-AKM, or "the Strong Wind," interpreter of the Ojibbeway Indians, was married to SARAH HAINES, which name, translated into the Ojibbeway language, means " the London Fog." The ceremony was performed in St. Martin's Church. The Ojibbeway Indians attended, and, with a fine sense of the struggles of matrimonial life, appeared in their war-paint.

Some folks have grumbled at this union; they know nothing of history. The truth is, as we will prove, we owe a large dividend of wives to American savages, and SARAH HAINES, or " the London Fog," is only the first installment of a long-standing debt.

In April, 1613, PRINCESS POCAHONTAS gave her maiden hand to JOHN ROLFE, "a discreet young Englishman." Yes; "in the little church of Jamestown," says the historian, "which rested on pine columns fresh from the forest, and was in a style of rugged architecture, as wild, if not as frail, as an Indian wigwam," did the beautiful Virginian savage become MRS. JOHN ROLFE. This event happened two hundred and thirty-one years ago, and we have been in debt to the Indians ever since. We put it to MR. Hums, or any other subtle arithmetician, to calculate the amount of our liabilities. Multiply one wife by two hundred and thirty-one, adding thereto compound interest on the accumulating amount, and our debt to the savages must be something very serious. However, we have begun, though in a small manner, to liquidate it; we have given "the London Fog" to " the Strong Wind," and trust that Pennsylvanian bondholders will take example by our honesty.

We have a superabundant female population. This fact is on all hands allowed and deplored. We see an easy remedy for this. Let parties of Indians be imported. Let us have samples of the Chippewas, the Dog-Ribbed, the Sioux, the Choctaws - indeed, a company of every tribe of wild men, from Hottentons to Greenlanders - and let them be let loose in our various towns for the sole purpose of captivating the hearts, and so carrying away in lawful wedlock, our superabundant females. By this means we shall honestly liquidate our long-standing debt to the savages, and shall, at the same time, relieve ourselves of over-populousness. War-paint, glass beads, tattoo-work, and tomahawks, have a sweet and proper influence on the female mind. What says the splenetic Philip Van Artevelde?
 

"The women's heaven Is vanity,
and that is over all.
What 's finest still finds favor in their eyes;
What 's noisiest keeps the entrance of their ears;
The noise and blaze of arms enchants them most.
Wit, too, and wisdom, that 's admired of all,
They can admire - the glory, not the thing.
An unreflected light did never yet Dazzle the vision feminine."


From which caustic philosophy we may gather this fact, that a savage, to be considered "quite a love" by a civilized maiden, must first be exhibited in front of the lamps.

However, as the romantic devotion shown by MISS SARAH HAINES, or, "the London Fog," for NOT-EN-A-AKM or "the Strong Wind," will doubt less become a fashion among our too susceptible countrywomen, we only perform a public duty in enumerating a few of the accomplishments required by a North American Indian of his wife or squaw. She tills the ground, she digs, she sows, she reaps: she pounds the parched corn; she dries the buffalo meat; she carries home the game that her husband kills; she hews wood and draws the water she builds the wigwam, and in times of journeying carries the poles upon her shoulder. Think of this, young ladies, and say whether it is not more pleasant to hatch canary birds in white satin, and work puppies' heads in Berlin wool? However, for the ruder and more picturesque operations, "the London Fog" is, doubtless, duly prepared; and, therefore, let us return to the sacrifice of the bride, "attired in flowing white," with a "wreath of orange blossoms circling her hair," in St. Martin's Church.

The ceremony was particularly solemn. When "the London log" was asked if she would take "the Strong Wind" for her " wedded husband," she replied " I trill," with an emphasis that showed she had duly weighed the responsibilities of hewing, and delving, and shouldering the wig-wam poles. "The Strong Wind," in the most charming way, took the ring from his nose, and placed it on the finger of " the London Fog." He then in the " most graceful manner" kissed his bride, to the satisfaction of everybody, "the Lon-don Fog" included. MRS. Emits, we were happy to perceive, was in the church, and in the handsomest manner presented to Mrs. "Strong Wind" The Wives of England, bound in hymeneal white satin; with a copy of her forthcoming work, entitled Can Woman make a Lobster-Salad?

It will particularly gratify our female readers to learn that "the Strong Wind" has promised "the London Fog," on their return to America, to take no other wife, but to remain constant, "solely to her." Should " the Strong Wind" break this pledge, of course "the London Fog" will have the readiest redress at any of the Ecclesiastical Courts to be found in the back woods. When the bridegroom led the bride to her carriage, there was a shout from the multitude, evidently meant as an approval of the fine moral courage of a young lady, who gives up the sickly refinements of civilized life for the invigorating comforts of savage existence. When the carriage drove off, the crowd shouted again, and the crowd was right ; for " the Strong Wind" had carried away, for good and all, "the London Fog." "The Strong Wind" exhibited himself with his friends, the Ojibbeways, the day after his marriage; and it says much for the liberality of the keeper of the show, that the public were allowed to see the bridegroom without the charge of an additional sixpence. "The London Fog" was to have been visible at the Egyptian Hall, but was prevented by her friends. She ought to have exhibited; it would have been in complete keeping with the pure taste that dictated the marriage. It is only due to MR. RANKIN, the showman, to observe that he managed the wedding with a fine eye to all advertising purposes.—Punch.