As a teenager, my friends and I spent our Summers on the river camping, swimming, rafting, and occasionally tripping. I could fill a memoir with the stories of our Summers spent on the river. They wouldn’t be the pink-bubbly coming-of-age tales one might expect; many are rather haunting. Some I’ll likely take to my grave.
Despite our affinity for the river, we locals were weary of her in more than the usual ways. Though I can’t recall the first time I was told the tale of the curse, I am sure it will be one of the last things to go if I ever start to lose my memory. Stories we are told again and again are like music, ingrained. We might find ourselves in a memory-care unit, speaking nothing but word salad, but a favorite song will come out word-for-word. Music is a language that survives and carries our myths into the future beyond us. Our myths carry wisdom throughout the land like a river from one generation to another.
The historical account that at least one version of the story is based on is that of Squando, chief of the Saco tribe, whose infant son was murdered by colonizers in 1675. In another version of that account, Squando’s daughter was kidnapped. There are never any names given to the victims as far as I could find in an internet search. I grew up with a version of the tale in which a mother and child were both murdered, and the mother used her last breath to curse their assailants.
Whatever version of the story is told, the moral remains the same. It’s a fitting warning for today and a promise that justice prevails into eternity through karma.
The song is free to download on BANDCAMP.
Sugarbear acquired and mastered a dobro just for this number. Please do enjoy it and let us know what you think. Hope everybody’s hanging in there.
THE RIVER CURSE
I remember his words, "This river is cursed"
When the world was still wild and the white man a strange new curse,
a mother and child in a vessel,
three men with their bible and arms.
A cat-call has always been a sound like a shot,
that to a woman sets off the alarms.
They circled like wolves,
snarling and snapping their jaws,
speaking in tongues,
not expecting their prey,
the mother of Little Fawn,
Walking Raving
to have claws
Their lust quickly gave way to murder
Their want and their weapons were drawn
They tore Little Fawn from the arms of her mother
and cast her into the reflection of the sun
They circled like wolves,
snarling and snapping their jaws,
speaking in tongues,
not expecting their prey,
the mother of Little Fawn,
Walking Raven,
to cast a curse on the river,
a debt that would have to be paid-
three white men would suffer their flesh to the water
each trip around the sun from that day
And they circle like wolves,
snarling and snapping their jaws,
speaking in tongues,
on the banks of the river,
where the bones of Little Fawn,
and Walking Raven
lay
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