Captivity by Louise Erdrich
I find it fascinating when poems and song lyrics are taken from historical sources such as this.
Captivity
By Louise Erdrich
He (my captor) gave me a bisquit, which I put in my pocket, and not daring to eat it,
buried it under a log, fearing he had put something in it to make me love him.
—from the narrative of the captivity of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, who was taken prisoner
by the Wampanoag when Lancaster, Massachusetts, was destroyed, in the year 1676
The stream was swift, and so cold
I thought I would be sliced in two.
But he dragged me from the flood
by the ends of my hair.
I had grown to recognize his face.
I could distinguish it from the others.
There were times I feared I understood
his language, which was not human,
and I knelt to pray for strength.
We were pursued! By God’s agents
or pitch devils, I did not know.
Only that we must march.
Their guns were loaded with swan shot.
I could not suckle and my child’s wail
put them in danger.
He had a woman
with teeth black and glittering.
She fed the child milk of acorns.
The forest closed, the light deepened.
I told myself that I would starve
before I took food from his hands
but I did not starve.
One night
he killed a deer with a young one in her
and gave me to eat of the fawn.
It was so tender,
the bones like the stems of flowers,
that I followed where he took me.
The night was thick. He cut the cord
that bound me to the tree.
After that the birds mocked.
Shadows gaped and roared
and the trees flung down
their sharpened lashes.
He did not notice God’s wrath.
God blasted fire from half-buried stumps.
I hid my face in my dress, fearing He would burn us all
but this, too, passed.
Rescued, I see no truth in things.
My husband drives a thick wedge
through the earth, still it shuts
to him year after year.
My child is fed of the first wheat.
I lay myself to sleep
on a Holland-laced pillowbeer.
I lay to sleep.
And in the dark I see myself
as I was outside their circle.
They knelt on deerskins, some with sticks,
and he led his company in the noise
until I could no longer bear
the thought of how I was.
I stripped a branch
and struck the earth,
in time, begging it to open
to admit me
as he was
and feed me honey from the rock.
This is the strangest thing… but while working on the script for a series on American literature I found that Louise Erdrich misrepresented the quote in her poem “Captivity” as being from Mary Rowlandson… in fact, it came from the captivity narrative of a young boy named John Gyles… and the person that he was writing about in the quote was not even Native American… he was a Jesuit priest!
Here is the full quote: “My Indian master made a visit to the Jesuit, and carried me with him. And here I will note, that the Indian who takes a captive is accounted his master, and has a perfect right to him, until he gives or sells him to another. I saw the Jesuit show my master pieces of gold, and understood afterwards that he was tendering them for my ransom. He gave me a biscuit, which I put into my pocket, and not daring to eat it, buried it under a log, fearing he had put something into it to make me love him. Being very young, and having heard much of the Papists torturing the Protestants, caused me to act thus; and I hated the sight of a Jesuit.”
Kristian Berg, producer
Kristian,
Thank you so much for the insight. It just goes to show that you can’t really take anything at face value. I think I’ve even read Mary Rowlandson’s account (in a women’s history class in college), but I don’t remember the specifics of it. I don’t think that the mis-attributed quote takes away from the poem, but it is interesting to know that Erdrich was either misinformed or did it deliberately.