Narratives of New Netherland: 1611-1621
From The Journal of John Colman
Mate on Dutch Ship, Little Fox,
Murdered By His Crew In 1611


We sailed from Amsterdam in April
climbed out from the weather,
hung skulls from the yardarm
dragged witches to star maps under keel

SHIP LOGS:
December 6, 1611

John Colman with four men sent to sound the river four leagues from us. The night came on and it began to snow. It grew so dark that those sent out to search the shallow shore could not find the ship that night. They labored with their oars, and as they came back they were set upon by two canoes, the one having twelve, the other fourteen men. One man, John Colman, slain with an arrow in his throat.


JOHN COLMAN'S JOURNAL:
December 1611

The flood came.
We entered the North River
channel in morning, rode still.
The snow full.

We hugged to the rocks,
and the bared cliffs in half sun
shone silver green

I was shot
when I stood at the cliff
overhanging with oak,
a second of laughter—
I was left for dead
dropping with round shot in my thigh
between the cliff and the river

I woke in the snow,
My leg bent under my back,
my fall broken by oak.

I froze, washed with blood.
Brown leaves in mottled ice
shuffled under thighs,
snow mist in light,
I felt murder.

Pulled into gray-red rocks,
inside the ragged cliffs,
faces in portrait

I ran in dream with wife in Leyden
My child nine,
punches dirt with sword like sticks,
squats in the mud
pulls pebbles from sea shells,
lifts them gently to the decks of leaf boats,
plunging into gutter seas.


THE SECOND DAY

The savages told how I had lunged at their hearts,
my face puffed red, lips blue.
Like a mad dog I was rolled on a litter,
bound with hide, lifted to the cliff face above
My boots struck the rock
I spun like glass stuck in the sun
I was left by my crew
My fall broken
Brown-eyed savage held me like a lover;
his eyes left me feared and broken.

At their camp, I was given a woman to watch my heart,
she fed me meat chewed soft
placed inside my mouth in a kiss.
Her string black hair well oiled,
the perfume of bear’s fat.
Her milk fingers wet my lips
I drank from her breasts.
My teeth scratched her nipple,
until her mouth opened
not breathing ‘till I sucked,
her soft belly held me ‘till I slept.

WINTER 1613

For three winters I have watched
for ships to shake out of the rain,
to clip waves like brown stumps,
I lift the sky, pull death
from the red cliff eye

Oared boats spill on ice
Holes boots cut in mud dry into lace like snow
My blood eye follows sails raised,
and the ship I lift like a bird has fled.


SUMMER 1615

This winter I am wed to Ska Nee,
these years I have learned from her tongue.
my name, He Who is Three-Legged Wolf
I am frozen in circles of brown skulls,
given the long pipe,
I drop cured eel in corn earth
I shake at the yellow circle of the dead moon.

In the round hoop my ship curls
in and out at the flood.


SPRING 1616

“On the Walls of the Cave”

Each Spring I speak my legend with long pipes,
brown girls beat my wounds
to sting the vision deeper.

I saw it first in the lines
of fire in the cave, in the spread coals,
in cylinders of red and silver;
I mark it in an invisible hand,
in the haze from another sun,
I hold it with the cracked
spy glass to the planets.
I ride the sun's skin in sparks,
My skull inside is a city,
some living metal;
It runs as fast as light bent to elm.
The coal crack of burnt stone,
acrid yellow smoke inside a musket,
I walk on iron walls, smoldering boxes:
wagons which move without ox or horse;
rectangular roots, thousands of windows,
shining slippery eyes that glitter red--

I am not able to keep this phantom in the fire.
It curls in and out at the sinking edge of water,
I cannot drown the city.
I cut the drogue line tied to the helm,
break the fingers of a red giant star
that dangles from blue-eyed sails:

(All this web is spat from a sermon
writ on gold, stuffed inside jeweled skulls)


I am shot.
I hold the keel of their ships
as they pass into my skin.
I seize the ship master sword
and like a warlock
I hurl down at top of oaks
slip my tongue backward,
I hold tight to her
I call Brown Owl, Ska Nee,
to a fire spread
into cylinders of red and silver.

Spent I dig at white water river
cruise the tall stones,
scream at wagon lights in a curdling
blood-eye sun rise
I slip into death's waxen chrysalis,
in the glass coffins
with the red stained windows.

My ship with furled sails
runs still at the flood.


SUMMER 1620

Nine winters, Ska Nee with fourth child—
I am hunter our people call Three Legged Wolf
I have tracked my white skin
in the deer bleeding from his nose

In the hunt,
my blood eye
sees the hammer,
the snake
the shot
clap,
and the metal
grabs in bone

The deer falls
and the arrow
I let from the bow breaks

How the shot strikes—

I feel like the heron smacked by wave curl—
a one-legged pigeon in the crease of snow

I sleep in the lap of the oak
a shadow with the drifting curl
of the sun through seasons
And the dead deer feet high
curves along my back

My ship passes into my skull
I do not curse the murder

Winter has left its skin open
green windows drawn in brown ice.


THE DAILY LOG, FORT ORANGE

11 September, 1621.

Morning of the eleventh was very stormy; the wind out of the East-North East. Later, it cleared and savages from below the cliffs came to us wondering at our ship and weapons. One canoe hangs under the stern of the yacht, "Restless". The crew would not keep the savages off the ship. One heathen got up by the rudder and stole a pillow and two shirts. The Master's Mate, Adrian Joris, shot at him and struck him in the breast; whereupon all the rest fled away. The crew moved into their boats and got their things again, and one of the savages swam out, got hold of the boat, thinking to overturn it by the gunwale, but Wolf Nysen took hold of a sword and cut off the devil's hand, and he was drowned.


The Letters of Thomas Whyatt,
Physician, Fort Orange

12 September 1621:

The morning is misty until sunrise, fair and stinging hot. Four men, including Simon Nooms and Jonas Witsen, were set upon by savages three leagues from the Fort. The savages dropped from a cliff killing Simon Nooms with a knife in his heart. Jonas Witsen, Master of yacht Restless, was also slain. Six savages were killed with muskets and four were taken captive. The rest fled deep into the woods.

It is hard to write that one of the captured savages wounded by H. Christensen was an Englishman, John Colman, lost in these parts. Mr. Colman is sorely wounded. We dare not expect him to live. Taken with John Colman, a boy about seven years who claims this white man as his own, and a native woman with child who claims John Colman like the boy. She is most comely, dressed loosely in skins, tall with soft eyes.

16 September, 1611

John Colman was taken in the night by savages and brought
God knows where to his death?


JOHN COLMAN'S JOURNAL:

Soldiers in ships with gray sails
feed their life to the beach
Muskets chatter in blood on the water's skin.
I hold my eye to the moon-fed knife,
lunge from the lip of the cliff,
cut the Gob's neck,
plunged in blood I am shot blind.

I remember how naked I ran last summer
with child and Ska Nee,
how rubbed with bear's grease
I swam in the river to the next one
where Ska Nee was taken in heat
when her thighs tremble

I did not wait for the Little Fox death,
I was left by my crew,
I shut my eyes hard,
reach the curl in the light
from where I rise
in Little Fox sails,
leave the river,
wedged between the spars,
I watch the yellow smoke,
rectangular blocked wilderness.

Little Fox, Dutch ship
through a glass
brushed on the line
hangs still
I am lifted by Ska Nee and her brother,
told I am sacred,
I spin like glass stuck in the sun.
I am fed meat chewed soft,
placed inside my mouth in a kiss
I am healed after killing the red-eye Gob
Again I watch for the last time my death leave
I feel the stone shot cut into bone
My ship's sails raised over blood
I pull from a vision like a blinded bird
followed home in Spring.


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