The Legend of the Ghost Warriors

[An Old Indian Legend]

a tale by Don R. Hender

     Long, long time ago, according to my ancestor’s tale, my people did fight a great war against our white brothers who did wear clothing to keep their skins white and pale like plucked chickens. Our white brothers believed in a God who was a man, not just a Great Spirit. This God was a man who had lived and died and did rise up from the dead to live again.

Now across the width and breadth of this land did the battles rage for many years with my people winning most every battle and our white brothers continually forced to flee and retreat before us until they could retreat no more except they would have to go into the lands of snow and ice. It was at that time that our white brothers proposed that they would take a final stand against our armies if we would allow them one season’s time to gather all their people remaining who would come out against us to fight so that the war could be finally determined. They said they would gather all their people to the land of many hills called by them Kumara.

Our king, whose name meant high and exalted one, had contended with the warrior leader of the white brothers for all of the many years. They both had respect for each other for they had grown old together. But they also had great hatred toward each other. Due to this respect, our king granted unto the white brother’s leaders his request. His name meant ‘he of the land of the free ones’. And these white brothers refused to deny their man God and be subjected to our king, ‘the high and exalted one’.

So from that last land region where there still lived their people, for all their other lands we had already taken from them were now owned and ruled by our king, did the white leader send out his high men to gather them in together to Kumara. And they did bring in all their people who would come to fight the armies of my people. All their men, women and children with their goods and properties and supplies that they deemed that they would need for the great last battle.

And it was that their wives and children would that they would die with their men rather than not to stand free and worship their man God. For the would rather not to be subjected to the rule of our king and deny their God and admit that our King was greater than him. And this we was a foolishness, for we did not believe in their man God who they said had died and then came back alive.

Therefore, we would say unto them show us your man God now whom you do worship, who died and is alive. Where is he now? For we know that a man when he does die goes the way dust, and his spirit goes the way of the Great Spirit, and he does not come back to life to live again as a man. And we would laugh at them and mock them because they could not show us this living man God. And they could only say that you had to believe in him without seeing him, which we knew to be their foolishness. For a man lives and dies, and then he is gone to the world of the spirits, not to live again as a man. And only that greatness that a man could rise to during his own life time was the true measure of a man, and our king was the highest and exalted one of all men living.

And again, we would say to them where is your man God who died and lived again. Why has he not come out to save you? And why do we beat you and kill you at will all the time that we have warred against you. Perhaps we have already killed him again and he is not and no more among you. So why need we fear? We are great and many, many more than you are. And your numbers are getting small as our numbers are becoming even greater. So if you want to live, come and join yourselves with us and be subject to our king and we will be one people and war no more.

Then Came the Time for the Final Battle

Then when they had gathered all in together who would stand and fight our armies, it came time for the final great battle. They had gathered a great many people, thousands upon thousands of people, who they arranged in groups of ten thousand men with their women and children who could and would stand to fight against us to war. And they had all manner of weapons of war among them though not as many as we. And so they would even take the tools of the field, which they would wield and use to fight with, as well as rocks and stones to cast at us and sticks to beat upon our bodies. And even their children did have knifes, and rocks and sharpened pointed sticks to stick, cut and beat us with if one of us would fall to the ground before them. But we did not fear them for we stood greater and more than they were, even as it were 100 to 1. And we were all strong men and warriors of war seasoned and skilled in battle and war. Why need we fear them? And we did not.

Now our great king had determined to fence them in, least some escape and it would not be the final battle and end of this people we hated. So he caused his many armies to encircle them about on every side with a great many who would come against them to attack and also a great many who would stand back and watch and make sure that none would escape.

Thus on the morrow were we ready to begin the work of killing our enemy until none would be left. And with the signal and sound of attack we did march into battle against them and we did commence the killing of them before us. But they did fight with all their might, like cornered animals with great fury and intent. And none of them would fall back and run from the fight and try to escape. But they all stood strong together and they did fight mightily together without shirking though they would be hit and wounded a number of time so even they would fight on until they were dead and could fight on no more.

And so great were their numbers, and they had spaced themselves out among the many hills strategically placed to their advantage, that though we highly outnumbered them, we could not easily defeat them. And they would kill more of our men than we were able to kill of them. So at the end of the first day, we withdrew from them to our own encampments round and about them. Now our King had supposed that it would have been but one day’s battle that would end the war. But still he was determined. And he devised that the other half of his armies who had held back would go up the next day to fight against them. And he would leave those of us who had first gone up to stay back and ensure that none would escape upon the next day as well.

And thus it was that the next day came, the signal and sounds of attack were given and the fresh armies marched as it were into battle the remaining of the enemy as it were. But when they would seek them where they were said to be the day before, they would find that they had removed to another place of defense and surprise and strategy against them. And they too found them to be not an easy foe to conquer even though their numbers had been diminished. And this time when our troops began to prevail in one place they would run from them and lead them to another place where they would be again surprised and attacked where they were not aware of so being attacked. And thus the second day went by with our troops killing many of them but they still killed more of our troops than we had killed of them. And when the day was spent, the second armies returned to our encampments with discouragement and great losses of men.

This made our King angry with us, and though many of our troops would have rather not have gone again the third day, our king spoke words of encouragement to us, assuring us if we would venture again on the morrow he would lead us himself to the victory and we would utterly destroy them all. And he spoke that we still number greatly more than they who remained of our enemy. And he said that again he would lead the armies, first marshalled by those who had now had their day’s rest and those being followed up by those who had just fought and returned that prior day. And this time only the wounded of the armies would remain to ensure than none of the enemy would escape.

And thus it was on the morrow, on the third day of the war’s battle. The signal was give and the battle sounds were given and we all advanced behind the leadership of our king against the enemy. And our king led the way, he going directly against that hill area where it was reported that his long time enemy and leader of the foe was to be found. For he said, he would find him and he would cut his head off and thus the enemy would shrink before us and we would walk victorious upon their bodies under our feet.

But when we came to those placements where the enemy was considered to be we were again surprised, for there were stood up many of our dead men propped up as to stand against us, and others of their bodies were stacked up in defensive positions against us with the remaining enemies hidden in amongst the standing dead to jump out in surprise attack and others of them in the holds of dead body protected entrenchments where they stood ready and armed even with many of our own weapons to use against us. And it was under these conditions that the final battle of the war began.

And again we did kill many of them but not easily as they would kill more of us than were killed of them. And as it were, the enemy leader stood ready to do battle specifically against our king. And he was a man of large stature and strength as was also our king. And though being wounded in a number of places, the leader of our enemy in his might did fight his way directly towards the king of the our people, sweeping away in death a number of the king’s own guard who stood before and with the king. And then the two leaders engaged in battle and though the battle waged round and about them on all sides, the men of our king could not help but pay what attention they dared to behold the outcome of the battle of the two leaders. And they did swing and strike many times at each other with their swords and weapons, even to landing numerous blows and wounds upon each other. And this until they both had drawn much blood from each other. But finally the leader of our enemy did run his sword clean through the center of our king, and he did linger but a moment upon the sword of death and then he fell dead upon the ground. And one of the king’s men who was still alive struck the leader of our enemy upon the head and he also fell to the ground as his helmet fell from off his head.

But then that man did examine the king that he indeed was dead, ‘The King is Dead’, was the cry carried out throughout the troops and as they looked upon themselves all came to a stop and there seemed to be but the dead of the enemy and the dead of their own fellow soldiers laid about. And the son of the king announced in a loud voice, “We have won the battle! We have won the war! But my father, the King is dead! And I strike the final blow with my father’s sword in the body of my father’s enemy and with that he thrust his father’s sword into the back of the enemy leader who lay lifeless upon the ground and left it sticking there in the body. Then he gave the order to sound and give the recall, but to kill any living and also to thrust their swords into the bodies of the enemy dead that they would encounter upon their return unto their encampments. And he had some of the king’s men who stood by help him carry the king back to the tent and encampment of the king.

And that night there was sorrow and wailing and crying in the encampments of the king. And so great was the slaughter among the armies of the king that only a small fraction of them did remain. And most every one of them had sustained some wound of some kind from the greatness of the battle. And over the hills of Kumara there was nothing but the silence of the night to be heard roundabout from all the encircling encampments of the king’s armies. And the general report and presumption was that the enemy all lay dead and destroyed.

Some Still Survived

Unbeknown to the bewailing and mourning armies round and about was the lives that still remained, though few they were. When the end had been announced by the son of the king, that the king was dead and the enemy leader had been apparently slain by the blown to the head by the member of the king’s guard and the king’s sword plunged in his back by the king’s son, and the fighting did end, not all of the enemy was dead. Some lay wounded and passed out while a few still remained among and entrenched in the dead bodies. There had been a rendezvous set up, that if any remained alive after the third day, those who were alive would meet at a certain ‘hidden’ place to give account of themselves. And there was a handful who still lived and had made their way to the place of rendezvous. There was the enemy leader’s son named ‘free-man son’. And about 8 other strong military men who made it to the rendezvous. By the light of the moon that night they searched through the bodies of the dead and found another 12 men and one woman who remained alive but had passed out from battle. ‘Freeman’s son’ had discerned where his father had fallen and he had made it there and to his surprise his father was not dead. Though he had many wounds the blow to the head had just knock him unconscious and the sword in the back pierced only muscle and tissue and no vital organs. The fact that the king’s son left the sword in the back kept the wound, though serious, from causing the body to completely bleed out.

The next morning all the King’s armies and king’s son wanted to do was to get away from the now ‘stinking hills’ covered with the bodies of the death and they were not concerning with further dealing with the bodies upon the ground. They would just leave them there to rot in the open air and remove themselves to a more tolerable location away from the awful scene of blood, horror and stench. This gave the survivors time to daylight search and they found four more men and two children wandering among the bodies stone faced and in shock. All together there were 24 men, one woman and two children who remained. The children and the woman would never be the same again and would be given over in due time to neutral group in the lands to the south of the hills of Kumara. Most of those of the surviving men would take a blood oath to continue the fight against who they considered the forces of evil who had destroyed their nation, loved ones and people. Once they had all recovered from their wounds and became healthy enough, they continued to combat my people.

Though the enemy leader ‘man of free land’ was of an age of about 80 years old, he was strong and committed to still fighting the battle against the evil of the tyranny of the king. As for the son of the king, he understood that not all the people who worshipped the ‘man God’ were able to be brought to Kumara nor did they all want to, so he and his greatly reduced armies continued to carry out scouring the land from coast to coast, width and breadth, finding and killing all who would not ‘deny God’ and would not accept now himself as being their king. These would be who the small band of survivors would continue to battle and fight against. The legend of ‘man of free land’ and his ‘raiders’ against the king’s armies became to be known as the ‘Ghosts of Kumara’, for it was assumed that they had all been killed at Kumara. Their group would fight and from time to time some would be killed, but among the believers who still remained sparsely in the land, they were able to recruit some replacement and then is when the legend really began to grow. It was said that even though some of the ‘Ghost Warriors’ would be killed in their battles, according to the power of the ‘man God’ who had lived and died and was raise back to life again, that the Ghost Warriors also by their beliefs had that same ability to live again. Now whether and for how long the ‘Ghosts of Kumara’ lasted in the land is not known. But what is known is that in various Indian legends round and about, you will always be able to find some type of a legend concerning ‘Ghost Warriors’ amongst the Indians.

[Notes: This is the story of the final great battle between the Lamanites (Indians) and the Nephite nation that was destroyed by them. Though this tale is fictional, it is based upon many of the lines of the story and history of the final Lamanite and Nephite battles and war as recorded in the Book of Mormon. The name Mormon, is taken from the land and waters of ‘Mormon’ so named as it was where ‘wild/free’ animals would come to frequent. The King’s name meaning is that which is taken from the Lamanite King Aaron, which means ‘high’ and ‘exalted’. ‘Freeman’s Son’ is a creative adaptation of Moroni being Mormon’s son. The actual sequence of the three day ending battle is imaginative though some facts are thrown in. Kumara is used for Cumorah, as there is supposed to be a Nephites’ records depository in the hill of Cumorah in the Book of Mormon, which reminds me of a Polynesian sweet potato called kumara. And of course the ‘man God’ who lived, died and lived again is Jesus Christ, who the Nephites believed in.

The Indians do have various legends about ‘Ghosts’ and ‘Ghost Warriors’ which I just happened to have woven into the story. I guess if Narnia can be written, I can write ‘Ghost Warriors’ who parallel Mormon, who did not die at Cumorah but lived to fight the Lamanites after Cumorah and later died in one of those later battles. Other flavoring ideas are woven in between the parallels.]

rev. 9 November 2015