Little Toe
Tale no. 19 – ‘Little Toe’
‘The year was 1790 and I was in a spot of bother in the Smoky mountains.
I had been captured by the Cherokee Indians as I was attempting to sell guns to their rival tribe, the Shawnee. As the Cherokee braves led me, bound and tethered to a rope that was trailed behind one of their horses, into their camp, I could see from the look on the fully headdressed Cherokee Indian Chief’s face that he was not best pleased at me!
He barked an order at his braves, and the next thing I knew I was unceremoniously stripped of my shirt and tied upside down to a totem pole in the middle of their village, my upside-down face resting just a few inches above the dusty ground.
I thought they were going to kill me, but my Cherokee masters were nothing if not merciful. Instead the Chief barked another order in the Cherokee language, and within seconds a row of about 50 eager, young, native-American women were lining up beside the totem pole, giggling and laughing at the paleface man – the evil gun-runner who had been caught attempting to supply guns to their enemies, but who was now stripped to the waist and secured helplessly to the totem pole at their mercy and at their moccasined feet.
Then, one by one, the giggling women wiped their dusty, moccasined feet on my upturned chin – a clear symbol of their collective, female power over me and my submission to their Indian-female superiority.
I was, effectively, a native American girls’ footwipe.
I could smell the musty, moccasin material of their soft, beige-coloured shoes as they wiped their dirty soles on my face. Soon my chin smelt of nothing but sweet female moccasin-sole. How the Cherokee braves all whooped and laughed at me – the white man subject to the power and authority of their women; my upturned, gormless face covered in the their young-womanly shoe-dirt.
I noticed, however, towards the end of this initial humiliation-ceremony, that one of the women, a particularly beautiful girl of about 20, with long, dark hair and deep brown eyes, appeared to be taking particular pleasure in wiping the soles of her dusty moccasins on my upturned chin. Unlike all the others she even manoeuvred the round, leather toes of her dusty moccasins inside my gaping and gormless mouth, thereby giving me the taste of her leather moccasins as well as their musty smell.
She was dressed like the rest of the women in a plain, brown, calf-length dress with beige-coloured moccasins – but she appeared to be a very special woman within the village, for the other women were clearly happy to stand back and encourage her in her extra foot-humiliation of the despicable, paleface gun-runner!
I learned of the exact nature of my fate just as soon as this last woman had removed the toe of her left moccasin from my now gaping and sorely stretched mouth, and I was suddenly released from the totem pole causing me to collapse onto the dusty ground.
As I lay face down in the dirt, my face covered in native-American woman shoe-dirt and my mouth filled with native-American woman moccasin-dust, one of the braves – who spoke some English – delighted in crouching down beside me and telling me how my life of servitude to this Indian tribe would be from now on:
‘Ha! Ha! Paleface now slave of Indian woman – woman of Chief Running Bull. Ha! Ha! You now slave of Adsila. You call her “mistress Adsila”. You bow down to her; you kiss her feet; you obey her – or you feel power of her whip! Ha! Ha!’
At this point I noticed that the smiling young woman whose moccasined foot had been deep inside my mouth was running a single-tailed, black leather cowhide-whip through her delicate, native-american fingers, clearly eyeing up my bare back!
I pulled myself up on to my hands and knees as the young woman stepped forward and suddenly extended her right, moccasined foot in the dust directly beneath my now kneeling paleface. I noticed how the toe of her beige moccasin was still wet from having been inside my mouth.
The beautiful young woman then suddenly kicked off her right moccasin, placed her soft, dainty, bare foot in the dust on the ground in front of me, and said something in Cherokee which immediately reduced the surrounding braves and tribeswomen to whoops of mocking and derisory laughter towards me. They were all pointing at me and gleefully shouting what sounded like “Usdi Kawnasawdu”; ‘Usdi Kawnasawdu!”
The English-speaking brave delighted in translating my new mistress’s words for me:
‘Ha! Ha! Your mistress say you kiss her little toe. Ha! Ha! She say she call you “Little Toe”. That your new name; that your slave name! Ha! Ha! She say she call you “Little Toe” because you now the slave of her little toe! Ha! Ha! Indian woman better than you! Indian woman little toe better than you! You the slave of Indian woman little toe! Ha! Ha!’
I could now understand why I was the object of such public derision. My new ‘slave-name’ clearly indicated my ultra-lowly status in this Cherokee Indian village. I was now, effectively, the slave of the Chief’s woman’s little toe – the humblest, smallest part of her beautiful body. Indeed, I was even to be named after it – ‘Little Toe’ – a constant reminder of my lowly status in this Cherokee tribe. The lowest of the low!
As I contemplated my humiliation there was a sudden whooshing sound of leather descending rapidly through air, followed by a sharp cracking sound and a wave of acute, stinging pain across my exposed and vulnerable left shoulder.
The crowd of surrounding braves and women whooped with approval and laughter, and I quickly realised that I had been whipped! Whipped by the chief tribeswoman! Whipped by my new mistress – mistress Adsila.
And rightly whipped – for had I not been ordered to kiss the little toe of her outstretched right foot? And had I yet done so?
No!
The stinging, throbbing pain in my bare back instilled me to instant obedience, and I immediately remembered my new place in the world, humbly lowering my now slave-lips to my Indian mistress’s little toe. I gently kissed it – my upper lip feeling the smoothness of her delicate toenail whilst my lower lip simultaneously felt the softness of her little-toe skin.
This act of very public and very humble obeisance brought an even greater roar of approval from the surrounding crowd of braves and native-American women than the sudden application of the single-tailed whip to my bare back had done.
Little Toe was kissing little toe!
As I did so, the beautiful owner of the little toe explained further, for both my benefit and, no doubt, the benefit of her watching audience, exactly how my life would be from now on. All of her Cherokee words were kindly translated for me by the English speaking brave:
‘Ha! Ha! Your mistress say you slave not only of her, but of all women in our tribe. Little Toe kiss all women little toes in village! Ha! Ha! Also you work – you work for women! You do all women work! You wash women clothes! Clean women tepees. You wash women dirty feet; you lick clean women dirty shoes! Ha! Ha! Mistress Adsila say you not a ‘brave’; you a ‘weak’ Ha! Ha! You a paleface weak! You a women slave! You not a man! Ha! Ha!’
I merely continued kissing my beautiful, young mistress’s bare little toe – for the brave was clearly speaking the undeniable truth. I was self-evidently a pale-faced ‘weak’ – debasing myself at the feet of a superior, native-American woman, my back already bearing the mark of her stinging, leather whip!
And so I began my new life of slavery to the Cherokee Indian woman, mistress Adsila, and her fellow tribeswomen. Every day I kissed native-American female feet and licked native-American female moccasins. And I had to work hard – damned hard – day in and day out: washing all the women's clothes; cleaning their tepee's. I was nothing more than a domestic drudge and footslave for superior native-American women, and, being under the yoke of mistress Adsila’s black leather whip, I was soon no longer a white man, but a red and white man – red and white striped!
After some 15 long years of servitude I did, on one brief occasion, entertain foolish hopes of escape and release from my life under the female moccasin. One day the US cavalry unexpectedly rode into the village, accompanied by the cavalry-master’s wife – a tall and slender young white woman in her early thirties.
Initially I laboured under the illusion (for I was busy labouring over my mistress Adsila’s moccasins at the time, cleaning them with my tongue) that the cavalry had come to rescue me! Ha! Ha! I thought they were my salvation – for surely they would take pity on their fellow white man and release me from my cruel bondage to these native-American women?
But my hopes were soon dashed – for the cavalry delegation were clearly on a mission of peace. As Chief Running Bull and the cavalry officers smoked the pipe of peace, my mistress Adsila, who by now had picked up some words of English thanks to increased contact and trade between her tribe and the local white population, introduced me to the cavalry master’s wife as ‘slave Little Toe’.
My mistress then ordered me to stop licking her moccasins and to humbly kiss the white woman’s feet instead.
To my shock and dismay, the cavalry-master’s wife did not object. Rather she merely sneered down at me, and at my striped, kneeling back, with righteous disdain, before happily hitching up the hem of her navy-blue, bustle-style dress to reveal the frilly hem of her white petticoat underneath and the dusty, rounded toe of a black leather, lace-up ankle boot – a short, feminine ankle-boot which I was now, clearly, required to pay my humble respects to, by kissing it on the little toe!’
‘The year was 1790 and I was in a spot of bother in the Smoky mountains.
I had been captured by the Cherokee Indians as I was attempting to sell guns to their rival tribe, the Shawnee. As the Cherokee braves led me, bound and tethered to a rope that was trailed behind one of their horses, into their camp, I could see from the look on the fully headdressed Cherokee Indian Chief’s face that he was not best pleased at me!
He barked an order at his braves, and the next thing I knew I was unceremoniously stripped of my shirt and tied upside down to a totem pole in the middle of their village, my upside-down face resting just a few inches above the dusty ground.
I thought they were going to kill me, but my Cherokee masters were nothing if not merciful. Instead the Chief barked another order in the Cherokee language, and within seconds a row of about 50 eager, young, native-American women were lining up beside the totem pole, giggling and laughing at the paleface man – the evil gun-runner who had been caught attempting to supply guns to their enemies, but who was now stripped to the waist and secured helplessly to the totem pole at their mercy and at their moccasined feet.
Then, one by one, the giggling women wiped their dusty, moccasined feet on my upturned chin – a clear symbol of their collective, female power over me and my submission to their Indian-female superiority.
I was, effectively, a native American girls’ footwipe.
I could smell the musty, moccasin material of their soft, beige-coloured shoes as they wiped their dirty soles on my face. Soon my chin smelt of nothing but sweet female moccasin-sole. How the Cherokee braves all whooped and laughed at me – the white man subject to the power and authority of their women; my upturned, gormless face covered in the their young-womanly shoe-dirt.
I noticed, however, towards the end of this initial humiliation-ceremony, that one of the women, a particularly beautiful girl of about 20, with long, dark hair and deep brown eyes, appeared to be taking particular pleasure in wiping the soles of her dusty moccasins on my upturned chin. Unlike all the others she even manoeuvred the round, leather toes of her dusty moccasins inside my gaping and gormless mouth, thereby giving me the taste of her leather moccasins as well as their musty smell.
She was dressed like the rest of the women in a plain, brown, calf-length dress with beige-coloured moccasins – but she appeared to be a very special woman within the village, for the other women were clearly happy to stand back and encourage her in her extra foot-humiliation of the despicable, paleface gun-runner!
I learned of the exact nature of my fate just as soon as this last woman had removed the toe of her left moccasin from my now gaping and sorely stretched mouth, and I was suddenly released from the totem pole causing me to collapse onto the dusty ground.
As I lay face down in the dirt, my face covered in native-American woman shoe-dirt and my mouth filled with native-American woman moccasin-dust, one of the braves – who spoke some English – delighted in crouching down beside me and telling me how my life of servitude to this Indian tribe would be from now on:
‘Ha! Ha! Paleface now slave of Indian woman – woman of Chief Running Bull. Ha! Ha! You now slave of Adsila. You call her “mistress Adsila”. You bow down to her; you kiss her feet; you obey her – or you feel power of her whip! Ha! Ha!’
At this point I noticed that the smiling young woman whose moccasined foot had been deep inside my mouth was running a single-tailed, black leather cowhide-whip through her delicate, native-american fingers, clearly eyeing up my bare back!
I pulled myself up on to my hands and knees as the young woman stepped forward and suddenly extended her right, moccasined foot in the dust directly beneath my now kneeling paleface. I noticed how the toe of her beige moccasin was still wet from having been inside my mouth.
The beautiful young woman then suddenly kicked off her right moccasin, placed her soft, dainty, bare foot in the dust on the ground in front of me, and said something in Cherokee which immediately reduced the surrounding braves and tribeswomen to whoops of mocking and derisory laughter towards me. They were all pointing at me and gleefully shouting what sounded like “Usdi Kawnasawdu”; ‘Usdi Kawnasawdu!”
The English-speaking brave delighted in translating my new mistress’s words for me:
‘Ha! Ha! Your mistress say you kiss her little toe. Ha! Ha! She say she call you “Little Toe”. That your new name; that your slave name! Ha! Ha! She say she call you “Little Toe” because you now the slave of her little toe! Ha! Ha! Indian woman better than you! Indian woman little toe better than you! You the slave of Indian woman little toe! Ha! Ha!’
I could now understand why I was the object of such public derision. My new ‘slave-name’ clearly indicated my ultra-lowly status in this Cherokee Indian village. I was now, effectively, the slave of the Chief’s woman’s little toe – the humblest, smallest part of her beautiful body. Indeed, I was even to be named after it – ‘Little Toe’ – a constant reminder of my lowly status in this Cherokee tribe. The lowest of the low!
As I contemplated my humiliation there was a sudden whooshing sound of leather descending rapidly through air, followed by a sharp cracking sound and a wave of acute, stinging pain across my exposed and vulnerable left shoulder.
The crowd of surrounding braves and women whooped with approval and laughter, and I quickly realised that I had been whipped! Whipped by the chief tribeswoman! Whipped by my new mistress – mistress Adsila.
And rightly whipped – for had I not been ordered to kiss the little toe of her outstretched right foot? And had I yet done so?
No!
The stinging, throbbing pain in my bare back instilled me to instant obedience, and I immediately remembered my new place in the world, humbly lowering my now slave-lips to my Indian mistress’s little toe. I gently kissed it – my upper lip feeling the smoothness of her delicate toenail whilst my lower lip simultaneously felt the softness of her little-toe skin.
This act of very public and very humble obeisance brought an even greater roar of approval from the surrounding crowd of braves and native-American women than the sudden application of the single-tailed whip to my bare back had done.
Little Toe was kissing little toe!
As I did so, the beautiful owner of the little toe explained further, for both my benefit and, no doubt, the benefit of her watching audience, exactly how my life would be from now on. All of her Cherokee words were kindly translated for me by the English speaking brave:
‘Ha! Ha! Your mistress say you slave not only of her, but of all women in our tribe. Little Toe kiss all women little toes in village! Ha! Ha! Also you work – you work for women! You do all women work! You wash women clothes! Clean women tepees. You wash women dirty feet; you lick clean women dirty shoes! Ha! Ha! Mistress Adsila say you not a ‘brave’; you a ‘weak’ Ha! Ha! You a paleface weak! You a women slave! You not a man! Ha! Ha!’
I merely continued kissing my beautiful, young mistress’s bare little toe – for the brave was clearly speaking the undeniable truth. I was self-evidently a pale-faced ‘weak’ – debasing myself at the feet of a superior, native-American woman, my back already bearing the mark of her stinging, leather whip!
And so I began my new life of slavery to the Cherokee Indian woman, mistress Adsila, and her fellow tribeswomen. Every day I kissed native-American female feet and licked native-American female moccasins. And I had to work hard – damned hard – day in and day out: washing all the women's clothes; cleaning their tepee's. I was nothing more than a domestic drudge and footslave for superior native-American women, and, being under the yoke of mistress Adsila’s black leather whip, I was soon no longer a white man, but a red and white man – red and white striped!
After some 15 long years of servitude I did, on one brief occasion, entertain foolish hopes of escape and release from my life under the female moccasin. One day the US cavalry unexpectedly rode into the village, accompanied by the cavalry-master’s wife – a tall and slender young white woman in her early thirties.
Initially I laboured under the illusion (for I was busy labouring over my mistress Adsila’s moccasins at the time, cleaning them with my tongue) that the cavalry had come to rescue me! Ha! Ha! I thought they were my salvation – for surely they would take pity on their fellow white man and release me from my cruel bondage to these native-American women?
But my hopes were soon dashed – for the cavalry delegation were clearly on a mission of peace. As Chief Running Bull and the cavalry officers smoked the pipe of peace, my mistress Adsila, who by now had picked up some words of English thanks to increased contact and trade between her tribe and the local white population, introduced me to the cavalry master’s wife as ‘slave Little Toe’.
My mistress then ordered me to stop licking her moccasins and to humbly kiss the white woman’s feet instead.
To my shock and dismay, the cavalry-master’s wife did not object. Rather she merely sneered down at me, and at my striped, kneeling back, with righteous disdain, before happily hitching up the hem of her navy-blue, bustle-style dress to reveal the frilly hem of her white petticoat underneath and the dusty, rounded toe of a black leather, lace-up ankle boot – a short, feminine ankle-boot which I was now, clearly, required to pay my humble respects to, by kissing it on the little toe!’
