Chapter 33

Summary

The next day, the mourners throng in the Delaware village. The Hurons have been vanquished and the battle is over. Women strew herbs and flowers on Cora's dead frame. Munro and a saddened Duncan are at her feet while David looks on. Nearby, Chingachgook sits watching over the body of his son, which is arrayed with rich ornaments. In an elaborate ceremony, The Indians mourn Cora and Uncas, the maidens singing that they will now be together at last, and the warriors asking Uncas why he has left them. When it is Chingachgook's turn to speak as Uncas' father, he is so full of grief that he is barely audible and cannot continue.

As Cora's body is carried away, David asks Munro whether Cora should be given a Christian burial. They follow Cora to the grave, where David sings a hymn. Hawkeye praises the services of the tribe. After Alice, Duncan, David, and Munro depart, Hawkeye walks over to where Uncas has been buried. Chingachgook gives a brave speech, but when he announces that he is alone, Hawkeye tells him he is not alone, for he is there. The two shake hands and bow their heads together in friendship, "while scalding tears [fall] to their feet." Tamenund laments all the evil that has befallen his people at the hands of the "pale face" and expresses his regret at living to see the last of the Mohicans dead.

This chapter concentrates on the death rituals of Indians. The funeral service is done with much pomp, yet it is solemn and somber. Tamenund's lament at the end is for the passing not only of Uncas and Cora, but for an entire way of life. The frontier is being settled and the time of the Indian appears to be at an end.

The Last of the Mohicans is in essence the author's deliberate attempt at setting Indian against Indian and the brutal society of the white man against the civilization of the Mohicans. Yet Cooper's stance is not without conflict itself. When the Indian maidens claim that Cora and Uncas will be together at last, Hawkeye smiles at the "error of their simple creed," and when Munro asks that Hawkeye thank the maidens and express his wish that they will all stand together someday before their same creator, Hawkeye explains that such a thought would be entirely alien to them. At the end, however, when Chingachgook, forlorn after Uncas' death, say that he is now alone, Hawkeye tells him that though their skins are different he will always be there for him. The two stand with their heads bowed together in brotherhood and friendship, suggesting, perhaps, hope, despite the mournful words of Tamenund.

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