Текст песни
The old men call me Pocahontas The white men call me Rebecca now But the river knows the truth of me Knows the sweat beneath my brow
My heart's in pain is my token And I was just a child of ten When the tall strange sails appeared And the dark dreams began
I saw him by my father's fire Soldier they called Smith And they built a lie around that day A cruel and heartless myth
I wasn't a woman, I was a girl still playing by the shore They say I saved his life for love, but what did a child know of war They made me the bridge between worlds, and then they made me a slave Took me far from my own people and the sacred life they gave
The moment they put me on that boat for the ransom and the trade That was the moment my true self began to fade, began to fade Oh the river cries my name, Matoka, a sound as heavy and deep While the white man's world just keeps a secret, buried while she sleeps
They scrubbed away my spirit with their Bible and their lace They took the freedom from my feet and the color from my face They forced me to grow up too fast before I understood the harm The very first of my sisters ripped from my mother's arm
This ain't no sweet love story, this is a hymn of my upper case Lost in the wilderness of a pale uncaring place They gave me to the tobacco man, named him husband for their peace Said the land would be safer now, that my captivity would cease
Then they dragged me across the ocean, showed me off for the king I was just a spectacle, a poor unfortunate thing I saw the captain who betrayed me, that old soldier Smith I looked in his eyes in London and I called him out for his myth
Seventeen years old and a thousand miles from home Got that white man's fever chilling me down to the bone Lying on a ship deck in Gravesend, watching the gray sky weep Knowing I'd never see Virginia and the promises I couldn't keep I was just a little girl snatched away and used until the end No one to protect me, no true family, no friend Tell my father, tell him the river, tell him the river is calling Tell him Matoka never made it home, the current was just too strong