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THE ALGONQUIN LEGENDS OF NEW ENGLAND
OR
_Myths and Folk Lore of the Micmac, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot
Tribes_
BY CHARLES G. LELAND
[Frontispiece Illustration: MIK UM WESS THE INDIAN PUCK, OR ROBIN
GOOD-FELLOW.
From a scraping on birch bark by Tomak Josephs, Indian Governor at
Peter Dona's Point, Maine. The Mik um wees always wears a red cap like
the Norse Goblin.]
PREFACE.
When I began, in the summer of 1882, to collect among the Passamaquoddy
Indians at Campobello, New Brunswick, their traditions and folk-lore, I
expected to find very little indeed. These Indians, few in number,
surrounded by white people, and thoroughly converted to Roman
Catholicism, promised but scanty remains of heathenism. What was my
amazement, however, at discovering, day by day, that there existed
among them, entirely by oral tradition, a far grander mythology than
that which has been made known to us by either the Chippewa or Iroquois
Hiawatha Legends, and that this was illustrated by an incredible number
of tales. I soon ascertained that these were very ancient. The old
people declared that they had heard from their progenitors that all of
these stories were once sung; that they themselves remembered when many
of them were poems. This was fully proved by discovering manifest
traces of poetry in many, and finally by receiving a long Micmac tale
which had been sung by an Indian. I found that all the relaters of this
lore were positive as to the antiquity of the narratives, and
distinguished accurately between what was or was not pre-Columbian. In
fact, I came in time to the opinion that the original stock of all the
Algonquin myths, and perhaps of many more, still existed, not far away
in the West, but at our very doors; that is to say, in Maine and New
Brunswick. It is at least certain, as the reader may convince himself,
that these Wabanaki, or Northeastern Algonquin, legends give, with few
exceptions, in full and coherently, many tales which have only reached
us in a broken, imperfect form, from other sources.
This work, then, contains a collection of the myths, legends, and
folk-lore of the principal Wabanaki, or Northeastern Algonquin, Indians;
that is to say, of the Passamaquoddies and Penobscots of Maine, and of
the Micmacs of New Brunswick. All of this material was gathered
directly from Indian narrators, the greater part by myself, the rest by
a few friends; in fact, I can give the name of the aboriginal authority
for every tale except one. As my chief object has been simply to
collect and preserve valuable material, I have said little of the
labors of such critical writers as Brinton, Hale, Trumbull, Powers,
Morgan, Bancroft, and the many more who have so ably studied and set
forth red Indian ethnology. If I have rarely ventured on their field,
it is because I believe that when the Indian shall have passed away
there will come far better ethnologists than I am, who will be much
more obliged to me for collecting raw material than for cooking it.
Two or three subjects have, it is true, tempted me into occasional
commenting. The manifest, I may say the undeniable, affinity between
the myths and legends of the Northeastern Indians and those of the
Eskimo could hardly be passed over, nor at the same time the identity
of the latter and of the Shaman religion with those of the Finns,
Laplanders, and Samoyedes. I believe that I have contributed material
not devoid of value to those who are interested in the study of the
relations of the aborigines of America with the Mongoloid races of the
Old World. This is a subject which has been very little studied through
the relations of these Wabanaki with the Eskimo.
A far more hazardous venture has been the indicating points of
similarity between the myths or tales of the Algonquins and those of
the Norsemen, as set forth in the Eddas, the Sagas, and popular tales
of Scandinavia. When we, however, remember that the Eskimo once ranged
as far south as Massachusetts, that they did not reach Greenland till
the fourteenth century, that they had for three centuries intimate
relations with Scandinavians, that they were very fond of legends, and
that the Wabanaki even now mingle with them, the marvel would be that
the Norsemen had not left among them traces of their tales or of their
religion. But I do not say that this was positively the case; I simply
set forth in this book a great number of curious coincidences, from
which others may draw their own conclusions. I confess that I cannot
account for these resemblances save by the so-called "historical
theory" of direct transmission; but if any one can otherwise explain
them I should welcome the solution of what still seems to be, in many
respects, a problem.
I am, in fact, of the opinion that what is given in this work confirms
what was conjectured by David Crantz, and which is thus expressed in
his History of Greenland (London, 1767): "If we read the accounts which
have been given of the most northerly American Indians and Asiatic
Tartars, we find a pretty great resemblance between their manner of
life, morals, usages, and notions and what has been said in this book
of the Greenlanders, only with this difference: that the farther the
savage nations wandered towards the North, the fewer they retained of
their ancient conceptions and customs. As for the Greenlanders, if it
be true, as is supposed, that a remnant of the old Norway Christians
incorporated themselves and became one people with them, the
Greenlanders may thence have heard and adopted some of their notions,
which they may have new-modeled in the coarse mould of their own
brain."
Among those who have greatly aided me in preparing this work I deem it
to be a duty to mention MISS ABBY ALGER, of Boston, to whom it is
cordially dedicated; the REV. SILAS T. RAND, of Hantsport, Nova Scotia,
who lent me a manuscript collection of eighty-five Micmac tales, and
communicated to me, with zealous kindness, much information by letter;
and MRS. W. WALLACE BROWN, of Calais, Maine. It was through this lady
that I derived a great proportion of the most curious folk-lore of the
Passamaquoddies, especially such parts as coincided with the Edda. With
these I would include MR. E. JACK, of Fredericton, New Brunswick. When
it is remembered that there are only forty-two of the Hiawatha Legends
of Schoolcraft, out of which five books have been made by other
authors, and that I have collected more than two hundred, it will be
seen how these friends must have worked to aid me.
AUTHORITIES.
The authorities consulted in writing this work were as follows:--
PERSONS.
Tomah Josephs, Passamaquoddy, Indian Governor at Peter Dana's Point,
Maine.
The Rev. Silas T. Rand, Baptist Missionary among the Micmac Indians at
Hantsport, Nova Scotia. This gentleman lent me his manuscript
collection of eighty-five stories, all taken down from verbal Indian
narration. He also communicated much information in letters, etc.
John Gabriel, and his son Peter J. Gabriel, Passamaquoddy Indians, of
Point Pleasant, Maine.
Noel Josephs, of Peter Dana's Point, alias _Che gach goch_, the
Raven.
Joseph Tomah, Passamaquoddy, of Point Pleasant.
Louis Mitchell, Indian member of the Legislature of Maine. To this
gentleman I am greatly indebted for manuscripts, letters, and oral
narrations of great value.
Sapiel Selmo, keeper of the Wampum Record, formerly read every four
years, at the kindling of the great fire at Canawagha.
Marie Saksis, of Oldtown, a capital and very accurate narrator of many
traditions.
Miss Abby Alger, of Boston, by whom I was greatly aided in collecting
the Passamaquoddy stories, and who obtained several for me among the
St. Francis or Abenaki Indians.
Edward Jack, of Fredericton, for several Micmac legends and many
letters containing folk-lore, all taken down by him directly from
Indians.
Mrs. W. Wallace Brown. Mr. Brown was agent in charge of the
Passamaquoddies in Maine. To this lady, who has a great influence over
the Indians, and is much interested in their folk-lore and legends, I
am indebted for a large collection of very interesting material of the
most varied description.
Noel Neptune, Penobscot, Oldtown, Maine.
BOOKS, MANUSCRIPTS, ETC.
_The Story of Glooskap._ A curious manuscript in Indian-English,
obtained for me by Tomah Josephs.
_The Dominion Monthly_ for 1871. Containing nine Micmac legends by
Rev. S.T. Rand.
_Indian Legends._ (Manuscript of 900 pp. folio.) Collected among
the Micmac Indians, and translated by Silas T. Rand, Missionary to the
Micmacs.
_A Manuscript Collection of Passamaquoddy Legends and Folk-Lore._
By Mrs. W. Wallace Brown, of Calais, Maine. These are all given with
the greatest accuracy as narrated by Indians, some in broken
Indian-English. They embrace a very great variety of folk-lore.
_Manuscript Fairy Tales in Indian and English._ By Louis Mitchell.
_Manuscript: The Superstitions of the Passamaquoddies._ In Indian
and English.
_A History of the Passamaquoddy Indians._ Manuscript of 80 pages,
Indian and English. All of these were written for me by L. Mitchell,
M.L.
_Wampum Records._ Read for me by Sapiel Selmo, the only living
Indian who has the key to them.
David Cusick's _Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations._
Lockport, N.Y., 1848. Printed, but written in Indian-English.
_Manuscript: Six Stories of the St. Francis or Abenaki Indians._
Taken down by Miss Abby Alger.
Osgood's _Maritime Provinces._ In this work there are seven short
extracts relative to Glooskap given without reference to any book or
author.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
GLOOSKAP, THE DIVINITY.
Of Glooskap's Birth, and of his Brother Malsum, the Wolf
How Glooskap made the Elves and Fairies, and then Man of an Ash-Tree,
and last of all the Beasts, and of his Coming at the Last Day
Of the Great Deeds which Glooskap did for Men; how he named the
Animals, and who they were that formed his Family
How Win-pe, the Sorcerer, having stolen Glooskap's Family, was by him
pursued. How Glooskap for a Merry Jest cheated the Whale. Of the Song
of the Clams, and how the Whale smoked a Pipe
Of the Dreadful Deeds of the Evil Pitcher, who was both Man and Woman;
how she fell in Love with Glooskap, and, being scorned, became his
Enemy. Of the Toads and Porcupines, and the Awful Battle of the Giants
How the Story of Glooskap and Pook-jin-skwess, the Evil Pitcher, is
told by the Passamaquoddy Indians
How Glooskap became friendly to the Loons, and made them his Messengers
How Glooskap made his Uncle Mikchich, the Turtle, into a Great Man, and
got him a Wife. Of the Turtles' Eggs, and how Glooskap vanquished a
Sorcerer by smoking Tobacco
How Glooskap sailed through the Great Cavern of Darkness
Of the Great Works which Glooskap made in the Land
The Story of Glooskap as told in a few Words by a Woman of the
Penobscots
How Glooskap, leaving the World, all the Animals mourned for him, and
how, ere he departed, he gave Gifts to Men
How Glooskap had a Great Frolic with Kitpooseagunow, a Mighty Giant who
caught a Whale
How Glooskap made a Magician of a Young Man, who aided another to win a
Wife and do Wonderful Deeds
How a certain Wicked Witch sought to cajole the Great and Good
Glooskap, and of her Punishment
Of other Men who went to Glooskap for Gifts
Of Glooskap and the three other Seekers
Of Glooskap and the Sinful Serpent
The Tale of Glooskap as told by another Indian, showing how the Toad
and Porcupine lost their Noses
How Glooskap changed Certain Saucy Indians into Rattlesnakes
How Glooskap bound Wuchowsen, the Great Wind-Bird, and made all the
Waters in the World stagnant
How Glooskap conquered the Great Bull-Frog, and in what Manner all the
Pollywogs, Crabs, Leeches, and other Water Creatures were created
How the Lord of Men and Beasts strove with the Mighty Wasis, and was
shamefully defeated
How the Great Glooskap fought the Giant Sorcerers at Saco, and turned
them into Fish
How Glooskap went to England and France, and was the first to make
America known to the Europeans
How Glooskap is making Arrows, and preparing for a Great Battle. The
Twilight of the Indian Gods
How Glooskap found the Summer
THE MERRY TAXES OF LOX, THE MISCHIEF-MAKER.
The Surprising and Singular Adventures of two Water Fairies who were
also Weasels, and how they each became the Bride of a Star. Including
the Mysterious and Wonderful Works of Lox, the Great Indian Devil, who
rose from the Dead
Of the Wolverine and the Wolves, or how Master Lox froze to Death
How Master Lox played a Trick on Mrs. Bear, who lost her Eyesight and
had her Eyes opened
How Lox came to Grief by trying to catch a Salmon
How Master Lox, as a Raccoon, killed the Bear and the Black Cats, and
performed other Notable Feats of Skill, all to his Great Discredit
How Lox deceived the Ducks, cheated the Chief, and beguiled the Bear
The Mischief-Maker. A Tradition of the Origin of the Mythology of the
Senecas. A Lox Legend
How Lox told a Lie
THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF MASTER RABBIT.
How Master Rabbit sought to rival Kecoony, the Otter
How Mahtigwess, the Rabbit, dined with the Woodpecker Girls, and was
again humbled by trying to rival them
Of the Adventure with Mooin, the Bear; it being the Third and Last Time
that Master Rabbit made a Fool of himself
Relating how the Rabbit became Wise by being Original, and of the
Terrible Tricks which he by Magic played Loup-Cervier, the Wicked
Wild-Cat
How Master Rabbit went to a Wedding and won the Bride
How Master Rabbit gave himself Airs
The Young Man who was saved by a Rabbit and a Fox
THE CHENOO LEGENDS.
The Chenoo, or the Story of a Cannibal with an Icy Heart
The Story of the Great Chenoo, as told by the Passamaquoddies
The Girl-Chenoo
THUNDER STORIES.
Of the Girl who married Mount Katahdin, and how all the Indians brought
about their own Ruin
How a Hunter visited the Thunder Spirits who dwell on Mount Katahdin
The Thunder and Lightning Men
Of the Woman who married the Thunder, and of their Boy
AT-O-SIS, THE SERPENT.
How Two Girls were changed to Water-Snakes, and of Two others that
became Mermaids
Ne Hwas, the Mermaid
Of the Woman who loved a Serpent that lived in a Lake
The Mother of Serpents
Origin of the Black Snakes
THE PARTRIDGE.
The Adventures of the Great Hero Pulowech, or the Partridge
The Story of a Partridge and his Wonderful Wigwam
How the Partridge built Good Canoes for all the Birds, and a Bad One
for Himself
The Mournful Mystery of the Partridge-Witch; setting forth how a Young
Man died from Love
How one of the Partridge's Wives became a Sheldrake Duck, and why her
Feet and Feathers are red
THE INVISIBLE ONE
STORY OF THE THREE STRONG MEN
THE WEEWILLMEKQ'
How a Woman lost a Gun for Fear of the Weewillmekq'
Muggahmaht'adem, the Dance of Old Age, or the Magic of the Weewillmekq'
Another Version of the Dance of Old Age
TALES OF MAGIC.
M'teoulin, or Indian Magic
Story of the Beaver Trapper
How a Youth became a Magician
Of Old Joe, the M'teoulin
Of Governor Francis
How a Chiefs Son taught his Friend Sorcery
Tumilkoontaoo, or the Broken Wing
Fish-Hawk and Scapegrace
The Giant Magicians
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
MIK UM WESS, THE INDIAN PUCK, OR ROBIN GOOD-FELLOW
GLOOSKAP KILLING HIS BROTHER, THE WOLF
GLOOSKAP LOOKING AT THE WHALE SMOKING HIS PIPE
GLOOSKAP SETTING HIS DOGS ON THE WITCHES
THE MUD-TURTLE JUMPING OVER THE WIGWAM OF HIS FATHER-IN-LAW
GLOOSKAP AND KEANKE SPEARING THE WHALE
GLOOSKAP TURNING A MAN INTO A CEDAR-TREE
LOX CARRIED OFF BY CULLOO
THE INDIAN BOY AND THE MUSK-RAT. SEEPS, THE DUCK
THE RABBIT MAGICIAN
THE CHENOO AND THE LIZARD
THE WOMAN AND THE SERPENT
INTRODUCTION
Among the six chief divisions of the red Indians of North America the
most widely extended is the Algonquin. This people ranged from Labrador
to the far South, from Newfoundland to the Rocky Mountains, speaking
forty dialects, as the Hon. J. H. Trumbull has shown in his valuable
work on the subject. Belonging to this division are the Micmacs of New
Brunswick and the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribes of Maine, who with
the St. Francis Indians of Canada and some smaller clans call
themselves the Wabanaki, a word derived from a root signifying white or
light, intimating that they live nearest to the rising sun or the east.
In fact, the French-speaking St. Francis family, who are known _par
eminence_ as "the Abenaki," translate the term by _point du
jour_.
The Wabanaki have in common the traditions of a grand mythology, the
central figure of which is a demigod or hero, who, while he is always
great, consistent, and benevolent, and never devoid of dignity,
presents traits which are very much more like those of Odin and Thor,
with not a little of Pantagruel, than anything in the characters of the
Chippewa Manobozho, or the Iroquois Hiawatha. The name of this divinity
is Glooskap, meaning, strangely enough, the Liar, because it is said
that when he left earth, like King Arthur, for Fairyland, he promised
to return, and has never done so. It is characteristic of the Norse
gods that while they are grand they are manly, and combine with this a
peculiarly domestic humanity. Glooskap is the Norse god intensified. He
is, however, more of a giant; he grows to a more appalling greatness
than Thor or Odin in his battles; when a _Kiawaqu'_, or Jotun,
rises to the clouds to oppose him, Glooskap's head touches the stars,
and scorning to slay so mean a foe like an equal, he kills him
contemptuously with a light tap of his bow. But in the family circle he
is the most benevolent of gentle heroes, and has his oft-repeated
little standard jokes. Yet he never, like the Manobozho-Hiawatha of the
Chippewas, becomes silly, cruel, or fantastic. He has his roaring revel
with a brother giant, even as Thor went fishing in fierce fun with the
frost god, but he is never low or feeble.
Around Glooskap, who is by far the grandest and most Aryan-like
character ever evolved from a savage mind, and who is more congenial to
a reader of Shakespeare and Rabelais than any deity ever imagined out
of Europe, there are found strange giants: some literal Jotuns of stone
and ice, sorcerers who become giants like Glooskap, at will; the
terrible Chenoo, a human being with an icy-stone heart, who has sunk to
a cannibal and ghoul; all the weird monsters and horrors of the Eskimo
mythology, witches and demons, inherited from the terribly black
sorcery which preceded Shamanism, and compared to which the latter was
like an advanced religion, and all the minor mythology of dwarfs and
fairies. The Indian _m'teoulin_, or magician, distinctly taught
that every created thing, animate or inanimate, had its indwelling
spirit. Whatever had an _idea_ had a soul. Therefore the Wabanaki
mythology is strangely like that of the Rosicrucians. But it created
spirits for the terrible Arctic winters of the north, for the icebergs
and frozen wastes, for the Northern Lights and polar bears. It made, in
short, a mythology such as would be perfectly congenial to any one who
has read and understood the Edda, Beowulf, and the Kalevala, with the
wildest and oldest Norse sagas. But it is, as regards spirit and
meaning, utterly and entirely unlike anything else that is American. It
is not like the Mexican pantheon; it has not the same sounds, colors,
or feelings; and though many of its incidents or tales are the same as
those of the Chippewas, or other tribes, we still feel that there is an
incredible difference in the spirit. Its ways are not as their ways.
This Wabanaki mythology, which was that which gave a fairy, an elf, a
naiad, or a hero to every rock and river and ancient hill in New
England, is just the one of all others which is least known to the New
Englanders. When the last Indian shall be in his grave, those who come
after us will ask in wonder why we had no curiosity as to the romance
of our country, and so much as to that of every other land on earth.
Much is allowed to poets and painters, and no fault was found with Mr.
Longfellow for attributing to the Iroquois Hiawatha the choice exploits
of the Chippewa demi-devil Manobozho. It was "all Indian" to the
multitude, and one name answered as well in poetry as another, at a
time when there was very little attention paid to ethnology. So that a
good poem resulted, it was of little consequence that the plot was a
_melange_ of very different characters, and characteristics. And
when, in connection with this, Mr. Longfellow spoke of the Chippewa
tales as forming an Indian Edda, the term was doubtless in a poetic and
very general sense permissible. But its want of literal truth seems to
have deeply impressed the not generally over particular or accurate
Schoolcraft, since his first remarks in the Introduction to the
Hiawatha Legends are as follows:--
"Where analogies are so general, there is a constant liability to
mistakes. Of these foreign analogies of myth-lore, the least tangible,
it is believed, is that which has been suggested with the Scandinavian
mythology. That mythology is of so marked and peculiar a character that
it has not been distinctly traced out of the great circle of tribes of
the Indo-Germanic family. Odin and his terrific pantheon of war gods
and social deities could only exist in the dreary latitudes of storms
and fire which produce a Hecla and a Maelstrom. These latitudes have
invariably produced nations whose influence has been felt in an
elevating power over the world. From such a source the Indian could
have derived none of him vague symbolisms and mental idiosyncrasies
which have left him as he is found to-day, without a government and
without a god."
This is all perfectly true of the myths of Hiawat'ha-Manobozho. Nothing
on earth could be more unlike the Norse legends than the "Indian Edda"
of the Chippewas and Ottawas. But it was not known to this writer that
there already existed in Northeastern America a stupendous mythology,
derived from a land of storms and fire more terrible and wonderful than
Iceland; nay, so terrible that Icelanders themselves were appalled by
it. "This country," says the Abbe Morillot, "is the one most suggestive
of superstition. Everything there, sea, earth, or heaven, is strange."
The wild cries which rise from the depths of the caverned ice-hills,
and are reechoed by the rocks, icebergs, or waves, were dreadful to
Egbert Olafson in the seventeenth century. The interior is a desert
without parallel for desolation. A frozen Sahara seen by Northern
lightning and midnight suns is but a suggestion of this land. The sober
Moravian missionary Crantz once only in his life rose to poetry, when
more than a century ago he spoke of its scenery. Here then was the
latitude of storm and fire required by Schoolcraft to produce something
wilder and grander than he had ever found among Indians. And here
indeed there existed all the time a cycle of mythological legends or
poems such as he declared Indians incapable of producing. But strangest
of all, this American mythology of the North, which has been the very
last to become known to American readers, is literally so nearly like
the Edda itself that as this work fully proves, there is hardly a song
in the Norse collection which does not contain an incident found in the
Indian poem-legends, while in several there are many such coincidences.
Thus, in the Edda we are told that the first birth on earth was that of
a giant girl and boy, begotten by the feet of a giant and born from his
armpit. In the Wabanaki legends, the first birth was of Glooskap, the
Good principle, and Malsum the Wolf, or Evil principle. The Wolf was
born from his mother's armpit. He is sometimes male and sometimes
female. His feet are male and female, and converse. We pass on only
twelve lines in the Edda (Vafthrudnismal, 36) to be told that the wind
is caused by a giant in eagle's plumage, who sits on a rock far in the
north "at the end of heaven." This is simply and literally the
_Wochowsen_ or Windblower of the Wabanaki word for word,--not the
"Thunder-Bird" of the Western Indians. The second birth on earth,
according to the Edda, was that of man. Odin found Ash and Elm "nearly
powerless," and gave them sense. This was the first man and woman.
According to the Indians of Maine, Glooskap made the first men from the
_ash_-tree. They lived or were in it, "devoid of sense" till he
gave it to them. It is to be observed that primevally among the Norse
the _ash_ alone stood for man. So it goes on through the whole
Edda, of which all the main incidents are to be found among the sagas
of the Wabanaki. The most striking of these are the coincidences
between _Lox_ (lynx, wolf, wolverine, badger, or raccoon, and
sometimes man) and Loki. It is very remarkable indeed that the only two
religions in the world which possess a devil in whom _mischief_
predominates should also give to each the same adventures, if both did
not come from the same source. In the Hymiskvida of the Edda, two
giants go to fish for whales, and then have a contest which is actually
one of heat against cold. This is so like a Micmac legend in every
detail that about twenty lines are word for word the same in the Norse
and Indian. The Micmac giants end their whale fishing by trying to
freeze one another to death.
It is to the Rev. Silas T. Rand that the credit belongs of having
discovered Glooskap, and of having first published in the Dominion
Monthly several of these Northern legends. After I had collected nearly
a hundred among the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot Indians, this
gentleman, with unexampled kindness, lent me a manuscript of eighty-four
Micmac tales, making in all nine hundred folio pages. Many were
similar to others in my collection, but I have never yet received a
duplicate which did not contain something essential to the whole.
Though the old Indians all declare that most of their lore has
perished, especially the more recondite mythic poems, I am confident
that much more remains to be gathered than I have given in this work.
As it is, I have omitted many tales simply because they were evidently
Canadian French stories. Yet all of these, without exception, are half
Indian, and it may be old Norse modified; for a French story is
sometimes the same with one in the Eddas. Again, for want of room I
have not given any Indian tales or chronicles of the wars with the
Mohawks. Of these I have enough to make a very curious volume.
These legends belong to all New England. Many of them exist as yet
among the scattered fragments of Indian tribes here and there. The
Penobscots of Oldtown, Maine, still possess many. In fact, there is not
an old Indian, male or female, in New England or Canada who does not
retain stories and songs of the greatest interest. I sincerely trust
that this work may have the effect of stimulating collection. Let every
reader remember that everything thus taken down, and deposited in a
local historical society, or sent to the Ethnological Bureau at
Washington, will forever transmit the name of its recorder to
posterity. Archaeology is as yet in its very beginning; when the
Indians shall have departed it will grow to giant-like proportions, and
every scrap of information relative to them will be eagerly
investigated. And the man does not live who knows what may be made of
it all. I need not say that I should be grateful for such Indian lore
of any kind whatever which may be transmitted to me.
It may very naturally be asked by many how it came to pass that the
Indians of Maine and of the farther north have so much of the Edda in
their sagas; or, if it was derived through the Eskimo tribes, how these
got it from Norsemen, who were professedly Christians. I do not think
that the time has come for fully answering the first question. There is
some great mystery of mythology, as yet unsolved, regarding the origin
of the Edda and its relations with the faiths and folk-lore of the
elder Shamanic beliefs, such as Lapp, Finn, Samoyed, Eskimo, and
Tartar. This was the world's first religion; it is found in the
so-called Accadian Turanian beginning of Babylon, whence it possibly
came from the West. But what we have here to consider is whether the
Norsemen did directly influence the Eskimo and Indians. Let us first
consider that these latter were passionately fond of stories, and that
they had attained to a very high standard of culture as regards both
appreciation and invention. They were as fond of recitations as any
white man is of reading. Their memories were in this respect very
remarkable indeed. They have taken into their repertory during the past
two hundred years many French fairy tales, through the Canadians. Is it
not likely that they listened to the Northmen?
It is not generally noted among our learned men how long the Icelanders
remained in Greenland, how many stories are still told of them by the
Eskimo, or to what extent the Indians continue to mingle with the
latter. During the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, says
the Abbe Morillot, "there were in Greenland, after Archbishop Adalbert,
more than twenty bishops, and in the colony were many churches and
monasteries. In the Oestrbugd, one of the two inhabited portions of the
vast island, were one hundred and ninety villages, with twelve
churches. In Julianshaab, one may to-day see the ruins of eight
churches and of many monasteries." In the fifteenth century all these
buildings were in ruins, and the colony was exterminated by the
pestilence or the natives. But among the latter there remained many
traditions of the Scandinavians associated with the ruins. Such is the
story of Oren'gortok, given by the Abbe Morillot, and several are to be
found in Rink's Legends. When we learn that the Norsemen, during their
three centuries of occupation of Greenland, brought away many of the
marvelous tales of the Eskimo, it is not credible that they left none
of their own. Thus we are told in the Floamanna Saga how a hero,
abandoned on the icy coast of Greenland, met with two giant witches
(Troldkoner), and cut the band from one of them. An old Icelandic work,
called the Konungs Skuggsjo (Danish, Kongespeilet), has much to say of
the marvels of Greenland and its monsters of the sea. On the other
hand, Morillot declares that the belief in ghosts was brought to
Greenland by the Icelanders and Scandinavians. The sagas have not been
as yet much studied with a view to establishing how much social
intercourse there was between the natives and the colonists, but common
experience would teach that during three centuries it must have been
something.
There has always been intercourse between Greenland and Labrador, and
in this latter country we find the first Algonquin Indians. Even at the
present day there are men among the Micmacs and Passamaquoddies who
have gone on their hunting excursions even to the Eskimo. I myself know
one of the latter who has done so, and the Rev. S. T. Rand, in answer
to a question on the subject, writes to me as follows:--
"Nancy Jeddore, a Micmac woman, assures me that her father, now dead,
used to go as far as the wild (heathen) Eskimo, and remained once for
three years among the more civilized. She has so correctly described
their habits that I am satisfied that her statements are correct."
[Footnote: The word _Eskimo_ is Algonquin, meaning to eat raw
fish, _Eskumoga_ in Micmac, and people who eat raw flesh, or
_Eskimook_, that is, _eski_, raw, and _moo-uk_, people.
This word recalls _in-noo-uk_, people, and spirits, in Eskimo,
_Innue_, which has the same double meaning. This was all suggested
to me by an Indian.]
These Eskimo brought from the Old World that primeval gloomy Shaman
religion, or sorcery, such as is practiced yet by Laplanders and
Tartars, such as formed the basis of the old Accadian Babylonian
cultus, and such as is now in vogue among all our own red Indians. I
believe that it was from the Eskimo that this American Shamanism all
came. In Greenland this faith assumed its strangest form; it made for
itself a new mythology. The Indians, their neighbors, borrowed from
this, but also added new elements of an only _semi_-Arctic
character. Thus there is a series of steps, but every one different,
from the Eskimo to the Wabanaki, of Labrador, New Brunswick, and Maine,
from the Wabanaki to the Iroquois, and from the Iroquois to the more
western Indians. And while they all have incidents in common, the
character of each is radically different.
It may be specially noted that while there is hardly an important point
in the Edda which may not be found, as I have just shown, in Wabanaki
legends, there is very little else in the latter which is in common
with such Old World mythology as might have come to the Indians since
the discovery by Columbus. Excluding French Canadian fairy tales, what
we have left is chiefly Eskimo and Eddaic, and the proportion of the
latter is simply surprising. There are actually more incidents taken
from the Edda than there are from lower sources. I can only account for
this by the fact that, as the Indians tell me, all these tales were
once _poems_, handed down from generation to generation, and
always sung. Once they were religious. Now they are in a condition
analogous to that of the German Heldenbuch. They have been cast into a
new form, but they are not as yet quite degraded to the nursery tale.
It may be objected that if the Norsemen in Greenland were Christians it
is most unlikely that they would have taught the legends of the Edda to
the heathen; to which I reply that some scholar a few centuries hence
may declare it was a most improbable thing that Christian Roman
Catholic Indians should have taught me the tales of Glooskap and Lox.
But the truth is, we really know very little as to how soon wandering
Vikings went to America, or how many were here.
I would say in conclusion that, while these legends of the Wabanaki are
fragmentary and incomplete, they still read like the fragments of a
book whose subject was once broadly and coherently treated by a man of
genius. They are handled in the same bold and artistic manner as the
Norse. There is nothing like them in any other North American Indian
records. They are, especially those which are from the Passamaquoddy
and Penobscot, inspired with a genial cosmopolite humor. While Glooskap
is always a gentleman, Lox ranges from Punch to Satan; passing through
the stages of an Indian Mephistopheles and the Norse Loki, who appears
to have been his true progenitor. But neither is quite like anything to
be found among really savage races. When it is borne in mind that the
most ancient and mythic of these legends have been taken down from the
trembling memories of old squaws who never understood their inner
meaning, or from ordinary _senaps_ who had not thought of them
since boyhood, it will be seen that the preservation of a mass of prose
poems, equal in bulk to the Kalevala or Heldenbuch, is indeed almost
miraculous.
THE ALGONQUIN LEGENDS OF NEW ENGLAND.
GLOOSKAP THE DIVINITY.
_Of Glooskap's Birth, and of his Brother Malsum the Wolf._
Now the great lord Glooskap, who was worshiped in after-days by all the
Wabanaki, or children of light, was a twin with a brother. As he was
good, this brother, whose name was Malsumsis, or Wolf the younger, was
bad. Before they were born, the babes consulted to consider how they
had best enter the world. And Glooskap said, "I will be born as others
are." But the evil Malsumsis thought himself too great to be brought
forth in such a manner, and declared that he would burst through his
mother's side. [Footnote: The reader of Rabelais cannot fail to recall
here the remarks of the author as to the extraordinary manner in which
it pleased the giant Gargantua to come into the world. The Armenians
believe that Christ was born through the right side of the Virgin. The
Buddhists say the same of Buddha's birth. (Heth and Moab, London,
1883.) Another and as I believe the correct account declares that
Malsum the Wolf was born from his mother's armpit.] And as they planned
it so it came to pass. Glooskap as first came quietly to light, while
Malsumsis kept his word, killing his mother.
The two grew up together, and one day the younger, who knew that both
had charmed lives, asked the elder what would kill him, Glooskap. Now
each had his own secret as to this, and Glooskap, remembering how
wantonly Malsumsis had slain their mother, thought it would be
misplaced confidence to trust his life to one so fond of death, while
it might prove to be well to know the bane of the other. So they agreed
to exchange secrets, and Glooskap, to test his brother, told him that
the only way in which he himself could be slain was by the stroke of an
owl's feather, [Footnote: There are different readings of this
incident. In Mr. Band's manuscript the alleged means of Glooskap's
death is described as being a cat-tail flag (_haw-kwee-usqu'_,
Passamaquoddy), while a handful of bird's down is the bane of Malsum
the Wolf. The termination _sis_ is a diminutive, here meaning the
younger.] though this was not true. And Malsumsis said, "I can only die
by a blow from a fern-root."
It came to pass in after-days that Kwah-beet-a-sis, the son of the
Great Beaver, or, as others say, Miko the Squirrel, or else the evil
which was in himself, tempted Malsumsis to kill Glooskap; for in those
days all men were wicked. So taking his bow he shot Ko-ko-khas the Owl,
and with one of his feathers he struck Glooskap while sleeping. Then he
awoke in anger, yet craftily said that it was not by an owl's feather,
but by a blow from a pine-root, that his life would end.
[Illustration: Glooskap killing his brother the wolf]
Then the false man led his brother another day far into the forest to
hunt, and, while he again slept, smote him on the head with a pine-root.
But Glooskap arose unharmed, drove Malsumsis away into the woods,
sat down by the brook-side, and thinking aver all that had happened,
said, "Nothing but a flowering rush can kill me." But the Beaver, who
was hidden among the reeds, heard this, and hastening to Malsumsis told
him the secret of his brother's life. For this Malsumsis promised to
bestow on Beaver whatever he should ask; but when the latter wished for
wings like a pigeon, the warrior laughed, and scornfully said, "Get
thee hence; thou with a tail like a file, what need hast thou of
wings?"
Then the Beaver was angry, and went forth to the camp of Glooskap, to
whom he told what he had done. Therefore Glooskap arose in sorrow and
in anger, took a fern-root, sought Malsumsis in the deep, dark forest,
and smote him so that he fell down dead. And Glooskap sang a song over
him and lamented.
The Beaver and the Owl and the Squirrel, for what they did and as they
did it, all come again into these stories; but Malsumsis, being dead,
was turned into the Shick-shoe mountains in the Gaspe peninsula.
For this chapter and parts of others I am indebted to the narrative of
a Micmac Indian, taken down by Mr. Edward Jock; also to another version
in the Rand MS. The story is, in the main-points, similar to that given
by David Cusick in his History of the Six Nations, of Enigorio the Good
Mind, and Enigonhahetgea, Bad Mind, to which I shall refer anon.
It is very evident that in this tradition Glooskap represents the Good
principle, and Malsumsis, the little wolf,--that is the Wolf who is the
Younger, rather than little or small,--the Evil one. Malsum typifies
destruction and sin in several of these tales. He will arise at the
last day, when Glooskap is to do battle with all the giants and evil
beasts of olden time, and will be the great destroyer. Malsum is the
Wolf Fenris of this the true Indian Edda.
For a further comment on this birth of the twins and its resemblance to
a passage in the Edda, the reader is referred to the notes on the next
chapter.
_How Glooskap made the Elves and Fairies, and then Man of an Ash
Tree, and last of all, Beasts, and of his Coming at the Last Day._
(Passamaquoddy.)
Glooskap came first of all into this country, into Nova Scotia, Maine,
Canada, into the land of the Wabanaki, next to sunrise. There were no
Indians here then (only wild Indians very far to the west).
First born were the Mikumwess, the Oonabgemessuk, the small Elves,
little men, dwellers in rocks.
And in this way he made Man: He took his bow and arrows and shot at
trees, the basket-trees, the Ash. Then Indians came out of the bark of
the Ash-trees. And then the Mikumwees said ... called tree-man....
[Footnote: The relater, an old woman, was quite unintelligible at this
point.]
Glooskap made all the animals. He made them at first very large. Then
he said to Moose, the great Moose who was as tall as Ketawkqu's,
[Footnote: A giant, high as the tallest pines, or as the clouds.] "What
would you do should you see an Indian coming?" Moose replied, "I would
tear down the trees on him." Then Glooskap saw that the Moose was too
strong, and made him smaller, so that Indians could kill him.
Then he said to the Squirrel, who was of the size of a Wolf, "What
would you do if you should meet an Indian?" And the Squirrel answered,
"I would scratch down trees on him." Then Glooskap said, "You also are
too strong," and he made him little. [Footnote: Another account states
that Glooskap took the Squirrel in his hands and smoothed him down.]
Then he asked the great White Bear what he would do if he met an
Indian; and the Bear said, "Eat him." And the Master bade him go and
live among rocks and ice, where he would see no Indians.
So he questioned all the beasts, changing their size or allotting their
lives according to their answers.
He took the Loon for his dog; but the Loon absented himself so much
that he chose for this service two wolves,--one black and one white,
[Footnote: Dogs are used for beasts of burden, to draw sledges, in the
North.] But the Loons are always his tale-bearers. Many years ago a man
very far to the North wished to cross a bay, a great distance, from one
point to another. As he was stepping into his canoe he saw a man with
two dogs,--one black and one white,--who asked to be set across. The
Indian said, "You may go, but what will become of your dogs?" Then the
stranger replied, "Let them go round by land." "Nay," replied the
Indian, "that is much too far." But the stranger saying nothing, he put
him across. And as they reached the landing place there stood the dogs.
But when he turned his head to address the man, he was gone. So he said
to himself, "I have seen Glooskap."
Yet again,--but this was not so many years ago,--far in the North there
were at a certain place many Indians assembled. And there was a
frightful commotion, caused by the ground heaving and rumbling; the
rocks shook and fell, they were greatly alarmed, and lo! Glooskap stood
before them, and said, "I go away now, but I shall return again; when
you feel the ground tremble, then know it is I." So they will know when
the last great war is to be, for then Glooskap will make the ground
shake with an awful noise.
Glooskap was no friend of the Beavers; he slew many of them. Up on the
Tobaic are two salt-water rocks (that is, rocks by the ocean-side, near
a freshwater stream). The Great Beaver, standing there one day, was
seen by Glooskap miles away, who had forbidden him that place. Then
picking up a large rock where he stood by the shore, he threw it all
that distance at the Beaver, who indeed dodged it; but when another
came, the beast ran into a mountain, and has never come forth to this
day. But the rocks which the master threw are yet to be seen.
This very interesting tradition was taken down by Mrs. W. Wallace Brown
from a very old Passamaquoddy Indian woman named Molly Sepsis, who
could not speak a word of English, with the aid of another younger
woman named Sarah.
It will be observed that it is said in the beginning that Glooskap
produced the first human beings from, the ash-tree. Ash and Elm in the
Edda were the Adam and Eve of the human race. There were no intelligent
men on earth--
"Until there came three
mighty and benevolent
Aesir to the world
from their assembly
nearly powerless,
Ash and Embla (Ash and Elm),
void of destiny.
"Spirit they possessed not,
sense they had not,
blood nor motive powers,
nor goodly color.
Spirit gave Odin,
sense gave Hoenir,
blood gave Lodur,
and good color."
[Footnote: _The Edda of Saemund_, translated by Benjamin Thorpe.
London: Trubner & Co. 1866. Voluspa, v. 17, 18.]
It is certain, however, that the _ash_ was the typic tree of all
life, since the next verse of the Voluspa is devoted to Yggdrasil, the
tree of existence, or of the world itself. It may be observed that in
the Finnish poem of Kalevala it is by the destruction of the great oak
that Wainamoien, aided by the hero of the sea, causes all things to
grow. The early clearing away of trees, as a first step towards
culture, may be symbolized in the shooting of arrows at the ash.
The wolf, as a beast for the deity to ride, is strongly Eddaic.
"Magic songs they sung,
rode on wolves,
the god (Odin) and gods."
[Footnote: _Rognnir og regin._ Odin and the Powers. Note by B.
Thorpe to the _Hrafnagalar Odins_, in Edda, p.30.]
We have here within a few lines, accordingly, the elm as the parent of
mankind, and wolves as the beasts of transport for the supreme deity,
both in the Indian legend and in the Edda.
As Glooskap is directly declared in one tradition to keep by him as an
attendant a being who is the course of the sun and of the seasons, it
may be assumed that the black and white wolf represent day and night.
Again, great stress is laid in the Glooskap legend upon the fact that
the last great day of battle with Malsum the Wolf and the frost-giants,
stone-giants, and other powers of evil, shall be announced by an
earthquake.
"Trembles Yggdrasil's
Ash yet standing,
groans that aged tree....
and the Wolf runs....
The monster's kin goes
all with the Wolf....
The stony hills are dashed together,
The giantesses totter.
Then arises Hlin's second grief
When Odin goes
with the wolf to fight."
Word for word, ash-tree, giantesses, the supreme god fighting with a
wolf, and falling hills, are given in the Indian myth. This is not the
Christian Day of Judgment, but the Norse.
In this myth Glooskap has two wolves, one black and the other white.
This is an indication of day and night, since he is distinctly stated
to have as an attendant Kulpejotei, who typifies the course of the
seasons. In the Eddas (Ragnarok) we are told that one wolf now follows
the sun, another the moon; one Fenris, the other Moongarm:--
"The moon's devourer
In a troll's disguise."
The magic arrows of Glooskap are of course worldwide, and date from the
shafts of Abaris and those used among the ancient Jews for divination.
But it may be observed that those of the Indian hero are like the "Guse
arrows," described in Oervarodd's Saga, which always hit their mark and
return to the one who shoots them. [Footnote: _The Primitive
Inhabitants of Scandinavia._ By Svent Nilsson. Edited by Sir John
Lubbock, 1868.]
It is important here to compare this _old_ Algonquin account of
the Creation with that of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, as given by
David Cusick, himself an Indian:--