time their chief gives these Thunders orders to put them on, and tells
them where to go. He also tells them how long they are to be gone, and
warns them not to go too low, for it is sure death for them to be
caught in the crotch of a tree.
The great chief of the Thunders, hearing of the stranger's arrival,
sent for him, and received him very kindly, and told him that he would
do well to become one of them. To which the man being willing, the
chief soon after called all his people together to see the ceremony of
thunderifying [Footnote: This word is one of the Indian author's own,
but as I know of no synonym for it I retain it. It is certainly not
worse than "Native-Americanizing."] the Indian.
Then they bade him go into a square thing, or box, and while in it he
lost his senses and became a Thunder. Then they brought him a pair of
wings, and he put them on. So he flew about like the rest of the
Thunders; he became quite like them, and followed all their ways. And
he said that they always flew towards the _sou' n' snook_, or,
south, and that the roar and crash of the thunder was the sound of
their wings. Their great amusement is to play at ball across the sky.
[Footnote: The Eskimo say that the lightning of the Northern Lights is
caused by spirits playing at ball with the head of a walrus.] When they
return they carefully put away their wings for their next flight. There
is a big bird in the south, and this they are always trying to kill,
but never succeed in doing so.
They made long journeys, and always took him with them. So it went on
for a long time, but it came to pass that the Indian began to tire of
his strange friends. Then he told the chief that he wished to see his
family on earth, and the sagamore listened to him and was very kind.
Then he called all his people together, and said that their brother
from the other world was very lonesome, and wished to return. They were
all very sorry indeed to lose him, but because they loved him they let
him have his own way, and decided to carry him back again. So bidding
him close his eyes till he should be on earth, they carried him down.
The Indians saw a great thunder-storm drawing near; they heard such
thunder as they never knew before, and then something in the shape of a
human being coming down with lightning; then they ran to the spot where
he sat, and it was their long-lost brother, who had been gone seven
years.
He had been in the Thunder-world. He told them how he had been playing
ball with the Thunder-boys: yes, how he had been turned into a real
Thunder himself.
This is why the Indians to this very day have a firm belief that the
thunder and lightning we hear and see are caused by (beings or spirits)
(called) in Indian _Bed-dag yek_ (or thunder), [Footnote: The
manuscript is here difficult to understand, but this is apparently the
real meaning of it.] because they see them, and have, moreover,
actually picked up the _bed-dags k'chisousan_, or thunder-bullet.
[Footnote: Thunderbolt.] It is of many different kinds of stone, but
always of the same shape. The last was picked up by Peter Sabattis,
[Footnote: I heard of the existence of this legend a long time before I
found it in the manuscript collection obtained for me by Louis
Mitchell. It is very curious as being unquestionably of Eskimo origin,
or common to the Eskimo; also because it speaks of the Thunders as
always endeavoring to kill a great bird in the south. This is probably
the thunder or storm bird, called by the Passamaquoddy Indians
_Wochowsen_ or _Wuchowsen_, that is, Wind-Blower. Another
legend makes Thunder and Lightning the sons of Mount Katahdin.
I may here mention that I am well acquainted with old Peter Sabattis,
the possessor of the "thunder-bullet."] one of the Passamaquoddy tribe.
He has it yet. He found it in a crotch-root of a spruce-tree at Head
Harbor, on the island of Campobello. This stone is a sign of good-luck
to him who finds it.
The thunder is the sound of the wings of the men who fly above. The
lightning we see is the fire and smoke of their pipes.
_Of the Woman who married the Thunder, and of their Boy._
(Passamaquoddy.)
Once a woman went to the edge of a lake [Footnote: It is impossible to
distinguish in any Indian story between lake and sea.] and lay down to
sleep. As she awoke, she saw a great serpent, with glittering eyes,
crawl from the water, and stealthily approach her. She had no power to
resist his embrace. After her return to her people her condition
betrayed itself, and she was much persecuted; they pursued her with
sticks and stones, howling abuse.
She fled from the village; she went afar into wild places, and, sitting
down on the grass, wept, wishing that she were dead. As she sat and
wailed, a very beautiful girl, dressed in silver and gold, [Footnote:
Both silver and gold were known in pre-Columbian, times to the Indians.
I had a cousin who once found a very old stone pipe in which a small
piece of gold had been set. Particles of gold are found in many
mountain-streams in New England.] appeared, and after listening to her
sad story said, "Follow me!"
Then they went up on high into a mountain, through three rocks, until
they came into a pleasant wigwam with a very smooth floor. An old man,
so old that he was all white, came to meet them. Then he, taking a
short stick, bade her dance. He began to sing, and as he sang she gave
birth, one by one, to twelve serpents. These the old man killed in
succession with his stick as they were born. Then she had become thin
again, and was in her natural form.
The old man had a son, Badawk, the Thunder, and a daughter,
_Psawk-tankapic_, the Lightning, and when Thunder returned he
offered to take her back to her own people, but she refused to go.
Then the old man, said to his son, "Take her for your wife and be
good to her." So they were married.
In time she bore a son. When the boy could stand, the old man, who
never leaves the mountain, called him to stand before him, while be
fastened wings to the child. He was soon able, with these wings, to
make a noise, which greatly pleased the grandfather. When a storm is
approaching, the distant rumbling is the muttering thunder made by the
child, but it is _Badawk_, his father, who comes in the dark cloud
and makes the roaring crash, while _Psawk-tankapic_ flashes her
lightnings.
In after days, when the woman visited her people, she told them that
they never need fear the thunder or lightning.
AT-O-SIS, THE SERPENT
_How Two Girls were changed to Water-Snakes, and of Two Others that
became Mermaids._
(Passamaquoddy.)
Pocumkwess, or Thoroughfare, is sixty-five miles from Campobello. There
was an Indian village there in the old times. Two young Indian girls
had a strange habit of absenting themselves all day every Sunday. No
one knew for a long time where they went or what they did. But this was
how they passed their time. They would take a canoe and go six miles
down the Grand Lake, where, at the north end, is a great ledge of rock
and sixty feet of water. There they stayed. All day long they ran about
naked or swam; they were wanton, witch-like girls, liking eccentric and
forbidden ways.
They kept this up for a long time. Once, while they were in the water,
an Indian who was hunting spied them. He came nearer and nearer,
unseen. He saw them come out of the water and sit on the shore, and
then go in again; but as he looked they grew longer and longer, until
they became snakes.
He went home and told this. (But now they had been seen by a man they
must keep the serpent form.) Men of the village, in four or five
canoes, went to find them. They found the canoe and clothes of the
girls; nothing more. A few days after, two men on Grand Lake saw the
snake-girls on shore, showing their heads over the bushes. One began to
sing.
"N'ktieh ieben iut,
Qu'spen ma ke owse."
We are going to stay in this lake
A few days, and then go down the river.
Bid adieu to our friends for us;
We are going to the great salt water.
After singing this they sank into the water. They had very long hair.
A picture of the man looking at the snake-girls was scraped for me by
the Indian who told me this story. The pair were represented as snakes
with female heads. When I first heard this tale, I promptly set it down
as nothing else but the Melusina story derived from a Canadian French
source. But I have since found that it is so widely spread, and is told
in so many different forms, and is so deeply connected with tribal
traditions and totems, that there is now no doubt in my mind that it is
at least pre-Columbian.
Another and a very curious version of this story was obtained by Mrs.
W. Wallace Brown, who has been the chief discoverer of curious Indian
lore among the Passamaquoddies. It is called:
_Ne Hwas, the Mermaid._
A long time ago there was an Indian, with his wife and two daughters.
They lived by a great lake, or the sea, and the mother told her girls
never to go into the water there, for that, if they did, something
would happen to them.
They, however, deceived her repeatedly. When swimming is prohibited it
becomes delightful. The shore of this lake _sands_ away out or
slopes to an island. One day they went to it, leaving their clothes on
the beach. The parents missed them.
The father went to seek them. He saw them swimming far out, and called
to them. The girls swam up to the sand, but could get no further. Their
father asked them why they could not. They cried that they had grown to
be so heavy that it was impossible. They were all slimy; they grew to
be snakes from below the waist. After sinking a few times in this
strange slime they became very handsome, with long black hair and
large, bright black eyes, with silver bands on their neck and arms.
When their father went to get their clothes, they began to sing in the
most exquisite tones:--
"Leave them there!
Do not touch them!
Leave them there!"
Hearing this, their mother began to weep, but the girls kept on:--
"It is all our own fault,
But do not blame us;
'T will be none the worse for you.
When you go in your canoe,
Then you need not paddle;
We shall carry it along!"
And so it was: when their parents went in the canoe, the girls carried
it safely on everywhere.
One day some Indians saw the girls' clothes on the beach, and so looked
out for the wearers. They found them in the water, and pursued them,
and tried to capture them, but they were so slimy that it was
impossible to take them, till one, catching hold of a mermaid by her
long black hair, cut it off.
Then the girl began to rock the canoe, and threatened to upset it
unless her hair was given to her again. The fellow who had played the
trick at first refused, but as the mermaids, or snake-maids, promised
that they should all be drowned unless this was done, the locks were
restored. And the next day they were heard singing and were seen, and
on her who had lost her hair it was all growing as long as ever.
We may very easily detect the hand of Lox, the Mischief Maker, in this
last incident. It was the same trick which Loki played on Sif, the wife
of Odin. That both Lox and Loki were compelled to replace the hair and
make it grow again--the one on the snake-maid, the other on the
goddess--is, if a coincidence, at least a very remarkable one. It is a
rule with little exception that where we have to deal with myths which
have passed into romances or tales, that which was originally one
character becomes many, just as the king who has but one name and one
appearance at court assumes a score when he descends to disguise of low
degree and goes among the people. But when, in addition to
characteristic traits, we have even a single anecdote or attribute in
common, the identification is very far advanced. When not one, but
many, of these coincidences occur, we are in all probability at the
truth. Thus we find in the mythology of the Wabanaki, as in the Edda,
the chief evil being indulging in mere wanton, comic mischief, to an
extent not to be found in the devil of any other race whatever. Here,
in a mythical tale, the same mischief maker steals a snake-girl's hair,
and is compelled to replace it. In the Edda, the corresponding mischief
maker steals the hair of a goddess, and is also forced to make
restitution. Yet this is only one of many such resemblances in these
tales. It will be observed that in both cases the hair of the loser is
made to grow again. But while the incident has in the Edda a meaning,
as appears from its context, it has none in the Indian tale. All that
we can conclude from this is that the Wabanaki tale is subsequent to
the Norse, or taken from it. The incidents of tales are often
remembered when the plot is lost. It is certainly very remarkable that,
wherever the mischief maker occurs in these Indian tales, he in every
narrative does something in common with his Norse prototype.
_Of the Woman who loved a Serpent who lived in a Lake_.
(Passamaquoddy.)
Of old times. There was a very beautiful woman. She turned the heads of
all the men. She married, and her husband died very soon after, but she
immediately took another. Within a single year she had five husbands,
and these were the cleverest and handsomest and bravest in the tribe.
And then she married again.
This, the sixth, was such a silent man that he passed for a fool. But
he was wiser than people thought. He came to believe, by thinking it
over, that this woman had some strange secret. He resolved to find it
out. So he watched her all the time. He kept his eye on her by night
and by day.
It was summer, and she proposed to go into the woods to pick berries,
and to camp there. By and by, when they were in the forest, she
suggested that he should go on to the spot where they intended to
remain and build a wigwam. He said that he would do so. But he went a
little way into the woods and watched her.
As soon as she believed that he was gone, she rose and walked rapidly
onwards. He followed her, unseen. She went on, till, in a deep, wild
place among the rocks, she came to a pond. She sat down and sang a
song. A great foam, or froth, rose to the surface of the water. Then in
the foam appeared the tail of a serpent. The creature was of immense
size. The woman, who had laid aside all her garments, embraced the
serpent, which twined around her, enveloping all her limbs and body in
his folds. The husband watched it all. He now understood that, the
venom of the serpent having entered the woman, she had saved her life
by transferring it to others, who died.
He went on to the camping ground and built a wigwam. He made up two
beds; he built a fire. His wife came. She was earnest that there should
be only a single bed. He sternly bade her lie by herself. She was
afraid of him. She laid down, and went to sleep. He arose three times
during the night to replenish the fire. Every time he called her, and
there was no answer. In the morning he shook her. She was dead. She had
died by the poison of the serpent. They sunk her in the pond where the
snake lived.
[Illustration: THE WOMAN AND THE SERPENT]
I do not omit this ghastly and repulsive legend for the following reasons:
One might hastily conclude, from its resemblance to the old legend of the
origin of the Merovingian family, that this idea of the woman with the
horrible water spirit for a lover was of Canadian French origin. But a
story like it in the main detail is told by the Indians of Guiana, and
that of the Faithless Wife, given in Rink's Tales and Traditions of the
Eskimo (p. 143), is almost the same. But in the latter the husband
revenges himself by stuffing the woman full of poisonous vermin. Rink
says that he had five different versions of this tale, and that one was
from Labrador, a country often traveled by the Micmacs, and even by the
Penobscots and Passamaquoddies; I myself knowing one of the latter who
has been there. I conjecture that this tale sets forth the aboriginal
idea of the origin of a certain disease supposed to have come from
America. It is popularly believed among the vulgar that this disease can
be transferred to another person, thereby removing it from the first. Of
this the Rev. Thistleton Dyer, in his Folk Lore of Shakespeare, says,
"According to an old but erroneous belief, infection communicated to
another left the infecter free; in allusion to which Timon of Athens
(Act IV. 3) says,--
"'I will not kiss thee; then the rot returns
To thy own lips again.'"
Bonifacius, Historia Ludicra, has collected all the instances known to
classical antiquity of women who had serpent lovers. The kings of the
early races of Central America laid great stress on the fact that they
were descendants of serpents. One could fill a volume with all the
Arab, Hindoo, and other Oriental tales belonging to the beloved of
"ophitic monsters."
I am indebted for this very curious and ancient tale to Governor Tomah
Josephs, of Peter Dana's Point, Maine.
_The Mother of Serpents._
(Passamaquoddy.)
There was once a couple well advanced in years. They were powerful and
rich in the Indian fashion, but they were unhappy because they had no
children. This was near the river St. John's, on the shore of a small
lake.
After the woman had gone in vain to all the medicine men and
_m'teoulin_, she heard of an old doctress, or witch, who lived not
very far off. And though hope was almost dead, the witch was consulted.
She gave the wife some herbs, and bade her steep them in a pot
out-of-doors, and then let them boil. When the vessel should dance
over the flame, the propitious moment would be at hand.
Everything succeeded according to the witch's prediction. A few days
after she appeared in the town. The mother, who was a very proud woman,
had in advance hung up an Indian cradle with very fine ornaments. The
old woman was very dirty, poor, and squalid. The proud woman was
furious at the visit, which mortified her in every way. She drove the
witch away with bitter words, bidding her begone with her rags. The old
woman went away muttering, "That woman--too proud--too ugly proud--I'll
see." [Footnote: The story was narrated in Indian-English.]
What she saw was bad for the mother. She took some more herbs from her
box and threw them in the fire, crying with a loud voice, "_At-o-sis!
At-o-sis!_" and imitated the motions of a snake.
When the proud woman was confined, she gave birth to two large
serpents. They had each a white ring round the neck and red stripes
down the sides. As soon as they were born they went rapidly to the
lake, and disappeared in its water. They have been seen there, now and
then, ever since.
She who gave birth, to them was a Mohawk, and she is called the Mother
of Serpents.
Another Passamaquoddy tale gives the following account of the origin of
the Serpent-race.
Once there was an Indian sorcerer came to a wigwam where there was a
man who had a very handsome daughter.
The magician wished to win the girl; the father made up his mind that
he should not have her.
The magician told them that he was very wealthy, and had a great lodge
filled with furs and wampum. It was of no use.
Then he told the father that if he would go and cast his lines in a
certain place he would catch as many of the finest fish as he wanted.
The old man went, but took his daughter with him.
When they returned, loaded with fish, the magician, smiling, said to
the girl with great mystery, "When you have cooked _these_ fish,
always throw away the tail, and begin by eating the head first."
He knew very well that her curiosity and perversity would make her
disobey him. She waited with impatience till the man had left, when she
hurried to cook and eat the fish. Thereby she became a mother, and the
magician had his revenge.
_Origin of the Black Snakes._
(Passamaquoddy.)
Far away, very far in the north, there dwelt by the border of a great
lake a man and his wife. They had no children, and the woman was very
beautiful and passionate.
The lake was frozen over during the greater part of the year. One day
when the woman cut away the ice, she saw in the water a bright pair of
large eyes looking steadily at her. They charmed her so that she could
not move. Then she distinguished a handsome face; it was that of a fine
slender young man. He came out of the water. His eyes seemed brighter
and more fascinating than ever; he glittered from head to foot; on his
breast was a large shining silvery plate.
The woman learned that this was At-o-sis, the Serpent, but she returned
his embraces and held conversation with him, and was so charmed with
her lover that she not only met him more than once every day, but even
went forth to see him in the night.
Her husband, noticing these frequent absences asked her why she went
forth so frequently. She replied, "To get the fresh air."
The weather grew warmer; the ice left the lake; grass and leaves were
growing. Then the woman waited till her husband slept, and stole out
from the man whom she kissed no more, to the lover whom she fondled and
kissed more than ever.
At last the husband's suspicions being fairly aroused, he resolved to
watch her. To do this he said that he would be absent for three days.
But he returned at the end of the first day, and found that she was
absent. As she came in he observed something like silvery scales on the
logs. He asked what they were. She replied, _Brooches_. [Footnote:
_Nskmahn'l_: coins of all sizes hammered out by the Indians and
made into pin-brooches.]
He was still dissatisfied, and said that he would be gone for one day.
He went to the top of a hill not far distant, whence he watched her.
She went to the shore, and sat there. By and by there rose up out of
the lake, at a distance, what seemed to be a brightly shining piece of
ice. It came to the strand and rose from the water. It was a very tall
and very handsome man, dressed in silver. His wife clasped the bright
stranger in her arms, kissing him again and again.
The husband was awed by this strange event. He went home, and tried to
persuade his wife to leave the place and to return to her people. This
she refused to do. He departed; he left her forever. But her father and
mother came to find her. They found her there; they dwelt with her.
Every day she brought to them furs and meat. They asked her whence she
got them. "I have another husband," she replied; "one who suits me. The
one I had was bad, and did not use me well. This one brings all the
animals to me." Then she sent them away with many presents, telling
them not to return until the ice had formed; that was in the autumn.
When they returned she had become white. She was with young, and soon
gave birth to her offspring. It consisted of many serpents. The parents
went home. As they departed she said to them, "When you come again you
may see me, but you will not know me."
Years after some hunters, roaming that way, remembered the tale, and
looked for the wigwam. It was there, but no one was in it. But all the
woods about the place were full of great black snakes, which would rise
up like a human being and look one in the face, then glide away without
doing any harm.
THE PARTRIDGE
_The Adventures of the Great Hero Pulowech, or the Partridge._
(Micmac.)
_Wee-yig-yik-keseyook_. A tale of old times. Two men once lived
together in one wigwam in the woods, on the border of a beautiful lake.
Many hard-wood trees made their pictures in it. One of these Indians
was Pulowech, the Partridge in the Micmac tongue, but who is called by
the Passamaquoddy Mitchihess; but the other was Wejek (M.), the Tree
Partridge.
Now it befell that one day Pulowech was walking along the shore, when
it was winter, and he beheld three girls, fair and fine, with flowing
hair, sitting on the ice braiding their locks. Then he knew that they
were of the fairy kind, who dwell in the water; and, verily, these were
plentier of old than they are now,--to our sorrow be it said, for they
were good company for the one who could get them. And Pulowech, knowing
this, said, "I will essay this thing, and perchance I may catch one or
two of them; which will be a great comfort, for a pretty girl is a nice
thing to have about the wigwam." So he sought to secure them by
stealing softly along; but one cried, "_Ne miha skedap_!" "I see a
man!" P., and they all went head over heels, first best time, into the
water; and verily that was a cold duck for December in the Bay of
Fundy.