one day he went into the woods, and there he indeed found her, and she
was as kind as before. Then he said, "Truly it was not by my goodwill
that my brother shot at you." And she answered, "Well do I know that,
and that it was all by your father; yet I blame him not, for this is an
affair of _N'karnayoo_, the days of old; and even yet it is not at
an end, and the greatest is to come. But let the day be only a day unto
itself; the things of to-morrow are for to-morrow, and those of
yesterday are departed." So they forgot their troubles, and played
together merrily all day long in the woods and in the open places, and
told stories of old times till sunset. And as, the _Kah-kah-goos_,
or Crow, went to his tree, the boy said, "I must return;" and she
replied, "Whenever you would see me, come to the woods. And remember
what I say. Do not marry any one else. For your father wishes you to do
so, and he will speak of it to you, and that soon. Yet it is for your
sake only that I say this." Then she told him word by word all that his
father had said; but he was not astonished, for now he knew that she
was not as other women; but he cared not. And he grew brave and bold,
and then he was above all things. And when she told him that if he
should marry another he would surely die, it was as nothing to him.
Then returning, the first thing his father said was, "My son, I have
provided a wife for you, and the wedding must be at once." And he said,
"It is well. Let it be so." Then the bride came. For four days they
held the wedding dance; four days they feasted. But on the last day he
said, "This is the end of it all," and he laid him down on a white
bear-skin, and a great sickness came upon him, and when they brought
the bride to him he was dead.
Truly the father knew what ailed him, and more withal, of which he said
nothing. But he liked the place no longer, and he and his went away
therefrom, and scattered far and wide.
This strange story recalls the Undine of La Motte Fouque. There is in
it an element of mystery and destiny, equal in every way to anything in
German literature. The family secret, touched on but never explained,
which ends in such a death, is, speaking from an artistic point of
view, very skillfully managed. It must be borne in mind that in this,
as in most of these tales, there are associations and chords which make
as gold to an Indian that which is only copper, or at best silver, to
the civilized reader of my translations.
There is a characteristic feature of this story superior to anything in
Undine. It is the growth in the hero, when he knows the worst to come,
of that will, or stoicism, or complete indifference to fate, which the
Indians regard as equivalent to attaining _m'teoulin_, or magic
power. When a man has in him such courage that nothing earthly can do
more than increase it, he has attained to what is in one sense at least
_Nirvana_. From an Algonquin point of view the plot is perfect.
I have given this story accurately as it was told to me by Tomah
Josephs, a Passamaquoddy Indian.
_How one of the Partridge's Wives became a Sheldrake Duck, and why
her Feet and Feathers are Red._
_N'karnayoo_, of the old time, there was a hunter who lived in the
woods. He had a brother, [Footnote: The word brother is so generally
applied in adoption or friendship that it cannot here be taken in a
literal sense. The brother in this case seems to have been a goblin or
spirit.] who was so small that he kept him in a box, and when he went
forth he closed this very carefully, for fear lest an evil spirit
(Mitche-hant) should get him.
One day this hunter, returning, saw a very beautiful girl sitting on a
rock by a river, making a moccasin. And being in a canoe he paddled up
softly and silently to capture her; but she, seeing him coming, jumped
into the water and disappeared. On returning to her mother, who lived
at the bottom of the river, she was told to go back to the hunter and
be his wife; "for now," said the mother, "you belong to that man."
The hunter's name was Mitchihess, the Partridge. When she came to his
lodge he was absent. So she arranged everything for his return, making
a bed of boughs. At night he came back with one beaver. This he
divided; cooked one half for supper and laid by the other half. In the
morning when she awoke he was gone, and the other half of the beaver
had also disappeared. That night he returned with another beaver, and
the same thing took place again. Then she resolved to spy and find out
what all this meant.
So she laid down and went to sleep, wide awake, with one eye open. Then
he quietly rose and cooked the half of the beaver, and taking a key
(_Apkwosgehegan_, P.) unlocked a box, and took out a little red
dwarf and fed him. Replacing the elf, he locked him up again, and lay
down to sleep. And the small creature had eaten the whole half beaver.
But ere he put him in his box he washed him and combed his hair, which
seemed to delight him.
The next morning, when her husband had gone for the day, the wife
sought for the key, and having found it opened the box and called to
the little fellow to come out. This he refused to do for a long time,
though she promised to wash and comb him. Being at length persuaded, he
peeped out, when she pulled him forth. But whenever she touched him her
hands became red, though of this she took no heed, thinking she could
wash it off at will. But lo! while combing him, there entered a hideous
being, an awful devil, who caught the small elf from her and ran away.
Then she was terribly frightened. And trying to wash her hands, the red
stain remained. When her husband returned that night he had no game;
when he saw the red stain he knew all that had happened; when he knew
what had happened he seized his bow to beat her; when she saw him seize
his bow to beat her she ran down to the river, and jumped in to escape
death at his hands, though it should be by drowning. But as she fell
into the water she became a sheldrake duck. And to this day the marks
of the red stain are to be seen on her feet and feathers. [Footnote:
Related to me by Noel Josephs, a Passamaquoddy. Notwithstanding its
resemblance to Blue Beard, it is probably in every detail a very old
Indian tradition. It bears a slight resemblance to several far western
legends, which refer to peculiarities in the duck. It is partly
repeated in a Lox legend.]
THE INVISIBLE ONE.
(Micmac.)
There was once a large Indian village situated on the border of a
lake,--_Nameskeek' oodun Kuspemku_ (M.). At the end of the place
was a lodge, in which dwelt a being who was always invisible.
[Footnote: In this Micmac tale, which is manifestly corrupted in many
ways, the hero is said to be "a youth whose _teeomul_ (or tutelary
animal) was the moose," whence he took his name. In the Passamaquoddy
version nothing is said about a moose. A detailed account of the
difficulty attending the proper analysis of this tradition will be
found at the end of this chapter.] He had a sister who attended to his
wants, and it was known that any girl who could see him might marry
him. Therefore there were indeed few who did not make the trial, but it
was long ere one succeeded:
And it passed in this wise. Towards evening, when the Invisible One was
supposed to be returning home, his sister would walk with any girls who
came down to the shore of the lake. She indeed could see her brother,
since to her he was always visible, and beholding him she would say to
her companions, "Do you see my brother?" And then they would mostly
answer, "Yes," though some said, "Nay,"--_alt telovejich, aa
alttelooejik_. And then the sister would say, "_Cogoowa'
wiskobooksich_?" "Of what is his shoulder-strap made?" But as some
tell the tale, she would, inquire other things, such as, "What is his
moose-runner's haul?" or, "With what does he draw his sled?" And they
would reply, "A strip of rawhide," or "A green withe," or something of
the kind. And then she, knowing they had not told the truth, would
reply quietly, "Very well, let us return to the wigwam!"
And when they entered the place she would bid them not to take a
certain seat, for it was his. And after they had helped to cook the
supper they would wait with great curiosity to see Him eat. Truly he
gave proof that he was a real person, for as he took off his moccasins
they became visible, and his sister hung them up; but beyond this they
beheld nothing not even when they remained all night, as many did.
There dwelt in the village an old man, a widower, with three daughters.
The youngest of these was very small, weak, and often ill, which did
not prevent her sisters, especially the eldest, treating her with great
cruelty. The second daughter was kinder, and sometimes took the part of
the poor abused little girl, but the other would burn her lands and
face with hot coals; yes, her whole body was scarred with the marks
made by torture, so that people called her _Oochigeaskw_ (the
rough-faced girl). And when her father, coming home, asked what it
meant that the child was so disfigured, her sister would promptly say
that it was the fault of the girl, herself, for that, having been
forbidden to go near the fire, she had disobeyed and fallen in.
Now it came to pass that it entered the heads of the two elder sisters
of this poor girl that they would go and try their fortune at seeing
the Invisible One. So they clad themselves in their finest and strove
to look their fairest; and finding his sister at home went with her to
take the wonted walk down to the water. Then when He came, being asked
if they saw him, they said, "Certainly," and also replied to the
question of the shoulder-strap or sled cord, "A piece of rawhide." In
saying which, they lied, like the rest, for they had seen nothing, and
got nothing for their pains.
When their father returned home the next evening he brought with him
many of the pretty little shells from which _weiopeskool_ (M.),
or wampum, was made, [Footnote: In Passamaquoddy wampum is called
_waw-bap_. It is said that a single bead required a full day's work
to make and finish it. It is not many years since it was made much more
expeditiously in certain New York villages.] and they were soon engaged
_napawejik_ (in stringing them). That day poor little
Oochigeaskw', the burnt-faced girl, who had always run barefoot, got a
pair of her father's old moccasins, and put them into water that they
might become flexible to wear. And begging her sisters for a few wampum
shells, the eldest did but call her "a lying little pest," but the
other gave her a few. And having no clothes beyond a few paltry rags,
the poor creature went forth and got herself from the woods a few
sheets of birch bark, of which she made a dress, putting some figures
on the bark. [Footnote: Probably by scraping. Birch bark
(_moskwe_) peeled in winter can have the thin dark brown coat
scraped away, leaving a very light yellowish-brown ground. Tornah
Josephs and his niece Susan, of Princeton, Maine, are experts at this
work.] And this dress she shaped like those worn of old. [Footnote:
This remark indicates the lateness of the Micmac version of this very
old myth.] So she made a petticoat and a loose gown, a cap, leggins,
and handkerchief, and, having put on her father's great old moccasins,--
which came nearly up to her knees,--she went forth to try her luck.
For even this little thing would see the Invisible One in the great
wigwam at the end of the village.
Truly her luck had a most inauspicious beginning, for there was one
long storm of ridicule and hisses, yells and hoots, from her own door
to that which she went to seek. Her sisters tried to shame her, and
bade her stay at home, but she would not obey; and all the idlers,
seeing this strange little creature in her odd array, cried "Shame!"
But she went on, for she was greatly resolved; it may be that some
spirit had inspired her.
Now this poor small wretch in her mad attire, with her hair singed off
and her little face as full of burns and scars as there are holes in a
sieve, was, for all this, most kindly received by the sister of the
Invisible One; for this noble girl knew more than the mere outside of
things as the world knows them. And as the brown of the evening sky
became black, she took her down to the lake. And erelong the girls knew
that He had come. Then the sister said, "Do you see him?" And the other
replied with awe, "Truly I do,--and He is wonderful." "And what is his
sled-string?" "It is," she replied, "the Rainbow." And great fear was
on her. "But, my sister," said the other, "what is his bow-string?"
"His bowstring is _Ketaksoowowcht_" (the Spirits' Road, the Milky
Way). [Footnote: The Spirits' or Ghosts' Road, so called because it is
believed to be the highway by which spirits pass to and from the earth.
The Micmac version, belittled and reduced in every way, limits this
reply to "a _piece_ of a rainbow." There is a grandeur of
conception in the Passamaquoddy myth which recalls the most stupendous
similes in Scripture.]
"Thou hast seen him," said the sister. And, taking the girl home, she
bathed her, and as she washed all the scars disappeared from face and
body. Her hair grew again; it was very long, and like a blackbird's
wing. Her eyes were like stars. In all the world was no such beauty.
Then from her treasures she gave her a wedding garment, and adorned
her. Under the comb, as she combed her, her hair grew. It was a great
marvel to behold.
Then, having done this, she bade her take the _wife's seat_ in the
wigwam,--that by which her brother sat, the seat next the door. And
when He entered, terrible and beautiful, he smiled and said,
"_Wajoolkoos_!" "So we are found out!" "_Alajulaa_." "Yes,"
was her reply. So she became his wife. [Footnote: This is the true end of
this Indian Cupid and Psyche legend. But the Micmacs having, for no
apparent reason, made the Stupendous Deity of the Heavens a moose
(Team), have added to it another for the sake of the name, and which I
give in due succession simply as an illustration of the manner in which
tales are tacked together. I have very little doubt that the story as
here given is an old solar myth, worked up, perhaps, with the story of
Cinderella, derived from a Canadian-French source. There are enough of
these French-Indian stories in my possession alone to form what would
make one of the most interesting volumes of the series of the _Contes
Populaires_. The Passamaquoddy version is to this effect: "There was
a great being, a mighty hunter, who had a wife, of wonderful magic
gifts, and a boy; and the child became blind. After a long time his
sight returned, and he said so; but his mother was suspicious, and did
not believe him." It is evident that she suspected that he saw by
_clairvoyance_, not by literal vision. "So one day she bade her
husband put on certain things which no one could behold who did not see
them in truth. Then she asked the boy, 'What has your father for a
sled-string?' (literally for a moose-runner haul). And he replied, 'The
rainbow to haul by.' Then she asked him yet again, 'What has he for a
bow-string?' And he answered, '_Ke'taksoo wowcht_;' 'The Spirits'
or Ghosts' Road.' And once more she inquired, 'What has he on his
sled?' To which he said, 'A beaver.' Then she knew that he could indeed
see." (T. Josephs.)
We can perceive by shreds and patches such as these the _all but_
loss of an early and grand mythology which has undergone the usual
transmutation into romantic and nursery legends. By great exertion we
might recover it, but the old Indians who retain its fragments are
passing away rapidly, and no subject attracts so little interest among
our _literati_. A few hundred dollars expended annually in each
State would result in the collection of all that is extant of this
folk-lore; and a hundred years hence some few will, perhaps, regret
that it was not done.
It may be observed that in the Edda the rainbow is the heavenly road
over which the gods pass. The rainbow is not the Milky Way, but it may
be observed that in this tale the two are curiously compared, or almost
identified. But according to Charles Francis Keary (_Mythology of the
Eddas_, London, 1882), "there is small hint in the Edda of the use
of the _rainbow_ as a path for souls, save where Helgi says to his
wife,--
"''Tis time for me to ride the ruddy road,
And on my horse to tread the path of flight,'"
which is more applicable to the Milky Way than the rainbow. "We owe,"
he says, "to the learned Adalbert Kohn some researches which have
traced the path of the Milky Way as a bridge of souls from its first
appearance in Eastern creeds to its later appearance in mediaeval
German tradition." (_Zeitschrift f. v. Sp.l.c._) In the Vedas the
Milky Way is called the Gods' Path. The American Indians firmly believe
that the Spirits' Road is one of their very earliest traditions, and I
believe with them that they had it long before Columbus discovered this
country.
Since the foregoing remarks were written, Mrs. W. Wallace Brown has
obtained the following fragment, which was given as a song, and
declared to be very ancient:--
"Then was woman, long, long ago:
She came out of a hole.
In it dead people were buried.
She made her house in a tree;
She was dressed in leaves,
All long ago.
When she walked among the dry leaves
Her feet were so covered
The feet were invisible.
She walked through the woods,
Singing all the time,
'I want company; I'm lonesome!'
A wild man heard her:
From afar over the lakes and mountains
He came to her.
She saw him; she was afraid;
She tried to flee away,
For he was covered with the rainbow;
Color and light were his garments.
She ran, and he pursued rapidly;
He chased her to the foot of a mountain.
He spoke in a strange language,
She could not understand him at first.
He would make her tell where she dwelt.
They married, they had two children.
One of them was a boy,
He was blind from his birth,
But he frightened his mother by his sight.
He could tell her what was coming,
What was coming from afar
What was near he could not see.
He could see the bear and the moose
Far away beyond the mountains,
He could see through everything."
The old Indian woman ended this story by saying abruptly, "Don't know
any more. Guess they all eat up by _mooin_" (the bear). She said
that it was only a fragment. "If you could have heard her repeat this,"
adds Mrs. Brown, "in pieces, stopping to explain what the characters
said, and describing how they looked, and anon singing it again, you
would have got the _inner sense_ of a wonderfully weird tale. The
woman's feet covering and the man's dress _like_ a rainbow, yet
not one, which made their bodies invisible, seemed to exercise her
imagination strangely; and these were to her the most important part of
the story." The fragment is part of a very old myth; I regret to say a
very obscure one.]
STORY OF THE THREE STRONG MEN.
(Micmac.)
There was a chieftain in the days of yore. He had a great desire for a
poor girl who was a servant, and who worked for him. To win this girl
he first I most lose his wife. He took his wife afar into the woods to
gather spruce-gum, and then left her there.
She soon found out that she had lost her way, and, wandering, she lost
it more and more for many days, until she came at last to a bear's den,
where, going in, she found the Chief of all the bears, who welcomed
her, provided for her wants, and furnished her with pleasant food; but
as the meat was raw he went into a neighboring town for fire. And as
she lived with him she was to him in all things as he wished, and as a
wife.
So that it came to pass, as time went on, that a new-comer was
expected, and she bade the Bear provide the baby's clothes. And when
the long-expected infant came it was a boy, large, beautiful, and
strong; he was in everything beyond all other boys.
And as the child was born in a strange way, he very soon displayed a
magic power. No baby ever grew so rapidly: when four months old he
wrestled with the Bear and threw him easily upon the floor. And so the
mother saw that he would be a warrior, and the chief of other men.
She loathed the life she led, and wished to leave, and live as she had
done in days of old. To this the Bear would in nowise consent, and as
her son was human, like herself, he loved his mother best, and thought
with her.
One day he said, "Now I can wrestle well and throw the Bear as often as
I choose. When I next time cast him upon the ground, catch up a club;
the rest remains for you!"
They waited yet a while till he had grown so strong that the Bear was
nothing in his grasp. One day they wrestled as they ever did, and then
the woman, with a vigorous blow, strengthened by hate and famishing
desire of freedom and a better human life, laid him in death upon the
mossy floor.
They went their way back to the chieftain's town, and found him married
to the servant-girl. The mother only spoke, and the wild boy tore down
the wigwam of the Indian chief just with a blow, and then he called
aloud unto the Lightning in the sky above, "Come down to me and help me
in my need! Build a grand wigwam such as man ne'er saw! Build it, I
say, and for my mother here!"
The Lightning came, and with a single flash built such a home as man
had never seen.
And then he said, "Mother, I mean to go and travel everywhere, until I
find another man who is as strong as I. When he is found I will return
to thee."
So on he went afar until he saw a man who lifted up a vast canoe with
many people in it. This he did, raising it in the water; but the boy
bore it ashore, and lifted it on land.
And so the two agreed that they would go on together until they found a
third equal to them in strength, if such a man were living anywhere in
all the world.
So traveling by hill and lake, they went, until one day, far in a
lonely land, they saw a man rolling a mighty rock, large as the largest
wigwam, up a hill. But the Bear's son, lifting the stone with ease,
threw it afar over the mountain-top,--threw it afar beyond the rocky
range; they heard it thunder down the depths below.
Then the three strong men went to hunt the moose. He who had tossed the
ship remained in camp to do the cooking, while the others went with bow
and spear afar to find their game.
Now when the sun was at the edge of noon, just balancing to fall, there
came a boy, a little wretched, elfish-looking child, as sad and sickly
as a boy could be, who asked the man for food. He answered him, "Poor
little fellow! there, the pot is full of venison, so go and eat your
fill."
He ate, indeed, the dinner for the three. When he had done he did not
leave a scrap; then walked into the stony mountain-side, as any man
might walk into the fog, and in a second he was seen no more.
Now when the two returned and heard the tale they were right angry,
being hungry men. The man; who rolled the stone stayed next in turn,
but when the I little fellow came to him he seemed so famished and he
shed such tears that this one also gave him leave to eat. Then, in a
single swallow, as it seemed, he bolted all the food, and yelled aloud
with an insulting laugh. The man, enraged, grappled him by the throat,
but the strange boy flung him away as one would throw a not, and
vanished in the mountain as before.
On the third day the mighty man himself remained at home, and soon the
starveling child came and began to beg, with tears, for food. "Eat,"
said the chief, "as other people eat, and no more tricks, or I will
deal with you." But as it was with him the day before, so it went now;
he swallowed all the meat with the same jeering yell Then the strong
man closed with the boy. It was an awful strife; they fought together
from the early morn until the sun went down, and then the Elf--for elf
he was--cried out, "I now give in!" So both his arms were tightly bound
behind, and with a long, tough cord of plaited hide the strong man kept
his prey, the lariat fast noosed about his neck. The child went on, the
strong man ever following behind, holding the cord well twisted round
his hand.
And so they went into the mountain-side, and ever on, a long and
winding way, down a deep cavern, on for many a mile,--the light of
sorcery shining from the elf made it all clear,--until at last the
guide stopped in ins course, and said:--
"Now list to me. I am the servant of a frightful fiend, a seven-beaded
devil, whom I deemed no man could ever conquer, he and I being of equal
strength; but I believe that thou mayst conquer him, since I have
found, by bitter proof, that thou canst conquer me. Here is a staff,
the only thing on earth that man may smite him with and give him pain.
Now, do your best; it is all one to me which of you gains, so one of
you be slain, for well I wot 't will be a roaring fight."