Told by Peter York.
One time an old witch lived in Rama on the west side of Lake
Couchiching. She covered herself with the skin of an owl when she
wanted to fly at night for the purpose of taking the first joints off
the fingers of children, which she used to string up like
old-fashioned, dried apples in her camp. These children would die at
once. She had the power to take these joints off.
One day she wanted to go to near where Atherley now is, and compelled
two young men to go with her in the canoe, for she had the power to
compel young men to go with her, generally the best of them. She wanted
to go to a man’s place who had two black dogs. She wanted these dogs.
When she arrived there she asked the man for the dogs, but he said
“No!” She then asked him for one dog, but still he said “No.” She then
took a paddle and shoved the canoe off shore saying to the man, “I
shove off with one of your children.” (Meaning that one of his children
would die.) The man said, “Maybe you will die yourself before you get
home. The bees will have your meat.” She sat in the middle of the canoe
with one of the young men paddling at the bow and the other at the
stern. When about half way home the young man at the stern heard a bee
humming overhead and looking up he saw the bee enter the woman’s ear
into her head. In a short time her body was full of bees, eating her
up, and she began to twist around and say: “Youh, youh,” and died in
the canoe. The young men put her overboard at what is now Ground Hog
Point, which took its name from her, for she was called “Kuk-oh-chees,”
“The Ground Hog.”
She had forgotten to take her bag (medicine bag) with her and had left
it in her camp. The man’s power was stronger than hers, for he killed
her and nothing happened to him. He had power over the bees. Sometimes
when this witch was looking for children at night she carried a light.
The young men went with her because they were afraid she would kill
them if they didn’t go.
She said as she died, “Well, anyway I never killed any big people, just
children,” but the people found joints of fingers of grown-up persons
on the strings as well as those of children in her camp.
Note.—Ground Hog Point is called in Ojibwa Kuk-oh-cheesh,
Nāy-ash-sheeng.