There is an idea existing among the Chippeway Indians, which
corroborates a statement made by the early travelers on this continent
relative to the belief that there once existed among the aboriginal
tribes, a species of vampire, or ghostly man-eater. The Chippeways do
not assert that there ever lived more than one of these unearthly
beings; but they pretend that such an one did, and does exist, and that
he has his residence upon an island in the centre of Lake Superior—which
island can never be seen by mortal man, excepting when darkness has
settled upon the world. The stories they relate of his appearance and
deeds, are horrible in the extreme, and resemble much the creations of a
mind suffering under the influence of the nightmare. For example, they
describe this monster as possessing the material appearance of the human
form—but of such a nature as not to be susceptible to the touch. He is
said to have the body of a serpent, with human legs and arms—all
supplied with immense nails, which he employs for the double purpose of
digging up the earth, and dissecting the bodies upon which he feeds; his
head is like that of the wolf, and his teeth of a peculiar sharpness.
The deeds which he performs are worthy of his personal appearance—and
some of them are as follows: When the Indian mother, during a long
journey, has lost her infant child, and placed it on the rude scaffold,
that she may return to it at some future day, the Ghostly Man-Eater only
waits until she is fairly out of his sight, and then proceeds to the
sacred place, and feasts himself upon the tender flesh and blood of his
victim. And therefore it is, that the traveler sometimes sees, in the
remote wilderness, fragments of human bones scattered on the ground, as
if a wolf had been suddenly interrupted, while devouring his prey. But
the Man-Eater sometimes enters the house, or half-buried receptacle of
the dead; and, after digging his way to the decaying body, coils himself
up, as if in delight, and gluts his appetite with the unholy food. How
it is that he travels, with lightning speed, from one distant place to
another, has never been ascertained; but the strange sounds which the
Indian occasionally hears, high in the air above his wigwam, is thought
to be the song of the Man-Eater, as he hurries upon the wings of the
wind, from a recent banquet, to his mysterious island on the lake.
But I once heard a legend in the Chippeway country, which accounted for
the origin of the man-eating monster—and I now record it in the English
tongue, for the benefit of those who feel an interest in the mythology
of the Indian, and the peculiarities of his mind. The individual from
whom I obtained this story was named Ka-yon-kee-me, or the Swift Arrow;
and his words, as near as we can remember them, were as follows:—
I ask the white man to listen. At an early period in the history of the
world, an old Indian hunter and a little boy who was his grandson, lived
in an isolated cabin on the north shore of Lake Superior. They were the
only remnants of a once powerful tribe of Indians, whose name is not now
remembered. It was the middle of a long and dreary winter, and the
entire country was covered with snow, to the height of the tallest
wigwam. The section of country where resided the hunter and child was
particularly desolate, and destitute of almost every species of game;
and whilst the former was too feeble to wander far, after the necessary
food, the latter was too young and inexperienced. The very wood which
the unequal pair collected to keep them warm, was brought to their cabin
with the greatest difficulty; and the thought occasionally entered the
old man’s mind, that the Great Spirit was about to give him up to the
pains of starvation. He uttered not a murmur, however; but, as he
reflected upon his impending fate, he bit his lips with a scornful
smile.
One, two, and three days had passed away and the old man, as well as the
child, had not tasted a particle of food. But, on the evening of the
fourth day, the boy came tottering into the comfortless lodge and threw
at the feet of his grandfather the lifeless body of a white partridge,
which he had fortunately killed with his own arrow. Immediately was the
bird divested of its feathers—and, while yet its very blood was warm, it
was devoured by the starving man and child.—Sweet was the slumber of the
noble boy on that night—but, as the story goes, that aged man was
visited by a dreadful dream at the same time, which made him a maniac.
Another day was nearly gone, and the unhappy pair were standing in front
of their wigwam watching the western sky, as the sun enlivened it with
his parting beams. The old man pointed to the bright picture, and told
the boy that there was the gateway to the Spirit Land, where perpetual
summer reigned, and game was found in great abundance. He spoke too of
the child’s father and mother, and of his little brother, whom he
described as decked out in the most beautiful of robes, as they wandered
through the forests of that distant, shadowy land. The boy, though
suffering with the pangs of hunger, clapped his little hands in glee,
and told his grandfather that it would make him very happy if he could
go to the land of perpetual summer. And then it was that the old man
patted the boy upon his head, and told him that his desires should be
realized before the sun again made its appearance above the snow-covered
mountains and plains of the east.
It was now the hour of midnight. Intensely cold was the wind which swept
over the wilderness, but the sky was very blue, and studded with many
stars. No sound broke upon the air, save the occasional groan of the ice
along the lake shore, and the hissing whisper of the frost. Within the
Indian lodge, which was the very home of desolation, the child was
sweetly sleeping, enveloped in his robes, while the old man bent over
the burning embers as if in despair. Some inhuman thought had crazed his
brain, and he was nerving himself for an unheard of crime. One moment
more, and in the dim light of that lonely lodge, gleamed the polished
blade of a flinty weapon—a sudden groan was heard—and the Indian maniac
was feeding upon the body of his child.
I have given the white man a sorrowful history, but it is one which the
Chippeway nation believe. On the morning which followed the event I have
now narrated, a party of Indian hunters came to the cabin of the unknown
man, and they found him lying dead upon the ground, with the mangled
remains of the boy at his side. This was the most terrible deed which
ever happened in the Chippeway country—and the one which so greatly
offended the Great Spirit, that he pronounced a curse upon the man who
had destroyed his child for food—and he, therefore, doomed him to live
upon the earth forever, tormented with an appetite which nothing can
ever appease, but the decaying flesh of the human race.