they did; but to the astonishment of the Owl, they turned immediately
about in the way in which the wicked father, now, very furious, was
approaching.
"The other way! the other way!" cried Ko-ko.
Cry as loud as he would, the enchanted moccasins would keep on in their
own course; and before he could shake himself out of them, they had run
him directly into the face of the wicked father.
"What do you mean, you Owl?" cried the wicked father, falling upon Ko-ko
with a huge club, and counting his ribs at every stroke.
"I can not help it, good man," answered Ko-ko. "I tried my best--"
Ko-ko would have gone the other way, but the enchanted moccasins kept
hurrying him forward. "Stand off, will you?" cried the old man.
By this time, allowing the wicked father chance to bestow no more than
five-and-twenty more blows upon Ko-ko, the moccasins were taking him
past.
"Stop!" cried the old man again. "You are running away. Ho! ho! you are
a coward!"
"I am not, good man," answered Ko-ko, carried away by the magical shoes,
"I assure you." But ere he could finish his avowal, the moccasins had
hurried him out of sight.
"At any rate, I shall soon be home at this speed," said Ko-koor to
himself.
The moccasins seemed to know his thoughts; for just then they gave a
sudden leap, slipped away from his feet, and left the Owl flat upon his
back! while they glided home by themselves, to the lodge of Onwee
Bahmondang, where they belonged.
A party of hunters passing that way after several days, found Ko-ko
sitting among the bushes, looking greatly bewildered; and when they
inquired of him how he had succeeded with the wicked father at the
lodge, he answered that he had demolished the whole establishment, but
that his name was not Ko-ko, but Onwee Bahmondang; saying which, he ran
away into the woods, and was never seen more.
XVII.
HE OF THE LITTLE SHELL.
Once upon a time, all the people of a certain country had died,
excepting two helpless children, a baby boy and a little girl.
When their parents died, these children were asleep. The little girl,
who was the elder, was the first to awake. She looked around her, but
seeing nobody beside her little brother, who lay smiling in his dreams,
she quietly resumed her bed.
At the end of ten days her brother moved, without opening his eyes.
At the end of ten days more he changed his position, lying on the other
side, and in this way he kept on sleeping for a long time; and pleasant,
too, must have been his dreams, for his little sister never looked at
him that he was not quite a little heaven of smiles and flashing lights,
which beamed about his head and filled the lodge with a strange
splendor.
The girl soon grew to be a woman, but the boy increased in stature very
slowly. It was a long time before he could even creep, and he was well
advanced in years before he could stand alone. When he was able to
walk, his sister made him a little bow and arrows, and hung around his
neck a small shell, saying:
"You shall be called Dais Imid, or He of the Little Shell."
Every day he would go out with his little bow, shooting at the small
birds. The first bird he killed was a tom-tit. His sister was highly
pleased when he took it to her. She carefully prepared and stuffed it,
and put it away for him.
The next day he killed a red squirrel. His sister preserved this, too.
The third day he killed a partridge, and this they had for their evening
meal.
After this he acquired more courage, and would venture some distance
from home. His skill and success as a hunter daily increased, and he
killed the deer, bear, moose, and other large animals inhabiting the
forest.
At last, although so very small of stature, he became a great hunter,
and all that he shot he brought home and shared with his sister; and
whenever he entered the lodge, a light beamed about his head and filled
the place with a strange splendor.
He had now arrived at the years of manhood, but he still remained a
perfect infant in size.
One day, walking about in quest of game, he came to a small lake.
It was in the winter season; and upon the ice of the lake he saw a man
of giant height, employed killing beavers.
Comparing himself with this great man, he felt that he was no bigger
than an insect. He seated himself on the shore and watched his
movements.
When the large man had killed many beavers, he put them on a hand-sled
which he had, and pursued his way home. When he saw him retire, the
dwarf hunter followed, and, wielding his magic shell, he cut off the
tail of one of the beavers, and ran home with the prize.
The giant, on reaching his lodge with his sled-load of beavers, was
surprised to find one of them shorn of its tail.
The next day the little hero of the shell went to the same lake. The
giant, who had been busy there for some time, had already loaded his
sled and commenced his return; but running nimbly forward and overtaking
him, he succeeded in securing another of the beaver-tails.
"I wonder," said the giant, on reaching his lodge and overlooking his
beavers, "what dog it is that has thus cheated me. Could I meet him, I
would make his flesh quiver at the point of my javelin."
The giant forgot that he had taken these very beavers out of a
beaver-dam which belonged to the little shell-man and his sister,
without permission.
The next day he pursued his hunting at the beaver-dam near the lake,
and he was again followed by the little man with the shell.
This time the giant was so nimble in his movements that he had nearly
reached home before the Shell, make the best speed he could, could
overtake him; but he was just in time to clip another beaver's tail
before the sled slipped into the lodge.
The giant would have been a patient giant, indeed, if his anger had not
been violent at these constant tricks played upon him. What vexed him
most, was, that he could not get a sight of his enemy. Sharp eyes he
would have needed to do so, inasmuch as he of the little shell had the
gift of making himself invisible whenever he chose.
The giant, giving vent to his feelings with many loud rumbling words,
looked sharply around to see whether he could discover any tracks. He
could find none. The unknown had stepped too lightly to leave the
slightest mark behind.
The next day the giant resolved to disappoint his mysterious follower by
going to the beaver-dam very early; and accordingly, when the little
shell man came to the place he found the fresh traces of his work, but
the giant had already gone away. He followed hard upon his tracks, but
he failed to overtake him. When he of the little shell came in sight of
the lodge, the stranger was in front of it, employed in skinning his
beavers.
As Dais-Imid stood looking at him--for he had been all this time
invisible--he thought:
"I will let him have a view of me."
Presently the man, who proved to be no less a personage than the
celebrated giant, Manabozho, looked up and saw him.
After regarding him with attention, "Who are you, little man?" said
Manabozho. "I have a mind to kill you."
The little hero of the shell replied:
"If you were to try to kill me you could not do it."
With this speech of the little man, Manabozho grabbed at him; but when
he thought to have had him in his hand, he was gone.
"Where are you now, little man?" cried Manabozho.
"Here, under your girdle," answered the shell-dwarf; at which giant
Manabozho, thinking to crush him, slapped down his great hand with all
his might; but on unloosing his girdle he was disappointed at finding no
dwarf there.
"Where are you now, little man?" he cried again, in a greater rage than
ever.
"In your right nostril!" the dwarf replied; whereupon the giant
Manabozho seized himself by the finger and thumb at the place, and gave
it a violent tweak; but as he immediately heard the voice of the dwarf
at a distance upon the ground, he was satisfied that he had only pulled
his own nose to no purpose.
"Good-by, Manabozho," said the voice of the invisible dwarf. "Count your
beaver-tails, and you will find that I have taken another for my
sister;" for he of the little shell never, in his wanderings or
pastimes, forgot his sister and her wishes. "Good-by, beaver-man!"
And as he went away he made himself visible once more, and a light
beamed about his head and lit the air around him with a strange
splendor; a circumstance which Manabozho, who was at times quite
thick-headed and dull of apprehension, could no way understand.
When Dais-Imid returned home, he told his sister that the time drew nigh
when they must separate.
"I must go away," said Dais-Imid, "it is my fate. You, too," he added,
"must go away soon. Tell me where you would wish to dwell."
She said, "I would like to go to the place of the breaking of daylight.
I have always loved the East. The earliest glimpses of light are from
that quarter, and it is to my mind the most beautiful part of the
heavens. After I get there, my brother, whenever you see the clouds, in
that direction, of various colors, you may think that your sister is
painting her face."
[Illustration: THE MORNING STAR AND HER BROTHER. Page 212.]
"And I," said he, "I, my sister, shall live on the mountains and rocks.
There I can see you at the earliest hour; there are the streams of
water clear; the air is pure, and the golden lights will shine ever
around my head, and I shall ever be called 'Puck-Ininee, or the Little
Wild Man of the Mountains.' But," he resumed, "before we part forever, I
must go and try to find what manitoes rule the earth, and see which of
them will be friendly to us."
He left his sister and traveled over the surface of the globe, and then
went far down into the earth.
He had been treated well wherever he went. At last he came to a giant
manito, who had a large kettle which was forever boiling. The giant, who
was a first cousin to Manabozho, and had already heard of the tricks
which Dais-Imid had played upon his kinsman, regarded him with a stern
look, and, catching him up in his hand, he threw him unceremoniously
into the kettle.
It was evidently the giant's intention to drown Dais-Imid; in which he
was mistaken, for by means of his magic shell, little Dais, in less than
a second's time, bailed the water to the bottom, leaped from the kettle,
and ran away unharmed.
He returned to his sister and related his rovings and adventures. He
finished his story by addressing her thus:
"My sister there is a manito at each of the four corners of the earth.
There is also one above them, far in the sky, a Great Being who assigns
to you, and to me, and to all of us, where we must go. And last," he
continued, "there is another and wicked one who lives deep down in the
earth. It will be our lot to escape out of his reach. We must now
separate. When the winds blow from the four corners of the earth, you
must then go. They will carry you to the place you wish. I go to the
rocks and mountains, where my kindred will ever delight to dwell."
Dais-Imid then took his ball-stick and commenced running up a high
mountain, and a bright light shone about his head all the way, and he
kept singing as he went:
Blow, winds, blow! my sister lingers
For her dwelling in the sky,
Where the morn, with rosy fingers,
Shall her cheeks with vermil dye.
There my earliest views directed,
Shall from her their color take,
And her smiles, through clouds reflected,
Guide me on by wood or lake.
While I range the highest mountains,
Sport in valleys green and low,
Or, beside our Indian fountains,
Raise my tiny hip-hallo.
Presently the winds blew, and, as Dais-Imid had predicted, his sister
was borne by them to the eastern sky, where she has ever since lived,
and her name is now the Morning Star.
XVIII.
MANABOZHO, THE MISCHIEF-MAKER.
There was never in the whole world a more mischievous busy-body than
that notorious giant Manabozho. He was every where, in season and out of
season, running about, and putting his hand in whatever was going
forward. To carry on his game, he could take almost any shape he
pleased; he could be very foolish or very wise; very weak or very
strong; very poor or very rich--just as happened to suit his humor best.
Whatever any one else could do, he would attempt without a moment's
reflection. He was a match for any man he met, and there were few
manitoes that could get the better of him. By turns he would be very
kind, or very cruel; an animal or a bird; a man or a spirit; and yet, in
spite of all these gifts, Manabozho was always getting himself involved
in all sorts of troubles; and more than once, in the course of his busy
adventures, was this great maker of mischief driven to his wits' ends to
come off with his life.
To begin at the beginning, Manabozho, while yet a youngster, was living
with his grandmother, near the edge of a wide prairie. It was on this
prairie that he first saw animals and birds of every kind; he also there
made first acquaintance with thunder and lightning; he would sit by the
hour watching the clouds as they rolled, and musing on the shades of
light and darkness as the day rose and fell.
For a stripling, Manabozho was uncommonly wide-awake. Every new sight
he beheld in the heavens was a subject of remark; every new animal or
bird, an object of deep interest; and every sound that came from the
bosom of nature, was like a new lesson which he was expected to learn.
He often trembled at what he heard and saw.
To the scene of the wide open prairie his grandmother sent him at an
early age to watch. The first sound he heard was that of the owl, at
which he was greatly terrified, and, quickly descending the tree he had
climbed, he ran with alarm to the lodge. "Noko! noko! grandmother!" he
cried. "I have heard a monedo."
She laughed at his fears, and asked him what kind of noise his reverence
made. He answered, "It makes a noise like this: ko-ko-ko-ho."
His grandmother told him he was young and foolish; that what he heard
was only a bird which derived its name from the peculiar noise it made.
He returned to the prairie and continued his watch. As he stood there
looking at the clouds, he thought to himself, "It is singular that I am
so simple and my grandmother so wise; and that I have neither father nor
mother. I have never heard a word about them. I must ask and find out."
He went home and sat down, silent and dejected. Finding that this did
not attract the notice of his grandmother, he began a loud lamentation,
which he kept increasing, louder and louder, till it shook the lodge,
and nearly deafened the old grandmother. She at length said, "Manabozho,
what is the matter with you? You are making a great deal of noise."
Manabozho started off again with his doleful hubbub; but succeeded in
jerking out between his big sobs, "I have n't got any father nor mother;
I have n't;" and he set out again lamenting more boisterously than ever.
Knowing that he was of a wicked and revengeful temper, his grandmother
dreaded to tell him the story of his parentage; as she knew he would
make trouble of it.
Manabozho renewed his cries, and managed to throw out, for a third or
fourth time, his sorrowful lament that he was a poor unfortunate, who
had no parents and no relations.
She at last said to him, "Yes, you have a father and three brothers
living. Your mother is dead. She was taken for a wife by your father,
the West, without the consent of her parents. Your brothers are the
North, East, and South; and being older than yourself, your father has
given them great power with the winds, according to their names. You are
the youngest of his children. I have nursed you from your infancy; for
your mother, owing to the ill-treatment of your father, died in giving
you birth. I have no relations beside you this side of the planet in
which I was born, and from which I was precipitated by female jealousy.
Your mother was my only child, and you are my only hope."
"I am glad my father is living," said Manabozho. "I shall set out in the
morning to visit him."
His grandmother would have discouraged him; saying it was a long
distance to the place where his father, Ningabiun, or the West, lived.
This information seemed rather to please than to disconcert Manabozho;
for by this time he had grown to such a size and strength that he had
been compelled to leave the narrow shelter of his grandmother's lodge
and to live out of doors. He was so tall that, if he had been so
disposed, he could have snapped off the heads of the birds roosting in
the topmost branches of the highest trees, as he stood up, without being
at the trouble to climb. And if he had at any time taken a fancy to one
of the same trees for a walking-stick, he would have had no more to do
than to pluck it up with his thumb and finger, and strip down the leaves
and twigs with the palm of his hand.
Bidding good-by to his venerable old grandmother, who pulled a very long
face over his departure, Manabozho set out at great headway, for he was
able to stride from one side of a prairie to the other at a single step.
He found his father on a high mountain-ground, far in the west. His
father espied his approach at a great distance, and bounded down the
mountain-side several miles to give him welcome, and, side-by-side,
apparently delighted with each other, they reached in two or three of
their giant paces the lodge of the West, which stood high up near the
clouds.
They spent some days in talking with each other--for these two great
persons did nothing on a small scale, and a whole day to deliver a
single sentence, such was the immensity of their discourse, was quite an
ordinary affair.
One evening, Manabozho asked his father what he was most afraid of on
earth.
He replied--"Nothing."
"But is there nothing you dread, here--nothing that would hurt you if
you took too much of it? Come, tell me."
Manabozho was very urgent; at last his father said:
"Yes, there is a black stone to be found a couple of hundred miles from
here, over that way," pointing as he spoke. "It is the only thing
earthly that I am afraid of, for if it should happen to hit me on any
part of my body it would hurt me very much."
The West made this important circumstance known to Manabozho in the
strictest confidence.
"Now you will not tell any one, Manabozho, that the black stone is bad
medicine for your father, will you?" he added. "You are a good son, and
I know will keep it to yourself. Now tell me, my darling boy, is there
not something that you don't like?"
Manabozho answered promptly--"Nothing."
His father, who was of a very steady and persevering temper, put the
same question to him seventeen times, and each time Manabozho made the
same answer--"Nothing."
But the West insisted--"There must be something you are afraid of."
"Well, I will tell you," says Manabozho, "what it is."
He made an effort to speak, but it seemed to be too much for him.
"Out with it," said Ningabiun, or the West, fetching Manabozho such a
blow on the back as shook the mountain with its echo.
"Je-ee, je-ee--it is," said Manabozho, apparently in great pain. "Yeo,
yeo! I can not name it, I tremble so."
The West told him to banish his fears, and to speak up; no one would
hurt him.
Manabozho began again, and he would have gone over the same make-believe
of anguish, had not his father, whose strength he knew was more than a
match for his own, threatened to pitch him into a river about five miles
off. At last he cried out:
"Father, since you will know, it is the root of the bulrush."
He who could with perfect ease spin a sentence a whole day long, seemed
to be exhausted by the effort of pronouncing that one word, "bulrush."
Some time after, Manabozho observed:
"I will get some of the black rock, merely to see how it looks."
"Well," said the father, "I will also get a little of the bulrush-root,
to learn how it tastes."
They were both double-dealing with each other, and in their hearts
getting ready for some desperate work.
They had no sooner separated for the evening than Manabozho was striding
off the couple of hundred miles necessary to bring him to the place
where black rock was to be procured, while down the other side of the
mountain hurried Ningabiun.
At the break of day they each appeared at the great level on the
mountain-top, Manabozho with twenty loads, at least, of the black stone,
on one side, and on the other the West, with a whole meadow of bulrush
in his arms.
Manabozho was the first to strike--hurling a great piece of the black
rock, which struck the West directly between the eyes, who returned the
favor with a blow of bulrush, that rung over the shoulders of Manabozho,
far and wide, like the whip-thong of the lightning among the clouds.
And now either rallied, and Manabozho poured in a tempest of black rock,
while Ningabiun discharged a shower of bulrush. Blow upon blow, thwack
upon thwack--they fought hand to hand until black rock and bulrush were
all gone. Then they betook themselves to hurling crags at each other,
cudgeling with huge oak-trees, and defying each other from one
mountain-top to another; while at times they shot enormous boulders of
granite across at each other's heads, as though they had been mere
jack-stones. The battle, which had commenced on the mountains, had
extended far west. The West was forced to give ground. Manabozho
pressing on, drove him across rivers and mountains, ridges and lakes,
till at last he got him to the very brink of the world.
"Hold!" cried the West. "My son, you know my power, and although I allow
that I am now fairly out of breath, it is impossible to kill me. Stop
where you are, and I will also portion you out with as much power as
your brothers. The four quarters of the globe are already occupied, but
you can go and do a great deal of good to the people of the earth, which
is beset with serpents, beasts and monsters, who make great havoc of
human life. Go and do good, and if you put forth half the strength you
have to-day, you will acquire a name that will last forever. When you
have finished your work I will have a place provided for you. You will
then go and sit with your brother, Kabinocca, in the North."
Manabozho gave his father his hand upon this agreement. And parting from
him, he returned to his own grounds, where he lay for some time sore of
his wounds.
These being, however, greatly allayed, and soon after cured by his
grandmother's skill in medicines, Manabozho, as big and sturdy as ever,
was ripe for new adventures. He set his thoughts immediately upon a war
excursion against the Pearl Feather, a wicked old manito, living on the
other side of the great lake, who had killed his grandfather. He begun
his preparations by making huge bows and arrows without number; but he
had no heads for his shafts. At last Noko told him that an old man, who
lived at some distance, could furnish him with such as he needed. He
sent her to get some. She soon returned with her wrapper full. Manabozho
told her that he had not enough, and sent her again. She came back with
as many more. He thought to himself, "I must find out the way of making
these heads."
Instead of directly asking how it was done, he preferred--just like
Manabozho--to deceive his grandmother to come at the knowledge he
desired, by a trick. "Noko," said he, "while I take my drum and rattle,
and sing my war-songs, do you go and try to get me some larger heads,
for these you have brought me are all of the same size. Go and see
whether the old man is not willing to make some a little larger."
He followed her at a distance as she went, having left his drum at the
lodge, with a great bird tied at the top, whose fluttering should keep
up the drumbeat, the same as if he were tarrying at home. He saw the old
workman busy, and learned how he prepared the heads; he also beheld the
old man's daughter, who was very beautiful; and Manabozho now discovered
for the first time that he had a heart of his own, and the sigh he
heaved passed through the arrow-maker's lodge like a gale of wind.
"How it blows!" said the old man.
"It must be from the south," said the daughter; "for it is very
fragrant."
Manabozho slipped away, and in two strides he was at home, shouting
forth his songs as though he had never left the lodge. He had just time
to free the bird which had been beating the drum, when his grandmother
came in and delivered to him the big arrow-heads.
In the evening the grandmother said, "My son, you ought to fast before
you go to war, as your brothers do, to find out whether you will be
successful or not."