Chapter 1

Produced by Emily Ratliff, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. This file was produced from images generously made available by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions.

THE ALGONQUIN LEGENDS OF NEW ENGLAND

OR

_Myths and Folk Lore of the Micmac, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot Tribes_

BY CHARLES G. LELAND

[Frontispiece Illustration: MIK UM WESS THE INDIAN PUCK, OR ROBIN GOOD-FELLOW.

From a scraping on birch bark by Tomak Josephs, Indian Governor at Peter Dona's Point, Maine. The Mik um wees always wears a red cap like the Norse Goblin.]

PREFACE.

When I began, in the summer of 1882, to collect among the Passamaquoddy Indians at Campobello, New Brunswick, their traditions and folk-lore, I expected to find very little indeed. These Indians, few in number, surrounded by white people, and thoroughly converted to Roman Catholicism, promised but scanty remains of heathenism. What was my amazement, however, at discovering, day by day, that there existed among them, entirely by oral tradition, a far grander mythology than that which has been made known to us by either the Chippewa or Iroquois Hiawatha Legends, and that this was illustrated by an incredible number of tales. I soon ascertained that these were very ancient. The old people declared that they had heard from their progenitors that all of these stories were once sung; that they themselves remembered when many of them were poems. This was fully proved by discovering manifest traces of poetry in many, and finally by receiving a long Micmac tale which had been sung by an Indian. I found that all the relaters of this lore were positive as to the antiquity of the narratives, and distinguished accurately between what was or was not pre-Columbian. In fact, I came in time to the opinion that the original stock of all the Algonquin myths, and perhaps of many more, still existed, not far away in the West, but at our very doors; that is to say, in Maine and New Brunswick. It is at least certain, as the reader may convince himself, that these Wabanaki, or Northeastern Algonquin, legends give, with few exceptions, in full and coherently, many tales which have only reached us in a broken, imperfect form, from other sources.

This work, then, contains a collection of the myths, legends, and folk-lore of the principal Wabanaki, or Northeastern Algonquin, Indians; that is to say, of the Passamaquoddies and Penobscots of Maine, and of the Micmacs of New Brunswick. All of this material was gathered directly from Indian narrators, the greater part by myself, the rest by a few friends; in fact, I can give the name of the aboriginal authority for every tale except one. As my chief object has been simply to collect and preserve valuable material, I have said little of the labors of such critical writers as Brinton, Hale, Trumbull, Powers, Morgan, Bancroft, and the many more who have so ably studied and set forth red Indian ethnology. If I have rarely ventured on their field, it is because I believe that when the Indian shall have passed away there will come far better ethnologists than I am, who will be much more obliged to me for collecting raw material than for cooking it.

Two or three subjects have, it is true, tempted me into occasional commenting. The manifest, I may say the undeniable, affinity between the myths and legends of the Northeastern Indians and those of the Eskimo could hardly be passed over, nor at the same time the identity of the latter and of the Shaman religion with those of the Finns, Laplanders, and Samoyedes. I believe that I have contributed material not devoid of value to those who are interested in the study of the relations of the aborigines of America with the Mongoloid races of the Old World. This is a subject which has been very little studied through the relations of these Wabanaki with the Eskimo.

A far more hazardous venture has been the indicating points of similarity between the myths or tales of the Algonquins and those of the Norsemen, as set forth in the Eddas, the Sagas, and popular tales of Scandinavia. When we, however, remember that the Eskimo once ranged as far south as Massachusetts, that they did not reach Greenland till the fourteenth century, that they had for three centuries intimate relations with Scandinavians, that they were very fond of legends, and that the Wabanaki even now mingle with them, the marvel would be that the Norsemen had not left among them traces of their tales or of their religion. But I do not say that this was positively the case; I simply set forth in this book a great number of curious coincidences, from which others may draw their own conclusions. I confess that I cannot account for these resemblances save by the so-called "historical theory" of direct transmission; but if any one can otherwise explain them I should welcome the solution of what still seems to be, in many respects, a problem.

I am, in fact, of the opinion that what is given in this work confirms what was conjectured by David Crantz, and which is thus expressed in his History of Greenland (London, 1767): "If we read the accounts which have been given of the most northerly American Indians and Asiatic Tartars, we find a pretty great resemblance between their manner of life, morals, usages, and notions and what has been said in this book of the Greenlanders, only with this difference: that the farther the savage nations wandered towards the North, the fewer they retained of their ancient conceptions and customs. As for the Greenlanders, if it be true, as is supposed, that a remnant of the old Norway Christians incorporated themselves and became one people with them, the Greenlanders may thence have heard and adopted some of their notions, which they may have new-modeled in the coarse mould of their own brain."

Among those who have greatly aided me in preparing this work I deem it to be a duty to mention MISS ABBY ALGER, of Boston, to whom it is cordially dedicated; the REV. SILAS T. RAND, of Hantsport, Nova Scotia, who lent me a manuscript collection of eighty-five Micmac tales, and communicated to me, with zealous kindness, much information by letter; and MRS. W. WALLACE BROWN, of Calais, Maine. It was through this lady that I derived a great proportion of the most curious folk-lore of the Passamaquoddies, especially such parts as coincided with the Edda. With these I would include MR. E. JACK, of Fredericton, New Brunswick. When it is remembered that there are only forty-two of the Hiawatha Legends of Schoolcraft, out of which five books have been made by other authors, and that I have collected more than two hundred, it will be seen how these friends must have worked to aid me.

AUTHORITIES.

The authorities consulted in writing this work were as follows:--

PERSONS.

Tomah Josephs, Passamaquoddy, Indian Governor at Peter Dana's Point, Maine.

The Rev. Silas T. Rand, Baptist Missionary among the Micmac Indians at Hantsport, Nova Scotia. This gentleman lent me his manuscript collection of eighty-five stories, all taken down from verbal Indian narration. He also communicated much information in letters, etc.

John Gabriel, and his son Peter J. Gabriel, Passamaquoddy Indians, of Point Pleasant, Maine.

Noel Josephs, of Peter Dana's Point, alias _Che gach goch_, the Raven.

Joseph Tomah, Passamaquoddy, of Point Pleasant.

Louis Mitchell, Indian member of the Legislature of Maine. To this gentleman I am greatly indebted for manuscripts, letters, and oral narrations of great value.

Sapiel Selmo, keeper of the Wampum Record, formerly read every four years, at the kindling of the great fire at Canawagha.

Marie Saksis, of Oldtown, a capital and very accurate narrator of many traditions.

Miss Abby Alger, of Boston, by whom I was greatly aided in collecting the Passamaquoddy stories, and who obtained several for me among the St. Francis or Abenaki Indians.

Edward Jack, of Fredericton, for several Micmac legends and many letters containing folk-lore, all taken down by him directly from Indians.

Mrs. W. Wallace Brown. Mr. Brown was agent in charge of the Passamaquoddies in Maine. To this lady, who has a great influence over the Indians, and is much interested in their folk-lore and legends, I am indebted for a large collection of very interesting material of the most varied description.

Noel Neptune, Penobscot, Oldtown, Maine.

BOOKS, MANUSCRIPTS, ETC.

_The Story of Glooskap._ A curious manuscript in Indian-English, obtained for me by Tomah Josephs.

_The Dominion Monthly_ for 1871. Containing nine Micmac legends by Rev. S.T. Rand.

_Indian Legends._ (Manuscript of 900 pp. folio.) Collected among the Micmac Indians, and translated by Silas T. Rand, Missionary to the Micmacs.

_A Manuscript Collection of Passamaquoddy Legends and Folk-Lore._ By Mrs. W. Wallace Brown, of Calais, Maine. These are all given with the greatest accuracy as narrated by Indians, some in broken Indian-English. They embrace a very great variety of folk-lore.

_Manuscript Fairy Tales in Indian and English._ By Louis Mitchell.

_Manuscript: The Superstitions of the Passamaquoddies._ In Indian and English.

_A History of the Passamaquoddy Indians._ Manuscript of 80 pages, Indian and English. All of these were written for me by L. Mitchell, M.L.

_Wampum Records._ Read for me by Sapiel Selmo, the only living Indian who has the key to them.

David Cusick's _Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations._ Lockport, N.Y., 1848. Printed, but written in Indian-English.

_Manuscript: Six Stories of the St. Francis or Abenaki Indians._ Taken down by Miss Abby Alger.

Osgood's _Maritime Provinces._ In this work there are seven short extracts relative to Glooskap given without reference to any book or author.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

GLOOSKAP, THE DIVINITY.

Of Glooskap's Birth, and of his Brother Malsum, the Wolf

How Glooskap made the Elves and Fairies, and then Man of an Ash-Tree, and last of all the Beasts, and of his Coming at the Last Day

Of the Great Deeds which Glooskap did for Men; how he named the Animals, and who they were that formed his Family

How Win-pe, the Sorcerer, having stolen Glooskap's Family, was by him pursued. How Glooskap for a Merry Jest cheated the Whale. Of the Song of the Clams, and how the Whale smoked a Pipe

Of the Dreadful Deeds of the Evil Pitcher, who was both Man and Woman; how she fell in Love with Glooskap, and, being scorned, became his Enemy. Of the Toads and Porcupines, and the Awful Battle of the Giants

How the Story of Glooskap and Pook-jin-skwess, the Evil Pitcher, is told by the Passamaquoddy Indians

How Glooskap became friendly to the Loons, and made them his Messengers

How Glooskap made his Uncle Mikchich, the Turtle, into a Great Man, and got him a Wife. Of the Turtles' Eggs, and how Glooskap vanquished a Sorcerer by smoking Tobacco

How Glooskap sailed through the Great Cavern of Darkness

Of the Great Works which Glooskap made in the Land

The Story of Glooskap as told in a few Words by a Woman of the Penobscots

How Glooskap, leaving the World, all the Animals mourned for him, and how, ere he departed, he gave Gifts to Men

How Glooskap had a Great Frolic with Kitpooseagunow, a Mighty Giant who caught a Whale

How Glooskap made a Magician of a Young Man, who aided another to win a Wife and do Wonderful Deeds

How a certain Wicked Witch sought to cajole the Great and Good Glooskap, and of her Punishment

Of other Men who went to Glooskap for Gifts

Of Glooskap and the three other Seekers

Of Glooskap and the Sinful Serpent

The Tale of Glooskap as told by another Indian, showing how the Toad and Porcupine lost their Noses

How Glooskap changed Certain Saucy Indians into Rattlesnakes

How Glooskap bound Wuchowsen, the Great Wind-Bird, and made all the Waters in the World stagnant

How Glooskap conquered the Great Bull-Frog, and in what Manner all the Pollywogs, Crabs, Leeches, and other Water Creatures were created

How the Lord of Men and Beasts strove with the Mighty Wasis, and was shamefully defeated

How the Great Glooskap fought the Giant Sorcerers at Saco, and turned them into Fish

How Glooskap went to England and France, and was the first to make America known to the Europeans

How Glooskap is making Arrows, and preparing for a Great Battle. The Twilight of the Indian Gods

How Glooskap found the Summer

THE MERRY TAXES OF LOX, THE MISCHIEF-MAKER.

The Surprising and Singular Adventures of two Water Fairies who were also Weasels, and how they each became the Bride of a Star. Including the Mysterious and Wonderful Works of Lox, the Great Indian Devil, who rose from the Dead

Of the Wolverine and the Wolves, or how Master Lox froze to Death

How Master Lox played a Trick on Mrs. Bear, who lost her Eyesight and had her Eyes opened

How Lox came to Grief by trying to catch a Salmon

How Master Lox, as a Raccoon, killed the Bear and the Black Cats, and performed other Notable Feats of Skill, all to his Great Discredit

How Lox deceived the Ducks, cheated the Chief, and beguiled the Bear

The Mischief-Maker. A Tradition of the Origin of the Mythology of the Senecas. A Lox Legend

How Lox told a Lie

THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF MASTER RABBIT.

How Master Rabbit sought to rival Kecoony, the Otter

How Mahtigwess, the Rabbit, dined with the Woodpecker Girls, and was again humbled by trying to rival them

Of the Adventure with Mooin, the Bear; it being the Third and Last Time that Master Rabbit made a Fool of himself

Relating how the Rabbit became Wise by being Original, and of the Terrible Tricks which he by Magic played Loup-Cervier, the Wicked Wild-Cat

How Master Rabbit went to a Wedding and won the Bride

How Master Rabbit gave himself Airs

The Young Man who was saved by a Rabbit and a Fox

THE CHENOO LEGENDS.

The Chenoo, or the Story of a Cannibal with an Icy Heart

The Story of the Great Chenoo, as told by the Passamaquoddies

The Girl-Chenoo

THUNDER STORIES.

Of the Girl who married Mount Katahdin, and how all the Indians brought about their own Ruin

How a Hunter visited the Thunder Spirits who dwell on Mount Katahdin

The Thunder and Lightning Men

Of the Woman who married the Thunder, and of their Boy

AT-O-SIS, THE SERPENT.

How Two Girls were changed to Water-Snakes, and of Two others that became Mermaids

Ne Hwas, the Mermaid

Of the Woman who loved a Serpent that lived in a Lake

The Mother of Serpents

Origin of the Black Snakes

THE PARTRIDGE.

The Adventures of the Great Hero Pulowech, or the Partridge

The Story of a Partridge and his Wonderful Wigwam

How the Partridge built Good Canoes for all the Birds, and a Bad One for Himself

The Mournful Mystery of the Partridge-Witch; setting forth how a Young Man died from Love

How one of the Partridge's Wives became a Sheldrake Duck, and why her Feet and Feathers are red

THE INVISIBLE ONE

STORY OF THE THREE STRONG MEN

THE WEEWILLMEKQ'

How a Woman lost a Gun for Fear of the Weewillmekq'

Muggahmaht'adem, the Dance of Old Age, or the Magic of the Weewillmekq'

Another Version of the Dance of Old Age

TALES OF MAGIC.

M'teoulin, or Indian Magic

Story of the Beaver Trapper

How a Youth became a Magician

Of Old Joe, the M'teoulin

Of Governor Francis

How a Chiefs Son taught his Friend Sorcery

Tumilkoontaoo, or the Broken Wing

Fish-Hawk and Scapegrace

The Giant Magicians

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

MIK UM WESS, THE INDIAN PUCK, OR ROBIN GOOD-FELLOW

GLOOSKAP KILLING HIS BROTHER, THE WOLF

GLOOSKAP LOOKING AT THE WHALE SMOKING HIS PIPE

GLOOSKAP SETTING HIS DOGS ON THE WITCHES

THE MUD-TURTLE JUMPING OVER THE WIGWAM OF HIS FATHER-IN-LAW

GLOOSKAP AND KEANKE SPEARING THE WHALE

GLOOSKAP TURNING A MAN INTO A CEDAR-TREE

LOX CARRIED OFF BY CULLOO

THE INDIAN BOY AND THE MUSK-RAT. SEEPS, THE DUCK

THE RABBIT MAGICIAN

THE CHENOO AND THE LIZARD

THE WOMAN AND THE SERPENT

INTRODUCTION

Among the six chief divisions of the red Indians of North America the most widely extended is the Algonquin. This people ranged from Labrador to the far South, from Newfoundland to the Rocky Mountains, speaking forty dialects, as the Hon. J. H. Trumbull has shown in his valuable work on the subject. Belonging to this division are the Micmacs of New Brunswick and the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribes of Maine, who with the St. Francis Indians of Canada and some smaller clans call themselves the Wabanaki, a word derived from a root signifying white or light, intimating that they live nearest to the rising sun or the east. In fact, the French-speaking St. Francis family, who are known _par eminence_ as "the Abenaki," translate the term by _point du jour_.

The Wabanaki have in common the traditions of a grand mythology, the central figure of which is a demigod or hero, who, while he is always great, consistent, and benevolent, and never devoid of dignity, presents traits which are very much more like those of Odin and Thor, with not a little of Pantagruel, than anything in the characters of the Chippewa Manobozho, or the Iroquois Hiawatha. The name of this divinity is Glooskap, meaning, strangely enough, the Liar, because it is said that when he left earth, like King Arthur, for Fairyland, he promised to return, and has never done so. It is characteristic of the Norse gods that while they are grand they are manly, and combine with this a peculiarly domestic humanity. Glooskap is the Norse god intensified. He is, however, more of a giant; he grows to a more appalling greatness than Thor or Odin in his battles; when a _Kiawaqu'_, or Jotun, rises to the clouds to oppose him, Glooskap's head touches the stars, and scorning to slay so mean a foe like an equal, he kills him contemptuously with a light tap of his bow. But in the family circle he is the most benevolent of gentle heroes, and has his oft-repeated little standard jokes. Yet he never, like the Manobozho-Hiawatha of the Chippewas, becomes silly, cruel, or fantastic. He has his roaring revel with a brother giant, even as Thor went fishing in fierce fun with the frost god, but he is never low or feeble.

Around Glooskap, who is by far the grandest and most Aryan-like character ever evolved from a savage mind, and who is more congenial to a reader of Shakespeare and Rabelais than any deity ever imagined out of Europe, there are found strange giants: some literal Jotuns of stone and ice, sorcerers who become giants like Glooskap, at will; the terrible Chenoo, a human being with an icy-stone heart, who has sunk to a cannibal and ghoul; all the weird monsters and horrors of the Eskimo mythology, witches and demons, inherited from the terribly black sorcery which preceded Shamanism, and compared to which the latter was like an advanced religion, and all the minor mythology of dwarfs and fairies. The Indian _m'teoulin_, or magician, distinctly taught that every created thing, animate or inanimate, had its indwelling spirit. Whatever had an _idea_ had a soul. Therefore the Wabanaki mythology is strangely like that of the Rosicrucians. But it created spirits for the terrible Arctic winters of the north, for the icebergs and frozen wastes, for the Northern Lights and polar bears. It made, in short, a mythology such as would be perfectly congenial to any one who has read and understood the Edda, Beowulf, and the Kalevala, with the wildest and oldest Norse sagas. But it is, as regards spirit and meaning, utterly and entirely unlike anything else that is American. It is not like the Mexican pantheon; it has not the same sounds, colors, or feelings; and though many of its incidents or tales are the same as those of the Chippewas, or other tribes, we still feel that there is an incredible difference in the spirit. Its ways are not as their ways. This Wabanaki mythology, which was that which gave a fairy, an elf, a naiad, or a hero to every rock and river and ancient hill in New England, is just the one of all others which is least known to the New Englanders. When the last Indian shall be in his grave, those who come after us will ask in wonder why we had no curiosity as to the romance of our country, and so much as to that of every other land on earth.

Much is allowed to poets and painters, and no fault was found with Mr. Longfellow for attributing to the Iroquois Hiawatha the choice exploits of the Chippewa demi-devil Manobozho. It was "all Indian" to the multitude, and one name answered as well in poetry as another, at a time when there was very little attention paid to ethnology. So that a good poem resulted, it was of little consequence that the plot was a _melange_ of very different characters, and characteristics. And when, in connection with this, Mr. Longfellow spoke of the Chippewa tales as forming an Indian Edda, the term was doubtless in a poetic and very general sense permissible. But its want of literal truth seems to have deeply impressed the not generally over particular or accurate Schoolcraft, since his first remarks in the Introduction to the Hiawatha Legends are as follows:--

"Where analogies are so general, there is a constant liability to mistakes. Of these foreign analogies of myth-lore, the least tangible, it is believed, is that which has been suggested with the Scandinavian mythology. That mythology is of so marked and peculiar a character that it has not been distinctly traced out of the great circle of tribes of the Indo-Germanic family. Odin and his terrific pantheon of war gods and social deities could only exist in the dreary latitudes of storms and fire which produce a Hecla and a Maelstrom. These latitudes have invariably produced nations whose influence has been felt in an elevating power over the world. From such a source the Indian could have derived none of him vague symbolisms and mental idiosyncrasies which have left him as he is found to-day, without a government and without a god."