The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians (part 2)

On the fourth day he brought home with him a branch of uzadi as a cane, which he placed, with his game, at the door of the lodge. His wife, as usual, went out to prepare and bring in the meat. While thus engaged, he heard her laughing to herself, and saying, "This is very acceptable." The man, in peeping out to see the cause of her joy, saw her, with astonishment, eating the bark of the poplar cane in the same manner that beavers gnaw. He then exclaimed, "Ho, ho! Ho, ho! this is Amik;" and ever afterward he was careful at evening to bring in a bough of the poplar or the red willow, when she would exclaim, "Oh, this is very acceptable; this is a change, for one gets tired eating white fish always (meaning the poplar); but the carp (meaning the red willow) is a pleasant change."

On the whole, Iëna was much pleased with his wife for her neatness and attention to the things in the lodge, and he lived a contented and happy man. Being industrious, she made him beautiful bags from the bark of trees, and dressed the skins of the animals he killed in the most skilful manner. When spring opened, they found themselves blessed with two children, one of them resembling the father and the other the mother. One day the father made a bow and arrows for the child that resembled him, who was a son, saying, "My son, you will use these arrows to shoot at the little beavers when they begin to swim about the rivers." The mother, as soon as she heard this, was highly displeased; and taking her children, unknown to her husband, left the lodge in the night. A small river ran near the lodge, which the woman approached with her children. She built a dam across the stream, erected a lodge of earth, and lived after the manner of the beavers.

When the hunter awoke, he found himself alone in his lodge, and his wife and children absent. He immediately made diligent search after them, and at last discovered their retreat on the river. He approached the place of their habitation, and throwing himself prostrate on the top of the lodge, exclaimed, "Shingisshenaun tshee neeboyaun." The woman allowed the children to go close to their father, but not to touch him; for, as soon as they came very near, she would draw them away again, and in this manner she continued to torment him a long time. The husband lay in this situation until he was almost starved, when a young female approached him, and thus accosted him: "Look here; why are you keeping yourself in misery, and thus starving yourself? Eat this," reaching him a little mokuk containing fresh raspberries which she had just gathered. As soon as the beaveress, his former wife, beheld this, she began to abuse the young woman, and said to her, "Why do you wish to show any kindness to that animal that has but two legs? you will soon repent it." She also made sport of the young woman, saying, "Look at her; she has a long nose, and she is just like a bear." The young woman, who was all the time a bear in disguise, hearing herself thus reproached, broke down the dam of the beaver, let the water run out, and nearly killed the beaver herself. Then turning to the man, she thus addressed him: "Follow me; I will be kind to you. Follow me closely. You must be courageous, for there are three persons who are desirous of marrying me, and will oppose you. Be careful of yourself. Follow me nimbly, and, just as we approach the lodge, put your feet in the prints of mine, for I have eight sisters who will do their utmost to divert your attention and make you lose the way. Look neither to the right nor the left, but enter the lodge just as I do, and take your seat where I do." As they proceeded they came in sight of a large lodge, when he did as he had been directed, stepping in her tracks. As they entered the lodge the eight sisters clamorously addressed him. "Oh, Ogidahkumigo has lost his way," and each one invited him to take his seat with her, desiring to draw him from their sister. The old people also addressed him as he entered, and said, "Oh, make room for our son-in-law." The man, however, took his seat by the side of his protectress, and was not farther importuned.

As they sat in the lodge, a great rushing of waters, as of a swollen river, came through the centre of it, which also brought in its course a large stone, and left it before the man. When the water subsided, a large white bear came in, and taking up the stone, bit it, and scratched it with his paws, saying, "This is the manner in which I would handle Ogidahkumigo if I was jealous." A yellow bear also entered the lodge and did the same. A black bear followed and did the same. At length the man took up his bow and arrows, and prepared to shoot at the stone, saying, "This is the way I would treat Odanamekumigo if I was jealous." He then drew up his bow and drove his arrow into the stone. Seeing this, the bears turned around, and with their eyes fixed on him, stepped backward and left the lodge, which highly delighted the woman. She exulted to think that her husband had conquered them.

Finally, one of the old folks made a cry, and said, "Come, come! there must be a gathering of provisions for the winter." So they all took their cossoes, or bark dishes, and departed to gather acorns for the winter. As they departed, the old man said to his daughter, "Tell Ogidahkumigo to go to the place where your sisters have gone and let him select one of them, so that, through her aid, he may have some food for himself during the winter; but be sure to caution him to be very careful, when he is taking the skin from the animal, that he does not cut the flesh." No sooner had the man heard this message, than he selected one of his sisters-in-law; and when he was taking the skin from her, for she was all the while an enchanted female bear, although careful, he cut her a little upon one of her arms, when she jumped up, assumed her natural form, and ran home. The man also went home, and found her with her arm bound up, and quite unwell.

A second cry was then made by the master of the lodge: "Come come! seek for winter quarters;" and they all got ready to separate for the season. By this time the man had two children, one resembling himself and the other his wife. When the cry was made, the little boy who resembled his father was in such a hurry in putting on his moccasins, that he misplaced them, putting the moccasin of the right foot upon the left. And this is the reason why the foot of the bear is turned in.

They proceeded to seek their winter quarters, the wife going before to point the way. She always selected the thickest part of the forest, where the child resembling the father found it difficult to get along; and he never failed to cry out and complain. Iëna then went in advance, and sought the open plain, whereupon the child resembling the mother would cry out and complain, because she disliked an open path. As they were encamping, the woman said to her husband, "Go and break branches for the lodge for the night." He did so; but when she looked at the manner in which her husband broke the branches, she was very much offended, for he broke them upward instead of downward. "It is not only very awkward," said she, "but we will be found out; for the Ogidahkumigoes will see where we have passed by the branches we have broken:" to avoid this, they agreed to change their route, and were finally well established in their winter quarters. The wife had sufficient food for her child, and would now and then give the dry berries she had gathered in the summer to her husband.

One day, as spring drew on, she said to her husband, "I must boil you some meat," meaning her own paws, which bears suck in the month of April. She had all along told him, during the winter, that she meant to resume her real shape of a female bear, and to give herself up to the Ogidahkumigoes, to be killed by them, and that the time of their coming was near at hand. It came to pass, soon afterward, that a hunter discovered her retreat. She told her husband to move aside, "for," she added, "I am now giving myself up." The hunter fired and killed her.

Iëna then came out from his hiding-place, and went home with the hunter. As they went, he instructed him what he must hereafter do when he killed bears. "You must," said he, "never cut the flesh in taking off the skin, nor hang up the feet with the flesh when drying it. But you must take the head and feet, and decorate them handsomely, and place tobacco on the head, for these animals are very fond of this article, and on the fourth day they come to life again."

MISHOSHA,

OR

THE MAGICIAN OF LAKE SUPERIOR.

In an early age of the world, when there were fewer inhabitants than there now are, there lived an Indian, in a remote place, who had a wife and two children. They seldom saw any one out of the circle of their own lodge. Animals were abundant in so secluded a situation, and the man found no difficulty in supplying his family with food.

In this way they lived in peace and happiness, which might have continued if the hunter had not found cause to suspect his wife. She secretly cherished an attachment for a young man whom she accidentally met one day in the woods. She even planned the death of her husband for his sake, for she knew if she did not kill her husband, her husband, the moment he detected her crime, would kill her.

The husband, however, eluded her project by his readiness and decision. He narrowly watched her movements. One day he secretly followed her footsteps into the forest, and having concealed himself behind a tree, he soon beheld a tall young man approach and lead away his wife. His arrows were in his hands, but he did not use them. He thought he would kill her the moment she returned.

Meantime, he went home and sat down to think. At last he came to the determination of quitting her forever, thinking that her own conscience would punish her sufficiently, and relying on her maternal feelings to take care of the two children, who were boys, he immediately took up his arms and departed.

When the wife returned she was disappointed in not finding her husband, for she had now concerted her plan, and intended to have dispatched him. She waited several days, thinking he might have been led away by the chase, but finding he did not return, she suspected the true cause. Leaving her two children in the lodge, she told them she was going a short distance and would return. She then fled to her paramour and came back no more.

The children, thus abandoned, soon made way with the food left in the lodge, and were compelled to quit it in search of more. The eldest boy, who was of an intrepid temper, was strongly attached to his brother, frequently carrying him when he became weary, and gathering all the wild fruit he saw. They wandered deeper and deeper into the forest, losing all traces of their former habitation, until they were completely lost in its mazes.

The eldest boy had a knife, with which he made a bow and arrows, and was thus enabled to kill a few birds for himself and brother. In this manner they continued to pass on, from one piece of forest to another, not knowing whither they were going. At length they saw an opening through the woods, and were shortly afterward delighted to find themselves on the borders of a large lake. Here the elder brother busied himself in picking the seed pods of the wild rose, which he reserved as food. In the mean time, the younger brother amused himself by shooting arrows in the sand, one of which happened to fall into the lake. Panigwun, the elder brother, not willing to lose the arrow, waded in the water to reach it. Just as he was about to grasp the arrow, a canoe passed up to him with great rapidity. An old man, sitting in the centre, seized the affrighted youth and placed him in the canoe. In vain the boy addressed him—"My grandfather (a term of respect for old people), pray take my little brother also. Alone, I cannot go with you; he will starve if I leave him." Mishosha (the old man) only laughed at him. Then uttering the charm, Chemaun Poll, and giving his canoe a slap, it glided through the water with inconceivable swiftness. In a few moments they reached the habitation of the magician, standing on an island in the centre of the lake. Here he lived with his two daughters, who managed the affairs of his household. Leading the young man up to the lodge, he addressed his eldest daughter. "Here," said he, "my daughter, I have brought a young man to be your husband." Husband! thought the young woman; rather another victim of your bad arts, and your insatiate enmity to the human race. But she made no reply, seeming thereby to acquiesce in her father's will.

The young man thought he saw surprise depicted in the eyes of the daughter, during the scene of this introduction, and determined to watch events narrowly. In the evening he overheard the two daughters in conversation. "There," said the eldest daughter, "I told you he would not be satisfied with his last sacrifice. He has brought another victim, under the pretence of providing me a husband. Husband, indeed! the poor youth will be in some horrible predicament before another sun has set. When shall we be spared the scenes of vice and wickedness which are daily taking place before our eyes?"

Panigwun took the first opportunity of acquainting the daughters how he had been carried off, and been compelled to leave his little brother on the shore. They told him to wait until their father was asleep, then to get up and take his canoe, and using the charm he had obtained, it would carry him quickly to his brother. That he could carry him food, prepare a lodge for him, and be back before daybreak. He did, in every respect, as he had been directed—the canoe obeyed the charm, and carried him safely over, and after providing for the subsistence of his brother, he told him that in a short time he should come for him. Then returning to the enchanted island, he resumed his place in the lodge, before the magician awoke. Once, during the night, Mishosha awoke, and not seeing his destined son-in-law, asked his daughter what had become of him. She replied that he had merely stepped out, and would be back soon. This satisfied him. In the morning, finding the young man in the lodge, his suspicions were completely lulled. "I see, my daughter," said he, "you have told the truth."

As soon as the sun arose, Mishosha thus addressed the young man. "Come, my son, I have a mind to gather gulls' eggs. I know an island where there are great quantities, and I wish your aid in getting them." The young man saw no reasonable excuse; and getting into the canoe, the magician gave it a slap, and uttering a command, they were in an instant at the island. They found the shores strown with gulls' eggs, and the island full of birds of this species. "Go, my son," said the old man, "and gather the eggs, while I remain in the canoe."

But Panigwun had no sooner got ashore, than Mishosha pushed his canoe a little from the land, and exclaimed—"Listen, ye gulls! you have long expected an offering from me. I now give you a victim. Fly down and devour him." Then striking his canoe, he left the young man to his fate.

The birds immediately came in clouds around their victim, darkening the air with their numbers. But the youth seizing the first that came near him, and drawing his knife, cut off its head. He immediately skinned the bird and hung the feathers as a trophy on his breast. "Thus," he exclaimed, "will I treat every one of you who approaches me. Forbear, therefore, and listen to my words. It is not for you to eat human flesh. You have been given by the Great Spirit as food for man. Neither is it in the power of that old magician to do you any good. Take me on your backs and carry me to his lodge, and you shall see that I am not ungrateful." The gulls obeyed; collecting in a cloud for him to rest upon, and quickly flew to the lodge, where they arrived before the magician. The daughters were surprised at his return, but Mishosha, on entering the lodge, conducted himself as if nothing extraordinary had taken place.

The next day he again addressed the youth: "Come, my son," said he, "I will take you to an island covered with the most beautiful stones and pebbles, looking like silver. I wish you to assist me in gathering some of them. They will make handsome ornaments, and possess great medicinal virtues." Entering the canoe, the magician made use of his charm, and they were carried in a few moments to a solitary bay in an island, where there was a smooth sandy beach. The young man went ashore as usual, and began to search. "A little further, a little further," cried the old man. "Upon that rock you will get some fine ones." Then pushing his canoe from land—"Come, thou great king of fishes," cried the old man; "you have long expected an offering from me. Come, and eat the stranger whom I have just put ashore on your island." So saying, he commanded his canoe to return, and it was soon out of sight.

Immediately a monstrous fish thrust his long snout from the water, crawling partially on the beach, and opening wide his jaws to receive his victim. "When!" exclaimed the young man, drawing his knife and putting himself in a threatening attitude, "when did you ever taste human flesh? Have a care of yourself. You were given by the Great Spirit to man, and if you, or any of your tribe eat human flesh you will fall sick and die. Listen not to the words of that wicked man, but carry me back to his island, in return for which I will present you a piece of red cloth." The fish complied, raising his back out of the water, to allow the young man to get on. Then taking his way through the lake, he landed his charge safely on the island before the return of the magician. The daughters were still more surprised to see that he had escaped the arts of their father the second time. But the old man on his return maintained his taciturnity and self-composure. He could not, however, help saying to himself—"What manner of boy is this, who is ever escaping from my power? But his spirit shall not save him. I will entrap him to-morrow. Ha, ha, ha!"

Next day the magician addressed the young man as follows: "Come, my son," said he, "you must go with me to procure some young eagles. I wish to tame them. I have discovered an island where they are in great abundance." When they had reached the island, Mishosha led him inland until they came to the foot of a tall pine, upon which the nests were. "Now, my son," said he, "climb up this tree and bring down the birds." The young man obeyed. When he had with great difficulty got near the nest, "Now," exclaimed the magician, addressing the tree, "stretch yourself up and be very tall." The tree rose up at the command. "Listen, ye eagles," continued the old man, "you have long expected a gift from me. I now present you this boy, who has had the presumption to molest your young. Stretch forth your claws and seize him." So saying, he left the young man to his fate, and returned.

But the intrepid youth, drawing his knife, and cutting off the head of the first eagle that menaced him, raised his voice and exclaimed, "Thus will I deal with all who come near me. What right have you, ye ravenous birds, who were made to feed on beasts, to eat human flesh? Is it because that cowardly old canoe-man has bid you do so? He is an old woman. He can neither do you good nor harm. See, I have already slain one of your number. Respect my bravery, and carry me back that I may show you how I shall treat you."

The eagles, pleased with his spirit, assented, and clustering thick around him formed a seat with their backs, and flew toward the enchanted island. As they crossed the water they passed over the magician, lying half asleep in his canoe.

The return of the young man was hailed with joy by the daughters, who now plainly saw that he was under the guidance of a strong spirit. But the ire of the old man was excited, although he kept his temper under subjection. He taxed his wits for some new mode of ridding himself of the youth, who had so successfully baffled his skill. He next invited him to go a hunting.

Taking his canoe, they proceeded to an island and built a lodge to shelter themselves during the night. In the mean while the magician caused a deep fall of snow, with a storm of wind and severe cold. According to custom, the young man pulled off his moccasins and leggings, and hung them before the fire to dry. After he had gone to sleep, the magician, watching his opportunity, got up, and taking one moccasin and one legging, threw them into the fire. He then went to sleep. In the morning, stretching himself as he arose and uttering an exclamation of surprise, "My son," said he, "what has become of your moccasin and legging? I believe this is the moon in which fire attracts, and I fear they have been drawn in." The young man suspected the true cause of his loss, and rightly attributed it to a design of the magician to freeze him to death on the march. But he maintained the strictest silence, and drawing his conaus over his head, thus communed with himself: "I have full faith in the Manito who has preserved me thus far, I do not fear that he will forsake me in this cruel emergency. Great is his power, and I invoke it now that he may enable me to prevail over this wicked enemy of mankind."

He then drew on the remaining moccasin and legging, and taking a dead coal from the fireplace, invoked his spirit to give it efficacy, and blackened his foot and leg as far as the lost garment usually reached. He then got up and announced himself ready for the march. In vain Mishosha led him through snows and over morasses, hoping to see the lad sink at every moment. But in this he was disappointed, and for the first time they returned home together.

Taking courage from this success, the young man now determined to try his own power, having previously consulted with the daughters. They all agreed that the life the old man led was detestable, and that whoever would rid the world of him, would entitle himself to the thanks of the human race.

On the following day the young man thus addressed his hoary captor: "My grandfather, I have often gone with you on perilous excursions, and never murmured. I must now request that you will accompany me. I wish to visit my little brother, and to bring him home with me." They accordingly went on a visit to the main land, and found the little lad in the spot where he had been left. After taking him into the canoe, the young man again addressed the magician: "My grandfather, will you go and cut me a few of those red willows on the bank, I wish to prepare some smoking mixture." "Certainly, my son," replied the old man; "what you wish is not very hard. Ha, ha, ha! do you think me too old to get up there?" No sooner was Mishosha ashore, than the young man, placing himself in the proper position struck the canoe with his hand, and pronouncing the charm, N'chimaun Poll, the canoe immediately flew through the water on its return to the island. It was evening when the two brothers arrived, and carried the canoe ashore. But the elder daughter informed the young man that unless he sat up and watched the canoe, and kept his hand upon it, such was the power of their father, it would slip off and return to him. Panigwun watched faithfully till near the dawn of day, when he could no longer resist the drowsiness which oppressed him, and he fell into a short doze. In the mean time, the canoe slipped off and sought its master, who soon returned in high glee. "Ha, ha, ha! my son," said he; "you thought to play me a trick. It was very clever. But you see I am too old for you."

A short time after, the youth again addressed the magician. "My grandfather, I wish to try my skill in hunting. It is said there is plenty of game on an island not far off, and I have to request that you will take me there in your canoe." They accordingly went to the island and spent the day in hunting. Night coming on they put up a temporary lodge. When the magician had sunk into a profound sleep, the young man got up, and taking one of Mishosha's leggings and moccasins from the place where they hung, threw them into the fire, thus retaliating the artifice before played upon himself. He had discovered that the foot and leg were the only vulnerable parts of the magician's body. Having committed these articles to the fire, he besought his Manito that he would raise a great storm of snow, wind, and hail, and then laid himself down beside the old man. Consternation was depicted on the countenance of the latter, when he awoke in the morning and found his moccasin and legging missing. "I believe, my grandfather," said the young man, "that this is the moon in which fire attracts, and I fear your foot and leg garments have been drawn in." Then rising and bidding the old man follow him, he began the morning's hunt, frequently turning to see how Mishosha kept up. He saw him faltering at every step, and almost benumbed with cold, but encouraged him to follow, saying, we shall soon get through and reach the shore; although he took pains, at the same time, to lead him in roundabout ways, so as to let the frost take complete effect. At length the old man reached the brink of the island where the woods are succeeded by a border of smooth sand. But he could go no farther; his legs became stiff and refused motion, and he found himself fixed to the spot. But he still kept stretching out his arms and swinging his body to and fro. Every moment he found the numbness creeping higher. He felt his legs growing downward like roots, the feathers of his head turned to leaves, and in a few seconds he stood a tall and stiff sycamore, leaning toward the water.

Panigwun leaped into the canoe, and pronouncing the charm, was soon transported to the island, where he related his victory to the daughters. They applauded the deed, agreed to put on mortal shapes, become wives to the two young men, and forever quit the enchanted island. And passing immediately over to the main land, they lived lives of happiness and peace.

PEETA KWAY,

THE FOAM-WOMAN.

AN OTTOWA LEGEND.

There once lived a woman called Monedo Kway on the sand mountains called "the Sleeping Bear," of Lake Michigan, who had a daughter as beautiful as she was modest and discreet. Everybody spoke of the beauty of this daughter. She was so handsome that her mother feared she would be carried off, and to prevent it she put her in a box on the lake, which was tied by a long string to a stake on the shore. Every morning the mother pulled the box ashore, and combed her daughter's long, shining hair, gave her food, and then put her out again on the lake.

One day a handsome young man chanced to come to the spot at the moment she was receiving her morning's attentions from her mother. He was struck with her beauty, and immediately went home and told his feelings to his uncle, who was a great chief and a powerful magician. "My nephew," replied the old man, "go to the mother's lodge, and sit down in a modest manner, without saying a word. You need not ask her the question. But whatever you think she will understand, and what she thinks in answer you will also understand." The young man did so. He sat down, with his head dropped in a thoughtful manner, without uttering a word. He then thought, "I wish she would give me her daughter." Very soon he understood the mother's thoughts in reply. "Give you my daughter?" thought she; "you! No, indeed, my daughter shall never marry you." The young man went away and reported the result to his uncle. "Woman without good sense;" said he, "who is she keeping her daughter for? Does she think she will marry the Mudjikewis? Proud heart! we will try her magic skill, and see whether she can withstand our power." The pride and haughtiness of the mother was talked of by the spirits living on that part of the lake. They met together and determined to exert their power in humbling her. For this purpose they resolved to raise a great storm on the lake. The water began to toss and roar, and the tempest became so severe, that the string broke, and the box floated off through the straits down Lake Huron, and struck against the sandy shores at its outlet. The place where it struck was near the lodge of a superannuated old spirit called Ishkwon Daimeka, or the keeper of the gate of the lakes. He opened the box and let out the beautiful daughter, took her into his lodge, and married her.

When the mother found that her daughter had been blown off by the storm, she raised very loud cries and lamented exceedingly. This she continued to do for a long time, and would not be comforted. At length, after two or three years, the spirits had pity on her, and determined to raise another storm and bring her back. It was even a greater storm than the first; and when it began to wash away the ground and encroach on the lodge of Ishkwon Daimeka, she leaped into the box, and the waves carried her back to the very spot of her mother's lodge on the shore. Monedo Equa was overjoyed; but when she opened the box, she found that her daughter's beauty had almost all departed. However, she loved her still because she was her daughter, and now thought of the young man who had made her the offer of marriage. She sent a formal message to him, but he had altered his mind, for he knew that she had been the wife of another: "I marry your daughter?" said he; "your daughter! No, indeed! I shall never marry her."

The storm that brought her back was so strong and powerful, that it tore away a large part of the shore of the lake, and swept off Ishkwon Daimeka's lodge, the fragments of which, lodging in the straits, formed those beautiful islands which are scattered in the St. Clair and Detroit rivers. The old man himself was drowned, and his bones are buried under them. They heard him singing his songs of lamentation as he was driven off on a portion of his lodge; as if he had been called to testify his bravery and sing his war song at the stake.

No storms can blench my heart.

PAH-HAH-UNDOOTAH,

THE RED HEAD.

A DACOTAH LEGEND.

As spring approaches, the Indians return from their wintering grounds to their villages, engage in feasting, soon exhaust their stock of provisions, and begin to suffer for the want of food. Such of the hunters as are of an active and enterprising cast of character, take the occasion to separate from the mass of the population, and remove to some neighboring locality in the forest, which promises the means of subsistence during this season of general lassitude and enjoyment.

Among the families who thus separated themselves, on a certain occasion, there was a man called Odshedoph Waucheentongah, or the Child of Strong Desires, who had a wife and one son. After a day's travel he reached an ample wood with his family, which was thought to be a suitable place to encamp. The wife fixed the lodge, while the husband went out to hunt. Early in the evening he returned with a deer. Being tired and thirsty he asked his son to go to the river for some water. The son replied that it was dark and he was afraid. He urged him to go, saying that his mother, as well as himself, was tired, and the distance to the water was very short. But no persuasion was of any avail. He refused to go. "Ah, my son," said the father, at last, "if you are afraid to go to the river, you will never kill the Red Head."

The boy was deeply mortified by this observation. It seemed to call up all his latent energies. He mused in silence. He refused to eat, and made no reply when spoken to.

The next day he asked his mother to dress the skin of the deer, and make it into moccasins for him, while he busied himself in preparing a bow and arrows. As soon as these things were done, he left the lodge one morning at sunrise, without saying a word to his father or mother. He fired one of his arrows into the air, which fell westward. He took that course, and at night coming to the spot where the arrow had fallen, was rejoiced to find it piercing the heart of a deer. He refreshed himself with a meal of the venison, and the next morning fired another arrow. After travelling all day, he found it also in another deer. In this manner he fired four arrows, and every evening found that he had killed a deer. What was very singular, however, was, that he left the arrows sticking in the carcasses, and passed on without withdrawing them. In consequence of this, he had no arrow for the fifth day, and was in great distress at night for the want of food. At last he threw himself upon the ground in despair, concluding that he might as well perish there as go further. But he had not lain long before he heard a hollow, rumbling noise, in the ground beneath him. He sprang up, and discovered at a distance the figure of a human being, walking with a stick. He looked attentively and saw that the figure was walking in a wide beaten path, in a prairie, leading from a lodge to a lake. To his surprise, this lodge was at no great distance. He approached a little nearer and concealed himself. He soon discovered that the figure was no other than that of the terrible witch, Wok-on-kahtohn-zooeyah-pee-kah-haitchee, or the little old woman who makes war. Her path to the lake was perfectly smooth and solid, and the noise our adventurer had heard, was caused by the striking of her walking staff upon the ground. The top of this staff was decorated with a string of the toes and bills of birds of every kind, who at every stroke of the stick, fluttered and sung their various notes in concert.

She entered her lodge and laid off her mantle, which was entirely composed of the scalps of women. Before folding it, she shook it several times, and at every shake the scalps uttered loud shouts of laughter, in which the old hag joined. Nothing could have frightened him more than this horrific exhibition. After laying by the cloak she came directly to him. She informed him that she had known him from the time he left his father's lodge, and watched his movements. She told him not to fear or despair, for she would be his friend and protector. She invited him into her lodge, and gave him a supper. During the repast, she inquired of him his motives for visiting her. He related his history, stated the manner in which he had been disgraced, and the difficulties he labored under. She cheered him with the assurance of her friendship, and told him he would be a brave man yet.

She then commenced the exercise of her power upon him. His hair being very short, she took a large leaden comb, and after drawing it through his hair several times, it became of a handsome feminine length. She then proceeded to dress him as a female, furnishing him with the necessary garments, and decorated his face with paints of the most beautiful dye. She gave him a bowl of shining metal. She directed him to put in his girdle a blade of scented sword-grass, and to proceed the next morning to the banks of the lake, which was no other than that over which the Red Head reigned. Now Pah-hah-undootah, or the Red Head, was a most powerful sorcerer and the terror of all the country, living upon an island in the centre of the lake.

She informed him that there would be many Indians on the island, who, as soon as they saw him use the shining bowl to drink with, would come and solicit him to be their wife, and to take him over to the island. These offers he was to refuse, and say that he had come a great distance to be the wife of the Red Head, and that if the chief could not come for her in his own canoe, she should return to her village. She said that as soon as the Red Head heard of this, he would come for her in his own canoe, in which she must embark. On reaching the island he must consent to be his wife, and in the evening induce him to take a walk out of the village, when he was to take the first opportunity to cut off his head with the blade of grass. She also gave him general advice how he was to conduct himself to sustain his assumed character of a woman. His fear would scarcely permit him to accede to this plan, but the recollection of his father's words and looks decided him.

Early in the morning, he left the witch's lodge, and took the hard beaten path to the banks of the lake. He reached the water at a point directly opposite the Red Head's village. It was a beautiful day. The heavens were clear, and the sun shone out in the greatest effulgence. He had not been long there, having sauntered along the beach, when he displayed the glittering bowl, by dipping water from the lake. Very soon a number of canoes came off from the island. The men admired his dress, and were charmed with his beauty, and a great number made proposals of marriage. These he promptly declined, agreeably to the concerted plan. When the facts were reported to the Red Head, he ordered his canoe to be put in the water by his chosen men, and crossed over to see this wonderful girl. As he came near the shore, he saw that the ribs of the sorcerer's canoe were formed of living rattlesnakes, whose heads pointed outward to guard him from enemies. Our adventurer had no sooner stepped into the canoe than they began to hiss and rattle, which put him in a great fright. But the magician spoke to them, after which they became pacified and quiet, and all at once they were at the landing upon the island. The marriage immediately took place, and the bride made presents of various valuables which had been furnished by the old witch.

As they were sitting in the lodge surrounded by friends and relatives, the mother of the Red Head regarded the face of her new daughter-in-law for a long time with fixed attention. From this scrutiny she was convinced that this singular and hasty marriage augured no good to her son. She drew her husband aside and disclosed to him her suspicions: "This can be no female," said she; "the figure and manners, the countenance, and more especially the expression of the eyes, are, beyond a doubt, those of a man." Her husband immediately rejected her suspicions, and rebuked her severely for the indignity offered to her daughter-in-law. He became so angry, that seizing the first thing that came to hand, which happened to be his pipe stem, he beat her unmercifully. This act requiring to be explained to the spectators, the mock bride immediately rose up, and assuming an air of offended dignity, told the Red Head that after receiving so gross an insult from his relatives he could not think of remaining with him as his wife, but should forthwith return to his village and friends. He left the lodge followed by the Red Head, and walked until he came upon the beach of the island, near the spot where they had first landed. Red Head entreated him to remain. He pressed him by every motive which he thought might have weight, but they were all rejected. During this conference they had seated themselves upon the ground, and Red Head, in great affliction, reclined his head upon his fancied wife's lap. This was the opportunity ardently sought for, and it was improved to the best advantage. Every means was taken to lull him to sleep, and partly by a soothing manner, and partly by a seeming compliance with his request, the object was at last attained. Red Head fell into a sound sleep. Our aspirant for the glory of a brave man then drew his blade of grass, and drawing it once across the neck of the Red Head completely severed the head from the body.

He immediately stripped off his dress, seized the bleeding head, and plunging into the lake, swam safely over to the main shore. He had scarcely reached it, when, looking back, he saw amid the darkness the torches of persons come out in search of the new-married couple. He listened till they had found the headless body, and he heard their piercing shrieks of sorrow, as he took his way to the lodge of his kind adviser.

She received him with rejoicing. She admired his prudence, and told him his bravery could never be questioned again. Lifting up the head, she said he need only have brought the scalp. She cut off a small piece for herself, and told him he might now return with the head, which would be evidence of an achievement that would cause the Indians to respect him. In your way home, she said, you will meet with but one difficulty. Maunkah Keesh Woccaung, or the spirit of the Earth, requires an offering from those who perform extraordinary achievements. As you walk along in a prairie, there will be an earthquake. The earth will open and divide the prairie in the middle. Take this partridge and throw it into the opening, and instantly spring over it. All this happened precisely as it had been foretold. He cast the partridge into the crevice and leapt over it. He then proceeded without obstruction to a place near his village, where he secreted his trophy. On entering the village he found his parents had returned from the place of their spring encampment, and were in great sorrow for their son, whom they supposed to be lost. One and another of the young men had presented themselves to the disconsolate parents, and said, "Look up, I am your son." Having been often deceived in this manner, when their own son actually presented himself, they sat with their heads down, and with their eyes nearly blinded with weeping. It was some time before they could be prevailed upon to bestow a glance upon him. It was still longer before they recognized him for their son; when he recounted his adventures they believed him mad. The young men laughed at him. He left the lodge and soon returned with his trophy. It was soon recognized. All doubts of the reality of his adventures now vanished. He was greeted with joy and placed among the first warriors of the nation. He finally became a chief, and his family were ever after respected and esteemed.

THE WHITE STONE CANOE.

There was once a very beautiful young girl, who died suddenly on the day she was to have been married to a handsome young man. He was also brave, but his heart was not proof against this loss. From the hour she was buried, there was no more joy or peace for him. He went often to visit the spot where the women had buried her, and sat musing there, when, it was thought, by some of his friends, he would have done better to try to amuse himself in the chase, or by diverting his thoughts in the war-path. But war and hunting had both lost their charms for him. His heart was already dead within him. He pushed aside both his war-club and his bow and arrows.

He had heard the old people say, that there was a path that led to the land of souls, and he determined to follow it. He accordingly set out, one morning, after having completed his preparations for the journey. At first he hardly knew which way to go. He was only guided by the tradition that he must go south. For a while he could see no change in the face of the country. Forests, and hills, and valleys, and streams had the same looks which they wore in his native place. There was snow on the ground, when he set out, and it was sometimes seen to be piled and matted on the thick trees and bushes. At length it began to diminish, and finally disappeared. The forest assumed a more cheerful appearance, and the leaves put forth their buds, and before he was aware of the completeness of the change, he found himself surrounded by spring. He had left behind him the land of snow and ice. The air became mild; the dark clouds of winter had rolled away from the sky; a pure field of blue was above him, and as he went he saw flowers beside his path, and heard the songs of birds. By these signs he knew that he was going the right way, for they agreed with the traditions of his tribe. At length he spied a path. It led him through a grove, then up a long and elevated ridge, on the very top of which he came to a lodge. At the door stood an old man, with white hair, whose eyes, though deeply sunk, had a fiery brilliancy. He had a long robe of skins thrown loosely around his shoulders, and a staff in his hands. It was Chebiabos.

The young Chippewa began to tell his story; but the venerable chief arrested him, before he had proceeded to speak ten words. "I have expected you," he replied, "and had just risen to bid you welcome to my abode. She whom you seek, passed here but a few days since, and being fatigued with her journey, rested herself here. Enter my lodge and be seated, and I will then satisfy your inquiries, and give you directions for your journey from this point." Having done this, they both issued forth to the lodge door. "You see yonder gulf," said he, "and the wide stretching blue plains beyond. It is the land of souls. You stand upon its borders, and my lodge is the gate of entrance. But you cannot take your body along. Leave it here with your bow and arrows, your bundle, and your dog. You will find them safe on your return." So saying, he re-entered the lodge, and the freed traveller bounded forward, as if his feet had suddenly been endowed with the power of wings. But all things retained their natural colors and shapes. The woods and leaves, and streams and lakes, were only more bright and comely than he had ever witnessed. Animals bounded across his path, with a freedom and a confidence which seemed to tell him, there was no blood shed here. Birds of beautiful plumage inhabited the groves, and sported in the waters. There was but one thing, in which he saw a very unusual effect. He noticed that his passage was not stopped by trees or other objects. He appeared to walk directly through them. They were, in fact, but the souls or shadows of material trees. He became sensible that he was in a land of shadows. When he had travelled half a day's journey, through a country which was continually becoming more attractive, he came to the banks of a broad lake, in the centre of which was a large and beautiful island. He found a canoe of shining white stone, tied to the shore. He was now sure that he had come the right path, for the aged man had told him of this. There were also shining paddles. He immediately entered the canoe, and took the paddles in his hands, when to his joy and surprise, on turning round, he beheld the object of his search in another canoe, exactly its counterpart in everything. She had exactly imitated his motions, and they were side by side. They at once pushed out from shore and began to cross the lake. Its waves seemed to be rising, and at a distance looked ready to swallow them up; but just as they entered the whitened edge of them they seemed to melt away, as if they were but the images of waves. But no sooner was one wreath of foam passed, than another, more threatening still, rose up. Thus they were in perpetual fear; and what added to it, was the clearness of the water, through which they could see heaps of beings who had perished before, and whose bones lay strewed on the bottom of the lake. The Master of Life had, however, decreed to let them pass, for the actions of neither of them had been bad. But they saw many others struggling and sinking in the waves. Old men and young men, males and females of all ages and ranks, were there; some passed, and some sank. It was only the little children whose canoes seemed to meet no waves. At length, every difficulty was gone, as in a moment, and they both leaped out on the happy island. They felt that the very air was food. It strengthened and nourished them. They wandered together over the blissful fields, where everything was formed to please the eye and the ear. There were no tempests—there was no ice, no chilly winds—no one shivered for the want of warm clothes: no one suffered for hunger—no one mourned the dead. They saw no graves. They heard of no wars. There was no hunting of animals; for the air itself was their food. Gladly would the young warrior have remained there forever, but he was obliged to go back for his body. He did not see the Master of Life, but he heard his voice in a soft breeze. "Go back," said this voice, "to the land from whence you come. Your time has not yet come. The duties for which I made you, and which you are to perform, are not yet finished. Return to your people and accomplish the duties of a good man. You will be the ruler of your tribe for many days. The rules you must observe will be told you by my messenger, who keeps the gate. When he surrenders back your body, he will tell you what to do. Listen to him, and you shall afterwards rejoin the spirit, which you must now leave behind. She is accepted, and will be ever here, as young and as happy as she was when I first called her from the land of snows." When this voice ceased, the narrator awoke. It was the fancy work of a dream, and he was still in the bitter land of snows, and hunger, and tears.

ONAIAZO, THE SKY-WALKER.

A LEGEND OF A VISIT TO THE SUN.

AN OTTOWA MYTH.

A long time ago, there lived an aged Odjibwa and his wife, on the Shores of Lake Huron. They had an only son, a very beautiful boy, whose name was O-na-wut-a-qut-o, or he that catches the clouds. The family were of the totem of the beaver. The parents were very proud of him, and thought to make him a celebrated man, but when he reached the proper age, he would not submit to the We-koon-de-win, or fast. When this time arrived, they gave him charcoal, instead of his breakfast, but he would not blacken his face. If they denied him food, he would seek for birds' eggs, along the shores, or pick up the heads of fish that had been cast away, and broil them. One day, they took away violently the food he had thus prepared, and cast him some coals in place of it. This act brought him to a decision. He took the coals and blackened his face, and went out of the lodge. He did not return, but slept without; and during the night, he had a dream. He dreamed that he saw a very beautiful female come down from the clouds and stand by his side. "O-no-wut-a-qut-o," said she, "I am come for you—step in my tracks." The young man did so, and presently felt himself ascending above the tops of the trees—he mounted up, step by step, into the air, and through the clouds. His guide, at length, passed through an orifice, and he, following her, found himself standing on a beautiful plain.

A path led to a splendid lodge. He followed her into it. It was large, and divided into two parts. On one end he saw bows and arrows, clubs and spears, and various warlike implements tipped with silver. On the other end were things exclusively belonging to females. This was the home of his fair guide, and he saw that she had, on the frame, a broad rich belt, of many colors, which she was weaving. She said to him: "My brother is coming and I must hide you." Putting him in one corner, she spread the belt over him. Presently the brother came in, very richly dressed, and shining as if he had points of silver all over him. He took down from the wall a splendid pipe, together with his sack of a-pa-ko-ze-gun, or smoking mixture. When he had finished regaling himself in this way, and laid his pipe aside, he said to his sister: "Nemissa" (which is, my elder sister), "when will you quit these practices? Do you forget that the Greatest of the Spirits had commanded that you should not take away the child from below? Perhaps you suppose that you have concealed O-no-wut-a-qut-o, but do I not know of his coming? If you would not offend me, send him back immediately." But this address did not alter her purpose. She would not send him back. Finding that she was purposed in her mind, he then spoke to the young lad, and called him from his hiding-place. "Come out of your concealment," said he, "and walk about and amuse yourself. You will grow hungry if you remain there." He then presented him a bow and arrows, and a pipe of red stone, richly ornamented. This was taken as the word of consent to his marriage; so the two were considered husband and wife from that time.

O-no-wut-a-qut-o found everything exceedingly fair and beautiful around him, but he found no inhabitants except her brother. There were flowers on the plains. There were bright and sparkling streams. There were green valleys and pleasant trees. There were gay birds and beautiful animals, but they were not such as he had been accustomed to see. There was also day and night, as on the earth; but he observed that every morning the brother regularly left the lodge, and remained absent all day; and every evening the sister departed, though it was commonly but for a part of the night.

His curiosity was aroused to solve this mystery. He obtained the brother's consent to accompany him in one of his daily journeys. They travelled over a smooth plain, without boundaries, until O-no-wut-a-qut-o felt the gnawings of appetite, and asked his companion if there were no game. "Patience! my brother," said he, "we shall soon reach the spot where I eat my dinner, and you will then see how I am provided." After walking on a long time, they came to a place which was spread over with fine mats, where they sat down to refresh themselves. There was, at this place, a hole through the sky; and O-no-wut-a-qut-o, looked down, at the bidding of his companion, upon the earth. He saw below the great lakes, and the villages of the Indians. In one place, he saw a war party stealing on the camp of their enemies. In another, he saw feasting and dancing. On a green plain, young men were engaged at ball. Along a stream, women were employed in gathering the a-puk-wa for mats.

"Do you see," said the brother, "that group of children playing beside a lodge? Observe that beautiful and active boy," said he, at the same time darting something at him, from his hand. The child immediately fell, and was carried into the lodge.

They looked again, and saw the people gathering about the lodge. They heard the she-she-gwun, of the meeta, and the song he sung, asking that the child's life might be spared. To this request, the companion of O-no-wut-a-qut-o made answer: "Send me up the sacrifice of a white dog." Immediately a feast was ordered by the parents of the child, the white dog was killed, his carcass was roasted, and all the wise men and medicine men of the village assembled to witness the ceremony. "There are many below," continued the voice of the brother, "whom you call great in medical skill, but it is because their ears are open, and they listen to my voice, that they are able to succeed. When I have struck one with sickness, they direct the people to look to me; and when they send me the offering I ask, I remove my hand from off them, and they are well." After he had said this, they saw the sacrifice parcelled out in dishes, for those who were at the feast. The master of the feast then said, "We send this to thee, great Manito," and immediately the roasted animal came up. Thus their dinner was supplied, and after they had eaten, they returned to the lodge by another way.

After this manner they lived for some time; but the place became wearisome at last. O-no-wut-a-qut-o thought of his friends, and wished to go back to them. He had not forgotten his native village, and his father's lodge; and he asked leave of his wife to return. At length she consented. "Since you are better pleased," she replied, "with the cares and the ills, and the poverty of the world, than with the peaceful delights of the sky, and its boundless prairies, go! I give you permission, and since I have brought you hither, I will conduct you back; but, remember, you are still my husband, I hold a chain in my hand by which I can draw you back whenever I will. My power over you is not, in any manner, diminished. Beware, therefore, how you venture to take a wife among the people below. Should you ever do so, it is then that you shall feel the force of my displeasure."

As she said this, her eyes sparkled—she raised herself slightly on her toes, and stretched herself up, with a majestic air; and at that moment, O-no-wut-a-qut-o awoke from his dream. He found himself on the ground, near his father's lodge, at the very spot where he had laid himself down to fast. Instead of the bright beings of a higher world, he found himself surrounded by his parents and relatives. His mother told him he had been absent a year. The change was so great, that he remained for some time moody and abstracted, but by degrees he recovered his spirits. He began to doubt the reality of all he had heard and seen above. At last, he forgot the admonitions of his spouse, and married a beautiful young woman of his own tribe. But within four days, she was a corpse. Even this fearful admonition was lost, and he repeated the offence by a second marriage. Soon afterwards, he went out of the lodge, one night, but never returned. It was believed that his Sun-wife had recalled him to the region of the clouds, where, the tradition asserts, he still dwells, and walks on the daily rounds, which he once witnessed.

BOSH-KWA-DOSH,

OR

THE MASTODON.

There was once a man who found himself alone in the world. He knew not whence he came, nor who were his parents, and he wandered about from place to place, in search of something. At last he became wearied and fell asleep. He dreamed that he heard a voice saying, "Nosis," that is, my grandchild. When he awoke, he actually heard the word repeated, and looking around, he saw a tiny little animal hardly big enough to be seen on the plain. While doubting whether the voice could come from such a diminutive source, the little animal said to him, "My grandson, you will call me Bosh-kwa-dosh. Why are you so desolate? Listen to me, and you shall find friends and be happy. You must take me up and bind me to your body, and never put me aside, and success in life shall attend you." He obeyed the voice, sewing up the little animal in the folds of a string, or narrow belt, which he tied around his body, at his navel. He then set out in search of some one like himself, or other object. He walked a long time in the woods without seeing man or animal. He seemed all alone in the world. At length he came to a place where a stump was cut, and on going over a hill he descried a large town in a plain. A wide road led through the middle of it; but what seemed strange was, that on one side there were no inhabitants in the lodges, while the other side was thickly inhabited. He walked boldly into the town.

The inhabitants came out and said: "Why here is the being we have heard so much of—here is Anish-in-á-ba. See his eyes, and his teeth in a half circle—see the Wyaukenawbedaid! See his bowels, how they are formed;"—for it seems they could look through him. The king's son, the Mudjékewis, was particularly kind to him, and calling him brother-in-law, commanded that he should be taken to his father's lodge and received with attention. The king gave him one of his daughters. These people (who are supposed to be human, but whose rank in the scale of being is left equivocal) passed much of their time in play and sports and trials of various, kinds. When some time had passed, and he become refreshed and rested, he was invited to join in these sports. The first test which they put him to, was the trial of frost. At some distance was a large body of frozen water, and the trial consisted in lying down naked on the ice, and seeing who could endure the longest. He went out with two young men, who began, by pulling off their garments, and lying down on their faces. He did likewise, only keeping on the narrow magic belt with the tiny little animal sewed in it; for he felt that in this alone was to be his reliance and preservation. His competitors laughed and tittered during the early part of the night, and amused themselves by thoughts of his fate. Once they called out to him, but he made no reply. He felt a manifest warmth given out by his belt. About midnight, finding they were still, he called out to them, in return, "What!" said he, "are you benumbed already? I am but just beginning to feel a little cold." All was silence. He, however, kept his position till early day break, when he got up and went to them. They were both quite dead, and frozen so hard, that the flesh had bursted out under their finger nails, and their teeth stood out. As he looked more closely, what was his surprise to find them both transformed into buffalo cows. He tied them together, and carried them towards the village. As he came in sight, those who had wished his death were disappointed, but the Mudjékewis, who was really his friend, rejoiced. "See!" said he, "but one person approaches—it is my brother-in-law." He then threw down the carcasses in triumph, but it was found that by their death he had restored two inhabitants to the before empty lodges, and he afterwards perceived that every one of these beings, whom he killed, had the like effect, so that the depopulated part of the village soon became filled with people.

The next test they put him to, was the trial of speed. He was challenged to the race ground, and began his career with one whom he thought to be a man; but everything was enchanted here, for he soon discovered that his competitor was a large black bear. The animal outran him, tore up the ground, and sported before him, and put out its large claws as if to frighten him. He thought of his little guardian spirit in the belt, and wishing to have the swiftness of the Kakake, i.e. sparrowhawk, he found himself rising from the ground, and with the speed of this bird he outwent his rival, and won the race, while the bear came up exhausted and lolling out his tongue. His friend the Mudjékewis stood ready, with his war-club, at the goal, and the moment the bear came up, dispatched him. He then turned to the assembly, who had wished his friend and brother's death, and after reproaching them, he lifted up his club and began to slay them on every side. They fell in heaps on all sides; but it was plain to be seen, the moment they fell, that they were not men, but animals—foxes, wolves, tigers, lynxes, and other kinds, lay thick around the Mudjékewis.

Still the villagers were not satisfied. They thought the trial of frost had not been fairly accomplished, and wished it repeated. He agreed to repeat it, but being fatigued with the race, he undid his guardian belt, and laying it under his head, fell asleep. When he awoke, he felt refreshed, and feeling strong in his own strength, he went forward to renew the trial on the ice, but quite forgot the belt, nor did it at all occur to him when he awoke, or when he lay down to repeat the trial. About midnight his limbs became stiff, the blood soon ceased to circulate, and he was found in the morning a stiff corpse. The victors took him up and carried him to the village, where the loudest tumult of victorious joy was made, and they cut his body into a thousand pieces, that each one might eat a piece.

The Mudjékewis bemoaned his fate, but his wife was inconsolable. She lay in a state of partial distraction, in the lodge. As she lay here, she thought she heard some one groaning. It was repeated through the night, and in the morning she carefully scanned the place, and running her fingers through the grass, she discovered the secret belt, on the spot where her husband had last reposed. "Aubishin!" cried the belt—that is, untie me, or unloose me. Looking carefully, she found the small seam which inclosed the tiny little animal. It cried out the more earnestly, "Aubishin!" and when she had carefully ripped the seams, she beheld, to her surprise, a minute, naked little beast, smaller than the smallest new-born mouse, without any vestige of hair, except at the tip of its tail; it could crawl a few inches, but reposed from fatigue. It then went forward again. At each movement it would pupowee, that is to say, shake itself like a dog, and at each shake it became larger. This it continued until it acquired the strength and size of a middle sized dog, when it ran off.

The mysterious dog ran to the lodges, about the village, looking for the bones of his friend, which he carried to a secret place, and as fast as he found them arranged all in their natural order. At length he had formed all the skeleton complete, except the heel bone of one foot. It so happened that two sisters were out of camp, according to custom, at the time the body was cut up, and this heel was sent out to them. The dog hunted every lodge, and being satisfied that it was not to be found in the camp, he sought it outside of it, and found the lodge of the two sisters. The younger sister was pleased to see him, and admired and patted the pretty dog, but the elder sat mumbling the very heel-bone he was seeking, and was surly and sour, and repelled the dog, although he looked most wistfully up in her face, while she sucked the bone from one side of her mouth to the other. At last she held it in such a manner that it made her cheek stick out, when the dog, by a quick spring, seized the cheek, and tore cheek and bone away and fled.

He now completed the skeleton, and placing himself before it, uttered a hollow, low, long-drawn-out howl, when the bones came compactly together. He then modulated his howl, when the bones knit together and became tense. The third howl brought sinews upon them, and the fourth, flesh. He then turned his head upwards, looking into the sky, and gave a howl, which caused every one in the village to startle, and the ground itself to tremble, at which the breath entered into his body, and he first breathed and then arose. "Hy kow!" I have overslept myself, he exclaimed; "I will be too late for the trial." "Trial!" said Bosh-kwa-dosh, "I told you never to let me be separate from your body, you have neglected this. You were defeated, and your frozen body cut into a thousand pieces, and scattered over the village; but my skill has restored you. Now I will declare myself to you, and show who and what I am!"

He then began to Pupowee, or shake himself, and at every shake, he grew. His body became heavy and massy, his legs thick and long, with big clumsy ends, or feet. He still shook himself, and rose and swelled. A long snout grew from his head, and two great shining teeth out of his mouth. His skin remained as it was, naked, and only a tuft of hair grew on his tail. He rose up as high as the trees. He was enormous. "I should fill the earth," said he, "were I to exert my utmost power, and all there is on the earth would not satisfy me to eat. Neither could it fatten me or do me good. I should want more. The Great Spirit created me to show his power when there were nothing but animals on the earth. But were all animals as large as myself, there would not be grass enough for food. But the earth was made for man, and not for beasts. I give some of those great gifts which I possess. All the animals shall be your food, and you are no longer to flee before them, and be their sport and food." So saying, he walked off with heavy steps and with fierce looks, at which all the little animals trembled.

THE SUN-CATCHER,

OR

BOY WHO SET A SNARE FOR THE SUN.

A MYTH OF THE ORIGIN OF THE DORMOUSE.

FROM THE ODJIBWA.

At the time when the animals reigned in the earth, they had killed all but a girl, and her little brother, and these two were living in fear and seclusion. The boy was a perfect pigmy, and never grew beyond the stature of a small infant, but the girl increased with her years, so that the labor of providing food and lodging devolved wholly on her. She went out daily to get wood for their lodge-fire, and took her little brother along that no accident might happen to him; for he was too little to leave alone. A big bird might have flown away with him. She made him a bow and arrows, and said to him one day, "I will leave you behind where I have been chopping—you must hide yourself, and you will soon see the Gitshee-gitshee-gaun-ia-see-ug, or snow birds, come and pick the worms out of the wood, where I have been chopping" (for it was in the winter). "Shoot one of them and bring it home." He obeyed her, and tried his best to kill one, but came home unsuccessful. She told him he must not despair, but try again the next day. She accordingly left him at the place she got wood, and returned. Towards nightfall, she heard his little footsteps on the snow, and he came in exultingly, and threw down one of the birds which he had killed. "My sister," said he, "I wish you to skin it and stretch the skin, and when I have killed more, I will have a coat made out of them." "But what shall we do with the body?" said she, for as yet men had not begun to eat animal food, but lived on vegetables alone. "Cut it in two," he answered, "and season our pottage with one half of it at a time." She did so. The boy, who was of a very small stature, continued his efforts, and succeeded in killing ten birds, out of the skins of which his sister made him a little coat.

"Sister," said he one day, "are we all alone in the world? Is there nobody else living?" She told him that those they feared and who had destroyed their relatives lived in a certain quarter, and that he must by no means go in that direction. This only served to inflame his curiosity and raise his ambition, and he soon after took his bow and arrows and went in that direction. After walking a long time and meeting nothing, he became tired, and lay down on a knoll, where the sun had melted the snow. He fell fast asleep; and while sleeping, the sun beat so hot upon him, that it singed and drew up his bird-skin coat, so that when he awoke and stretched himself, he felt bound in it, as it were. He looked down and saw the damage done to his coat. He flew into a passion, and upbraided the sun, and vowed vengeance against it. "Do not think you are too high," said he, "I shall revenge myself."

On coming home, he related his disaster to his sister, and lamented bitterly the spoiling of his coat. He would not eat. He lay down as one that fasts, and, did not stir, or move his position for ten days, though she tried all she could to arouse him. At the end of ten days, he turned over, and then lay ten days on the other side. When he got up, he told his sister to make him a snare, for he meant to catch the sun. She said she had nothing; but finally recollected a little piece of dried deer's sinew, that her father had left, which she soon made into a string suitable for a noose. But the moment she showed it to him, he told her it would not do, and bid her get something else. She said she had nothing—nothing at all. At last she thought of her hair, and pulling some of it out of her head, made a string. But he instantly said it would not answer, and bid her, pettishly, and with authority, make him a noose. She told him there was nothing to make it of, and went out of the lodge. She said to herself, when she had got without the lodge, and while she was all alone, "neow obewy indapin." From my body, some sinews will I take. This she did, and twisting them into a tiny cord, she handed it to her brother. The moment he saw this curious braid, he was delighted. "This will do," he said, and immediately put it to his mouth and began pulling it through his lips; and as fast as he drew it changed it into a red metal cord, which he wound around his body and shoulders, till he had a large quantity. He then prepared himself, and set out a little after midnight, that he might catch the sun before it rose. He fixed his snare on a spot just where the sun would strike the land, as it rose above the earth's disk; and sure enough, he caught the sun, so that it was held fast in the cord, and did not rise.

The animals who ruled the earth were immediately put into a great commotion. They had no light. They called a council to debate upon the matter, and to appoint some one to go and cut the cord—for this was a very hazardous enterprise, as the rays of the sun would burn whoever came so near to them. At last the dormouse undertook it—for at this time the dormouse was the largest animal in the world. When it stood up it looked like a mountain. When it got to the place where the sun was snared, its back began to smoke and burn with the intensity of the heat, and the top of its carcass was reduced to enormous heaps of ashes. It succeeded, however, in cutting the cord with its teeth, and freeing the sun, but it was reduced to a very small size, and has remained so ever since. Men call it the Kug-e-been-gwa-kwa—the blind woman.

WA-WA-BE-ZO-WIN,

OR

THE SWING ON THE PICTURED ROCKS OF LAKE SUPERIOR.

A TRADITION OF THE ODJIBWAS.

There was an old hag of a woman living with her daughter-in-law, and son, and a little orphan boy, whom she was bringing up. When her son-in-law came home from hunting, it was his custom to bring his wife the moose's lip, the kidney of the bear, or some other choice bits of different animals. These she would cook crisp, so as to make a sound with her teeth in eating them. This kind attention of the hunter to his wife at last excited the envy of the old woman. She wished to have the same luxuries, and in order to get them she finally resolved to make way with her son's wife. One day, she asked her to leave her infant son to the care of the orphan boy, and come out and swing with her. She took her to the shore of a lake, where there was a high range of rocks overhanging the water. Upon the top of this rock, she erected a swing. She then undressed, and fastened a piece of leather around her body, and commenced swinging, going over the precipice at every swing. She continued it but a short time, when she told her daughter to do the same. The daughter obeyed. She undressed, and tying the leather string as she was directed, began swinging. When the swing had got in full motion and well a-going, so that it went clear beyond the precipice at every sweep, the old woman slyly cut the cords and let her daughter drop into the lake. She then put on her daughter's clothing, and thus disguised went home in the dusk of the evening and counterfeited her appearance and duties. She found the child crying, and gave it the breast, but it would not draw. The orphan boy asked her where its mother was. She answered, "She is still swinging." He said, "I shall go and look for her." "No!" said she, "you must not—what should you go for?" When the husband came in, in the evening, he gave the coveted morsel to his supposed wife. He missed his mother-in-law, but said nothing. She eagerly ate the dainty, and tried to keep the child still. The husband looked rather astonished to see his wife studiously averting her face, and asked her why the child cried so. She said, she did not know—that it would not draw.

In the mean time, the orphan boy went to the lake shores, and found no one. He mentioned his suspicions, and while the old woman was out getting wood, he told him all he had heard or seen. The man then painted his face black, and placed his spear upside down in the earth, and requested the Great Spirit to send lightning, thunder, and rain, in the hope that the body of his wife might arise from the water. He then began to fast, and told the boy to take the child and play on the lake shore.

We must now go back to the swing. After the wife had plunged into the lake, she found herself taken hold of by a water-tiger, whose tail twisted itself round her body, and drew her to the bottom. There she found a fine lodge, and all things ready for her reception, and she became the wife of the water-tiger. Whilst the children were playing along the shore, and the boy was casting pebbles into the lake, he saw a gull coming from its centre, and flying towards the shore, and when on shore, the bird immediately assumed the human shape. When he looked again, he recognized the lost mother. She had a leather belt around her loins, and another belt of white metal, which was, in reality, the tail of the water-tiger, her husband. She suckled the babe, and said to the boy—"Come here with him, whenever he cries, and I will nurse him."

The boy carried the child home, and told these things to the father. When the child again cried, the father went also with the boy to the lake shore, and hid himself in a clump of trees. Soon the appearance of a gull was seen, with a long shining belt, or chain, and as soon as it came to the shore, it assumed the mother's shape, and she began to suckle the child. The husband had brought along his spear, and seeing the shining chain, he boldly struck it and broke the links apart. He then took his wife and child home, with the orphan boy. When they entered the lodge, the old woman looked up, but it was a look of despair; she instantly dropped her head. A rustling was heard in the lodge, and the next moment she leaped up and flew out of the lodge, and was never heard of more.

MUKAKEE MINDEMOEA,

OR

THE TOAD-WOMAN.

AN ODJIBWA LEGEND.

Great good luck once happened to a young woman who was living all alone in the woods, with nobody near her but her little dog, for, to her surprise, she found fresh meat every morning at her door. She felt very anxious to know who it was that supplied her, and watching one morning, very early, she saw a handsome young man deposit the meat. After his being seen by her, he became her husband, and she had a son by him. One day, not long after this, the man did not return at evening, as usual, from hunting. She waited till late at night, but all in vain. Next day she swung her baby to sleep in its tikenágun, or cradle, and then said to her dog: "Take care of your brother whilst I am gone, and when he cries, halloo for me." The cradle was made of the finest wampum, and all its bandages and decorations were of the same costly material. After a short time, the woman heard the cry of her faithful dog, and running home as fast as she could, she found her child gone and the dog too. But on looking round, she saw pieces of the wampum of her child's cradle bit off by the dog, who strove to retain the child and prevent his being carried off by an old woman called Mukakee Mindemoea, or the Toad-Woman. The mother followed at full speed, and occasionally came to lodges inhabited by old women, who told her at what time the thief had passed; they also gave her shoes, that she might follow on. There were a number of these old women, who seemed as if they were all prophetesses. Each of them would say to her, that when she arrived in pursuit of her stolen child at the next lodge, she must set the toes of the moccasins they had loaned her pointing homewards, and they would return of themselves. She would get others from her entertainers further on, who would also give her directions how to proceed to recover her son. She thus followed in the pursuit, from valley to valley, and stream to stream, for months and years; when she came, at length, to the lodge of the last of the friendly old Nocoes, or grandmothers, as they were called, who gave her final instructions how to proceed. She told her she was near the place where her son was, and directed her to build a lodge of shin-goob, or cedar boughs, near the old Toad-Woman's lodge, and to make a little bark dish and squeeze her milk into it. "Then," she said, "your first child (meaning the dog) will come and find you out." She did accordingly, and in a short time she heard her son, now grown, going out to hunt, with his dog, calling out to him, "Monedo Pewaubik (that is, Steel or Spirit Iron), Twee! Twee!" She then set ready the dish and filled it with her milk. The dog soon scented it and came into the lodge; she placed it before him. "See, my child," said she, addressing him, "the food you used to have from me, your mother." The dog went and told his young master that he had found his real mother; and informed him that the old woman, whom he called his mother, was not his mother, that she had stolen him when an infant in his cradle, and that he had himself followed her in hopes of getting him back. The young man and his dog then went on their hunting excursion, and brought back a great quantity of meat of all kinds. He said to his pretended mother, as he laid it down, "Send some to the stranger that has arrived lately." The old hag answered, "No! why should I send to her—the Sheegowish." He insisted; and she at last consented to take something, throwing it in at the door, with the remark, "My son gives you, or feeds you this." But it was of such on offensive nature that she threw it immediately out after her.

After this the young man paid the stranger a visit, at her lodge of cedar boughs, and partook of her dish of milk. She then told him she was his real mother, and that he had been stolen away from her by the detestable Toad-Woman, who was a witch. He was not quite convinced. She said to him, "Feign yourself sick, when you go home, and when the Toad-Woman asks what ails you, say that you want to see your cradle; for your cradle was of wampum, and your faithful brother, the dog, bit a piece off to try and detain you, which I picked up, as I followed in your track. They were real wampum, white and blue, shining and beautiful." She then showed him the pieces. He went home and did as his real mother bid him. "Mother," said he, "why am I so different in my looks from the rest of your children?" "Oh," said she, "it was a very bright clear blue sky when you were born; that is the reason." When the Toad-Woman saw he was ill, she asked what she could do for him. He said nothing would do him good, but the sight of his cradle. She ran immediately and got a cedar cradle; but he said "That is not my cradle." She went and got one of her own children's cradles (for she had four), but he turned his head and said, "That is not mine." She then produced the real cradle, and he saw it was the same, in substance, with the pieces the other had shown him; and he was convinced, for he could even see the marks of the dog's teeth upon it.

He soon got well, and went out hunting, and killed a fat bear. He and his dog-brother then stripped a tall pine of all its branches, and stuck the carcass on the top, taking the usual sign of his having killed an animal—the tongue. He told the Toad-Woman where he had left it, saying, "It is very far, even to the end of the earth." She answered, "It is not so far but I can get it;" so off she set. As soon as she was gone, the young man and his dog killed the Toad-Woman's children, and staked them on each side of the door, with a piece of fat in their mouths, and then went to his real mother and hastened her departure with them. The Toad-Woman spent a long time in finding the bear, and had much ado in climbing the tree to get down the carcass. As she got near home, she saw the children looking out, apparently, with the fat in their mouths, and was angry at them, saying, "Why do you destroy the pomatum of your brother?" But her fury was great indeed, when she saw they were killed and impaled. She ran after the fugitives as fast as she could, and was near overtaking them, when the young man said, "We are pressed hard, but let this stay her progress," throwing his fire steel behind him, which caused the Toad-Woman to slip and fall repeatedly. But still she pursued and gained on them, when he threw behind him his flint, which again retarded her, for it made her slip and stumble, so that her knees were bleeding; but she continued to follow on, and was gaining ground, when the young man said, "Let the Oshau shaw go min un (snake berry) spring up to detain her," and immediately these berries spread like scarlet all over the path for a long distance, which she could not avoid stooping down to pick and eat. Still she went on, and was again advancing on them, when the young man at last said to the dog, "Brother, chew her into mummy, for she plagues us." So the dog, turning round, seized her and tore her to pieces, and they escaped.

ERONENIERA,

OR

AN INDIAN VISIT TO THE GREAT SPIRIT.

AN ALGONQUIN LEGEND.

A Delaware Indian, called Eroneniera, anxious to know the Master of Life, resolved, without mentioning his design to any one, to undertake a journey to Paradise, which he knew to be God's residence. But, to succeed in his project, it was necessary for him to know the way to the celestial regions. Not knowing any person who, having been there himself, might aid him in finding the road, he commenced juggling, in the hope of drawing a good augury from his dream.

The Indian, in his dream, imagined that he had only to commence his journey, and that a continued walk would take him to the celestial abode. The next morning very early, he equipped himself as a hunter, taking a gun, powder-horn, ammunition, and a boiler to cook his provisions. The first part of his journey was pretty favorable; he walked a long time without being discouraged, having always a firm conviction that he should attain his aim. Eight days had already elapsed without his meeting with any one to oppose his desire. On the evening of the eighth day, at sunset, he stopped as usual on the bank of a brook, at the entrance of a little prairie, a place which he thought favorable for his night's encampment. As he was preparing his lodging, he perceived at the other end of the prairie three very wide and well-beaten paths; he thought this somewhat singular; he, however, continued to prepare his wigwam, that he might shelter himself from the weather. He also lighted a fire. While cooking, he found that, the darker it grew, the more distinct were those paths. This surprised, nay, even frightened him; he hesitated a few moments. Was it better for him to remain in his camp, or seek another at some distance? While in this incertitude, he remembered his juggling, or rather his dream. He thought that his only aim in undertaking his journey was to see the Master of Life. This restored him to his senses. He thought it probable that one of those three roads led to the place which he wished to visit. He therefore resolved upon remaining in his camp until the morrow, when he would, at random, take one of them. His curiosity, however, scarcely allowed him time to take his meal; he left his encampment and fire, and took the widest of the paths. He followed it until the middle of the day without seeing anything to impede his progress; but, as he was resting a little to take breath, he suddenly perceived a large fire coming from under ground. It excited his curiosity; he went towards it to see what it might be; but, as the fire appeared to increase as he drew nearer, he was so overcome with fear, that he turned back and took the widest of the other two paths. Having followed it for the same space of time as he had the first, he perceived a similar spectacle. His fright, which had been lulled by the change of road, awoke him, and he was obliged to take the third path, in which he walked a whole day without seeing anything. All at once, a mountain of a marvellous whiteness burst upon his sight. This filled him with astonishment; nevertheless, he took courage and advanced to examine it. Having arrived at the foot, he saw no signs of a road. He became very sad, not knowing how to continue his journey. In this conjuncture, he looked on all sides and perceived a female seated upon the mountain; her beauty was dazzling, and the whiteness of her garments surpassed that of snow. The woman said to him in his own language, "You appear surprised to find no longer a path to reach your wishes. I know that you have for a long time longed to see and speak to the Master of Life; and that you have undertaken this journey purposely to see him. The way which leads to his abode is upon this mountain. To ascend it, you must undress yourself completely, and leave all your accoutrements and clothing at the foot. No person shall injure them. You will then go and wash yourself in the river which I am now showing you, and afterward ascend the mountain."

The Indian obeyed punctually the woman's words; but one difficulty remained. How could he arrive at the top of the mountain, which was steep, without a path, and as smooth as glass? He asked the woman how he was to accomplish it. She replied, that if he really wished to see the Master of Life, he must, in mounting, only use his left hand and foot. This appeared almost impossible to the Indian. Encouraged, however, by the female, he commenced ascending, and succeeded after much trouble. When at the top, he was astonished to see no person, the woman having disappeared. He found himself alone, and without a guide. Three unknown villages were in sight; they were constructed on a different plan from his own, much handsomer, and more regular. After a few moments' reflection, he took his way towards the handsomest. When about half way from the top of the mountain, he recollected that he was naked, and was afraid to proceed; but a voice told him to advance, and have no apprehensions; that, as he had washed himself, he might walk in confidence. He proceeded without hesitation to a place which appeared to be the gate of the village, and stopped until some one came to open it. While he was considering the exterior of the village, the gate opened, and the Indian saw coming towards him a handsome man dressed all in white, who took him by the hand, and said he was going to satisfy his wishes by leading him to the presence of the Master of Life.

The Indian suffered himself to be conducted, and they arrived at a place of unequalled beauty. The Indian was lost in admiration. He there saw the Master of Life, who took him by the hand, and gave him for a seat a hat bordered with gold. The Indian, afraid of spoiling the hat, hesitated to sit down; but, being again ordered to do so, he obeyed without reply.

The Indian being seated, God said to him, "I am the Master of Life, whom thou wishest to see, and to whom thou wishest to speak. Listen to that which I will tell thee for thyself and for all the Indians. I am the Maker of Heaven and earth, the trees, lakes, rivers, men, and all that thou seest or hast seen on the earth or in the heavens; and because I love you, you must do my will; you must also avoid that which I hate; I hate you to drink as you do, until you lose your reason; I wish you not to fight one another; you take two wives, or run after other people's wives; you do wrong; I hate such conduct; you should have but one wife, and keep her until death. When you go to war, you juggle, you sing the medicine song, thinking you speak to me; you deceive yourselves; it is to the Manito that you speak; he is a wicked spirit who induces you to evil, and for want of knowing me, you listen to him.

"The land on which you are, I have made for you, not for others: wherefore do you suffer the whites to dwell upon your lands? Can you not do without them? I know that those whom you call the children of your great Father supply your wants. But, were you not wicked as you are, you would not need them. You might live as you did before you knew them. Before those whom you call your brothers had arrived, did not your bow and arrow maintain you? You needed neither gun, powder, nor any other object. The flesh of animals was your food, their skins your raiment. But when I saw you inclined to evil, I removed the animals into the depths of the forests, that you might depend on your brothers for your necessaries for your clothing. Again become good and do my will, and I will send animals for your sustenance. I do not, however, forbid suffering among you your Father's children; I love them, they know me, they pray to me; I supply their own wants, and give them that which they bring to you. Not so with those who are come to trouble your possessions. Drive them away; wage war against them. I love them not. They know me not. They are my enemies, they are your brothers' enemies. Send them back to the lands I have made for them. Let them remain there.

"Here is a written prayer which I give thee; learn it by heart, and teach it to all the Indians and children." (The Indian, observing here that he could not read, the Master of Life told him that, on his return upon earth, he should give it to the chief of his village, who would read it, and also teach it to him, as also to all the Indians). "It must be repeated," said the Master of Life, "morning and evening. Do all that I have told thee, and announce it to all the Indians as coming from the Master of Life. Let them drink but one draught, or two at most, in one day. Let them have but one wife, and discontinue running after other people's wives and daughters. Let them not fight one another. Let them not sing the medicine song, for in singing the medicine song they speak to the evil spirit. Drive from your lands," added the Master of Life, "those dogs in red clothing; they are only an injury to you. When you want anything, apply to me, as your brothers do, and I will give to both. Do not sell to your brothers that which I have placed on the earth as food. In short, become good, and you shall want nothing. When you meet one another, bow, and give one another the ... hand of the heart. Above all, I command thee to repeat, morning and evening, the prayer which I have given thee."

The Indian promised to do the will of the Master of Life, and also to recommend it strongly to the Indians; adding that the Master of Life should be satisfied with them.

His conductor then came, and leading him to the foot of the mountain, told him to take his garments and return to his village; which was immediately done by the Indian.

His return much surprised the inhabitants of the village, who did not know what had become of him. They asked him whence he came; but, as he had been enjoined to speak to no one until he saw the chief of the village, he motioned to them with his hand that he came from above. Having entered the village, he went immediately to the chief's wigwam, and delivered to him the prayer and laws intrusted to his care by the Master of Life.

THE SIX HAWKS,

OR

BROKEN WING.

AN ALLEGORY OF FRATERNAL AFFECTION.

There were six young falcons living in a nest, all but one of whom were still unable to fly, when it so happened that both the parent birds were shot by the hunters in one day. The young brood waited with impatience for their return; but night came, and they were left without parents and without food. Meeji-geeg-wona, or the Gray Eagle, the eldest, and the only one whose feathers had become stout enough to enable him to leave the nest, assumed the duty of stilling their cries and providing them with food, in which he was very successful. But, after a short time had passed, he, by an unlucky mischance, got one of his wings broken in pouncing upon a swan. This was the more unlucky, because the season had arrived when they were soon to go off to a southern climate to pass the winter, and they were only waiting to become a little stouter and more expert for the journey. Finding that he did not return, they resolved to go in search of him, and found him sorely wounded and unable to fly.

"Brothers," he said, "an accident has befallen me, but let not this prevent your going to a warmer climate. Winter is rapidly approaching, and you cannot remain here. It is better that I alone should die than for you all to suffer miserably on my account." "No! no!" they replied, with one voice, "we will not forsake you; we will share your sufferings; we will abandon our journey, and take care of you, as you did of us, before we were able to take care of ourselves. If the climate kills you, it shall kill us. Do you think we can so soon forget your brotherly care, which has surpassed a father's and even a mother's kindness? Whether you live or die, we will live or die with you."

They sought out a hollow tree to winter in, and contrived to carry their wounded nestmate there; and, before the rigors of winter set in, they had stored up food enough to carry them through its severities. To make it last the better, two of the number went off south, leaving the other three to watch over, feed, and protect the wounded bird. Meeji-geeg-wona in due time recovered from his wound, and he repaid their kindness by giving them such advice and instruction in the art of hunting as his experience had qualified him to impart. As spring advanced, they began to venture out of their hiding-place, and were all successful in getting food to eke out their winter's stock, except the youngest, who was called Peepi-geewi-zains, or the Pigeon Hawk. Being small and foolish, flying hither and yon, he always came back without anything. At last the Gray Eagle spoke to him, and demanded the cause of his ill luck. "It is not my smallness or weakness of body," said he, "that prevents my bringing home flesh as well as my brothers. I kill ducks and other birds every time I go out; but, just as I get to the woods, a large Ko-ko-ko-ho robs me of my prey." "Well! don't despair, brother," said Meeji-geeg-wona. "I now feel my strength perfectly recovered, and I will go out with you to-morrow," for he was the most courageous and warlike of them all.

Next day they went forth in company, the elder seating himself near the lake. Peepi-geewi-zains started out, and soon pounced upon a duck.

"Well done!" thought his brother, who saw his success; but, just as he was getting to land with his prize, up came a large white owl from a tree, where he had been watching, and laid claim to it. He was about wresting it from him, when Meeji-geeg-wona came up, and, fixing his talons in both sides of the owl, flew home with him.

The little pigeon hawk followed him closely, and was rejoiced and happy to think he had brought home something at last. He then flew in the owl's face, and wanted to tear out his eyes, and vented his passion in abundance of reproachful terms. "Softly," said the Gray Eagle; "do not be in such a passion, or exhibit so revengeful a disposition; for this will be a lesson to him not to tyrannize over any one who is weaker than himself for the future." So, after giving him good advice, and telling him what kind of herbs would cure his wounds, they let the owl go.

While this act was taking place, and before the liberated owl had yet got out of view, two visitors appeared at the hollow tree. They were the two nestmates, who had just returned from the south after passing the winter there, and they were thus all happily reunited, and each one soon chose a mate and flew off to the woods. Spring had now revisited the north. The cold winds had ceased, the ice had melted, the streams were open, and the forest began rapidly to put on its vernal hue. "But it is in vain," said the old man who related this story, "it is in vain that spring returns, if we are not thankful to the Master of Life who has preserved us through the winter. Nor does that man answer the end for which he was made who does not show a kind and charitable feeling to all who are in want or sickness, especially to his blood relations. These six birds only represent one of our impoverished northern families of children, who had been deprived of both their parents and the aid of their elder brother nearly at the same time."

WEENG,

THE SPIRIT OF SLEEP.

Sleep is personified by the Odjibwas under the name of Weeng. The power of the Indian Morpheus is executed by a peculiar class of gnome-like beings, called Weengs. These subordinate creations, although invisible to the human eye, are each armed with a tiny war-club, or puggamaugun, with which they nimbly climb up the forehead, and knock the drowsy person on the head; on which sleepiness is immediately produced. If the first blow is insufficient, another is given, until the eyelids close, and a sound sleep is produced. It is the constant duty of these little agents to put every one to sleep whom they encounter—men, women, and children. And they are found secreted around the bed, or on small protuberances of the bark of the Indian lodges. They hide themselves in the Gushkeepitau-gun, or smoking pouch of the hunter, and when he sits down to light his pipe in the woods, are ready to fly out and exert their sleep-compelling power. If they succeed, the game is suffered to pass, and the hunter obliged to return to his lodge without a reward.

In general, however, they are represented to possess friendly dispositions, seeking constantly to restore vigor and elasticity to the exhausted body. But being without judgment, their power is sometimes exerted at the hazard of reputation, or even life. Sleep may be induced in a person carelessly floating in his canoe, above a fall; or in a war party, on the borders of an enemy's country; or in a female, without the protection of the lodge circle. Although their peculiar season of action is in the night, they are also alert during the day.

While the forms of these gnomes are believed to be those of ininees, little or fairy men, the figure of Weeng himself is unknown, and it is not certain that he has ever been seen. Most of what is known on this subject, is derived from Iagoo, who related, that going out one day with his dogs to hunt, he passed through a wide range of thicket, where he lost his dogs. He became much alarmed, for they were faithful animals, and he was greatly attached to them. He called out, and made every exertion to recover them in vain. At length he came to a spot where he found them asleep, having incautiously ran near the residence of Weeng. After great exertions he aroused them, but not without having felt the power of somnolency himself. As he cast his eyes up from the place where the dogs were lying, he saw the Spirit of Sleep sitting upon the branch of a tree. He was in the shape of a giant insect, or monetos, with many wings from his back, which made a low deep murmuring sound, like distant falling water. But Iagoo himself, being a very great liar and braggart, but little credit was given to his narration.

Weeng is not only the dispenser of sleep, but, it seems, he is also the author of dulness, which renders the word susceptible of an ironical use. If an orator fails, he is said to be struck by Weeng. If a warrior lingers, he has ventured too near the sleepy god. If children begin to nod or yawn, the Indian mother looks up smilingly, and says, "They have been struck by Weeng," and puts them to bed.

ADDIK KUM MAIG,

OR

THE ORIGIN OF THE WHITE FISH.

A long time ago, there lived a famous hunter in a remote part of the north. He had a handsome wife and two sons, who were left in the lodge every day, while he went out in quest of the animals, upon whose flesh they subsisted. Game was very abundant in those days, and his exertions in the chase were well rewarded. The skins of animals furnished them with clothing, and their flesh with food. They lived a long distance from any other lodge, and very seldom saw any one. The two sons were still too young to follow their father to the chase, and usually diverted themselves within a short distance of the lodge. They noticed that a young man visited the lodge during their father's absence, and these visits were frequently repeated. At length the elder of the two said to his mother:

"My mother, who is this tall young man that comes here so often during our father's absence? Does he wish to see him? Shall I tell him when he comes back this evening?" "Bad boy," said the mother, pettishly, "mind your bow and arrows, and do not be afraid to enter the forest in search of birds and squirrels, with your little brother. It is not manly to be ever about the lodge. Nor will you become a warrior if you tell all the little things you see and hear to your father. Say not a word to him on the subject." The boys obeyed, but as they grew older, and still saw the visits of this mysterious stranger, they resolved to speak again to their mother, and told her that they meant to inform their father of all they had observed, for they frequently saw this young man passing through the woods, and he did not walk in the path, nor did he carry anything to eat. If he had any message to deliver, they had observed that messages were always addressed to the men, and not to the women. At this, the mother flew into a rage. "I will kill you," said she, "if you speak of it." They were again intimidated to hold their peace. But observing the continuance of an improper intercourse, kept up by stealth, as it were, they resolved at last to disclose the whole matter to their father. They did so. The result was such as might have been anticipated. The father, being satisfied of the infidelity of his wife, watched a suitable occasion, when she was separated from the children, that they might not have their feelings excited, and with a single blow of his war-club dispatched her. He then buried her under the ashes of his fire, took down the lodge, and removed, with his two sons, to a distant position.

But the spirit of the woman haunted the children, who were now grown up to the estate of young men. She appeared to them as they returned from hunting in the evening. They were also terrified in their dreams, which they attributed to her. She harassed their imaginations wherever they went. Life became a scene of perpetual terrors. They resolved, together with their father, to leave the country, and commenced a journey toward the south. After travelling many days along the shores of Lake Superior, they passed around a high promontory of rock where a large river issued out of the lake, and soon after came to a place called Pauwateeg.

They had no sooner come in sight of these falls, than they beheld the skull of the woman rolling along the beach. They were in the utmost fear, and knew not how to elude her. At this moment one of them looked out, and saw a stately crane sitting on a rock in the middle of the rapids. They called out to the bird, "See, grandfather, we are persecuted by a spirit. Come and take us across the falls, so that we may escape her."

This crane was a bird of extraordinary size and great age. When first descried by the two sons, he sat in a state of stupor, in the midst of the most violent eddies. When he heard himself addressed, he stretched forth his neck with great deliberation, and lifting himself by his wings, flew across to their assistance. "Be careful," said the crane, "that you do not touch the back part of my head. It is sore, and should you press against it, I shall not be able to avoid throwing you both into the rapids." They were, however, attentive on this point, and were safely landed on the south shore of the river.

The crane then resumed his former position in the rapids. But the skull now cried out, "Come, my grandfather, and carry me over, for I have lost my children, and am sorely distressed." The aged bird flew to her assistance. He carefully repeated the injunction that she must by no means touch the back part of his head, which had been hurt, and was not yet healed. She promised to obey, but soon felt a curiosity to know where the head of her carrier had been hurt, and how so aged a bird could have received so bad a wound. She thought it strange, and before they were half way over the rapids, could not resist the inclination she felt to touch the affected part. Instantly the crane threw her into the rapids. "There," said he, "you have been of no use during your life, you shall now be changed into something for the benefit of your people, and it shall be called Addik Kum Maig." As the skull floated from rock to rock, the brains were strewed in the water, in a form resembling roes, which soon assumed the shape of a new species of fish, possessing a whiteness of color, and peculiar flavor, which have caused it, ever since, to be in great repute with the Indians.

The family of this man, in gratitude for their deliverance, adopted the crane as their totem, or ancestral mark; and this continues to be the distinguishing tribal sign of the band to this day.

BOKWEWA,

OR

THE HUMPBACK MAGICIAN.

ODJIBWA.

Bokwewa and his brother lived in a secluded part of the country. They were considered as Manitoes, who had assumed mortal shapes. Bokwewa was the most gifted in supernatural endowments, although he was deformed in person. His brother partook more of the nature of the present race of beings. They lived retired from the world, and undisturbed by its cares, and passed their time in contentment and happiness.

Bokwewa, owing to his deformity, was very domestic in his habits, and gave his attention to household affairs. He instructed his brother in the manner of pursuing game, and made him acquainted with all the accomplishments of a sagacious and expert hunter. His brother possessed a fine form, and an active and robust constitution; and felt a disposition to show himself off among men. He was restive in his seclusion, and showed a fondness for visiting remote places.

One day he told his brother that he was going to leave him; that he wished to visit the habitations of men and procure a wife. Bokwewa objected to his going; but his brother overruled all that he said, and he finally departed on his travels. He travelled a long time. At length he fell in with the footsteps of men. They were moving by encampments, for he saw several places where they had encamped. It was in the winter. He came to a place where one of their number had died. They had placed the corpse on a scaffold. He went to it and took it down. He saw that it was the corpse of a beautiful young woman. "She shall be my wife!" he exclaimed.

He took her up, and placing her on his back, returned to his brother. "Brother," he said, "cannot you restore her to life? Oh, do me that favor!" Bokwewa said he would try. He performed numerous ceremonies, and at last succeeded in restoring her to life. They lived very happily for some time. Bokwewa was extremely kind to his brother, and did everything to render his life happy. Being deformed and crippled, he always remained at home, while his brother went out to hunt. And it was by following his directions, which were those of a skilful hunter, that he always succeeded in returning with a good store of meat.

One day he had gone out as usual, and Bokwewa was sitting in his lodge, on the opposite side of his brother's wife, when a tall, fine young man entered, and immediately took the woman by the hand and drew her to the door. She resisted and called on Bokwewa, who jumped up to her assistance. But their joint resistance was unavailing; the man succeeded in carrying her away. In the scuffle, Bokwewa had his hump back much bruised on the stones near the door. He crawled into the lodge and wept very sorely, for he knew that it was a powerful Manito who had taken the woman.

When his brother returned, he related all to him exactly as it happened. He would not taste food for several days. Sometimes he would fall to weeping for a long time, and appeared almost beside himself. At last he said he would go in search of her. Bokwewa tried to dissuade him from it, but he insisted.

"Well!" said he, "since you are bent on going, listen to my advice. You will have to go south. It is a long distance to the residence of your captive wife, and there are so many charms and temptations in the way, I am afraid you will be led astray by them, and forget your errand. For the people whom you will see in that country do nothing but amuse themselves. They are very idle, gay, and effeminate, and I am fearful they will lead you astray. Your journey is beset with difficulties. I will mention one or two things, which you must be on your guard against. In the course of your journey, you will come to a large grape-vine lying across your way. You must not even taste its fruit, for it is poisonous. Step over it. It is a snake. You will next come to something that looks like bear's fat, transparent and tremulous. Don't taste it, or you will be overcome by the pleasures of those people. It is frog's eggs. These are snares laid by the way for you."

He said he would follow the advice, and bid farewell to his brother. After travelling a long time, he came to the enchanted grape-vine. It looked so tempting, he forgot his brother's advice and tasted the fruit. He went on till he came to the frog's eggs. The substance so much resembled bear's fat that he tasted it. He still went on. At length he came to a very extensive plain. As he emerged from the forest the sun was setting, and cast its scarlet and golden shades over all the plain. The air was perfectly calm, and the whole prospect had the air of an enchanted land. The most inviting fruits and flowers spread out before the eye. At a distance he beheld a large village, filled with people without number, and as he drew near he saw women beating corn in silver mortars. When they saw him approaching, they cried out, "Bokwewa's brother has come to see us." Throngs of men and women, gayly dressed, came out to meet him. He was soon overcome by their flatteries and pleasures, and he was not long afterward seen beating corn with their women (the strongest proof of effeminacy), although his wife, for whom he had mourned so much, was in that Indian metropolis.

Meantime, Bokwewa waited patiently for the return of his brother. At length, after the lapse of several years, he set out in search of him, and arrived in safety among the luxuriant people of the South. He met with the same allurements on the road, and the same flattering reception that his brother did. But he was above all temptations. The pleasures he saw had no other effect upon him than to make him regret the weakness of mind of those who were led away by them. He shed tears of pity to see that his brother had laid aside the arms of a hunter, and was seen beating corn with the women.

He ascertained where his brother's wife remained. After deliberating some time, he went to the river where she usually came to draw water. He there changed himself into one of those hair-snakes which are sometimes seen in running water. When she came down, he spoke to her, saying, "Take me up; I am Bokwewa." She then scooped him out and went home. In a short time the Manito who had taken her away asked her for water to drink. The lodge in which they lived was partitioned. He occupied a secret place, and was never seen by any one but the woman. She handed him the water containing the hair-snake, which he drank, with the snake, and soon after was a dead Manito.

Bokwewa then resumed his former shape. He went to his brother, and used every means to reclaim him. But he would not listen. He was so much taken up with the pleasures and dissipations into which he had fallen, that he refused to give them up, although Bokwewa, with tears, tried to convince him of his foolishness, and to show him that those pleasures could not endure for a long time. Finding that he was past reclaiming, Bokwewa left him, and disappeared forever.

AGGODAGAUDA AND HIS DAUGHTER,

OR

THE MAN WITH HIS LEG TIED UP.

The prairie and forest tribes were once at war, and it required the keenest eyes to keep out of the way of danger. Aggodagauda lived on the borders, in the forests, but he was in a by-place not easy to find. He was a successful hunter and fisher, although he had, by some mischance, lost the use of one of his legs. So he had it tied, and looped up, and got over the ground by hopping.

Use had given him great power in the sound leg, and he could hop to a distance, which was surprising. There was nobody in the country who could outgo him on a hunt. Even Paup-Puk-keewiss, in his best days, could hardly excel him. But he had a great enemy in the chief or king of the buffaloes, who frequently passed over the plains with the force of a tempest. It was a peculiarity of Aggodagauda, that he had an only child, a daughter, who was very beautiful, whom it was the aim of this enemy to carry off, and he had to exert his skill to guard her from the inroad of his great and wily opponent. To protect her the better, he had built a log house, and it was only on the roof of this that he could permit his daughter to take the open air, and disport herself. Now her hair was so long, that when she untied it, the raven locks hung down to the ground.

One fine morning, the father had prepared himself to go out a fishing, but before leaving the lodge put her on her guard against their arch enemy. "The sun shines," said he, "and the buffalo chief will be apt to move this way before the sun gets to the middle point, and you must be careful not to pass out of the house, for there is no knowing but he is always narrowly watching. If you go out, at all, let it be on the roof, and even there keep a sharp lookout, lest he sweep by and catch you with his long horns." With this advice he left his lodge. But he had scarcely got seated in his canoe, on his favorite fishing-ground, when his ear caught opprobrious strains from his enemy. He listened again, and the sound was now clearer than before—

"Aggodagauda—one legged man,

Man with his leg tied up;

What is he but a rapakena,

Hipped, and legged?"

He immediately paddled his canoe ashore, and took his way home—hopping a hundred rods at a leap. But when he reached his house his daughter was gone. She had gone out on the top of the house, and sat combing her long and beautiful hair, on the eaves of the lodge, when the buffalo king, coming suddenly by, caught her glossy hair, and winding it about his horns, tossed her on to his shoulders, swept off in an opposite direction to his village. He was followed by his whole troop, who made the plains shake under their tread. They soon reached, and dashed across a river, and pursued their course to the chief's village, where she was received by all with great attention. His other wives did all they could to put the lodge in order, and the buffalo king himself was unremitting in his kindness and attention. He took down from the walls his pibbegwun, and began to play the softest strains, to please her ear. Ever and anon, as the chorus paused, could be heard the words—

"Ne ne mo sha makow,

Aghi saw ge naun.

My sweetheart—my bosom is true,

You only—it is you that I love."

They brought her cold water, in bark dishes from the spring. They set before her the choicest food. The king handed her nuts from the pecan-tree, then he went out hunting to get her the finest meats and water fowl. But she remained pensive, and sat fasting in her lodge day after day, and gave him no hopes of forgiveness for his treachery.

In the mean time, Aggodagauda came home, and finding his daughter had been stolen, determined to get her back. For this purpose he immediately set out. He could easily track the king, until he came to the banks of the river, and saw that he had plunged in and swam over. But there had been a frosty night or two since, and the water was covered with thin ice, so that he could not walk on it. He determined to encamp till it became solid, and then crossed over and pursued the trail. As he went along he saw branches broken off and strewed behind, for these had been purposely cast along by the daughter, that the way might be found. And the manner in which she had accomplished it was this. Her hair was all untied when she was caught up, and being very long, it caught on the branches as they darted along, and it was these twigs that she broke off for signs to her father. When he came to the king's lodge it was evening. Carefully approaching it, he peeped through the sides and saw his daughter sitting disconsolately. She immediately caught his eye, and knowing that it was her father come for her, she all at once appeared to relent in her heart, and asking for the dipper, said to the king, "I will go and get you a drink of water." This token of submission delighted him, and he waited with impatience for her return. At last he went out with his followers, but nothing could be seen or heard of the captive daughter. They sallied out in the plains, but had not gone far, by the light of the moon, when a party of hunters, headed by the father-in-law of Aggodagauda, set up their yells in their rear, and a shower of arrows was poured in upon them. Many of their numbers fell, but the king being stronger and swifter than the rest, fled toward the west, and never again appeared in that part of the country.

While all this was passing, Aggodagauda, who had met his daughter the moment she came out of the lodge, and being helped by his guardian spirit, took her on his shoulders and hopped off, a hundred steps in one, till he reached the stream, crossed it, and brought back his daughter in triumph to his lodge.

IOSCO;

OR,

THE PRAIRIE BOYS' VISIT TO THE SUN AND MOON.

AN OTTAWA LEGEND.

One pleasant morning, five young men and a boy about ten years of age, called Ioscoda, went out a shooting with their bows and arrows. They left their lodges with the first appearance of daylight, and having passed through a long reach of woods, had ascended a lofty eminence before the sun arose. While standing there in a group, the sun suddenly burst forth in all its effulgence. The air was so clear, that it appeared to be at no great distance. "How very near it is," they all said. "It cannot be far," said the eldest, "and if you will accompany me, we will see if we cannot reach it." A loud assent burst from every lip. Even the boy, Ioscoda, said he would go. They told him he was too young; but he replied, "If you do not permit me to go with you, I will mention your design to each of your parents." They then said to him, "You shall also go with us, so be quiet."

They then fell upon the following arrangement. It was resolved that each one should obtain from his parents as many pairs of moccasins as he could, and also new clothing of leather. They fixed on a spot where they would conceal all their articles, until they were ready to start on their journey, and which would serve, in the mean time, as a place of rendezvous, where they might secretly meet and consult. This being arranged, they returned home.

A long time passed before they could put their plan into execution. But they kept it a profound secret, even to the boy. They frequently met at the appointed place, and discussed the subject. At length everything was in readiness, and they decided on a day to set out. That morning the boy shed tears for a pair of new leather leggings. "Don't you see," said he to his parents, "how my companions are dressed?" This appeal to their pride and envy prevailed. He obtained the leggings. Artifices were also resorted to by the others, under the plea of going out on a special hunt. They said to one another, but in a tone that they might be overheard, "We will see who will bring in the most game." They went out in different directions, but soon met at the appointed place, where they had hid the articles for their journey, with as many arrows as they had time to make. Each one took something on his back, and they began their march. They travelled day after day, through a thick forest, but the sun was always at the same distance. "We must," said they, "travel toward Waubunong, and we shall get to the object, some time or other." No one was discouraged, although winter overtook them. They built a lodge and hunted, till they obtained as much dried meat as they could carry, and then continued on. This they did several times; season followed season. More than one winter overtook them. Yet none of them became discouraged, or expressed dissatisfaction.

One day the travellers came to the banks of a river, whose waters ran toward Waubunong. They followed it down many days. As they were walking, one day, they came to rising grounds, from which they saw something white or clear through the trees. They encamped on this elevation. Next morning they came, suddenly, in view of an immense body of water. No land could be seen as far as the eye could reach. One or two of them lay down on the beach to drink. As soon as they got the water in their mouths, they spit it out, and exclaimed, with surprise, "Shewetagon awbo!" [salt water.] It was the sea. While looking on the water, the sun arose as if from the deep, and went on its steady course through the heavens, enlivening the scene with his cheering and animating beams. They stood in fixed admiration, but the object appeared to be as distant from them as ever. They thought it best to encamp, and consult whether it were advisable to go on, or return. "We see," said the leader, "that the sun is still on the opposite side of this great water, but let us not be disheartened. We can walk around the shore." To this they all assented.

Next morning they took the northerly shore, to walk around it, but had only gone a short distance when they came to a large river. They again encamped, and while sitting before the fire, the question was put, whether any one of them had ever dreamed of water, or of walking on it. After a long silence, the eldest said he had. Soon after they lay down to sleep. When they arose the following morning, the eldest addressed them: "We have done wrong in coming north. Last night my spirit appeared to me, and told me to go south, and that but a short distance beyond the spot we left yesterday, we should come to a river with high banks. That by looking off its mouth, we should see an island, which would approach to us. He directed that we should all get on it. He then told me to cast my eyes toward the water. I did so, and I saw all he had declared. He then informed me that we must return south, and wait at the river until the day after tomorrow. I believe all that was revealed to me in this dream, and that we shall do well to follow it."

The party immediately retraced their footsteps in exact obedience to these intimations. Toward the evening they came to the borders of the indicated river. It had high banks, behind which they encamped, and here they patiently awaited the fulfilment of the dream. The appointed day arrived. They said, "We will see if that which has been said will be seen." Midday is the promised time. Early in the morning two had gone to the shore to keep a look-out. They waited anxiously for the middle of the day, straining their eyes to see if they could discover anything. Suddenly they raised a shout. "Ewaddee suh neen! There it is! There it is!" On rushing to the spot they beheld something like an island steadily advancing toward the shore. As it approached, they could discover that something was moving on it in various directions. They said, "It is a Manito, let us be off into the woods." "No, no," cried the eldest, "let us stay and watch." It now became stationary, and lost much of its imagined height. They could only see three trees, as they thought, resembling trees in a pinery that had been burnt. The wind, which had been off the sea, now died away into a perfect calm. They saw something leaving the fancied island and approaching the shore, throwing and flapping its wings, like a loon when he attempts to fly in calm weather. It entered the mouth of the river. They were on the point of running away, but the eldest dissuaded them. "Let us hide in this hollow," he said, "and we will see what it can be." They did so. They soon heard the sounds of chopping, and quickly after they heard the falling of trees. Suddenly a man came up to the place of their concealment. He stood still and gazed at them. They did the same in utter amazement. After looking at them for some time, the person advanced and extended his hand toward them. The eldest took it, and they shook hands. He then spoke, but they could not understand each other. He then cried out for his comrades. They came, and examined very minutely their dresses. They again tried to converse. Finding it impossible, the strangers then motioned to the Naubequon, and to the Naubequon-ais, wishing them to embark. They consulted with each other for a short time. The eldest then motioned that they should go on board. They embarked on board the boat, which they found to be loaded with wood. When they reached the side of the supposed island, they were surprised to see a great number of people, who all came to the side and looked at them with open mouths. One spoke out, above the others, and appeared to be the leader. He motioned them to get on board. He looked at and examined them, and took them down into the cabin, and set things before them to eat. He treated them very kindly.

When they came on deck again, all the sails were spread, and they were fast losing sight of land. In the course of the night and the following day they were sick at the stomach, but soon recovered. When they had been out at sea ten days, they became sorrowful, as they could not converse with those who had hats on.

The following night Ioscoda dreamed that his spirit appeared to him. He told him not to be discouraged, that he would open his ears, so as to be able to understand the people with hats. I will not permit you to understand much, said he, only sufficient to reveal your wants, and to know what is said to you. He repeated this dream to his friends, and they were satisfied and encouraged by it. When they had been out about thirty days, the master of the ship told them, and motioned them to change their dresses of leather, for such as his people wore; for if they did not, his master would be displeased. It was on this occasion that the elder first understood a few words of the language. The first phrase he comprehended was La que notte, and from one word to another he was soon able to speak it.

One day the men cried out, land! and soon after they heard a noise resembling thunder, in repeated peals. When they had got over their fears, they were shown the large guns which made this noise. Soon after they saw a vessel smaller than their own, sailing out of a bay, in the direction toward them. She had flags on her masts, and when she came near she fired a gun. The large vessel also hoisted her flags, and the boat came alongside. The master told the person who came in it, to tell his master or king, that he had six strangers on board, such as had never been seen before, and that they were coming to visit him. It was some time after the departure of this messenger before the vessel got up to the town. It was then dark, but they could see people, and horses, and odawbons ashore. They were landed and placed in a covered vehicle, and driven off. When they stopped, they were taken into a large and splendid room. They were here told that the great chief wished to see them. They were shown into another large room, filled with men and women. All the room was Shoneancauda. The chief asked them their business, and the object of their journey. They told him where they were from, and where they were going, and the nature of the enterprise which they had undertaken. He tried to dissuade them from its execution, telling them of the many trials and difficulties they would have to undergo; that so many days' march from his country dwelt a bad spirit, or Manito, who foreknew and foretold the existence and arrival of all who entered into his country. It is impossible, he said, my children, for you ever to arrive at the object you are in search of.

Ioscoda replied: "Nosa," and they could see the chief blush in being called father, "we have come so far on our way, and we will continue it; we have resolved firmly that we will do so. We think our lives are of no value, for we have given them up for this object. Nosa," he repeated, "do not then prevent us from going on our journey." The chief then dismissed them with valuable presents, after having appointed the next day to speak to them again, and provided everything that they needed or wished for.

Next day they were again summoned to appear before the king. He again tried to dissuade them. He said he would send them back to their country in one of his vessels: but all he said had no effect. "Well," said he, "if you will go, I will furnish you all that is needed for your journey." He had everything provided accordingly. He told them, that three days before they reached the Bad Spirit he had warned them of, they would hear his Shéshegwun. He cautioned them to be wise, for he felt that he should never see them all again.

They resumed their journey, and travelled sometimes through villages, but they soon left them behind and passed over a region of forests and plains, without inhabitants. They found all the productions of a new country: trees, animals, birds, were entirely different from those they were accustomed to, on the other side of the great waters. They travelled, and travelled, till they wore out all of the clothing that had been given to them, and had to take to their leather clothing again.

The three days the chief spoke of meant three years, for it was only at the end of the third year, that they came within the sight of the spirit's shéshegwun. The sound appeared to be near, but they continued walking on, day after day, without apparently getting any nearer to it. Suddenly they came to a very extensive plain; they could see the blue ridges of distant mountains rising on the horizon beyond it; they pushed on, thinking to get over the plain before night, but they were overtaken by darkness; they were now on a stony part of the plain, covered by about a foot's depth of water; they were weary and fatigued; some of them said, let us lie down; no, no, said the others, let us push on. Soon they stood on firm ground, but it was as much as they could do to stand, for they were very weary. They, however, made an effort to encamp, lighted up a fire, and refreshed themselves by eating. They then commenced conversing about the sound of the spirit's shéshegwun, which they had heard for several days. Suddenly the instrument commenced; it sounded as if it was subterraneous, and it shook the ground: they tied up their bundles and went toward the spot. They soon came to a large building, which was illuminated. As soon as they came to the door, they were met by a rather elderly man. "How do ye do," said he, "my grandsons? Walk in, walk in; I am glad to see you: I knew when you started: I saw you encamp this evening: sit down, and tell me the news of the country you left, for I feel interested in it." They complied with his wishes, and when they had concluded, each one presented him with a piece of tobacco. He then revealed to them things that would happen in their journey, and predicted its successful accomplishment. "I do not say that all of you," said he, "will successfully go through it. You have passed over three-fourths of your way, and I will tell you how to proceed after you get to the edge of the earth. Soon after you leave this place, you will hear a deafening sound: it is the sky descending on the edge, but it keeps moving up and down; you will watch, and when it moves up, you will see a vacant space between it and the earth. You must not be afraid. A chasm of awful depth is there, which separates the unknown from this earth, and a veil of darkness conceals it. Fear not. You must leap through; and if you succeed, you will find yourselves on a beautiful plain, and in a soft and mild light emitted by the moon." They thanked him for his advice. A pause ensued.

"I have told you the way," he said; "now tell me again of the country you have left; for I committed dreadful ravages while I was there: does not the country show marks of it? and do not the inhabitants tell of me to their children? I came to this place to mourn over my bad actions, and am trying, by my present course of life, to relieve my mind of the load that is on it." They told him that their fathers spoke often of a celebrated personage called Manabozho, who performed great exploits. "I am he," said the Spirit. They gazed with astonishment and fear. "Do you see this pointed house?" said he, pointing to one that resembled a sugar-loaf; "you can now each speak your wishes, and will be answered from that house. Speak out, and ask what each wants, and it shall be granted." One of them, who was vain, asked with presumption, that he might live forever, and never be in want. He was answered, "Your wish shall be granted." The second made the same request, and received the same answer. The third asked to live longer than common people, and to be always successful in his war excursions, never losing any of his young men. He was told, "Your wishes are granted." The fourth joined in the same request, and received the same reply. The fifth made an humble request, asking to live as long as men generally do, and that he might be crowned with such success in hunting as to be able to provide for his parents and relatives. The sixth made the same request, and it was granted to both, in pleasing tones, from the pointed house.

After hearing these responses they prepared to depart. They were told by Manabozho, that they had been with him but one day, but they afterward found that they had remained there upward of a year. When they were on the point of setting out, Manabozho exclaimed, "Stop! you two, who asked me for eternal life, will receive the boon you wish immediately." He spake, and one was turned into a stone called Shin-gauba-wossin, and the other into a cedar tree. "Now," said he to the others, "you can go." They left him in fear, saying, "We were fortunate to escape so, for the king told us he was wicked, and that we should not probably escape from him." They had not proceeded far, when they began to hear the sound of the beating sky. It appeared to be near at hand, but they had a long interval to travel before they came near, and the sound was then stunning to their senses; for when the sky came down, its pressure would force gusts of wind from the opening, so strong that it was with difficulty they could keep their feet, and the sun passed but a short distance above their heads. They however approached boldly, but had to wait sometime before they could muster courage enough to leap through the dark veil that covered the passage. The sky would come down with violence, but it would rise slowly and gradually. The two who had made the humble request, stood near the edge, and with no little exertion succeeded, one after the other, in leaping through, and gaining a firm foothold. The remaining two were fearful and undecided: the others spoke to them through the darkness, saying, "Leap! leap! the sky is on its way down." These two looked up and saw it descending, but fear paralyzed their efforts; they made but a feeble attempt, so as to reach the opposite side with their hands; but the sky at the same time struck on the earth with great violence and a terrible sound, and forced them into the dreadful black chasm.

The two successful adventurers, of whom Iosco now was chief, found themselves in a beautiful country, lighted by the moon, which shed around a mild and pleasant light. They could see the moon approaching as if it were from behind a hill. They advanced, and an aged woman spoke to them; she had a white face and pleasing air, and looked rather old, though she spoke to them very kindly: they knew from her first appearance that she was the moon: she asked them several questions: she told them that she knew of their coming, and was happy to see them: she informed them that they were half way to her brother's, and that from the earth to her abode was half the distance. "I will, by and by, have leisure," said she, "and will go and conduct you to my brother, for he is now absent on his daily course: you will succeed in your object, and return in safety to your country and friends, with the good wishes, I am sure, of my brother." While the travellers were with her, they received every attention. When the proper time arrived, she said to them, "My brother is now rising from below, and we shall see his light as he comes over the distant edge: come," said she, "I will lead you up." They went forward, but in some mysterious way, they hardly knew how: they rose almost directly up, as if they had ascended steps. They then came upon an immense plain, declining in the direction of the sun's approach. When he came near, the moon spake—"I have brought you these persons, whom we knew were coming;" and with this she disappeared. The sun motioned with his hand for them to follow him. They did so, but found it rather difficult, as the way was steep: they found it particularly so from the edge of the earth till they got halfway between that point and midday: when they reached this spot, the sun stopped, and sat down to rest. "What, my children," said he, "has brought you here? I could not speak to you before: I could not stop at any place but this, for this is my first resting-place—then at the centre, which is at midday, and then halfway from that to the western edge. Tell me," he continued, "the object of your undertaking this journey and all the circumstances which have happened to you on the way." They complied, Iosco told him their main object was to see him. They had lost four of their friends on the way, and they wished to know whether they could return in safety to the earth, that they might inform their friends and relatives of all that had befallen them. They concluded by requesting him to grant their wishes. He replied, "Yes, you shall certainly return in safety; but your companions were vain and presumptuous in their demands. They were Gug-ge-baw-diz-ze-wug. They aspired to what Manitoes only could enjoy. But you two, as I said, shall get back to your country, and become as happy as the hunter's life can make you. You shall never be in want of the necessaries of life, as long as you are permitted to live; and you will have the satisfaction of relating your journey to your friends, and also of telling them of me. Follow me, follow me," he said, commencing his course again. The ascent was now gradual, and they soon came to a level plain. After travelling some time he again sat down to rest, for we had arrived at Nau-we-qua. "You see," said he, "it is level at this place, but a short distance onwards, my way descends gradually to my last resting-place, from which there is an abrupt descent." He repeated his assurance that they should be shielded from danger, if they relied firmly on his power. "Come here quickly," he said, placing something before them on which they could descend; "keep firm," said he, as they resumed the descent. They went downward as if they had been let down by ropes.

In the mean time the parents of these two young men dreamed that their sons were returning, and that they should soon see them. They placed the fullest confidence in their dreams. Early in the morning they left their lodges for a remote point in the forest, where they expected to meet them. They were not long at the place before they saw the adventurers returning, for they had descended not far from that place. The young men knew they were their fathers. They met, and were happy. They related all that had befallen them. They did not conceal anything; and they expressed their gratitude to the different Manitoes who had preserved them, by feasting and gifts, and particularly to the sun and moon, who had received them as their children.

THE ENCHANTED MOCCASINS.

ODJIBWA.

There once lived a little boy, all alone with his sister, in a very wild uninhabitable country. They saw nothing but beasts, and birds, the sky above them, and the earth beneath them. But there were no human beings besides themselves. The boy often retired to think, in lone places, and the opinion was formed that he had supernatural powers. It was supposed that he would perform some extraordinary exploits, and he was called Onwe Bahmondoong, or he that carries a ball on his back. As he grew up he was impatient to know whether there were other beings near them: she replied, that there was, but they lived in a remote distance. There was a large village of hunters and warriors. Being now well grown, he determined to seek his fortune, and asked her to make him several pairs of moccasins to last him on the journey. With this request she complied. Then taking his bow and arrows, and his war-club, and a little sack containing his nawappo, or travelling victuals, he immediately set out on his journey. He travelled on, not knowing exactly where he went. Hills, plains, trees, rocks, forests, meadows, spread before him. Sometimes he killed an animal, sometimes a bird. The deer often started in his path. He saw the fox, the bear, and the ground-hog. The eagles screamed above him. The ducks chattered in the ponds and lakes. He lay down and slept when he was tired, he rose up when he was refreshed. At last he came to a small wigwam, and, on looking into it, discovered a very old woman sitting alone by the fire. As soon as she saw the stranger, she invited him in, and thus addressed him: "My poor grandchild, I suppose you are one of those who seek for the distant village, from which no person has ever yet returned. Unless your guardian is more powerful than the guardian of your predecessors, you too will share a similar fate of theirs. Be careful to provide yourself with the Ozhebahguhnun—the bones they use in the medicine dance —without which you cannot succeed." After she had thus spoken, she gave him the following directions for his journey. "When you come near to the village which you seek, you will see in the centre a large lodge, in which the chief of the village, who has two daughters, resides. Before the door you will see a great tree, which is smooth and destitute of bark. On this tree, about the height of a man from the ground, a small lodge is suspended, in which these two daughters dwell. It is here so many have been destroyed. Be wise, my grandchild, and abide strictly by my directions." The old woman then gave him the Ozhebahguhnun, which would cause his success. Placing them in his bosom, he continued his journey, till at length he arrived at the sought-for village; and, as he was gazing around him, he saw both the tree and the lodge which the old woman had mentioned. Immediately he bent his steps for the tree, and approaching, he endeavored to reach the suspended lodge. But all his efforts were vain; for as often as he attempted to reach it, the tree began to tremble, and soon shot up so that the lodge could hardly be perceived. Foiled as he was in all his attempts, he thought of his guardian and changed himself into a small squirrel, that he might more easily accomplish his design. He then mounted the tree in quest of the lodge. After climbing for some time, he became fatigued, and panted for breath; but, remembering the instructions which the old woman had given him, he took from his bosom one of the bones, and thrust it into the trunk of the tree, on which he sat. In this way he quickly found relief; and, as often as he became fatigued, he repeated this; but whenever he came near the lodge and attempted to touch it, the tree would shoot up as before, and place the lodge beyond his reach. At length, the bones being exhausted, he began to despair, for the earth had long since vanished from his sight. Summoning all resolution, he determined to make another effort to reach the object of his wishes. On he went; yet, as soon as he came near the lodge and attempted to touch it, the tree again shook, but it had reached the arch of heaven, and could go no higher; so now he entered the lodge, and beheld the two sisters sitting opposite each other. He asked their names. The one on his left hand called herself Azhabee, and the one on the right Negahnahbee. Whenever he addressed the one on his left hand, the tree would tremble as before, and settle down to its former position. But when he addressed the one on his right hand, it would again shoot upward as before. When he thus discovered that, by addressing the one on his left hand, the tree would descend, he continued to do so until it had resumed its former position; then seizing his war-club, he thus addressed the sisters: "You, who have caused the death of so many of my brothers, I will now put an end to, and thus have revenge for the numbers you have destroyed." As he said this he raised the club and laid them dead at his feet. He then descended, and learning that these sisters had a brother living with their father, who would pursue him for the deed he had done, he set off at random, not knowing whither he went. Soon after, the father and mother of the young women visited their residence and found their remains. They immediately told their son Mudjikewis that his sisters had been slain. He replied, "The person who has done this must be the Boy that carries the Ball on his Back. I will pursue him, and have revenge for the blood of my sisters." "It is well, my son," replied the father. "The spirit of your life grant you success. I counsel you to be wary in the pursuit. It is a strong spirit who has done this injury to us, and he will try to deceive you in every way. Above all, avoid tasting food till you succeed; for if you break your fast before you see his blood, your power will be destroyed." So saying, they parted.

His son instantly set out in search of the murderer, who, finding he was closely pursued by the brother of the slain, climbed up into one of the tallest trees and shot forth his magic arrows. Finding that his pursuer was not turned back by his arrows, he renewed his flight; and when he found himself hard pressed, and his enemy close behind him, he transformed himself into the skeleton of a moose that had been killed, whose flesh had come off from his bones. He then remembered the moccasins which his sister had given him, which were enchanted. Taking a pair of them, he placed them near the skeleton. "Go," said he to them, "to the end of the earth."

The moccasins then left him and their tracks remained. Mudjikewis at length came to the skeleton of the moose, when he perceived that the track he had long been pursuing did not end there, so he continued to follow it up, till he came to the end of the earth, where he found only a pair of moccasins. Mortified that he had been outwitted by following a pair of moccasins instead of the object of his revenge, he bitterly complained, resolving not to give up the pursuit, and to be more wary and wise in scrutinizing signs. He then called to mind the skeleton he met on his way, and concluded that it must be the object of his search. He retraced his steps towards the skeleton, but found, to his surprise, that it had disappeared, and that the tracks of Onwe Bahmondoong, or he who carries the Ball, were in another direction. He now became faint with hunger, and resolved to give up the pursuit; but when he remembered the blood of his sisters, he determined again to pursue.

The other, finding he was closely pursued, now changed himself into a very old man, with two daughters, who lived in a large lodge in the centre of a beautiful garden, which was filled with everything that could delight the eye or was pleasant to the taste. He made himself appear so very old as to be unable to leave his lodge, and had his daughters to bring him food and wait on him. The garden also had the appearance of ancient occupancy, and was highly cultivated.

His pursuer continued on till he was nearly starved and ready to sink. He exclaimed, "Oh! I will forget the blood of my sisters, for I am starving;" but again he thought of the blood of his sisters, and again he resolved to pursue, and be satisfied with nothing but the attainment of his right to revenge.

He went on till he came to the beautiful garden. He approached the lodge. As soon as the daughters of the owner perceived him, they ran and told their father that a stranger approached the lodge. Their father replied, "Invite him in, my children, invite him in." They quickly did so; and by the command of their father, they boiled some corn and prepared other savory food. Mudjikewis had no suspicion of the deception. He was faint and weary with travel, and felt that he could endure fasting no longer. Without hesitancy, he partook heartily of the meal, and in so doing was overcome. All at once he seemed to forget the blood of his sisters, and even the village of his nativity. He ate so heartily as to produce drowsiness, and soon fell into a profound sleep. Onwe Bahmondoong watched his opportunity, and, as soon as he found his slumbers sound, resumed his youthful form. He then drew the magic ball from his back, which turned out to be a heavy war-club, with one blow of which he put an end to his pursuer, and thus vindicated his title as the Wearer of the Ball.

LEELINAU.

A CHIPPEWA TALE.

The Pukwudjininees, or fairies of Lake Superior, had one of their most noted places of residence at the great sand dunes of Naigow Wudjoo, called by the French La Grandes Sables. Here they were frequently seen in bright moonlight evenings, and the fishermen while sitting in their canoes on the lake often saw them playing their pranks, and skipping over the hills. There was a grove of pines in that vicinity called the manito wac, or Spirit wood, into which they might be seen to flee, on the approach of evening, and there is a romantic little lake on those elevated sand-hills, not far back from the Great Lake, on the shores of which their tracks could be plainly seen in the sand. These tracks were not bigger than little children's footprints, and the spirits were often seen in the act of vanishing behind the little pine-trees. They love to dance in the most lonesome places, and were always full of glee and merriment, for their little voices could be plainly heard. These little men, the pukwudjininees, are not deeply malicious, but rather delighted in mischief and freaks, and would sometimes steal away a fisherman's paddle, or come at night and pluck the hunter's feathers out of his cap in the lodge, or pilfer away some of his game, or fish. On one occasion they went so far as to entice away into their sacred grove, and carry off a chief's daughter—a small but beautiful girl, who had been always inclined to be pensive, and took her seat often in these lonesome haunts. From her baby name of Neenizu, my dear life, she was called Leelinau, but she never attained to much size, remaining very slender, but of the most pleasing and sylph-like features, with very bright black eyes, and little feet. Her mother often cautioned her of the danger of visiting these lonely fairy haunts, and predicted, playfully, that she would one day be carried off by the Pukwudjees, for they were very frolicsome, mischievous and full of tricks.

To divert her mind from these recluse moods and tastes, she endeavored to bring about an alliance with a neighboring forester, who, though older than herself, had the reputation of being an excellent hunter, and active man, and he had even creditably been on the war path, though he had never brought home a scalp. To these suggestions Leelinau had turned rather a deaf ear. She had imbibed ideas of a spiritual life and existence, which she fancied could only be enjoyed in the Indian elysium, and instructed as she was by the old story-tellers, she could not do otherwise than deem the light and sprightly little men who made the fairy footprints as emissaries from the Happy Land. For this happy land she sighed and pined. Blood, and the taking of life, she said, the Great Spirit did not approve, and it could never be agreeable to minds of pure and spiritual moulds. And she longed to go to a region where there was no weeping, no cares, and no deaths. If her parents laughed at these notions as childish, her only resource was silence, or she merely revealed here motions in her eyes. She was capable of the deepest concealment, and locked up in her heart what she feared to utter, or uttered to deceive. This proved her ruin.

At length, after a series of conversational interviews on the subject, she announced her willingness to accede to the matrimonial proposals, and the day was fixed for this purpose. She dressed herself in the finest manner possible, putting flowers in her hair, and carrying a bunch of wild flowers, mixed with tassels of the pine-tree in her hand. One only request she made, which was to make a farewell visit to the sacred grove of the fairies, before she visited the nuptial bower. This was granted, on the evening of the proposed ceremony, while the bridegroom and his friends gathered in her father's lodge, and impatiently waited her return. But they waited in vain. Night came but Leelina was never more seen, except by a fisherman on the lake shore, who conceived that he had seen her go off with one of the tall fairies known as the fairy of Green Pines, with green plumes nodding o'er his brows; and it is supposed that she is still roving with him over the elysian fields.

WILD NOTES OF THE PIBBIGWUN.

CONTENTS.

NOTES.

THE PIBBIGWUN.

I ope my voice, not with the organ's tone,

Deep, solemn and majestic; not with sounds

Of trump or drum, that cheer armed squadrons on,

In coats of steel, o'er lines of bloody grounds,

Nor is my tone, the tone of rushing storms,

That sweep in mad career through forests tall,

Up-tearing gnarled oaks, with sounds of hellish forms,

That bode destruction black, and death to all.

Nor is it yet the screaming warrior, loud,

With hand upraised to mouth, hyena-strong,

That tells of midnight onrush, hell-endowed,

And bleeding scalp of aged, mild and young.

Ah no! it is a note that's only blown,

Where kindness fills the heart, and every thrill

Is peace and love, while music's softer tone

Steals on the evening air, its simple aims to fill,

Waking the female ear to carols of the Pibbigwun.

THE CHIPPEWA GIRL.

They tell me, the men with a white-white face

Belong to a purer, nobler race;

But why, if they do, and it may be so,

Do their tongues cry, "Yes"—and their actions, "No?"

They tell me, that white is a heavenly hue,

And it may be so, but the sky is blue;

And the first of men—as our old men say,

Had earth-brown skins, and were made of clay.

But throughout my life, I've heard it said,

There's nothing surpasses a tint of red;

Oh, the white man's cheeks look pale and sad,

Compared to my beautiful Indian lad.

Then let them talk of their race divine,

Their glittering domes, and sparkling wine;

Give me a lodge, like my fathers had,

And my tall, straight, beautiful Indian lad.

DOUBT.

Ninimosha, think'st thou of me,

When beneath the forest tree?

Do'st thou in the passing wind,

Catch the sighs I've cast behind?

Ah! I fear—I fear—I fear,

Evil bird hath filled thine ear.

Ninimosha, in the clear blue sky,

Canst thou read my constancy,

Or in whispering branches near,

Aught from thy true lover hear?

Ah! I fear—I fear—I fear,

Evil bird hath filled thine ear.

FAIRY WHISPERINGS.

Supposed to be addressed to, and responded by a young pine-tree, in a state of transformation.

INVOCATION.

Spirit of the dancing leaves,

Hear a throbbing heart that grieves,

Not for joys this world can give,

But the life that spirits live:

Spirit of the foaming billow,

Visit thou my nightly pillow,

Shedding o'er it silver dreams,

Of the mountain brooks and streams,

Sunny glades, and golden hours,

Such as suit thy buoyant powers:

Spirit of the starry night,

Pencil out thy fleecy light,

That my footprints still my lead

To the blush-let Miscodeed,

Or the flower to passion true

Yielding free its carmine hue:

Spirit of the morning dawn,

Waft thy fleecy columns on,

Snowy white, or tender blue,

Such as brave men love to view.

Spirit of the greenwood plume,

Shed around thy leaf perfume,

Such as springs from buds of gold

Which thy tiny hands unfold.

Spirits, hither quick repair,

Hear a maiden's evening prayer.

RESPONSE.

Maiden, think me not a tree,

But thine own dear lover free,

Tall and youthful in my bloom

With the bright green nodding plume.

Thou art leaning on my breast,

Lean forever there, and rest!

Fly from man, that bloody race,

Pards, assassins, bold and base;

Quit their dim, and false parade

For the quiet lonely shade.

Leave the windy birchen cot

For my own light happy lot;

O'er thee I my veil will fling,

Light as beetle's silken wing;

I will breathe perfume of flowers,

O'er thy happy evening hours;

I will in my shell canoe

Waft thee o'er the waters blue;

I will deck thy mantle fold,

With the sun's last rays of gold.

Come, and on the mountain free

Rove a fairy bright with me.

SONG OF THE OPECHEE, THE ROBIN.

The Chippewas relate that the robin originated from a youth who was subjected to too severe a task of fasting.

In the boundless woods there are berries of red,

And fruits of a beautiful blue,

Where, by nature's own hand, the sweet singers are fed,

And to nature they ever are true.

We go not with arrow and bow to the field,

Like men of the fierce ruddy race,

To take away lives which they never can give,

And revel the lords of the chase.

If danger approaches, with instant alarm

We fly to our own leafy woods,

And there, with an innocent carol and charm,

We sing to our dear little broods.

At morning we sally in quest of the grain

Kind nature in plenty supplies,

We skip o'er the beautiful wide-stretching plain,

And sport in the vault of the skies.

At evening we perch in some neighboring tree

To carol our evening adieu,

And feel, although man assert he is free,

We only have liberty true.

We sing out our praises to God and to man,

We live as heaven taught us to live,

And I would not change back to mortality's plan

For all that the mortal can give.

Here ceased the sweet singer; then pluming his breast,

He winged the blue firmament free,

Repeating, as homeward he flew to his rest,

Tshee-ree-lee—Tshee-ree-lee—Tshee-ree-lee!

EVENING CHANT OF INDIAN CHILDREN
TO THE WATASEE, THE FIRE-FLY.

Fire-fly, fire-fly! bright little thing,

Light me to bed, and my song I will sing.

Give me your light, as you fly o'er my head,

That I may merrily go to my bed.

Give me your light o'er the grass as you creep,

That I may joyfully go to my sleep.

Come, little fire-fly—come, little beast—

Come! and I'll make you to-morrow a feast.

Come, little candle that flies as I sing,

Bright little fairy-bug—night's little king;

Come, and I'll dance as you guide me along,

Come, and I'll pay you, my bug, with a song.

SONG OF A FAIRY CHIEF.

Addressed to the winds on transferring his sister to a position as one of the planets in the morning sky.

Blow, winds, blow, my sister lingers

From her dwelling in the sky,

Where the moon with rosy fingers

Shall her cheeks with vermil dye.

There my earliest views directed,

Shall from her their brilliance take

And her smiles through clouds reflected,

Guide me on, by wood and lake.

While I range the highest mountains,

Sport in valleys, green and low,

Or beside our Indian fountains,

Raise my tiny hip hallo.

SONG OF A CAPTIVE CREEK GIRL,

Who was an exile in a distant northern tribe, confined on an island in Lake Superior.

To sunny vales, to balmy skies,

My thoughts, a flowery arrow, flies;

I see the wood, the bank, the glade,

Where first, a wild wood girl, I played.

I think on scenes and faces dear;

They are not here—they are not here.

In this cold sky, in this lone isle,

I meet no friends, no mother's smile.

I list the wind, I list the wave;

They seem like requiems, round the grave,

And all my heart's young joys are gone;

It is alone—it is alone.

FEMALE SONG.

My love is a hunter—he hunts the fleet deer,

With fusil or arrow, one-half of the year;

He hunts the fleet deer over mountain and lea,

But his heart is still hunting for love and for me.

My love is a warrior; when warriors go,

With fusil or arrow, to strike the bold foe,

He treads the bright war-path with step bold and free,

But still his thoughts wander to love and to me.

But hunter or warrior, where'er he may go,

To track the swift deer, or to follow the foe,

His heart's warm desire, field and forest still flee,

To go hunting his love, and make captive of me.

MALE SONG.

My love, she gave to me a belt, a belt of texture fine,

Of snowy hue, emboss'd with blue and scarlet porcupine;

This tender braid sustain'd the blade I drew against the foe,

And ever prest upon my breast, to mark its ardent glow.

And if with art I act my part, and bravely fighting stand,

I, in the din, a trophy win, that gains Nimosha's hand.

My love, she is a handsome girl, she has a sparkling eye,

And a head of flowing raven hair, and a forehead arched and high;

Her teeth are white as cowry shells, brought from the distant sea,

And she is tall, and graceful all, and fair as fair can be.

And if with art I act my part, and bravely wooing stand,

And with address my suit I press, I gain Nimosha's hand.

Oh, I will search the silver brooks for skin of blackest dye,

And scale the highest mountain-tops, a warrior's gift to spy!

I'll place them where my love shall see, and know my present true;

Perhaps when she admires the gift, she'll love the giver, too.

And if with art I act my part, and bravely wooing stand,

I'll gain my love's unsullied heart, and then I'll gain her hand.

THE LOVE OF THE FOREST.

To rove with the wild bird, and go where we will,

Oh, this is the charm of the forest-life still!

With our houses of bark, and our food on the plain,

We are off like an eagle, and back there again.

No farms can detain us, no chattels prevent;

We live not by ploughing—we thrive not by rent;

Our herds rove the forest, our flocks swim the floods,

And we skim the broad waters, and trip through the woods.

With ships not of oak wood, nor pitchy, nor strong,

We sail along rivers, and sail with a song;

We care not for taxes—our laws are but few;

The dart is our sickle, our ship the canoe.

If enemies press us, and evil fear stray,

We seize on our war-clubs, and drive them away,

And when there is nothing to fear or withstand,

We lift the proud rattle, and dance on the land.

In feasting and dancing, our moments are gay;

We trust in the God who made heaven and day;

We read no big volumes, no science implore,

But ask of our wise men to teach us their lore.

The woods are our pastures; we eat what we find,

And rush through the lands like a rattling wind.

Heaven gave us the country; we cling to the west,

And, dying, we fly to the Lands of the Blest!

LIGHT OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE WIGWAM.

Oh why, ye subtle spirits, why

Lift I my eyes to yonder floating sky,

Where clouds paint pictures with so clear a hue?

A heaven so beautiful it must be true.

For if I but to earth withdraw my eyes,

And fix them on the creature man

To scan his acts, the dear, fond picture dies,

And worse he seems in thought, and air, and plan

Than the hyena, beast that only digs

For food, and not rejoices in the dart,

That stopped the warm blood current of the heart.

Had men but had just what the earth can give,

It would be misery, and lies, and blood,

Pinching and hunger, so that he who lives

But lives, as some poor outcast drowning in a flood.

And then—ah, tell me!—whither goes the soul?

Oh why, ye spirits blest, oh why

Is truth so darkened to the human eye?

As if a sombre cloud all heaven made black,

And the sun shone but through a chink or crack,

Within a wall, where light is but the accident of things,

And not the purport. Truth may be then as the white men write,

And all our tribes in a darkness set, instead of light.

NOCTURNAL GRAVE LIGHTS.

It is supposed to be four days' journey to the land of the dead; wherefore, during four nights, the Chippewas kindle a fire on the grave.

Light up a fire upon my grave

When I am dead.

'Twill softly shed its beaming rays,

To guide the soul its darkling ways;

And ever, as the day's full light

Goes down and leaves the world in night,

These kindly gleams, with warmth possest,

Shall show my spirit where to rest

When I am dead.

Four days the funeral rite renew,

When I am dead.

While onward bent, with typic woes,

I seek the red man's last repose;

Let no rude hand the flame destroy,

Nor mar the scene with festive joy;

While night by night, a ghostly guest,

I journey to my final rest,

When I am dead.

No moral light directs my way

When I am dead.

A hunter's fate, a warrior's fame,

A shade, a phantom, or a name,

All life-long through my hands have sought,

Unblest, unlettered, and untaught:

Deny me not the boon I crave—

A symbol-light upon my grave,

When I am dead.

MANITO.

"Every exhibition of elementary power, in earth or sky, is deemed, by the Indians, as a symbolic type of a deity."—Hist. Inds.

In the frowning cliff, that high

Glooms above the passing eye,

Casting spectral shadows tall

Over lower rock and wall;

In its morn and sunset glow,

I behold a Manito.

By the lake or river lone,

In the humble fretted stone,

Water-sculptured, and, by chance,

Cast along the wave's expanse;

In its morn and sunset glow,

I behold a Manito.

In whatever's dark or new,

And my senses cannot view,

Complex work, appearance strange,

Arts' advance, or nature's change—

Fearful e'er of hurt or woe,

I behold a Manito.

In the motions of the sky,

Where the angry lightnings fly,

And the thunder, dread and dire,

Lifts his mighty voice in fire—

Awed with fear of sudden woe,

I behold a Manito.

Here my humble voice I lift,

Here I lay my sacred gift,

And, with heart of fear and awe,

Raise my loud Wau-la-le-au.

Spirit of the fields above,

Thee I fear, and Thee I love,

Whether joy betide or woe,

Thou, thou art my Manito.

NIAGARA, AN ALLEGORY.

An old gray man on a mountain lived,

He had daughters four and one,

And a tall bright lodge of the betula bark

That glittered in the sun.

He lived on the very highest top.

For he was a hunter free,

Where he could spy, on the clearest day,

Gleams of the distant sea.

"Come out! come out!" cried the youngest one;

"Let us off to look at the sea!"

And out they ran, in their gayest robes,

And skipped and ran with glee.

"Come, Su; come, Mi; come, Hu; come, Cla;"

Cried laughing little Er;

"Let us go to yonder deep blue sea,

Where the breakers foam and roar."

And on they scampered by valley and wood,

By earth and air and sky,

Till they came to a steep where the bare rocks stood,

In a precipice mountain high.

"Inya!" cried Er, "here's a dreadful leap!

But we are gone so far,

That, if we flinch and return in fear,

Nos he will cry, 'Ha! ha!'"

Now, each was clad in a vesture light,

That floated far behind,

With sandals of frozen water drops,

And wings of painted wind.

And down they plunged with a merry skip,

Like birds that skim the plain;

And "Hey!" they cried, "let us up and try,

And down the steep again!"

And up and down the daughters skipped,

Like girls on a holiday,

And laughed outright at the sport and foam

They called Niagara.

If ye would see a sight so rare,

Where Nature's in her glee,

Go, view the spot in the wide wild West,

The land of the brave and free!

But mark—their shapes are only seen

In Fancy's deepest play;

But she plainly shows their wings and feet

In the dancing sunny spray.

CHILEELI.

The Chippewas relate that the spirit of a young lover, who was killed in battle, determined to return to his affianced maid, in the shape of a bird, and console her by his songs. He found her in a chosen retreat, where she daily resorted to pass her pensive hours.

Stay not here—the men are base,

I have found a happier place,

Where no war, or want severe,

Haunts the mind with thoughts of fear;

Men are cruel—bloody—cold,

Seeking like lynx the rabbit's wold,

Not to guard from winds or drought,

But to suck its life's blood out.

Stay not here—oh, stay not here,

'Tis a world of want and fear.

I have found those happy plains,

Where the blissful Spirit reigns,

Such, as by our wise men old,

All our fathers have foretold.

Streams of sparkling waters flow,

Pure and clear, with silver glow;

Woods and shady groves abound,

Long sweet lawns and painted ground;

Lakes, in winding shores extend,

Fruits, with flowers, inviting blend;

While, throughout the green-wood groves,

Gayest birds sing out their loves.

Stay not here, my trustful maid,

'Tis a world for robbers made.

I will lead you, soul of love,

To those flowery haunts above,

Where no tears or pain are found—

Where no war-cry shakes the ground;

Where no mother hangs her head,

Crying: "Oh, my child is dead!"

Where no human blood is spilt,

Where there is no pain, or guilt;

But the new-freed spirit roves

Round and round, in paths of loves.

Pauguk's not admitted there,

Blue the skies, and sweet the air;

There are no diseases there;

There no famished eyeball rolls,

Sickness cannot harm the souls;

Hunger is not there a guest,

Souls are not with hunger press'd,

All are happy, all are blest.

Rife the joys our fathers sought,

Sweet to eye and ear and thought,

Stay not here, my weeping maid,

'Tis a world in glooms arrayed.

Wishes there, all wants supply,

Wants of hand, and heart, and eye;

Labor is not known—that thorn

Pricks not there, at night or morn,

As it goads frail mortals here,

With its pain, and toil, and fear;

Shadows typical and fair,

Fill the woods, the fields, the air,

Stately deer, the forests fill,

Just to have them is to will;

Birds walk kindly from the lakes,

And whoever wants them, takes;

There no drop of blood is drawn,

Darts are for an earthy lawn.

Hunters, warriors, chiefs, are there,

Plumed and radiant, bright and fair;

But they are the ghosts of men,

And ne'er mix in wars again;

They no longer rove with ire,

Wood or wold, or sit by fire;

Council called—how best to tear,

From the gray-head crown its hair,

Dripping with its vital blood,

Horror—echoed in the wood.

Stay not here—where horrors dwell,

Earth is but a name for hell.

Oh, the Indian paradise is sweet,

Naught but smiles the gazers meet;

All is fair—the sage's breast,

Swells with joy to hail each guest—

Comes he, from these sounding shores,

Or the North God's icy stores,

Where the shivering children cry,

In their snow-cots and bleak sky;

Or the far receding south,

Burned with heat, and palsied drought,

All are welcome—all receive,

Gifts great Chibiabos gives.

Stay not, maiden—weep no more,

I have found the happy shore.

Come with me, and we will rove,

O'er the endless plains of love,

Full of flowers, gems, and gold,

Where there is no heart that's cold,

Where there is no tear to dry

In a single human eye.

Stay not here; cold world like this,

Death but opes the door to bliss.

ON THE STATE OF THE IROQUOIS,
OR SIX NATIONS.

In 1845, the Legislature of New York directed a census of these cantons, which evinced an advanced state of industry.

The lordly Iroquois is tending sheep,

Gone are the plumes that decked his brow,

For his bold raid, no more the wife shall weep—

He holds the plough.

The bow and quiver which his fathers made;

The gun, that filled the warrior's deadliest vow;

The mace, the spear, the axe, the ambuscade—

Where are they now?

Mute are the hills that woke his dreadful yell—

Scared nations listen with affright no more;

He walks a farmer over field and dell

Once red with gore.

Frontlet and wampum, baldric, brand, and knife,

Skill of the megalonyx, snake and fox,

All now are gone!—transformed to peaceful life—

He drives the ox.

Algon, and Cherokee, and Illinese,

No more beneath his stalwort blow shall writhe:

Peace spreads her reign wide o'er his inland seas—

He swings the scythe.

Grain now, not men, employs his manly powers;

To learn the white man's arts, and skill to rule,

For this, his sons and daughters spend their hours—

They go to school.

Glory and fame, that erewhile fired his soul,

And nerved for war his ever vengeful arm,

Where are your charms his bosom to control?—

He tills a farm.

His war-scar'd visage, paints no more deform—

His garments, made of beaver, deer, and rat,

Are now exchanged for woollen doublets warm—

He wears a hat.

His very pipe, surcharged with sacred weed,

Once smoked to spirits dreamy, dread and sore,

Is laid aside—to think, to plan, to read—

He keeps a store.

This is the law of progress—kindlier arts

Have shaped his native energies of mind,

And back he comes—from wandering, woods and darts

Back to mankind.

His drum and rattles, both are thrown away—

His native altars stand without a blaze,—

Truth, robed in gospel light, hath found her way—

And hark! he prays!

THE LOON'S FOOT.

I thought it was the loon's foot, I saw beneath the tide,

But no—it was my lover's shining paddle I espied;

It was my lover's paddle, as my glance I upward cast,

That dipped so light and gracefully as o'er the lake I passed.

The loon's foot—the loon's foot,
'Tis graceful on the sea;
But not so light and joyous as
That paddle blade to me.

My eyes were bent upon the wave, I cast them not aside,

And thought I saw the loon's foot beneath the silver tide.

But ah! my eyes deceived me—for as my glance I cast,

It was my lover's paddle blade that dipped so light and fast.

The loon's foot—the loon's foot,
'Tis sweet and fair to see,
But oh, my lover's paddle blade,
Is sweeter far to me.

The lake's wave—the long wave—the billow big and free,

It wafts me up and down, within my yellow light canoe;

But while I see beneath heaven pictured as I speed,

It is that beauteous paddle blade, that makes it heaven indeed.

The loon's foot—the loon's foot,
The bird upon the sea,
Ah! it is not so beauteous
As that paddle blade to me.

TULCO, PRINCE OF NOTTO.

Tulco, a Cherokee chief, is said to have visited, in 1838, the rotunda, or excavations, under the great mound of Grave Creek, while the Indian antiquities were collected there, and the skeleton found in the lower vault was suspended to the wall, and the exudations of animal matter depended from the roof.

'Tis not enough that hated race

Should hunt us out from grove and place,

And consecrated shores, where long

Our fathers raised the lance and song—

'Tis not enough that we must go

Where unknown streams and fountains flow,

Whose murmurs heard amid our fears,

Fall only now on foeman's ears—

'Tis not enough, that with a wand

They sweep away our pleasant land,

And bid us, as some giant foe,

Or willing or unwilling go;

But they must ope our very graves,

To tell the dead they too are slaves!

And hang their bones upon the wall,

To please their gaze and gust of thrall;

As if a dead dog from below

Were made a jesting-stock and show!

See, from above! the restless dead

Peer out, with exudation dread—

That hangs in robes of clammy white,

Like clouds upon the inky night;

Their very ghosts are in this place,

I see them pass before my face;

With frowning brows they whirl around

Within this consecrated mound!

Away—away, vile caitiff race,

And give the dead their resting-place.

They point—they cry—they bid me smite

The Wa-bish-kiz-zee in their sight!

Did Europe come to crush us dead,

Because on flying deer we fed,

And worshipped gods of airy forms,

Who ride in thunder-clouds, the storms?

Because we use not plough or loom,

Is ours a black and bitter doom

That has no light—no world of bliss?—

Then is our hell commenced in this.

Nay, it is well—but tell me not

The white race now possess the spot,

That fury marks my brow, and all

I see is but my fancy's pall

That glooms my eyes—ah, white man, no!

The woe we taste is solid woe.

Comes then the thought of better things,

When we were men, and we were kings.

Men are we now, and still there rolls

A monarch's blood in all our souls!

A warrior's fire is in our hearts,

Our hands are strong in feathery darts;

And let us die as they have died

Who are the Indian's boast and pride!

Nor creep to graves, in flying west,

Unplumed, dishonored, and unblest!

ON PRESENTING A WILD ROSE

PLUCKED ON THE SOURCES OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

Take thou the rose, though blighted,

Its sweetness is not gone,

And like the heart, though slighted,

In memory it blooms on.

Thy hand its leaves may nourish,

Thy smiles its bloom restore;

So warmed its buds may flourish,

And bloom to life once more.

Yet if they bloom not ever,

These thoughts may life impart

To hopes I ne'er could sever

One moment from my heart.

Oh, then, receive my token,

From far-off northern sky,

That speech, once kindly spoken,

Can never—never die.

THE RED MAN.

I stood upon an eminence, that wide

O'erlooked a length of land, where spread

The sounding shores of Lake Superior;

And at my side there lay a vale

Replete with little glens, where oft

The Indian wigwam rose, and little fields

Of waving corn displayed their tasselled heads.

A stream ran through the vale, and on its marge

There grew wild rice, and bending alders dipped

Into the tide, and on the rising heights

The ever-verdant pine laughed in the breeze.

I turned around, to gaze upon the scenes

More perfectly, and there beheld a man

Tall and erect, with feathers on his head,

And air and step majestic; in his hands

Held he a bow and arrows, and he would have passed,

Intent on other scene, but that I spake to him:

"Pray, whither comest thou? and whither goest?"

"My coming," he replied, "is from the Master of Life,

The Lord of all things, and I go at his commands."

"Then why," I further parleyed, "since thou art

So much the friend of Him, whom white men seek

By prayer and rite so fervently to obey—why, tell,

Art thou so oft in want of e'en a meal

To satisfy the cravings of a man? Why cast abroad

To live in wilds, where oft the scantiest shapes

Of foot and wing must fill thy board, while pallid hunger strays

With hideous shouts, by mountain, vale, and stream?"

"The Great Spirit," he replied, "hath not alike

Made all men; or, if once alike, the force of climes,

And wants and wanderings have estranged them quite.

To me, and to my kind, forest, and lake, and wood,

The rising mountain, and the drawn-out stream

That sweeps, meandering, through wild ranges vast,

Possess a charm no marble halls can give.

We rove, as winds escaped the Master's fists—

Now, sweeping over beds of prairie flowers—

Now, dallying on the tops of leafy trees,

Or murmuring in the corn-fields, and, when tired

With roving, we lie down on beds where springs

The simple wild flower, and some shreds of bark,

Plucked from the white, white birch, defends our heads,

And hides us from the blue ethereal skies,

Where, in his sovereign majesty, this Spirit rules;

Now, casting lightning from his glowing eyes—

Now, uttering thunder with his mighty voice.

"To you, engendered in another clime

Of which our fathers knew not, he hath given

Arts, arms, and skill we know not, or if ever knew,

Have quite forgot. Your hands are thickened up

With toils of field and shop, where whirring wheels resound,

And hammers clink. The anvil and the plough

Belong to you; the very ox construes your speech,

And turns him to obey you. All this toil

We deem a slavery too heavy to be borne,

And which our tribes revolt at. Oft we stand

To view the reeking smith, who pounds his iron

With blow on blow, to fit it for the beast

That drags your ploughshares through the rooty soil.

The very streams—bright ribbons of the woods!—are yoked,

And made to turn your mills, and grind your corn;

And yet this progress stays not in its toils

To alter nature and pervert her plans.

Steam drags your vessels now, that once

Leapt in their beauty by the winds of heaven.

Some subtle principle ye find in fire,

And with a cunning art fit rattling cars

To run on strips of iron, with scream and clang

That seem symbolic of an angry power

Which dwells below, and is infernal called.

The war-crowned lightning skips from pole to pole

On strings of iron, to haste with quick intelligence.

"Once, nature could be hid, and fondly think

She had some jewels in the earth, but now ye dig

Into her very bowels, to recover morsels sweet

She erst with deglutition had drawn in. The rocks

Your toils dissolve, to find perchance some treasure

Lying there. Is yonder land of gold alone

Your care? Observe along these shores

The wheezing engine clank—the stamper ring.

Once, hawks and eagles here pursued their prey,

But now the white man ravens more than they.

No! give me but my water and God's meats,

And take your cares, your riches, and your thrones.

What the Great Spirit gives, I take with joy,

And scorn those gains which nothing can content.

"Drudge ye, and grind ye, white man! make your pence,

And store your purses with the shining poison.

It was not Manito who made this trash

To curse the human race, but Vatipa the black,

Who rules below—he changed the blood of innocence

And tears of pity into gold, and strewed it wide

O'er lands where still the murderer digs

And the deceptious delve, to find the cockle out

And pick it up, but laughs the while to see

What fools they are, and how himself has foiled

The Spirit of Good, that made mankind

Erst friends and brothers. Scanty is my food,

But that sweet bird, chileelee, blue of wing,

Sings songs of peace within the wild-wood dell

And round the enchanted shores of these blue seas—

Not long, perhaps, our own—which tell me of a rest

In far-off lands—the islands of the blest!"

THE SKELETON WRAPPED IN GOLD.

In digging, in 1854, a railroad in Chili, seventy feet below the surface, in a sandy plain, which had been an ancient graveyard, an Indian skeleton, wrapped in a sheet of solid gold, rolled into the excavation. Its appearance denoted an ancient Inca, of the Atacama period.

The Indian laid in his shroud of gold,

Where his friends had kindly bound him;

For, in their raid so strong and bold,

The Spaniards had never found him.

Kind guardian spirits had watched him there,

From ages long—long faded,

Embalmed with gems and spices rare,

And in folds of sweet grass braided.

And priestly rites were duly done,

And hymns upraised to bless him,

And that gold mantle of the sun,

Put on, as a monarch to dress him.

"Sleep on," they said, in whispers low,

"Nor fear the white man's coming,

For we have put no glyph to show,

The spot of thy entombing.

"Inca, thy warfare here is done,

Each bitter scene or tender,

Go to thy sire, the shining Sun,

In kingly garb and splendor.

"Earth hath no honors thou hast not,

Brave, wise, in every station,

Or battle, temple, council, cot,

Beloved of all thy nation.

"Take thou this wand of magic might,

With signet-jewels glowing,

As heralds to the God of Light,

Where, father, thou art going.

"A thousand years the charm shall last,

The charm of thy ensealment,

Till there shall come a spirit vast,

To trouble thy concealment."

And safe he slept in Tlalcol's train,

With all his genii by him,

Through Atacama's pleasing reign,

Ere Manco came a-nigh him.

That golden reign spread arts anew,

O'er all his Andes mountains,

And temples that his sires ne'er knew,

Arose beside their fountains.

Pizarro's bloody day flew past,

Nor shook his place of sleeping,

Though, as with earthquakes, deep and vast,

The land with ruins heaping.

Nor had the cherished ruler more,

Broke the deep trance from under,

But that a stronger, sterner power,

Arose the charm to sunder.

No gentle genii more could wield,

The wand of his dominion;

No power of Indian guardian yield,

Or wave her golden pinion.

It was the spirit of progress fell,

And trade, and gain united,

Who swore an oath, and kept it well,

That Tlalcol's blessing blighted.

Deep dug they down in Chili's hills,

Deep—deeper laid their levels,

To drive those cars, whose screaming fills

The ear, with sounds like devils.

And as they dug, they sang and dug,

As digging for a treasure,

That should, like dire Arabic drug,

Rise, with unmeasured measure.

Old Indian arts, and Indian spells,

And all their subtle seeming,

Passed quick away—as truth expels,

The palsied power in dreaming.

Down rolled the cherished Indian corse,

The sands no more could hold him,

Nor rite—nor genii—art or force,

Nor golden shroud enfold him.

WAUB OJEEG'S DEATH WHISPERINGS.

I go to the land where our heroes are gone, are gone,

That land where our sages are gone;

And I go with bright tone, to join hearts who are one,

That drew the bold dart at my side, at my side,

That drew the bold dart at my side.

Those lands in the bright beamy west, the west,

Those lands in the bright beamy west,

As our fathers foretold, are the plenty crowned fold,

Where the world-weary warrior may rest, may rest,

Where the war-honored hero may rest.

My life has been given to war, to war,

My strength has been offered to war,

And the foes of my land, ne'er before me could stand,

But fled as base cowards in fear, in fear,

They fled like base cowards in fear.

My warfare in life it is done, it is done,

My warfare, my friends, it is done;

I go to that Spirit, whose form in the sky,

So oft we have seen in the cloud-garnished sun,

So oft in dread lightning espy.

My friends, when my spirit is fled, is fled,

My friends, when my spirit is fled,

Ah, put me not bound, in the dark and cold ground,

Where light shall no longer be shed, be shed,

Where daylight no more shall be shed.

But lay me up scaffolded high, all high,

Chiefs, lay me up scaffolded high,

Where my tribe shall still say, as they point to my clay,

He ne'er from the foe sought to fly, to fly,

He ne'er from the foe sought to fly.

And children, who play on the shore, the shore,

And children who play on the shore,

As the war-dance they beat, my name shall repeat,

And the fate of their chieftain deplore, deplore,

And the fate of their chieftain deplore.

TO THE MISCODEED.

Thy petals, tipped with red, declare

The sanguinary rites of war;

But when I view thy base of white,

Thoughts of heaven's purity invite.

Symbols at once that hearts like thee

Contain two powers, in which we see

A passion strong to war inclined,

And a soft, pure, and tender mind.

Earliest of buds when snows decay

From these wild northern fields away,

Thou comest as a herald dear,

To tell us that the spring is near;

And shall with sweets and flowers relume

Our hearts, for all the winter's gloom.

Soon the opeechee comes to sing

The pleasures of an early spring;

Soon shall the swelling water's roar

Tell us that winter is no more;

The water-fowl set up their cry,

Or hasten to more northern sky;

And on the sandy shore shall stray,

The plover, the twee-tweesh-ke-way.

Soon shall the budding trees expand,

And genial skies pervade the land;

The little garden hoes shall peck,

And female hands the moss beds deck;

The apple-tree refresh our sight,

With its fair blows of pink and white;

The cherry bloom, the strawberry run,

And joy fill all the new Seegwun.

THE STAR FAMILY.

Waupee found a deep-trod circle

In the boundless prairie wide;

In the grassy sea of prairies,

Without trace of path beside.

To or fro, there was no token

Man had ever trod the plain;

And he gazed upon the wonder,

Gazed the wonder to explain.

I will watch the place, quoth Waupee,

And conceal myself awhile;

This strange mystery to unravel,

This new thing to reconcile.

Tracks I know of deer and bison,

Tracks of panther, lynx, or hind,

Beasts and birds of every nature,

But this beaten ring is blind.

Do the spirits here assemble,

War-dance light to trip and sing?

Gather Medas of the prairie,

Here their magic charm to fling?

Waupee crept beneath the hushes,

Near the wondrous magic ring;

Close beneath the shrubs and grasses,

To behold so rare a thing.

Soon he heard, high in the heavens,

Issuing from the feathery clouds—

Sounds of music, quick descending,

As if angels came in crowds.

Louder, sweeter, was the music,

Every moment that he stayed;

Till a basket, with twelve sisters,

Was with all its charms displayed.

Down they came, in air suspended,

As if by thin silver cords;

And within the circle landed,

Gay and bright as beauteous birds.

Out they leaped with nimble gestures,

Dancing softly round and round;

Each a ball of silver chiming,

With the most enchanting sound.

Beauteous were they all—but one so

More than all the other eleven,

Youngest she, he sighed to clasp her

To his ardent, glowing breast.

Up he rose from his concealment,

From his flower-encircled bed;

But, as quick-eyed birds, they spied him,

Stepped into the car and fled.

Fled into the starry heavens,

While with open ear he stood,

Drinking the receding music,

As it left his solitude.

Now, indeed, was he a stranger,

And a fugitive alone;

For the peace that once he cherished,

With the heavenly car had flown.

Touched his heart was by love's fervors,

He no longer wished to rove;

Lost the charm of war and hunting,

Waupee was transfixed by love.

Ah! 'tis love that wins the savage

From his wanderings, and can teach,

Where the truth could never touch him,

Where the gospel could not reach.

Long he mourned—and lingering, waited

Round the charmed celestial ring;

Day by day he lingered, hoping

Once to hear those angels sing.

To deceive, the quick eyes glancing,

An opossum's form he tries;

And crouched low, beside the circle,

Stooped, that he might win the prize.

Soon the sounds he heard descending,

Soon they leaped within the ring;

Joining hand in hand in dancing,

Round and round—sweet revelling.

Up he rose, quick disenchanted,

Rose and clasped his female star,

While, as lightning, quick the eleven

Leaped, and rose within their car.

vHome he took her to his wigwam,

Sought each varied way to please;

Gave her flowers and rarest presents,

All to yield her joy and ease.

And a beauteous son rewarded

Love so constant, true, and mild;

Who renewed in every feature,

Nature's lonely forest child.

But, as thoughts of youth will linger

Long within the heart's fond core;

So she nursed the pleasing passion,

Her star-home to see once more—

Made an ark of wicker branches,

All by secret arts and care;

Sought the circle with her earth-boy,

Fleeing to her Father star.

There, at length, the boy grew weary,

Weary e'en of heavenly spheres,

Longing for earth's cares and pleasures,

Hunting, feasting, joys, and tears.

"Call thy husband," quoth the star chief,

"Take the magic car and go;

But bring with thee some fit emblems,

Of the sounding chase below.

"Claw, or wing, or toe, or feathers,

Scalp of bird or beast to tell;

What he follows in the wood-chase,

Arts the hunter knows so well."

Waupee searched the deepest forests,

Prairies vast, or valleys low;

All to find out the rarest species,

That he might the star-world show.

Then he sought the ring of magic,

With his forest stores so rare;

And within the starry basket,

Rose with all his emblems fair.

Joys of greeting—joys of seeing—

Hand to hand, and eye to eye;

These o'ercrowned with smiles and laughing,

This lodge-meeting in the sky.

Then a glorious feast was ordered,

To receive the forest guest;

While the sweet reunion lighted,

Joy in every beating breast.

Broad the feasting board was covered,

The high starry group to bind;

When the star chief rose to utter

His congratulations kind.

"List, my guests—the Spirit wills it,

Earth to earth, and sky to sky;

Choose ye each a claw or pinion,

Such as ye may wish to try."

Wondrous change! by arts' transformance,

At the typic heavenly feast;

Each who chose a wing a bird was,

Each who chose a claw, a beast.

Off they ran on plains of silver,

Squirrel, rabbit, elk, or deer;

White Hawk chose a wing, descending

Down again to forests here,

Where the Waupees are still noted

For their high essays of wing;

And their noble deeds of bravery,

In the forest, mount, and ring.

SONG OP THE WOLF-BROTHER.

Nësia, my elder brother,

Bones have been my forest meal,

Shared with wolves the long, long winter,

And their nature now I feel.

Nësia, my elder brother,

Now my fate is near its close;

Soon my state shall cease to press me,

Soon shall cease my day of woes.

Left by friends I loved the dearest,

All who knew and loved me most;

Woes the darkest and severest,

Bide me on this barren coast.

Pity! ah, that manly feeling,

Fled from hearts where once it grew,

Now in wolfish forms revealing,

Glows more warmly than in you.

Stony hearts! that saw me languish,

Deaf to all a father said,

Deaf to all a mother's anguish,

All a brother's feelings fled.

Ah, ye wolves, in all your ranging,

I have found you kind and true;

More than man—and now I'm changing,

And will soon be one of you.

Lodge of kindred once respected,

Now my heart abhors your plan;

Hated, shunned, disowned, neglected,

Wolves are truer far than man.

And like them, I'll be a rover,

With an honesty of bite

That feigns not to be a lover,

When the heart o'erflows with spite.

Go, ye traitors, to my lodge-fire;

Go, ye serpents, swift to flee,

War with kinds that have your natures,

I am disenthrall'd and free.

ABBINOCHI.

A MOTHER'S CHANT TO HER SICK INFANT.

Abbinochi, baby dear,

Leave me not—ah, leave me not;

I have nursed with love sincere,

Nursed thee in my forest cot—

Tied thee in thy cradle trim

Kind adjusting every limb;

With the fairest beads and bands

Deck'd thy cradle with my hands,

And with sweetest corn panäd

From my little kettle fed,

Oft with miscodeed roots shred,

Fed thee in thy baby bed.

Abbinochi, droop not so,

Leave me not—away to go

To strange lands—thy little feet

Are not grown the path to greet

Or find out, with none to show

Where the flowers of grave-land grow.

Stay, my dear one, stay till grown,

I will lead thee to that zone

Where the stars like silver shine,

And the scenes are all divine,

And the happy, happy stray,

And, like Abbinochi, play.

TO PAUGUK.

(This is the impersonation of death in Indian mythology. He is represented with a bow and arrows.)

Pauguk! 'tis a scene of woe,

This world of troubles; let me go

Arm'd to show forth the Master's will,

Strike on thy purpose to fulfil.

I fear not death—my only fear

Is ills and woes that press me here.

Want stares me in the face, or woe,

Where'er I dwell—where'er I go;

Fishing and hunting only give

The pinching means to let me live;

And if, at night, I lay me down,

In dreams and sleep my rest to crown,

Ere day awakes its slumbering eyes,

I start to hear the foe's mad cries,

Louder and louder, as I clutch

My club, or lance, or bow and dart,

And, springing with a panther's touch,

Display the red man's bloody art.

Nay, I am sick of life and blood,

That drowns my country like a flood,

Pouring o'er hill, and vale, and lea,

Lodge, ville, and council, like a sea,

Where one must gasp and gasp for breath

To live—and stay the power of death.

Ah! life's good things are all too poor,

Its daily hardships to endure.

My fathers told me, there's a land

Where peace and joy abound in hand,

And plenty smiles, and sweetest scenes

Expand in lakes, and groves, and greens.

No pain or hunger there is known,

And pleasure reigns throughout alone—

I would go there, and taste and see

A life so beauteous, bless'd and free,

Where man has no more power to kill,

And the Great Spirit all things fills.

Blanch not, Pauguk, I have no fear,

And would not longer linger here;

But bend thy bow and aim thy dart,

Behold an honest hunter's heart:

Thereby a dart, a boon may give,

A happy life on high to live.

'Tis all the same, in countries here,

Or where Pacific billows roar,

We roved in want, and woe and fear

Along the Mississippi shore.

And where Missouri's waters rush,

To tell to man that God is strong,

We shrank as from a tiger's touch,

To hear the white man's shout or song.

O not for us is peace and joy

Arising from the race that spread,

Their purpose only's to destroy—

Our only peace is with the dead.

Think not my heart is pale with fear,

But strike, Pauguk—strike boldly here.

FOOTNOTES

1
If Edwards the younger, to whom the Mohican was familiar from his childhood, could say, that he doubted whether there were any true adjectives in that language, it can easily be imagined that the subtlety of the transitive principle had not been sufficiently analyzed; but the remark is here quoted in relation to the paucity of adjectives.

2
Vide Criterion.

3
When the volumes of Algic Researches, in 1839, were published, the book-trade had hardly awakened to that wide and diffusive impulse which it has since received. No attention had been given to topics so obscure as inquiries into the character of the Indian mind--if, indeed, it was thought the Indian had any mind at all. It was still supposed that the Indian was, at all times and in all places, "a stoic of the woods," always statuesque, always formal, always passionless, always on stilts, always speaking in metaphors, a cold embodiment of bravery, endurance, and savage heroism. Writers depicted him as a man who uttered nothing but high principles of natural right, who always harangued eloquently, and was ready, with unmoved philosophy on all occasions, to sing his death song at the stake to show the world how a warrior should die.

4
The songs and chants which form so striking a part of the original legends, and also the poetic use of aboriginal ideas, are transferred to the end of the volume, and will thus, it is apprehended, relieve and simplify the text.

5
Gross.

6
An abbreviated term for "my grandmother," derived from no-kó-miss.

7
This is a term for the west wind. It is a derivative from Kabian-oong, the proper appellation for the occident.

8
An interjection indicating pain.

9
The scirpus, or bulrush.

10
Do not--do not.

11
The Northern Indians, when travelling in company with each other, or with white persons who possess their confidence, so as to put them at ease, are in the habit of making frequent allusions to Manabozho and his exploits. "There," said a young Chippewa, pointing to some huge boulders of greenstone, "are pieces of the rock broken off in Manabozho's combat with his father." "This is the duck," said an Indian interpreter on the sources of the Mississippi, "that Manabozho kicked." "Under that island," said a friend conversant with their language, "under that island Manabozho lost a beaver."

12
The term weendigo, translated here monster, is commonly applied, at this time, by the Indians, to cannibals. Its ancient use appears, however, to have embraced giants and anomalous voracious beasts of the land, to the former existence of which, on this Continent, their traditions refer.

The word genábik, rendered serpent, appears likewise to have been used in a generic sense for amphibious animals of large and venomous character. When applied to existing species of serpents, it requires an adjective prefix or qualifying term.

13
The wampum or pearl feather.

14
An interjection equivalent to shame! shame!

15
Animal tail, or bottom upward.

16
A free translation of this expression might be rendered, noble scratchers, or grabbers.

17
The conaus is the most ancient garment known to these tribes, being a simple extended single piece, without folds. The word is the apparent root of godaus, a female garment. Waub-e-wion, a blanket, is a comparatively modern phrase for a wrapper, signifying, literally, a white skin with the wool on.

18
Fasts. The rite of fasting is one of the most deep-seated and universal in the Indian ritual. It is practised among all the American tribes, and is deemed by them essential to their success in life in every situation. No young man is fitted and prepared to begin the career of life until he has accomplished his great fast. Seven days appear to have been the ancient maximum limit of endurance, and the success of the devotee is inferred from the length of continued abstinence to which he is known to have attained. These fasts are anticipated by youth as one of the most important events of life. They are awaited with interest, prepared for with solemnity, and endured with a self-devotion bordering on the heroic. Character is thought to be fixed from this period, and the primary fast, thus prepared for and successfully established, seems to hold that relative importance to subsequent years that is attached to a public profession of religious faith in civilized communities. It is at this period that the young men and the young women "see visions and dream dreams," and fortune or misfortune is predicted from the guardian spirit chosen during this, to them, religious ordeal. The hallucinations of the mind are taken for divine inspiration. The effect is deeply felt and strongly impressed on the mind; too deeply, indeed, to be ever obliterated in after life. The father in the circle of his lodge, the hunter in the pursuit of the chase, and the warrior in the field of battle, think of the guardian genius which they fancy to accompany them, and trust to his power and benign influence under every circumstance. This genius is the absorbing theme of their silent meditations, and stands to them in all respects in place of the Christian's hope, with the single difference that, however deeply mused upon, the name is never uttered, and every circumstance connected with its selection, and the devotion paid to it, is most studiously and professedly concealed even from their nearest friends.

Fasts in subsequent life appear to have for their object a renewal of the powers and virtues which they attribute to the rite. And they are observed more frequently by those who strive to preserve unaltered the ancient state of society among them, or by men who assume austere habits for the purpose of acquiring influence in the tribe, or as preparatives for war or some extraordinary feat. It is not known that there is any fixed day observed as a general fast. So far as a rule is followed, a general fast seems to have been observed in the spring, and to have preceded the general and customary feasts at that season.

It will be inferred from these facts, that the Indians believe fasts to be very meritorious. They are deemed most acceptable to the Manitoes or spirits whose influence and protection they wish to engage or preserve. And it is thus clearly deducible, that a very large proportion of the time devoted by the Indians to secret worship, so to say, is devoted to these guardian or intermediate spirits, and not to the Great Spirit or Creator.

19
The tuft feathers of the red-headed woodpecker are used to ornament the stems of the Indian pipe, and are symbolical of valor.

20
Abbreviated from Neshomiss, my grandfather.

21
That part of the intestines of a fish, which by its expansion from air in the first stage of decomposition, causes the body to rise and float. The expression here means float.

22
The Alcedo or Kingfisher.

23
This bird has a white spot on the breast, and a tufted head.

24
Shau-go-dai-a, i. e., a Coward.

25
The war-cry.

26
A burrow.

27
Diminutive form, plural number, of the noun Möz.

28
The dress of the females in the Odjibwa nation, consists of sleeves, open on the inner side of the arm from the elbow up, and terminating in large square folds, falling from the shoulders, which are tied at the back of the neck with ribbon or binding. The sleeves are separately made, and not attached to the breast garment, which consists of square folds of cloth, ornamented and sustained by shoulder straps. To untie the sleeves or armlets, as is here described, is therefore to expose the shoulders, but not the back--a simple device, quickly accomplished, by which the magician could readily exercise his art almost imperceptibly to the object.

29
Stop! stop!

30
It is difficult to throw into the English pronoun the whole of the meaning of the Indian. Pronouns in this language being, like other parts of speech, transitive; they are at once indicative both of the actor, personal, and relative, and the nature of the object, or subject of the action, or relation. This, and that, are not used in the elementary form these pronouns invariably possess in the English. Inflections are put to them indicating the class of natural objects to which they refer. A noun masculine or feminine, requiring an animate pronoun, a noun inanimate, a pronoun inanimate.

31
This word appears to be derived from the same root as Paup-puk-ke-nay, a grasshopper, the inflection iss making it personal. The Indian idea is that of harum scarum. He is regarded as a foil to Manabozho, with whom he is frequently brought in contact in aboriginal story craft.

32
This is an official who bears the pipe for the ruling chief, and is an inferior dignity in councils.

33
This is a studied perversion of the interjection Ho. In another instance (vide Wassamo) it is rendered Hoke.

34
We may mention, for the youth who may read these tales, that beavers live by gnawing the bark of trees.

35
Mats.

36
A species of lightning.

37
Pity me, my father.

38
The C. Sylvestris inhabits North America, north of latitude 46°.

39
Michilimackinac, the term alluded to, is the original French orthography of mish en i mok in ong, the local form (sing. and plu.), of Turtle Spirits.

40
i. e. Place of shallow cataract, named Sault de Ste. Marie on the arrival of the French. This is the local form of the word, the substantive proper terminates in eeg.

41
Nets are set in winter, in high northern latitudes, through orifices cut in the ice.

42
A kind of water spirits.

43
The fat of animals is esteemed by the N.A. Indians among the choicest parts.

44
The muscalunge.

45
The opinion that the earth is a square and level plain, and that the winds blow from its four corners, is a very ancient eastern opinion.

46
Such is the meaning of Wabose.

47
Oneóta.

48
Winter.

49
The Claytonia Virginica.

50
The Algic name for corn. The word is manifestly a trinary compound from monedo, spirit; min, a grain or berry; and iaw, the verb substantive.

51
The Zea mays, it will be recollected, is indigenous to America, and was unknown in Europe before 1495.

52
See Notes of the Pibbigwun.

53
A personification of the Northwest.

54
There is a group of stars in the Northern hemisphere which the Odjibwas call Ojeeg Annung, or the Fisher Stars. It is believed to be identical with the group of the Plough. They relate the following tale respecting it.

55
Baskets, or cages.

56
The idea here indicated is among the peculiar notions of these tribes, and is grafted in the forms of their language, which will be pointed out in the progress of these researches.

57
Family arms, or armorial mark.

58
Catfish.

59
Notes of the Pibbigwun.

60
Notes of the Pibbigwun.

61
Wesugaindum, meaning pain or bitterness of mind, is a single expression in the original. It is a trinary compound.

62
Notes of the Pibbigwun.

63
War-cry.

64
A gigantic she bear wearing the sacred necklace of wampum.

65
My grandfather.

66
Pai-gwud-aw-diz-zid.

67
Pungish-e-moo, falling or sinking to a position of repose.

68
My grandchild.

69
Enaw-baundum.

70
The Indian expression is, Awuss-Waubung--the day beyond to-morrow.

71
A species of hawk.

72
Cusic tells us there were thirteen of these magistrates before America was discovered. Here mythology takes the shape of historical tradition.

73
From Ienawdizzi, a wanderer.

74
The night-hawk.

75
A marten.

76
The common poplar, or P. tremuloides.

77
The beaver.

78
Here I will lie until I die.

79
This term means a man that lives on the surface of the earth, as contradistinguished from beings living underground.

80
He who lives in the city under ground.

81
People who live above ground.

82
The end wing feather.

83
Female spirit or prophetess.

84
A term indicative of the heir or successor to the first place in power.

85
A term compounded from sheegowiss, a widow, and mowigh, something nasty.

86
Pontiac told this story to the assembled Indians in 1763, to enlist them in his plan to resist the transfer of the country to the English authority, on the fall of the French power in the Canadas.

87
Owl.

88
This word has the sound of g hard, with a peculiarity as if followed by k.

89
This term appears to be a derivative from Addik, the reindeer, and the plural form of the generic Gumee, water, implying deer of the water.

90
Saut Ste. Marie.

91
i.e., the sudden stopping of a voice.

92
Grasshopper.

93
The East--i.e. place of light.

94
Ship and boat. These terms exhibit the simple and the diminutive forms of the name for ship or vessel. It is also the term for a woman's needlework, and seems to imply a tangled thready mass, and was perhaps transferred in allusion to a ship's ropes.

95
Wewaquonidjig, a term early and extensively applied to white men, by our Indians, and still frequently used.

96
Odawbon comprehends all vehicles between a dog train and a coach, whether on wheels or runners. The term is nearest allied to vehicle.

97
Massive silver.

98
My father.

99
A rattle.

100
A hard primitive stone, frequently found along the borders of the lakes and watercourses, generally fretted into image shapes. Hardness and indestructibility are regarded as its characteristics by the Indians. It is often granite.

101
This computation of time separates the day into four portions of six hours each--two of which, from 1 to 6, and from 6 to 12 A.M. compose the morning, and the other two, from 1 to 6, and from 6 to 12 P.M. compose the evening.

102
This is a verbal form, plural number, of the transitive adjective--foolish.

103
Midday, or middle line.

104
The idea attached to the use of these bones in the medicine dance is, that, by their magical influence, the actor can penetrate and go through any substance.

105
One who sits behind.

106
One who sits before.

107
Indian flute.

108
My sweetheart.

109
Claytonia Virginica.

110
Superior.

111
Michigan.

112
Huron.

113
St. Clair.

114
Erie.

115
An exclamation of wonder and surprise.--Odj. lan.

116
My father.--Ib.

117
Death.

118
White men.

119
Tlalcol, the keeper of the dead, corresponds to the Chebiabo of the Algonquins.

120
Spring beauty, C. Virg.

121
Robin.

122
Spring.

123
A child.

124
Claytonia Virginica.