Manabozho set out to travel. He wished to outdo all others, and see new countries, but after walking over America, and encountering many adventures, he became satisfied as well as fatigued. He had heard of great feats in hunting, and felt a desire to try his power in that way.
One evening, as he was walking along the shores of a great lake, weary and hungry, he encountered a great magician in the form of an old wolf, with six young ones, coming towards him. The wolf, as soon as he saw him, told his whelps to keep out of the way of Manabozho.
“For I know,” said he, “that it is he we see yonder.”
The young wolves were in the act of running off, when Manabozho cried out—
“My grandchildren, where are you going? Stop, and I will go with you.”
He appeared rejoiced to see the old wolf, and asked him whither he was journeying. Being told that they were looking out for a place where they could find the most game, and best pass the winter,he said he should like to go with them, and addressed the old wolf in these words—
“Brother, I have a passion for the chase. Are you willing to change me into a wolf?”
The old wolf was agreeable, and Manabozho’s transformation was effected.
He was fond of novelty. He found himself a wolf corresponding in size with the others, but he was not quite satisfied with the change, crying out—
“Oh! make me a little larger.”
They did so.
“A little larger still,” he cried.
They said—
“Let us humour him,” and granted his request.
“Well,” said he, “that will do.” Then looking at his tail—
“Oh!” cried he, “make my tail a little longer and more bushy.”
They made it so, and shortly after they all started off in company, dashing up a ravine. After getting into the woods some distance, they fell in with the tracks of moose. The young wolves went after them, Manabozho and the old wolf following at their leisure.
“Well,” said the wolf, “who do you think is the fastest of my sons? Can you tell by the jumps they take?”
“Why,” replied he, “that one that takes such long jumps; he is the fastest, to be sure.”
“Ha, ha! You are mistaken,” said the old wolf. “He makes a good start, but he will be the first totire out. This one who appears to be behind will be the first to kill the game.”
Soon after they came to the place where the young ones had killed the game. One of them had dropped his bundle there.
“Take that, Manabozho,” said the old wolf.
“Esa,” he replied, “what will I do with a dirty dog-skin?”
The wolf took it up; it was a beautiful robe.
“Oh! I will carry it now,” said Manabozho.
“Oh no,” replied the wolf, who at the moment exerted his magic power. “It is a robe of pearls.”
From that moment he lost no opportunity of displaying his superiority, both in the hunter’s and magician’s art, over his conceited companion.
Coming to a place where the moose had lain down, they saw that the young wolves had made a fresh start after their prey.
“Why,” said the wolf, “this moose is poor. I know by the tracks, for I can always tell whether they are fat or not.”
They next came to a place where one of the wolves had tried to bite the moose, and, failing, had broken one of his teeth on a tree.
“Manabozho,” said the wolf, “one of your grandchildren has shot at the game. Take his arrow. There it is.”
“No,” replied he, “what will I do with a dirty tooth?”
The old wolf took it up, and, behold! it was a beautiful silver arrow.
When they overtook the young ones, they found they had killed a very fat moose. Manabozho was very hungry, but, such is the power of enchantment, he saw nothing but bones, picked quite clean. He thought to himself—
“Just as I expected. Dirty, greedy fellows!”
However, he sat down without saying a word, and the old wolf said to one of the young ones—
“Give some meat to your grandfather.”
The wolf, coming near to Manabozho, opened his mouth wide as if he had eaten too much, whereupon Manabozho jumped up, saying—
“You filthy dog, you have eaten so much that you are ill. Get away to some other place.”
The old wolf, hearing these words, came to Manabozho, and, behold! before him was a heap of fresh ruddy meat with the fat lying all ready prepared. Then Manabozho put on a smiling-face.
“Amazement!” cried he, “how fine the meat is!”
“Yes,” replied the wolf; “it is always so with us. We know our work, and always get the best. It is not a long tail that makes a hunter.”
Manabozho bit his lip.
They then commenced fixing their winter quarters, while the young ones went out in search of game, of which they soon brought in a large supply. One day, during the absence of the young wolves, the old one amused himself by cracking the large bones of a moose.
“Manabozho,” said he, “cover your head with the robe, and do not look at me while I am at these bones, for a piece may fly in your eye.”
Manabozho covered his head, but, looking through a rent in the robe, he saw all the other was about. At that moment a piece of bone flew off and hit him in the eye. He cried out—
“Tyau! Why do you strike me, you old dog!”
The wolf said—
“You must have been looking at me.”
“No, no,” replied Manabozho; “why should I want to look at you?”
“Manabozho,” said the wolf, “you must have been looking, or you would not have got hurt.”
“No, no,” said Manabozho; and he thought to himself, “I will repay the saucy wolf for this.”
Next day, taking up a bone to obtain the marrow, he said to the old wolf—
“Cover your head, and don’t look at me, for I fear a piece may fly in your eye.”
The wolf did so. Then Manabozho took the leg-bone of the moose, and, looking first to see if the old wolf was well covered, he hit him a blow with all his might. The wolf jumped up, and cried out—
“Why do you strike me so?”
“Strike you?” exclaimed Manabozho. “I did not strike you!”
“You did,” said the wolf.
“How can you say I did, when you did not see me. Were you looking?” said Manabozho.
He was an expert hunter when he undertook the work in earnest, and one day he went out and killed a fat moose. He was very hungry, and sat down toeat, but fell into great doubts as to the proper point in the carcass to begin at.
“Well,” said he, “I don’t know where to commence. At the head? No. People would laugh, and say, ‘He ate him backward!’”
Then he went to the side.
“No,” said he, “they will say I ate him sideways.”
He then went to the hind-quarter.
“No,” said he, “they will say I ate him forward.”
At last, however, seeing that he must begin the attack somewhere, he commenced upon the hind-quarter. He had just got a delicate piece in his mouth when the tree just by began to make a creaking noise, rubbing one large branch against another. This annoyed him.
“Why!” he exclaimed, “I cannot eat when I hear such a noise. Stop, stop!” cried he to the tree.
He was again going on with his meal when the noise was repeated.
“I cannot eat with such a noise,” said he; and, leaving the meal, although he was very hungry, he went to put a stop to the noise. He climbed the tree, and having found the branches which caused the disturbance, tried to push them apart, when they suddenly caught him between them, so that he was held fast. While he was in this position a pack of wolves came near.
“Go that way,” cried Manabozho, anxious to send them away from the neighbourhood of his meat. “Go that way; what would you come to get here?”
The wolves talked among themselves, and said,, “Manabozho wants to get us out of the way. He must have something good here.”
“I begin to know him and all his tricks,” said an old wolf. “Let us see if there is anything.”
They accordingly began to search, and very soon finding the moose made away with the whole carcass. Manabozho looked on wistfully, and saw them eat till they were satisfied, when they left him nothing but bare bones. Soon after a blast of wind opened the branches and set him free. He went home, thinking to himself—
“See the effect of meddling with frivolous things when certain good is in one’s possession!”
A very great while ago the ancestors of the Shawanos nation lived on the other side of the Great Lake, half-way between the rising sun and the evening star. It was a land of deep snows and much frost, of winds which whistled in the clear, cold nights, and storms which travelled from seas no eyes could reach. Sometimes the sun ceased to shine for moons together, and then he was continually before their eyes for as many more. In the season of cold the waters were all locked up, and the snows overtopped the ridge of the cabins. Then he shone out so fiercely that men fell stricken by his fierce rays, and were numbered with the snow that had melted and run to the embrace of the rivers. It was not like the beautiful lands—the lands blessed with soft suns and ever-green vales—in which the Shawanos now dwell, yet it was well stocked with deer, and the waters with fat seals and great fish, which were caught just when the people pleased to go after them. Still, the nation were discontented, and wished to leave their barren and inhospitable shores. The priests had told them of a beautifulworld beyond the Great Salt Lake, from which the glorious sun never disappeared for a longer time than the duration of a child’s sleep, where snow-shoes were never wanted—a land clothed with perpetual verdure, and bright with never-failing gladness. The Shawanos listened to these tales till they came to loathe their own simple comforts; all they talked of, all they appeared to think of, was the land of the happy hunting-grounds.
Once upon a time the people were much terrified at seeing a strange creature, much resembling a man, riding along the waves of the lake on the borders of which they dwelt. He had on his head long green hair; his face was shaped like that of a porpoise, and he had a beard of the colour of ooze.
If the people were frightened at seeing a man who could live in the water like a fish or a duck, how much more were they frightened when they saw that from his breast down he was actually fish, or rather two fishes, for each of his legs was a whole and distinct fish. When they heard him speak distinctly in their own language, and when he sang songs sweeter than the music of birds in spring, or the whispers of love from the lips of a beautiful maiden, they thought it a being from the Land of Shades—a spirit from the happy fishing-grounds beyond the lake of storms.
He would sit for a long time, his fish-legs coiled up under him, singing to the wondering ears of the Indians upon the shore the pleasures he experienced, and the beautiful and strange things he saw in thedepths of the ocean, always closing his strange stories with these words, shouted at the top of his voice—
“Follow me, and see what I will show you.”
Every day, when the waves were still and the winds had gone to their resting-place in the depths of the earth, the monster was sure to be seen near the shore where the Shawanos dwelt. For a great many suns they dared not venture upon the water in quest of food, doing nothing but wander along the beach, watching the strange creature as he played his antics upon the surface of the waves, listening to his songs and to his invitation—
“Follow me, and see what I will show you.”
The longer he stayed the less they feared him. They became used to him, and in time looked upon him as a spirit who was not made for harm, nor wished to injure the poor Indian. Then they grew hungry, and their wives and little ones cried for food, and, as hunger banishes all fear, in a few days three canoes with many men and warriors ventured off to the rocks in quest of fish.
When they reached the fishing-place, they heard as before the voice shouting—
“Follow me, and see what I will show you.”
Presently the man-fish appeared, sitting on the water, with his legs folded under him, and his arms crossed on his breast, as they had usually seen him. There he sat, eying them attentively. When they failed to draw in the fish they had hooked, he would make the water shake and the deep echo with shoutsof laughter, and would clap his hands with great noise, and cry—
“Ha, ha! there he fooled you.”
When a fish was caught he was very angry. When the fishers had tried long and patiently, and taken little, and the sun was just hiding itself behind the dark clouds which skirted the region of warm winds, the strange creature cried out still stronger than before—
“Follow me, and see what I will show you.”
Kiskapocoke, who was the head man of the tribe, asked him what he wanted, but he would make no other answer than—
“Follow me.”
“Do you think,” said Kiskapocoke, “I would be such a fool as to go I don’t know with whom, and I don’t know where?”
“See what I will show you,” cried the man-fish.
“Can you show us anything better than we have yonder?” asked the warrior.
“I will show you,” replied the monster, “a land where there is a herd of deer for every one that skips over your hills, where there are vast droves of creatures larger than your sea-elephants, where there is no cold to freeze you, where the sun is always soft and smiling, where the trees are always in bloom.”
The people began to be terrified, and wished themselves on land, but the moment they tried to paddle towards the shore, some invisible hand would seize their canoes and draw them back, so that an hour’s labour did not enable them to gain the lengthof their boat in the direction of their homes. At last Kiskapocoke said to his companions—
“What shall we do?”
“Follow me,” said the fish.
Then Kiskapocoke said to his companions—
“Let us follow him, and see what will come of it.”
So they followed him,—he swimming and they paddling, until night came. Then a great wind and deep darkness prevailed, and the Great Serpent commenced hissing in the depths of the ocean. The people were terribly frightened, and did not think to live till another sun, but the man-fish kept close to the boats, and bade them not be afraid, for nothing should hurt them.
When morning came, nothing could be seen of the shore they had left. The winds still raged, the seas were very high, and the waters ran into their canoes like melted snows over the brows of the mountains, but the man-fish handed them large shells, with which they baled the water out. As they had brought neither food nor water with them, they had become both hungry and thirsty. Kiskapocoke told the strange creature they wanted to eat and drink, and that he must supply them with what they required.
“Very well,” said the man-fish, and, disappearing in the depths of the water, he soon reappeared, bringing with him a bag of parched corn and a shell full of sweet water.
For two moons and a half the fishermen followed the man-fish, till at last one morning their guide exclaimed—
“Look there!”
Upon that they looked in the direction he pointed out to them and saw land, high land, covered with great trees, and glittering as the sand of the Spirit’s Island. Behind the shore rose tall mountains, from the tops of which issued great flames, which shot up into the sky, as the forks of the lightning cleave the clouds in the hot moon. The waters of the Great Salt Lake broke in small waves upon its shores, which were covered with sporting seals and wild ducks pluming themselves in the beams of the warm and gentle sun. Upon the shore stood a great many strange people, but when they saw the strangers step upon the land and the man-fish, they fled to the woods like startled deer, and were no more seen.
When the warriors were safely landed, the man-fish told them to let the canoe go; “for,” said he, “you will never need it more.” They had travelled but a little way into the woods when he bade them stay where they were, while he told the spirit of the land that the strangers he had promised were come, and with that he descended into a deep cave near at hand. He soon returned, accompanied by a creature as strange in appearance as himself. His legs and feet were those of a man. He had leggings and moccasins like an Indian’s, tightly laced and beautifully decorated with wampum, but his head was like a goat’s. He talked like a man, and his language was one well understood by the strangers.
“I will lead you,” he said, “to a beautiful land,to a most beautiful land, men from the clime of snows. There you will find all the joys an Indian covets.”
For many moons the Shawanos travelled under the guidance of the man-goat, into whose hands the man-fish had put them, when he retraced his steps to the Great Lake. They came at length to the land which the Shawanos now occupy. They found it as the strange spirits had described it. They married the daughters of the land, and their numbers increased till they were so many that no one could count them. They grew strong, swift, and valiant in war, keen and patient in the chase. They overcame all the tribes eastward of the River of Rivers, and south to the shore of the Great Lake.
Printed by T. and A.Constable, Printers to Her Majesty,at the Edinburgh University Press.
Transcriber's NoteMinor typographical errors have been corrected without note.All Native American words have been kept as originally printed, including those with variation in hyphenation or spelling.The advertisement has been moved to follow the title page.
Transcriber's Note
Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.
All Native American words have been kept as originally printed, including those with variation in hyphenation or spelling.
The advertisement has been moved to follow the title page.