Chapter VIII: Part 8

The old man was on his way to marry a young girl. But she was in love with Mikumwess, the forest fairy. However, the old man married her, and invited Master Rabbit to the dance, which in old times made the ceremony. And the guest dressed for the occasion by putting ear-rings on his heels--for Rabbits or Hares dance on their tip-toes--and a beautiful bangle round his neck, and he danced opposite the bride. Now the bride had on only a very short skirt, and in crossing a brook it had got wet. So that as she danced, it began to shrink and shrink, until Master Rabbit, pitying the poor girl, ran out and got a deer-skin, and hastily twisted a cord to tie it with. But it seemed as if Master Rabbit's efforts to oblige people always got him into trouble, for he twisted this string so rapidly and earnestly, holding one end of it in his teeth as he did so, that he cut his upper lip through to the nose, for which reason his descendants all have hare-lips to this day.

Now having dressed the bride, she was so grateful to Rabbit that she danced with him all the night. The old man, seeing this, was so angry at her fickleness that, without saying a word, he walked away, and left her to Mahtigwess, with whom she lived very happily until she ran away with Mikumwess; with whom, if she has not run away again, she is living yet. This story is at an end.

_VI. How Master Rabbit gave himself Airs._

(Micmac.)

It happened once that Lox was living in great luxury. He had a wigwam full of hundreds of dried sea-ducks, moose meat, maple sugar, and corn. He gave a dinner, and among the guests invited Marten and Mahtigwess, the Rabbit.

Now it is a great weakness of Master Rabbit that he is much given to hinting at one minute, and saying pretty plainly the next, that he has been in better society than that around him, and has lived among great people, and no one was quicker than the Marten to find out that wherein any one was foolish or feeble. So when Master Rabbit, smoothing down his white fur, said it was the only kind of a coat worn by the aristocracy, Marten humbly inquired, "if that were so, how he came by it."

"It shows," replied Master Rabbit, "that I have habitually kept company with gentlemen."

"How did you get that slit in your lip?" inquired Marten, who knew very well what this Indian really was.

"Ah!" replied the Rabbit, "where _I_ live they use knives and forks. And one day, while eating with some great sagamores, my knife slipped, and I cut my lip."

"And why are your mouth and whiskers always going when you are still? Is that high style?"

"Yes; I am meditating, planning, combining great affairs; talking to myself, you see. That's the way _we_ do."

"But why do you always hop? Why don't you sometimes walk, like other people?"

"Ah, that's _our_ style. We gentlemen don't run, like the vulgar. _We_ have a gait of our own, don't you know?"

"Indeed! Well, if you don't mind a question, I would like to know why you always scamper away so suddenly, and jump so far and so rapidly when you run."

"Aw! don't you know? I used to be employed in very genteel business; public service,--in fact, diplomatic. I carried dispatches (_weegadigunn_, Micmac; _wighiggin_, Pass.)--books, letters, papers, and so I got in the way of moving nimbly. Now it comes naturally to me. One of my old aristocratic habits." [Footnote: This droll dialogue occurs in the middle of the Micmac story of Lox, or Badger, and the Ducks and Bear, where it evidently does not belong, or has been interpolated to make length. In the original, Marten carries his inquiries much further into certain physiological details, all of which Master Rabbit naively explains as the result of the delicate diet and the wine to which he as a gentleman had been accustomed.]

Upon this Marten gave it up. He had seen something of good society himself, as he lived habitually with Glooskap, but Master Rabbit was too much for him.

_VII. The Young Man who was Saved by a Rabbit and a Fox._

(Passamaquoddy.)

There dwelt a couple in the woods, far away from other people,--a man and his wife. They had one boy, who grew up strong and clever. One day he said, "Father and mother, let me go and see other men and women." They grieved, but let him go.

He went afar. All night he lay on the ground. In the morning he heard something coming. He rose and saw it was a Rabbit, who said, "Ha, friend, where go you?" The boy answered, "To find people." "That is what I want," replied the Rabbit. "Let us go together."

So they went on for a long time, till they heard voices far off, and walking quietly came to a village. "Now," said the Rabbit, "steal up unseen, and listen to them!" The boy did so, and heard the people saying that a _kewahqu'_, a cannibal monster, was to come the next day to devour the daughter of their sagamore. And having returned and reported this to the Rabbit, the latter said to the boy, "Have no fear; go to the people and tell them that you can save her." He did so, but it was long before they would listen to him. Yet at last it came to the ears of the old chief that a strange young man insisted that he could save the girl; so the chief sent for him, and said, "They tell me that you think you can deliver my daughter from death. Do so, and she shall be yours."

Then he returned to the Rabbit, who said, "They did not send the girl far away because they know that the demon can follow any track. But I hope to make a track which he cannot follow. Now do you, as soon as it shall be dark, bring her to this place." The young man did so, and the Rabbit was there with a sled, and in his hand he had two squirrels. These he smoothed down, and as he did so they grew to be as large as the largest sled-dogs. Then all three went headlong, like the wind, till they came to another village.

The Rabbit looked about till he found a certain wigwam, and then peered through a crevice into it. "This is the place," he said. "Enter." They did so; then the Rabbit ran away. They found in the cabin an old woman, who was very kind, but who, on seeing them, burst into tears. "Ah, my dear grandchildren," [Footnote: The terms grandchildren, grandmother, etc., do not here signify actual relationship, but only friendship between elderly and young people.] she cried, "your death is following you rapidly, for the kewahqu' is on your track, and will soon be here. But run down to the river, where you will find your grandfather camping."

They went, and were joined by the Rabbit, who had spent the time in making many divergent tracks in the ground. The kewahqu' came. The tracks delayed him a long time, but at last he found the right one. Meanwhile the young couple went on, and found an old man by the river. He said, "Truly you are in great danger, for the kewahqu' is coming. But I will help you." Saying this, he threw himself into the water, where he floated with outstretched limbs, and said, "Now, my children, get on me." The girl feared lest she should fall off, but being reassured mounted, when he turned into a canoe, which carried them safely across. But when they turned to look at him, lo! he was no longer a canoe, but an old Duck. "Now, my dear children," he said, "hasten to the top of yonder old mountain, high among the gray rocks. There you will find your friend." They fled, to the old gray mountain. The kewahqu' came raging and roaring in a fury, but however he pursued they were at the foot of the precipice before him.

There stood the Rabbit. He was holding up a very long pole; no pine was ever longer. "Climb this," he said. And, as they climbed, it lengthened, till they left it for the hill, and then scrambled up the rocks. Then the kewahqu' came yelling and howling horribly. Seeing the fugitives far above, he swarmed up the pole. With him, too, it grew, and grew rapidly, till it seemed to be half a mile high. Now the kewahqu' was no such sorcerer that he could fly; neither had he wings; he must remain on the pole; and when he came to the top the young man pushed it afar. It fell, and the monster was killed by the fall thereof.

They went with the squirrel-sledge; they flew through the woods on the snow by the moonlight; they were very glad. And at last they came to the girl's village, when the Rabbit said, "Now, friend, good-by. Yet there is more trouble coming, and when it is with you I and mine will aid you. So farewell." And when they were home again it all appeared like a dream. Then the wedding feast was held, and all seemed well.

But the young men of the village hated the youth, and desired to kill him, that they might take his wife. They persuaded him to go with them fishing on the sea. Then they raised a cry, and said, "A whale is chasing us! he is under the canoe!" and suddenly they knocked him overboard, and paddled away like an arrow in flight.

The young man called for help. A Crow came, and said, "Swim or float as long as you can. I will bring you aid." He floated a long time. The Crow returned with a strong cord; the Crow made himself very large; he threw one end of the cord to the youth; by the other he towed him to a small island. "I can do no more," he said; "but there is another friend." So as the youth sat there, starving and freezing, there came to him a Fox. "Ha, friend," he said, "are you here?" "Yes," replied the youth, "and dying of hunger." The Fox reflected an instant, and said, "Truly I have no meat; and yet there is a way." So he picked from the ground a blade of dry grass, and bade the youth eat it. He did so, and found himself a moose (or a _horse_). Then he fed richly on the young grass till he had enough, when the Fox gave him a second straw, and he became a man again. "Friend," said the Fox, "there is an Indian village on the main-land, where there is to be a great feast, a grand dance. Would you like to be there?" "Indeed I would," replied the youth. "Then wait till dark, and I will take you there," said the Fox. And when night came he bade the youth close his eyes and enter the river, and take hold of the end of his tail, while he should draw. So in the tossing sea they went on for hours. _Thought_ the youth, "We shall never get there." _Said_ the Fox, "Yes, we will, but keep your eyes shut." So it went on for another hour, when the youth _thought_ again, "We shall never reach land." _Said_ the Fox, "Yes, we shall." However, after a time he opened his eyes, when they were only ten feet from the shore, and this cost them more time and trouble than all the previous swim ere they had the beach under foot.

It was his own village. The festival was for the marriage of his own wife to one of the young men who had pushed him overboard. Great was his magic power, great was his anger; he became strong as death. Then he went to his own wigwam, and his wife, seeing him, cried aloud for joy, and kissed him and wept all at once. He said, "Be glad, but the hour of punishment for the men who made these tears is come." So he went to the sagamore and told him all.

The old chief called for the young men. "Slay them all as you choose," he said to his son-in-law; "scalp them." But the youth refused. He called to the Fox, and got the straws which gave the power to transform men to beasts. He changed his enemies into bad animals,--one into a porcupine, one into a hog,--and they were driven into the woods. Thus it was that the first hog and the first porcupine came into the world.

This story, narrated by Tomah Josephs, is partly old Indian and partly European, but whether the latter element was derived from a French Canadian or a Norse source I cannot tell, since it is common to both. The mention of the horse and the hog, or of cattle, does not prove that a story is not pre-Columbian. The Norsemen had brought cattle of various descriptions even to New England. It is to be very much regretted that the first settlers in New England took no pains to ascertain what the Indians knew of the white men who had preceded them. But modern material may have easily been added to an old legend.

THE CHENOO LEGENDS.

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

(Micmac and Passamaquoddy.)

Of the old time. An Indian, with his wife and their little boy, went one autumn far away to hunt in the northwest. And having found a fit place to pass the winter, they built a wigwam. The man brought home the game, the woman dressed and dried the meat, the small boy played about shooting birds with bow and arrow; in Indian-wise all went well.

One afternoon, when the man was away and the wife gathering wood, she heard a rustling in the bushes, as though some beast were brushing through them, and, looking up, she saw with horror something worse than the worst she had feared. It was an awful face glaring at her,--a something made of devil, man, and beast in their most dreadful, forms. It was like a haggard old man, with wolfish eyes; he was stark naked; his shoulders and lips were gnawed away, as if, when mad with hunger, he had eaten his own flesh. He carried a bundle on big back. The woman had heard of the terrible Chenoo, the being who comes from the far, icy north, a creature who is a man grown to be both devil and cannibal, and saw at once that this was one of them.

Truly she was in trouble; but dire need gives quick wit, as it was with this woman, who, instead of showing fear, ran up and addressed him with fair words, as "My dear father," pretending surprise and joy, and, telling him how glad her heart was, asked where he had been so long. The Chenoo was amazed beyond measure at such a greeting where he expected yells and prayers, and in mute wonder let himself be led into the wigwam.

She was a wise and good woman. She took him in; she said she was sorry to see him so woe-begone; she pitied his sad state; she brought a suit of her husband's clothes; she told him to dress himself and be cleaned. He did as she bade. He sat by the side of the wigwam, and looked surly and sad, but kept quiet. It was all a new thing to him.

She arose and went out. She kept gathering sticks. The Chenoo rose and followed her. She was in great fear. "Now," she thought, "my death is near; now he will kill and devour me."

The Chenoo came to her. He said, "Give me the axe!" She gave it, and he began to cut down the trees. Man never saw such chopping! The great pines fell right and left, like summer saplings; the boughs were hewed and split as if by a tempest. She cried out, "_Noo, tabeagul boohsoogul_!" "My father, there is enough!" [Footnote: The tremendous pine chopper is a character in another Indian tale.] He laid down the axe; he walked into the wigwam and sat down, always in grim silence. The woman gathered her wood, and remained as silent on the opposite side.

She heard her husband coming. She ran out and told him all. She asked him to do as she was doing. He thought it well. He went in and spoke kindly. He said, "_N'chilch_," "My father-in-law," and asked where he had been so long. The Chenoo stared in amazement, but when he heard the man talk of all that had happened for years his fierce face grew gentler.

They had their meal; they offered him food, but he hardly touched it. He lay down to sleep. The man and his wife kept awake in terror. When the fire burned up, and it became warm, the Chenoo asked that a screen should be placed before him. He was from the ice; he could not endure heat.

For three days he stayed in the wigwam; for three days he was sullen and grim; he hardly ate. Then he seemed to change. He spoke to the woman; he asked her if she had any tallow. She told him they had much. He filled a large kettle; there was a gallon of it. He put it on the fire. When it was scalding hot he drank it all off at a draught.

He became sick; he grew pale. He cast up all the horrors and abominations of earth, things appalling to every sense. When all was over he seemed changed. [Footnote: The Chenoo is not only a cannibal, but a ghoul. He preys on nameless horrors. In this case, "having yielded to the power of kindness, he has made up his mind to partake of the food and hospitality of his hosts,"" to change his life; but to adapt his system to the new regimen, he must thoroughly clear it of the old."--Rand manuscript. This is a very _naive_ and curious Indian conception of moral reformation. It appears to be a very ancient Eskimo tale, recast in modern time by some zealous recent Christian convert.]

He lay down and slept. When he awoke he asked for food, and ate much. From that time he was kind and good. They feared him no more.

They lived on meat such as Indians prepare. [Footnote: That is, cured, dried, smoked, and then packed and pressed in large blocks.] The Chenoo was tired of it. One day he said, "_N'toos_" (my daughter), "have you no _pela weoos_?" (fresh meat). She said, "No." When her husband returned the Chenoo saw that there was black mud on his snow-shoes. He asked him if there was a spring of water near. The friend said there was one half a day's journey distant. "We must go there to-morrow," said the Chenoo.

And they went together, very early. The Indian was fleet in such running. But the old man, who seemed so wasted and worn, went on his snow-shoes like the wind. They came to the spring. [Footnote: "The Micmacs have two words for a spring of water: one for summer, _utkuboh_, which means that the water is cool; the other for winter, _keesoobok_, indicating that it is warm."--S.T. Rand.] It was large and beautiful; the snow was all melted away around it; the border was flat and green. [Footnote: Not uncommon round warm springs even in midwinter, and among ice and snow.]

Then the Chenoo stripped himself, and danced around the spring his magic dance; and soon the water began to foam, and anon to rise and fall, as if some monster below were heaving in accord with the steps and the song. The Chenoo danced faster and wilder; then the head of an immense _Taktalok_, or lizard, rose above the surface. The old man killed it with a blow of his hatchet. Dragging it out he began again to dance. He brought out another, the female, not so large, but still heavy as an elk. They were small spring lizards, but the Chenook had conjured them; by his magic they were made into monsters.

He dressed the game; he cut it up. He took the heads and feet and tails and all that he did not want, and cast them back into the spring. "They will grow again into many lizards," he said. When the meat was trimmed it looked like that of the bear. He bound it together with withes; he took it on his shoulders; he ran like the wind; his load was nothing.

The Indian was a great runner; in all the land was not his like; but now he lagged far behind. "Can you go no faster than that?" asked the Chenoo. "The sun is setting; the red will be black anon. At this rate it will be dark ere we get home. Get on my shoulders."

The Indian mounted on the load. The Chenoo bade him hold his head low, so that he could not be knocked off by the branches. "Brace your feet," he said, "so as to be steady." Then the old man flew like the wind,-- _ne[original illegible] sokano'v'jal samastukteskugul chel wegwasumug wegul_; the bushes whistled as they flew past them. They got home before sunset.

The wife was afraid to touch such meat. [Footnote: "The Indians are much less particular than white men as to food, but they avoid _choojeeck_, or reptiles."--Rand manuscript.] But her husband was persuaded to eat of it. It was like bear's meat. The Chenoo fed on it. So they all lived as friends.

Then the spring was at hand. One day the Chenoo told them that something terrible would soon come to pass. An enemy, a Chenoo, a woman was coming like wind, yes--on the wind--from the north to kill him. There could be no escape from the battle. She would be far more furious, mad, and cruel than any male, even one of his own cruel race, could be. He knew not how the battle would end; but the man and his wife must be put in a place of safety. To keep from hearing the terrible war-whoops of the Chenoo, which is death to mortals, their ears must be closed. They must hide themselves in a cave.

Then he sent the woman for the bundle which he had brought with him, and which had hung untouched on a branch of a tree since he had been with them. And he said if she found aught in it offensive to her to throw it away, but to certainly bring him a smaller bundle which was within the other. So she went and opened it, and that which she found therein was a pair of human legs and feet, the remains of some earlier horrid meal. She threw them far away. The small bundle she brought to him.

The Chenoo opened it and took from it a pair of horns,--horns of the _chepitchcalm_, or dragon. One of them has two branches; the other is straight and smooth. [Footnote: In the winter of 1882-1883, Tomah Josephs killed a deer whose horns were precisely like those of the chepitchcalm as regarded shape.] They were golden-bright. He gave the straight horn to the Indian; he kept the other. He said that these were magical weapons, and the only ones of any use in the coming fight. So they waited for the foe.

And the third day came. The Chenoo was fierce and bold; he listened; he had no fear. He heard the long and awful scream--like nothing of earth--of the enemy, as she sped through the air far away in the icy north, long ere the others could hear it. And the manner of it was this: that if they without harm should live after hearing the first deadly yell of the enemy they could take no harm, and if they did but hear the answering shout of their friend all would be well with them. [Footnote: In all this we clearly perceive the horrible scream of the _angakok_, or Eskimo Shaman, trained through years and generations to utter sounds which terrify even brave men.] But he said, "Should you hear me call for help, then hasten with the horn, and you may save my life."

They did as he bade: they stopped their ears; they hid in a deep hole dug in the ground. All at once the cry of the foe burst on them like screaming thunder; their ears rang with pain: they were well-nigh killed, for all the care they had taken. But then they heard the answering cry of their friend, and were no longer in danger from mere noise.

The battle begun, the fight was fearful. The monsters, by their magic with their rage, rose to the size of mountains. The tall pines were torn up, the ground trembled as in an earthquake, rocks crashed upon rocks, the conflict deepened and darkened; no tempest was ever so terrible. Then the male Chenoo was heard crying: "_N'loosook! choogooye! abog unumooe!_" "My son-in-law, come and help me!"

He ran to the fight. What he saw was terrible! The Chenoos, who upright would have risen far above the clouds as giants of hideous form, were struggling on the ground. The female seemed to be the conqueror. She was holding her foe down, she knelt on him, she was doing all she could to thrust her dragon's horn into his ear. And he, to avoid death, was moving his head rapidly from side to side, while she, mocking his cries, said, "You have no son-in-law to help you." _Neen nabujjeole_, "I'll take your cursed life, [Footnote: It is generally said that there can be no swearing in Indian, but Mr. Rand corrects this gross error. "It is a mistake," he writes, "to suppose that the red man cannot swear in his own tongue." It cannot, of course, be expected that simple savages can swear like cultivated Christians, but they do the best they can. They introduce the venom into their speech by inserting an extra syllable. Thus _nabole_ or _nabol'_ means, "I will kill you," but _nabujeol'_ is the equivalent of "I'll take your cursed life," though it has not that literal meaning. Having only one small syllable to swear with, the Indians are, however, not so profuse and wasteful of profanity as their more gifted and pious white brethren.] and, eat your liver."

The Indian was so small by these giants that the stranger did not notice him. "Now," said his friend, "thrust the horn into her ear!" He did this with a well-directed blow; he struck hard; the point entered her head. At the touch it sprouted quick as a flash of lightning, it darted through the head, it came out of the other ear, it had become like a long pole. It touched the ground, it struck downward, it took deep and firm root.

The male Chenoo bade him raise the other end of the horn and place it against a large tree. He did so. It coiled itself round the tree like a snake, it grew rapidly; the enemy was held hard and fast. Then the two began to dispatch her. It was long and weary work. Such a being, to be killed at all, must be hewed into small pieces; flesh and bones must all be utterly consumed by fire. Should the least fragment remain unburnt, from it would spring a grown Chenoo, with all the force and fire of the first. [Footnote: The idea is common to both Eskimo and Indian that so long as a fragment of a body remains unburned, the being, man or beast, may, by magic, be revived from it. It was probably suggested by observing the great vitality and power of self-production inherent in many lower forms of life, and may have given rise to the belief in vampires.]

The fury of battle past, the Chenoos had become of their usual size. The victor hewed the enemy to small pieces, to be revenged for the insult and threat as to eating his liver. He, having roasted that part of his captive, ate it before her; while she was yet alive he did this. He told her she was served as she would have served him.

But the hardest task of all was to come. It was to burn or melt the heart. It was of ice, and more than ice: as much colder as ice is colder than fire, as much harder as ice is harder than water. When placed in the fire it put out the flame, yet by long burning it melted slowly, until they at last broke it to fragments with a hatchet, and then melted these. So they returned to the camp.

Spring came. The snows of winter, as water, ran down the rivers to the sea; the ice and snow which had encamped on the inland hills sought the shore. So did the Indian and his wife; the Chenoo, with softened soul, went with them. Now he was becoming a man like other men. Before going they built a canoe for the old man: they did not cover it with birch bark; they made it of moose-skin. [Footnote: "The Indians have several names for a canoe: _Kwedun_ (M.); _A'kweden_ (P.); _N'tooal_ (M.), my canoe or my water-craft of any kind; _Mooseoolk_, a canoe covered with moose-skin (M.); _Skogumoolk_ (M..), a new canoe; _N'canoolk_ (M.), an old canoe."--Rand manuscript. To these may be added the different patterns of canoes peculiar to different tribes, as for instance the Mohawk, which is broad, with peculiar ends, etc.] In it they placed a part of their venison and skins. The Chenoo took his place in it; they took the lead, he followed.

And after winding on with the river, down rapids and under forest-boughs, they came out into the sunshine, on a broad, beautiful lake. But suddenly, when midway in the water, the Chenoo laid flat in the canoe, as if to hide himself. And to explain this he said that be had just then been discovered by another Chenoo, who was standing on the top of a mountain, whose dim blue outline could just be seen stretching far away to the north. "He has seen me," he said, "but he cannot see you. Nor can he behold me now; but should he discover me again, his wrath will be roused. Then he will attack me; I know not who might conquer. I prefer peace."

So he lay hidden, and they took his canoe in tow. But when they had crossed the lake and come to the river again, the Chenoo said that he could not travel further by water. He would walk the woods, but sail on streams no more. So they told him where they meant to camp that night. He started over mountains and through woods and up rocks, a far, round-about journey. And the man and his wife went down the river in a spring freshet, headlong with the rapids. [Footnote: One should be familiar with the almost impassable forests of Maine and Canada, even as they are at the present day, to properly appreciate the Chenook's journey. As for the speed of the canoe, I have myself gone down the Kenawha River (Va.), in a dug-out, at the rate of one hundred miles in a day.] But when they had paddled round the point where they meant to pass the night, they saw smoke rising among the trees, and on landing they found the Chenoo sleeping soundly by the fire which had been built for them.

This he repeated for several days. But as they went south a great change came over him. He was a being of the north. Ice and snow had no effect on him, but he could not endure the soft airs of summer. He grew weaker and weaker; when they had reached their village he had to be carried like a little child. He had grown gentle. His fierce and formidable face was now like that of a man. His wounds had healed; his teeth no longer grinned wildly all the time. The people gathered round him in wonder.

He was dying. This was after the white men had come. They sent for a priest. He found the Chenoo as ignorant of all religion as a wild beast. At first he would repel the father in anger. Then he listened and learned the truth. So the old heathen's heart changed; he was deeply moved. He asked to be baptized, and as the first tear which he had ever shed in all his life came to his eyes he died. [Footnote: This strange and touching tale was told to Mr. Rand by a Micmac Indian, Louis Brooks, who heard it from his grandfather, Samuel Paul, a chief, who died in 1843, at the age of eighty. He was a living chronicle of ancient traditions. The Chenoo can be directly identified with the so-called Inlander of the Greenland Eskimo. He is a cannibal, a giant, a mysterious being who haunts the horrible and almost unexplored interior. He assumes different forms; in one shape he is supposed to be a man who has become a recluse and a misanthrope. But no such being as a Chenoo could ever have been imagined out of an arctic country. The conception of the heart of hardest ice and the gradual civilization of the savage by kindness; the tact with which this is done, as only a woman could do it; the indication of the old nature, as shown by eating the liver of his conquered foe, and his final conversion, display a genius which is greatly heightened by the simplicity of the narrative.]

As there is actually a tribe of Indians in the Northwest called Chenoo, there can be little doubt as to the derivation of the name. Such a character could have originated, as I have said, only in the icy north; it could never have grown in the milder regions of the west and south. But the Chenoo, the monstrous, ferocious cannibal giant, with an icy heart, is the central figure of the evil supernatural beings of the north. The Schoolcraft traditions and Hiawatha have little to say of Titans whose heads top the clouds, who tear up forests and rend rocks, and change the whole face of Nature in their hideous battles or horrible revels. But such scenes are continually described by the Passamaquoddy and Micmac story-tellers, and they would be natural enough to Greenlanders, familiar with whales, icebergs, frozen wastes, long winter nights, and all the frozen desolation of the north.

There is a mystery connected with the _eating of the liver_, which is to be explained, like many other Indian mysteries, by having recourse to the Eskimo Shamanism. "In Greenland a man who has been murdered can revenge himself by _rushing into_ him," that is, entering his soul, "which can only be prevented by eating a piece of his liver." (Rink, T. and T. of the Eskimo, page 45.) The Chenoo is in all essentials identical with the _Kivigtok_ of Greenland, "a man who has fled mankind, and acquired extraordinary mental and physical powers." The story which I have here given is probably that of the Eskimo tale of the Blind Man who recovered his sight (Rink, page 99), in which a _Kivigtok_, after becoming incredibly old, returns to mankind to seek a Shaman priest and repent. In both stories there is a "Chenoo," and in both there is atonement with mankind and the higher powers.

It may be observed that while the Chenoo is a giant with a heart of ice as hard as stone, the giant Hrungnir, of the Edda, has a heart of stone. The Chenoo agrees with the Jotuns in many respects.

_The Story of the Great Chenoo, as told by the Passamaquoddies._

(Passamaquoddy.)

What the Micmacs call a Chenoo is known to the Passamaquoddies as a _Kewahqu'_ or _Kewoqu'_. And this is their origin. When the _k'tchi m'teoulin_, or Great Big Witch, [Footnote: When legends from the Anglo-Indian manuscript collection of Mitchell are given, many of the phrases or words in the original are retained, without regard to style or correctness. Wizard is here placed for witch.] is conquered by the smaller witches, or _M'teoulinssisk_, they can kill him or turn him into a _Kewahqu'_. He still fights, however, with the other _Kewaquiyck_. When they get ready to fight, they suddenly become as tall as the highest trees; their weapons are the trees themselves, which they uproot with great strength. And this strength depends upon the quantity or size of the piece of ice which makes the heart of the _Kewahqu'_. This piece of ice is like distance. "There is a great female Kewahqu' coming to fight me. In the struggle I may not know you, and may hurt you." So they went away as fast and as far as they could, but they heard the fighting, the most frightful noises, howls, yells, thundering and crashing of wood and rocks. After a time the man determined to see the fight. When he got to the place he saw a horrible sight: big trees uprooted, the giants in a deadly struggle. Then the Indian, who was very brave, and who was afraid that his father-in-law would be killed, came up and helped as much as he could, and in fact so much that between them they killed the enemy. The old Kewahqu' was badly but not fatally hurt, and the woman was very glad her father came off victorious. She had always heard that a Kewahqu' had a piece of ice for a heart. If this can be taken out, the Kewahqu' can be tamed and cured. So she made a preparation or medicine, and offered it to him. He did not know what it was, nor its strength, so he swallowed it, and it gave him a vomit. She saw something drop, so quietly picked it up: it was the figure of a man of ice; it was the Kewahqu's heart. She, not being seen or noticed, put it in the fire, when he cried," Daughter, you are killing me now; you destroy my strength." Yet she made him take more of the medicine, and a second heart came out. This she also put on the fire. But when a third came he grabbed it from her hand, and swallowed it. However, he was almost entirely cured.

Another time an Indian village was visited by a Kewahqu', but he was driven away by magic. The people marked _crosses_ on the trees where they expected the Kewahqu' to come. There was a great excitement among the Indians, expecting to hear their strange visitor with his frightful noises. It was the old people who gave the advice to mark crosses on the trees.

Another time an Indian of either the Passamaquoddy or Mareschite tribe was turned to a Kewahqu'. The last time he was seen was by a party of Indian hunters, who recognized him. He had only small strips of clothing. "This country,"' he said," is too warm for me. I am going to a colder one."

This story from the Passamaquoddy Anglo-Indian, manuscript of Mitchell supplies some very important deficiencies in the preceding Micmac version. We are told that the _heart_ of the Chenoo is of ice in human figure. This human figure is that of the Kewahqu' himself, or rather his very self, or microcosm. It is this, and not the liver, which is swallowed by the victor, who thus adds another frozen "soul" to his own. Of the three vomited by the Kewahqu', two were the hearts of enemies whom he had conquered. He could not give up his own, however. It is much more according to common sense that the woman should have given the cannibal the magic medicine which made him yield his heart than that he should voluntarily have purged himself. In the Micmac tale he merely relieves his stomach; in the Passamaquoddy version he, by woman's influence, loses his icy _heart_. It is interesting to observe that the use of the Christian cross is in the additional anecdote described as _magic_.

It is the main point in the Chenoo stories that this horrible being, this most devilish of devils, is at first human; perhaps an unusually good girl, or youth. From having the heart once chilled, she or he goes on in cruelty, until at last the sufferer eats the heart of another Chenoo, especially a female's. Then utter wickedness ensues. It is more than probable that this leads us back to some dark and terrible Shaman superstition, older than we can now fathom. There is a passage in the Edda which its translator, Thorpe, thinks can never be explained. "I believe," he writes, "the difficulty is beyond help." The lines are as follows:--

"Loki scorched up [Footnote: The _Edda_, p. 112.]
In his heart's affections,
Had found a half-burnt
Woman's heart.
Loki became guileful
from that wicked woman:
thence in the world
are all giantesses come."

Of which Thorpe writes, "The sense of this and the following line is not apparent. They stand thus in the original: _Loki of hiarta lyrdi brendu, fann hann halfsvidthin hugstein konu_, for which Grimm (Myth. Vorrede 37) would read _Loki at hiarta lundi brenda_, etc., _Lokius comedit cor in nemore assum, invenit semiustum mentis lapidem mulieris_." Whatever obscurity exists here, it is evident that it means that Loki, having become bad, grew worse after having got the half-burnt stone of a woman's soul. That is, his own heart, half ruined, became utterly so after he had added to it the demoralized _hugstein_, soul-stone, thought-stone, or _heart_ of a woman. If we assume that stone and heart are the same, the difficulty vanishes. And they are one in the Chenoo, who, like Loki, illustrates or symbolizes the passage from good to evil, which a German writer declares is quicker than thought, or that very same _Ilugi_ which the Norse myth puts forwards as swiftest of all runners. Loki, not as yet lost, gets the stone heart of a giantess, and becomes an utter devil at once. The Chenoo becomes an utter devil when he has swallowed the _thought-stone_ of a giantess, and so does Loki.

_The Girl-Chenoo._

(Micmac.)

Of the old time. Far up the Saguenay River a branch turns off to the north, running back into the land of ice and snow. Ten families went up this stream one autumn in their canoes, to be gone all winter on a hunt. Among them was a beautiful girl, twenty years of age. A young man in the band wished her to become his wife, but she flatly refused him. Perhaps she did it in such a way as to wound his pride; certainly she roused all that was savage in him, and he gave up all his mind to revenge. He was skilled in medicine, or in magic, so he went into the woods and gathered an herb which makes people insensible. Then stealing into the lodge when all were asleep, he held it to the girl's face, until she had inhaled the odor and could not be easily awakened. Going out he made a ball of snow, and returning placed it in the hollow of her neck, in front, just below the throat. Then he retired without being discovered. So she could not awake, while the chill went to her heart. [Footnote: The Eskimo Shamans and the Indian _boo-oin_ are familiar with many very ingenious and singular ways of producing prolonged illness and death. There is one known to a very few old gypsies, of gradually inducing insanity and death, which I have never seen noted in any work on toxicology. In a work which I lately read, it was positively denied that there was any such thing as a "lingering poison"!]

When she awoke she was chilly, shivering, and sick. She refused to eat. This lasted long, and her parents became alarmed. They inquired what ailed her. She was ill-tempered; she said that nothing was the matter. One day, having been sent to the spring for water, she remained absent so long that her mother went to seek her. Approaching unseen, she observed her greedily eating snow. And asking her what it meant, the daughter explained that she felt within a burning sensation, which the snow relieved. More than that, she craved the snow; the taste of it was pleasant to her.

After a few days she began to grow fierce, as though she wished to kill some one. At last she begged her parents to kill her. Hitherto she had loved them very much. Now she told them that unless they killed her she would certainly be their death. Her whole nature was being changed.

"How can we kill you?" her mother asked.

"You must shoot at me," she replied, "with seven arrows. [Footnote: The Micmac version gives _guns_. But the Chenoo stories are evidently very ancient, and refer to terrors of the olden time.] And if you can kill me with seven shots, all will be well. But if you cannot, I shall kill you."

Seven men shot at her, as she sat in the wigwam. She was not bound. Every arrow struck her in the breast, but she sat firm and unmoved. Forty-nine times they pierced her; from time to time she looked up with an encouraging smile. When the last arrow struck she fell dead.

Then they burned the body, as she had directed. It was soon reduced to ashes, with the exception of the heart, which was of the hardest ice. This required much time to melt and break. At last all was over.

She had been brought under the power of an evil spirit; she was rapidly being changed into a Chenoo a wild, fierce, unconquerable being. But she knew it all the while, and it was against her will. So she begged that she might be killed.

The Indians left the place; since that day none have ever returned to it. They feared lest some small part of the body might have remained unconsumed, and that from it another Chenoo would rise, capable of killing all whom she met. [Footnote: Mr. Rand (manuscript) gives a detailed account of an Indian who went mad during the winter, ran away naked into the wilderness among the snows, and was unanimously declared to have turned into a Chenoo. I agree with Mr. Rand that "the historical basis of these tales, if they have any, may be the same,--a case of lunacy; fiction and figure adding the incredible details."]

THUNDER STORIES

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

(Penobscot.)

Of the old time. There was once an Indian girl gathering blueberries on Mount Katahdin. And, being lonely, she said, "I would that I had a husband!" And seeing the great mountain in all its glory rising on high, with the red sunlight on the top, she added, "I wish Katahdin were a man, and would marry me!"

All this she was heard to say ere she went onward and up the mountain, but for three years she was never seen again. Then she reappeared, bearing a babe, a beautiful child, but his little eyebrows were of stone. For the Spirit of the Mountain had taken her to himself; and when she greatly desired to return to her own people, he told her to go in peace, but forbade her to tell any man who had married her.

Now the boy had strange gifts, and the wise men said that he was born to become a mighty magician. For when he did but point his finger at a moose, or anything which ran, it would drop dead; and when in a canoe, if he pointed at the flocks of wild ducks or swans, then the water was at once covered with the floating game, and they gathered them in as they listed, and through that boy his mother and every one had food and to spare.

Now this was the truth, and it was great wonder, that Katahdin had wedded this girl, thinking with himself and his wife to bring up a child who should build up his nation, and make of the Wabanaki a mighty race. And he said, "Declare unto these people that they are not to inquire of thee who is the father of thy child; truly they will all know it by seeing him, for they shall not grieve thee with impertinence." Now the woman had made it known that she would not be questioned, and she gave them all what they needed; yet, for all this, they could not refrain nor restrain themselves from talking to her on what they well knew she would fain be silent. And one day when they had angered her, she thought, "Truly Katahdin was right; these people are in nowise worthy of my son, neither shall he serve them; he shall not lead them to victory; they are not of those who make a great nation." And being still further teased and tormented, she spake and said, "Ye fools, who by your own folly will kill yourselves; ye mud-wasps, who sting the fingers which would pick ye out of the water, why will ye ever trouble me to tell you what you well know? Can you not see who was the father of my boy? Behold his eyebrows; do ye not know Katahdin by them? But it shall be to your exceeding great sorrow that ever ye inquired. From this day ye may feed yourselves and find your own venison, for this child shall do so no more for you."

And she arose and went her way into the woods and up the mountain, and was seen on earth no more. And since that day the Indians, who should have been great, have become a little people. Truly it would have been wise and well for those of early times if they could have held their tongues.

This remarkable legend was related to me by Mrs. Marie Sakis, a Penobscot, a very clever story-teller. It gives the Fall of Man from a purely Indian standpoint. Nothing is so contemptible in Indian eyes as a want of dignity and idle, loquacious teasing; therefore it is made in the myth the sin which destroyed their race. The tendency of the lower class of Americans, especially in New England, to raise and emphasize the voice, to speak continually in italics and small and large capitals, with a wide display, and the constant disposition to chaff and tease, have contributed more than any other cause to destroy confidence and respect for them among the Indians.

Since writing the foregoing paragraph, I have read The Abnakis, by Rev. Eugene Vetromile. In his chapter on the Religion and Superstition of these Indians he gives this story, but, as I think, in a corrupted form. Firstly, he states that Pamola (that is, Bumole), who is the evil spirit of the night air, was the Spirit of Mount Katahdin. Now these are certainly _at present_ two very distinct beings, which are described as being personally quite unlike. Secondly, in Vetromile's story the mother and child disappear in consequence of the child having _inadvertently_ killed an Indian by pointing at him. It will be seen that this feeble, impotent conclusion utterly spoils the manifest meaning of the whole legend.

Of this story Vetromile remarks that "it is, of course, a superstitious tale, made up by the prolific imagination of some Indians, yet we can perceive in it some vestiges of the fall of the first man in having transgressed the command of God, and how it could be repaired only by God. We can also trace some ideas of the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, mixed with fables, superstitions, and pagan errors. The appearance of God to Moses in the Burning Bush may be glimpsed in Pamole appearing to the Indian on Mount Katahdin, and so forth."

The pilgrims in Rabelais did not point out scriptural coincidences with greater ingenuity than this. It is deeply to be regretted that the reverend father's entire knowledge of the mythology of the Abenakis was limited to this single story. (Vide Bumole, in chapter on Supernatural Beings.) It may be, however, observed, that if the name Bumole or Pamola really means "he curses on the mountain," or curse on mountain, it was natural that the evil spirit should be supposed to be on the mountain. Pamola was perhaps at an early period the spirit of lightning, and might thus be very easily confused with Katahdin.

_How a hunter visited the Thunder Spirits who dwell in Mount Katahdin._

(Passamaquoddy.)