Chapter VII: How Kulóskap Sailed Through the Cavern of Darkness

[_Micmac_]

_Nʾkani bʾmaoinnoak itmok niktuk iloiknuk wesisek
Kulóskap honichan uch negum
Naga honosokoan nihit Piliomeskasik ktakʾmigw._[42]

It is told in old traditions,
And even in them with a difference,
According to the nations
In which these songs are sung,
That “in these olden times,”
Kulóskap’s seven neighbors,
That is, seven beasts of the forest,
Stole his family from him
And that he long pursued them
Even to Néwfoundlánd.

When he came there it was night,
And, finding Marten alone,
He took him into the forest,
Bidding him seek for game,
Putting his belt on the boy;
Which gave him such magic power
That he killed both moose and bear,
And brought all gayly home.

Now it came to pass in the morning,
That old Dame Kâkâgûch,
The meddling and spying Crow,
Observed that meat was drying
In the smoke of the Master’s wigwam.
This news she spread abroad,
Adding that trouble was coming,
For the Master must have returned.

Then a great fear came upon them,
They sat every man in his wigwam,
Waiting for death in silence
For they knew the Master had come.
But when he had slain Winpe
And saw them sitting in silence,
Frightened like so many rabbits
Before a hungry wild-cat,
He laughed aloud and forgave them;
For he was noble and generous,
And cared for no small foe.
And as they were very hungry,
For he had come in a time
When all of them were starving.
He fed them all with venison;
So sorrow left the wigwams.
But as they had left him of old,
He left them in turn and departed.
Ere they had known his power,
They had left him alone to die;
Now that they knew his power,
They feared they should die without him.
But he left them to go their path
And turned his steps toward others.
Then, having made a canoe,
The Master and his mother,
Dame Bear, and Marten, his brother,
Went forth on a mighty river
Which was in its beginning
Both broad and beautiful.
So they sailed away down the stream
Till they came to mighty cliffs
Which ever grew higher and closer,
Till they met in an arch overhead,
But the river ran on beneath them,
And ever far underground,
Deep into earth and deeper,
Till it dashed into roaring rapids
Among rocks and wild ravines;
Then under cataracts,
So horrible that death
Seemed to come and go as they darted
With every plunge and motion
Headlong in their canoe.

Narrower grew the water,
More dreadful still the current,
And fear came over the mother
And then on the brother Marten,
Till of that fear they died.
But the Master with silent soul
Ever sang the songs of magic,
The awful incantations,
Till he had passed the darkness
And came again into sunlight,
The bright and beautiful day.

He found upon the bank
A lonely deserted wigwam,
Therein he carried the dead,
And, laying them down, he said:
“_Nemchaase!_” that is, “Arise!”
And behold they both arose,
And thought they had only slept.
Then the Master found by this trial
He had gained his greatest power. L.

FOOTNOTES:

[42] The old people say that seven beasts stole Kulóskap’s family from him and that he followed them to Newfoundland.