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                            IN INDIAN TENTS




                            IN INDIAN TENTS

                                Stories

                   TOLD BY PENOBSCOT, PASSAMAQUODDY
                          AND MICMAC INDIANS

                                  TO

                             ABBY L. ALGER

                       [Illustration: colophon]

                                BOSTON
                           ROBERTS BROTHERS
                                 1897

                          _Copyright, 1897_,

                         BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.

                           University Press:

                JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

                               This Book

                                  IS

                       AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED

                                  TO

                        CHARLES GODFREY LELAND,

                     TO WHOSE INSPIRATION IT OWES
                              ITS ORIGIN.




PREFACE


In the summer of 1882 and 1883, I was associated with Charles G. Leland
in the collection of the material for his book “The Algonquin Legends of
New England,” published by Houghton and Mifflin in 1884.

I found the work so delightful, that I have gone on with it since,
whenever I found myself in the neighborhood of Indians. The supply of
legends and tales seems to be endless, one supplementing and completing
another, so that there may be a dozen versions of one tale, each
containing something new. I have tried, in this little book, in every
case, to bring these various versions into a single whole; though I
scarcely hope to give my readers the pleasure which I found in hearing
them from the Indian story-tellers. Only the very old men and women
remember these stories now; and though they know that their legends
will soon be buried with them, and forgotten, it is no easy task to
induce them to repeat them. One may make half-a-dozen visits, tell his
own best stories, and exert all his arts of persuasion in vain, then
stroll hopelessly by some day, to be called in to hear some marvellous
bit of folk-lore. These old people have firm faith in the witches,
fairies, and giants of whom they tell; and any trace of amusement or
incredulity would meet with quick indignation and reserve.

Two of these stories have been printed in Appleton’s “Popular Science
Monthly,” and are in the English Magazine “Folk-Lore.”

I am under the deepest obligation to my friend, Mrs. Wallace Brown, of
Calais, Maine, who has generously contributed a number of stories from
her own collection.

The woman whose likeness appears on the cover of this book was a famous
story-teller, one of the few nearly pure-blooded Indians in the
Passamaquoddy tribe. She was over eighty-seven when this picture was
taken.




CONTENTS


                                                                    PAGE

THE CREATION                                                          11

GRANDFATHER THUNDER                                                   15

THE FIGHT OF THE WITCHES                                              19

ŪLISKE                                                                30

STORY OF WĀLŪT                                                        34

OLD SNOWBALL                                                          44

ĀL-WŪS-KI-NI-GESS, THE SPIRIT OF THE WOODS                            51

M’TĒŪLIN, THE GREAT WITCH                                             53

SUMMER                                                                57

THE BUILDING OF THE BOATS                                             61

THE MERMAN                                                            66

STORY OF STURGEON                                                     72

GRANDFATHER KIAWĀKQ’                                                  77

OLD GOVERNOR JOHN                                                     81

K’CHĪ GESS’N, THE NORTHWEST WIND                                      84

BIG BELLY                                                             95

CHĪBALOCH, THE SPIRIT OF THE AIR                                      99

STORY OF TEAM, THE MOOSE                                             101

THE SNAKE AND THE PORCUPINE                                          106

WHY THE RABBIT’S NOSE IS SPLIT                                       108

STORY OF THE SQUIRREL                                                111

WAWBĀBAN, THE NORTHERN LIGHTS                                        130

THE WOOD WORM’S STORY, SHOWING WHY THE
RAVEN’S FEATHERS ARE BLACK                                           134




IN INDIAN TENTS




THE CREATION


In the beginning God made Adam out of the earth, but he did not make
Glūs-kābé (the Indian God). Glūs-kābé made himself out of the dirt that
was kicked up in the creation of Adam. He rose and walked about, but he
could not speak until the Lord opened his lips.

God made the earth and the sea, and then he took counsel with Glūs-kābé
concerning them. He asked him if it would be better to have the rivers
run up on one side of the earth and down on the other, but Glūs-kābé
said, “No, they must all run down one way.”

Then the Lord asked him about the ocean, whether it would do to have it
always lie still. Glūs-kābé told him, “No!” It must rise and fall, or
else it would grow thick and stagnant.

“How about fire?” asked the Lord; “can it burn all the time and nobody
put it out?”

Glūs-kābé said: “That would not do, for if anybody got burned and fire
could not be put out, they would die; but if it could be put out, then
the burn would get well.”

So he answered all the Lord’s questions.

After this, Glūs-kābé was out on the ocean one day, and the wind blew so
hard he could not manage his canoe. He had to go back to land, and he
asked his old grandmother (among Indians this title is often only a mark
of respect, and does not always indicate any blood relationship), “Māli
Moninkwess” (the Woodchuck), what he could do. She told him to follow a
certain road up a mountain. There he found an old man sitting on a rock
flapping his wings (arms) violently. This was “Wūchowsen,” the great
Wind-blower. He begged Glūs-kābé to take him up higher, where he would
have space to flap his wings still harder. So Glūs-kābé lifted him up
and carried him a long way. When they were over a great lake, he let
Wūchowsen drop into the water. In falling he broke his wings, and lay
there helpless.

Glūs-kābé went back to sea and found the ocean as smooth as glass. He
enjoyed himself greatly for many days, paddling about; but finally the
water grew stagnant and thick, and a great smell arose. The fish died,
and Glūs-kābé could bear it no longer.

Again he consulted his grandmother, and she told him that he must set
Wūchowsen free. So he once more bore Wūchowsen back to his mountain,
first making him promise not to flap his wings so constantly, but only
now and then, so that the Indians might go out in their canoes. Upon his
consent to do this, Glūs-kābé mended his broken wings; but they were
never quite so strong as at first, and thus we do not now have such
terrible winds as in the olden days.

       *       *       *       *       *

This story was told to me by an old man whom I had always thought dull
and almost in his dotage; but one day, after I had told him some Indian
legends, his whole face changed, he threw back his head, closed his
eyes, and without the slightest warning or preliminary began to relate,
almost to chant, this myth in a most extraordinary way, which so
startled me that I could not at the time take any notes of it, and was
obliged to have it repeated later. The account of Wūchowsen was added to
show the wisdom of Glūs-kābé’s advice in the earlier part of the tale,
and is found among many tribes.




GRANDFATHER THUNDER


During the summer of 1892, at York Harbor, Maine, I was in daily
communication with a party of Penobscot Indians from Oldtown, among whom
were an old man and woman, from whom I got many curious legends. The day
after a terrible thunderstorm I asked the old woman how they had
weathered it in their tents. She looked searchingly at me and said, “It
was good.” After a moment she added, “You know the thunder is our
grandfather?” I answered that I did not know it, and was startled when
she continued: “Yes, when we hear the first roll of the thunder,
especially the first thunder in the spring, we always go out into the
open air, build a fire, put a little tobacco on it, and give grandfather
a smoke. Ever since I can remember, my father and my grandfather did
this, and I shall always do it as long as I live. I’ll tell you the
story of it and why we do so.

“Long time ago there were two Indian families living in a very lonely
place. This was before there were any white people in the land. They
lived far apart. Each family had a daughter, and these girls were great
friends. One sultry afternoon in the late spring, one of them told her
mother she wanted to go to see her friend. The mother said: ‘No, it is
not right for you to go alone, such a handsome girl as you; you must
wait till your father or your brother are here to go with you.’ But the
girl insisted, and at last her mother yielded and let her go. She had
not gone far when she met a tall, handsome young man, who spoke to her.
He joined her, and his words were so sweet that she noticed nothing and
knew not which way she went until at last she looked up and found
herself in a strange place where she had never been before. In front of
her was a great hole in the face of a rock. The young man told her that
this was his home, and invited her to enter. She refused, but he urged
until she said that if he would go first, she would follow after. He
entered, but when she looked after him she saw that he was changed to a
fearful, ‘Wī-will-mecq’--a loathly worm. She shrieked, and turned to
run away; but at that instant a loud clap of thunder was heard, and she
knew no more until she opened her eyes in a vast room, where sat an old
man watching her. When he saw that she had awaked, he said, ‘I am your
grandfather Thunder, and I have saved you.’ Leading her to the door, he
showed her the Wī-will-mecq, dead as a log, and chopped into small bits
like kindling wood. The old man had three sons, one named ‘M’dessun.’ He
is the baby, and is very fierce and cruel. It is he who slays men and
beasts and destroys property. The other two are kind and gentle; they
cool the hot air, revive the parched fields and the crops, and destroy
only that which is harmful to the earth. When you hear low, distant
mutterings, that is the old man. He told the girl that as often as
spring returned she must think of him, and show that she was grateful by
giving him a little smoke. He then took leave of her and sent her home,
where her family had mourned her as one dead. Since then no Indian has
ever feared thunder.” I said, “But how about the lightning?” “Oh,” said
the old woman, “lightning is grandfather’s wife.”

Later in the summer, at Jackson, in the White Mountains, I met Louis
Mitchell, for many years the Indian member of the Maine Legislature, a
Passamaquoddy, and asked him about this story. He said it was perfectly
true, although the custom was now falling into disuse; only the old
people kept it up. The tobacco is cast upon the fire in a ring, and
draws the electricity, which plays above it in a beautiful blue circle
of flickering flames. He added that it is a well-known fact that no
Indian and no Indian property were ever injured by lightning.




THE FIGHT OF THE WITCHES


Many, many long years ago, there lived in a vast cave in the interior of
a great mountain, an old man who was a “Kiāwākq’ m’teoulin,” or Giant
Witch.

Near the mountain was a big Indian village, whose chief was named
“Hassagwākq’,” or the Striped Squirrel. Every few days some of his best
warriors disappeared mysteriously from the tribe, until Hassagwākq at
last became convinced that they were killed by the Giant Witch. He
therefore called a council of all the most mighty magicians among his
followers, who gathered together in a new strong wigwam made for the
occasion. There were ten of them in all, and their names were as
follows: “Quābīt,” the Beaver; “Moskwe,” the Wood Worm; “Quāgsis,” the
Fox; “K’tchī Atōsis,” the Big Snake; “Āgwem,” the Loon; “Kosq,” the
Heron; “Mūin,” the Bear; “Lox,” the Indian Devil; “K’tchīplāgan,” the
Eagle; and “Wābe-kèloch,” the Wild Goose.

The great chief Hassagwākq’ addressed the sorcerers, and told them that
he hoped they might be able to conquer the Giant Witch, and that they
must do so at once if possible, or else their tribe would be
exterminated. The sorcerers resolved to begin the battle the very next
night, and promised to put forth their utmost power to destroy the
enemy.

But the Giant Witch could foretell all his troubles by his dreams, and
that selfsame night he dreamed of all the plans which the followers of
Striped Squirrel had formed for his ruin.

Now all Indian witches have one or more “poohegans,” or guardian
spirits, and the Giant Witch at once despatched one of his poohegans,
little “Alūmūset,” the Humming-bird, to the chief