Algonquin Legends of New England Part 16

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 sh.o.r.e. 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 ma.n.u.script. 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 impa.s.sable 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.sumes 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 t.i.tans 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 Pa.s.samaquoddy 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 Pa.s.samaquoddies.

(Pa.s.samaquoddy.)

What the Micmacs call a Chenoo is known to the Pa.s.samaquoddies 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 ma.n.u.script collection of Mitch.e.l.l 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 quant.i.ty 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 Pa.s.samaquoddy 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 Pa.s.samaquoddy Anglo-Indian, ma.n.u.script of Mitch.e.l.l 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 Pa.s.samaquoddy 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 superst.i.tion, older than we can now fathom. There is a pa.s.sage 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 a.s.sum, 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 a.s.sume that stone and heart are the same, the difficulty vanishes. And they are one in the Chenoo, who, like Loki, ill.u.s.trates or symbolizes the pa.s.sage 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 (ma.n.u.script) 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.

(Pen.o.bscot.)

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 Pen.o.bscot, 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 cla.s.s 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 Superst.i.tion of these Indians he gives this story, but, as I think, in a corrupted form. Firstly, he states that Pamola (that is, b.u.mole), 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 superst.i.tious 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 G.o.d, and how it could be repaired only by G.o.d. We can also trace some ideas of the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of G.o.d in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, mixed with fables, superst.i.tions, and pagan errors. The appearance of G.o.d 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 b.u.mole, in chapter on Supernatural Beings.) It may be, however, observed, that if the name b.u.mole 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.