Algonquin Legends of New England. Charles Godfrey Leland
in these old times (P.) Glooskap's seven neighbors, who were all so many different animals, took away his family, and that he followed them, even as it has been written, unto Newfoundland. And when he came there it was night, and, finding Marten alone, he took him forth into the forest to seek food, putting his belt on the boy, which gave him such power that he hunted well and got much meat.
So it came to pass that the next morning Dame Kah-kah-gooch, the Crow, [Footnote: Kah-kah-gooch, Micmac, Kah-kah-goos, Passamaquoddy. The Crow is represented in several stories as always peeping, spying, begging, pilfering, and tale-bearing about a town. The Passamaquoddy Indians hare peculiar superstitions as regards killing the crow.] observed that Marten was drying meat on his wigwam. And this she spread abroad. But when the people learned that the child had done this, a great fear came upon them all, and they sat every man in his lodge and awaited death, for they knew that the Master had come.
And he indeed came; but when he saw them all as frightened as rabbits before the wild-cat, he laughed aloud and forgave them, for he was noble and generous. And as they were hungry—for he had come in hard times—he gave them much venison, and sorrow departed from their wigwams. But as they had left him of old, he now left them. When they knew him not they left him to die; now that they knew him they feared lest they should perish without him. But he turned his steps towards other paths.
Now having made a canoe, the Master, with Marten and Dame Bear, went upon a mighty river. As the story says, it was broad and beautiful at first, and so they sailed away down towards its mouth. Then they came to great cliffs, which gathered round and closed over them. But the river ran on beneath these, and ever on far underground, deeper and deeper in the earth, till it dashed headlong into rapids, among rocks and ravines, and under cataracts which were so horrible that death seemed to come and go with every plunge of the canoe. And the water grew narrower and the current more dreadful, and fear came upon Marten and the woman, so that they died. But the Master sat with silent soul, though he sang the songs of magic, and so passed into the night, but came forth again into sunlight. And there was a lonely wigwam on the bank, into which he bore Marten and the grandmother, and saying, "Numchahse! arise!" lo, they arose, and deemed they had only slept. And now Glooskap had gained the greatest power. [Footnote: This incident of the passage underground is deeply suggestive of Wabeno mystery and initiation. It will strike every student of classic lore as almost identical with much that he has read. If it has not the same symbolical meaning here, it has apparently none whatever.]
This incident of passing through darkness, on a roaring stream in a frail bark, before emerging to sunlight or illumination, was not only in the ancient heathen myths. We are reminded of it by the storm through which Jesus passed with the disciples. That it made a great impression upon the Indians is shown by its being told of Pulewech, the Partridge, who is a type of Glooskap, and who, like him, makes war on the powers of evil, set forth in the Porcupines. The Indians, who imagined and selected so many wild and terrible tests to form the Shaman, or sorcerer, as well as the warrior, would hardly neglect that of de profundis clamari, the storm, the waves, darkness, and the roaring flood.
If there is really any Norse influence in this tale, this river must be the one mentioned in the Vafthrudnismal—
"Ifing the stream is called which earth divides between the Jotuns and the gods. Open it shall run throughout all time. On that stream no ice shall he."
It will be observed that, having gone down or across this stream,
Pulewech finds himself in the country of the Evil sorcerers; that is,
Jotunheim. To conquer a river among the Norse, in a dream, was a sign
of victory; to be carried away by one was a terrible omen.
"Methought a river ran Through the whole house, that it roared violently, rushed over the benches, brake the feet of yon brothers twain; Nothing the water spared; Something that will portend."
(Atlamal, in Groenlewzku, 25.)
Of the Great Works which Glooskap made in the Land.
(Micmac, Passamaquoddy, Penobscot.)
Over all the Land of the Wabanaki there is no place which was not marked by the hand of the Master. And it is to be seen on hills and rivers and great roads, as well as mighty rocks, which were in their day living monsters.
For there is a very wonderful highway from Cwesowra legek [Footnote: Hardwood Point, Fort Cumberland.] to Parrsborough, running parallel with the river now called Hebert, and this road is called by Indians Ou-wokun, the Causeway, but by white men, or the Iglesmani, the Boar's Back. For it is said that he meant to visit Partridge Island and Cape Blomidon, but they who were with him had got tired of the sea, and wished to cross over by land. And while they were resting and getting ready for their trip across, the Master, raising his magic power to a great deed to be spoken of forever, went away a little time, and cast up a great and beautiful level ridge, throwing it over bogs and streams; and on this they traveled, rejoicing, and, having reached the island, awaited him.
And yet again the Master did a mighty deed. It came to pass in those days that the Beavers had built a dam across from Utkoguncheek, or Cape Blomidon, to the opposite shore, and thereby made a pond that filled all the valley of Annapolis. Now in those times the Beavers were monstrous beasts, and the Master, though kind of heart, seems to have had but little love for them ever since the day when Qwah-beetsis, the son of the Great Beaver, tempted Malsum to slay his brother. Now the bones of these Beavers may be found to this day, and many there are on Oonamahgik, and their teeth are six inches across, and there are no such qwah-beet to-day. [Footnote: Both Mr. Rand and myself have been solemnly assured by Indians who had seen these antediluvian remains that they are the petrified relics of Glooskap's victims.] And these are the remains of the Beavers who built the dam at Cape Blomidon and forded the Annapolis Valley. Now Glooskap would have a hunt and do a deed which should equal the great whale-fishing of Kit-pooseeog-unow. So he cut the great dam near the shore, and bade Marten watch; for he said, "I mistrust that there is a little Beaver hiding hereabouts." And when the dam was cut from where it joined the shore there was a mighty rush of many waters, so that it swung round to the westward, yet it did not break away from the other shore. Therefore the end of it lodged with a great split therein when the flood had found a free course, and the whole may be seen there still, even to this day, and may be seen by all of those who pass up the bay; and this point, or Cape Split, is called by the Micmacs Pleegun, which, being interpreted, means the opening of a beaver dam.
Then, to frighten the Beaver, Glooskap threw at it a few handfuls of earth, and these, falling somewhat to the eastward of Partridge Island, became the Five Islands. And the pond which was left was the Basin of Minas.
And yet another tradition tells that, after cutting the dam, Glooskap sat and watched, but no beaver came out; [Footnote: This is the Anglo-Indian manuscript, already referred to.] for Qwah-beet had gone out of a back door. So he took a rock and threw it afar, [Footnote: "He took Rock tructed 150 miles ip River to sker beaber bock down, but beaber has gone ober granfalls."]—one hundred and fifty miles—to scare the Beaver back again; but the Beaver had gone over the Grand Falls, and the stone remaineth there even to this day.
The Story of Glooskap as told in a few Words by a Woman of the Penobscots.
"Glus-gahbe gave names to everything. He made men and gave them life, and made the winds to make the waters move. The Turtle was his uncle; the Mink, Uk-see-meezel, his adopted son; and Monin-kwessos, the Woodchuck, his grandmother. The Beaver built a great dam, and Glus-gahbe turned it away and killed the Beaver. At Moose-tchick he killed a moose; the bones may be seen at Bar Harbor turned to stone. He threw the entrails of the Moose across the bay to his dogs, and they, too, may be seen there to this day, as I myself have seen them; and there, too, in the rock are the prints of his bow and arrow." [Footnote: Many a place is pointed out as the locality of the same legend. In addition to those in New Brunswick and Bar Harbor, Thoreau found another in Maine, which he thus describes:—
"While we were crossing this bay" (that is, the mouth of Moose River), "where Mount Kineo rose dark before us, within two or three miles, the Indian repeated the tradition respecting this mountain's having