Algonquin Legends of New England. Charles Godfrey Leland
Senecas. A Lox Legend
How Lox told a Lie
THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF MASTER RABBIT.
How Master Rabbit sought to rival Kecoony, the Otter
How Mahtigwess, the Rabbit, dined with the Woodpecker Girls, and was again humbled by trying to rival them
Of the Adventure with Mooin, the Bear; it being the Third and Last Time that Master Rabbit made a Fool of himself
Relating how the Rabbit became Wise by being Original, and of the
Terrible Tricks which he by Magic played Loup-Cervier, the Wicked
Wild-Cat
How Master Rabbit went to a Wedding and won the Bride
How Master Rabbit gave himself Airs
The Young Man who was saved by a Rabbit and a Fox
THE CHENOO LEGENDS.
The Chenoo, or the Story of a Cannibal with an Icy Heart
The Story of the Great Chenoo, as told by the Passamaquoddies
The Girl-Chenoo
THUNDER STORIES.
Of the Girl who married Mount Katahdin, and how all the Indians brought about their own Ruin
How a Hunter visited the Thunder Spirits who dwell on Mount Katahdin
The Thunder and Lightning Men
Of the Woman who married the Thunder, and of their Boy
AT-O-SIS, THE SERPENT.
How Two Girls were changed to Water-Snakes, and of Two others that became Mermaids
Ne Hwas, the Mermaid
Of the Woman who loved a Serpent that lived in a Lake
The Mother of Serpents
Origin of the Black Snakes
THE PARTRIDGE.
The Adventures of the Great Hero Pulowech, or the Partridge
The Story of a Partridge and his Wonderful Wigwam
How the Partridge built Good Canoes for all the Birds, and a Bad One for Himself
The Mournful Mystery of the Partridge-Witch; setting forth how a Young
Man died from Love
How one of the Partridge's Wives became a Sheldrake Duck, and why her
Feet and Feathers are red
THE INVISIBLE ONE
STORY OF THE THREE STRONG MEN
THE WEEWILLMEKQ'
How a Woman lost a Gun for Fear of the Weewillmekq'
Muggahmaht'adem, the Dance of Old Age, or the Magic of the Weewillmekq'
Another Version of the Dance of Old Age
TALES OF MAGIC.
M'teoulin, or Indian Magic
Story of the Beaver Trapper
How a Youth became a Magician
Of Old Joe, the M'teoulin
Of Governor Francis
How a Chiefs Son taught his Friend Sorcery
Tumilkoontaoo, or the Broken Wing
Fish-Hawk and Scapegrace
The Giant Magicians
MIK UM WESS, THE INDIAN PUCK, OR ROBIN GOOD-FELLOW
GLOOSKAP KILLING HIS BROTHER, THE WOLF
GLOOSKAP LOOKING AT THE WHALE SMOKING HIS PIPE
GLOOSKAP SETTING HIS DOGS ON THE WITCHES
THE MUD-TURTLE JUMPING OVER THE WIGWAM OF HIS FATHER-IN-LAW
GLOOSKAP AND KEANKE SPEARING THE WHALE
GLOOSKAP TURNING A MAN INTO A CEDAR-TREE
LOX CARRIED OFF BY CULLOO
THE INDIAN BOY AND THE MUSK-RAT. SEEPS, THE DUCK
THE RABBIT MAGICIAN
THE CHENOO AND THE LIZARD
THE WOMAN AND THE SERPENT
INTRODUCTION
Among the six chief divisions of the red Indians of North America the most widely extended is the Algonquin. This people ranged from Labrador to the far South, from Newfoundland to the Rocky Mountains, speaking forty dialects, as the Hon. J. H. Trumbull has shown in his valuable work on the subject. Belonging to this division are the Micmacs of New Brunswick and the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribes of Maine, who with the St. Francis Indians of Canada and some smaller clans call themselves the Wabanaki, a word derived from a root signifying white or light, intimating that they live nearest to the rising sun or the east. In fact, the French-speaking St. Francis family, who are known par eminence as "the Abenaki," translate the term by point du jour.
The Wabanaki have in common the traditions of a grand mythology, the central figure of which is a demigod or hero, who, while he is always great, consistent, and benevolent, and never devoid of dignity, presents traits which are very much more like those of Odin and Thor, with not a little of Pantagruel, than anything in the characters of the Chippewa Manobozho, or the Iroquois Hiawatha. The name of this divinity is Glooskap, meaning, strangely enough, the Liar, because it is said that when he left earth, like King Arthur, for Fairyland, he promised to return, and has never done so. It is characteristic of the Norse gods that while they are grand they are manly, and combine with this a peculiarly domestic humanity. Glooskap is the Norse god intensified. He is, however, more of a giant; he grows to a more appalling greatness than Thor or Odin in his battles; when a Kiawaqu', or Jotun, rises to the clouds to oppose him, Glooskap's head touches the stars, and scorning to slay so mean a foe like an equal, he kills him contemptuously with a light tap of his bow. But in the family circle he is the most benevolent of gentle heroes, and has his oft-repeated little standard jokes. Yet he never, like the Manobozho-Hiawatha of the Chippewas, becomes silly, cruel, or fantastic. He has his roaring revel with a brother giant, even as Thor went fishing in fierce fun with the frost god, but he is never low or feeble.
Around Glooskap, who is by far the grandest and most Aryan-like character ever evolved from a savage mind, and who is more congenial to a reader of Shakespeare and Rabelais than any deity ever imagined out of Europe, there are found strange giants: some literal Jotuns of stone and ice, sorcerers who become giants like Glooskap, at will; the terrible Chenoo, a human being with an icy-stone heart, who has sunk to a cannibal and ghoul; all the weird monsters and horrors of the Eskimo mythology, witches and demons, inherited from the terribly black sorcery which preceded Shamanism, and compared to which the latter was like an advanced religion, and all the minor mythology of dwarfs and fairies. The Indian m'teoulin, or magician, distinctly taught that every created thing, animate or inanimate, had its indwelling spirit. Whatever had an idea had a soul. Therefore the Wabanaki mythology is strangely like that of the Rosicrucians. But it created spirits for the terrible Arctic winters of the north, for the icebergs and frozen wastes, for the Northern Lights and polar bears. It made, in short, a mythology such as would be perfectly congenial to any one who has read and understood the Edda, Beowulf, and the Kalevala, with the wildest and oldest Norse sagas. But it is, as regards spirit