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THE ALGONQUIN LEGENDS OF NEW
ENGLAND OR Myths and Folk Lore of the Micmac, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot Tribes BY CHARLES G. LELAND LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON, Crown Buildings, 188 Fleet Street, 1884. ![]() MIK UM WESS THE INDIAN PUCK, OR ROBIN GOOD-FELLOW. From a scraping on birch bark by Tomak Josephs, Indian Governor at Peter Dona's Point, Maine. The Mik um wees always wears a red cap like the Norse Goblin. PREFACE.
When I began, in the summer
of 1882, to collect among the Passamaquoddy Indians at Campobello, New
Brunswick, their traditions and folk-lore, I expected to find very
little
indeed. These Indians, few in number, surrounded by white people, and
thoroughly converted to Roman Catholicism, promised but scanty remains
of
heathenism. What was my amazement, however, at discovering, day by day,
that
there existed among them, entirely by oral tradition, a far grander
mythology
than that which has been made known to us by either the Chippewa or
Iroquois
Hiawatha Legends, and that this was illustrated by an incredible number
of
tales. I soon ascertained that these were very ancient. The old people
declared
that they had heard from their progenitors that all of these stories
were once
sung; that they themselves remembered when many of them were poems.
This was
fully proved by discovering manifest traces of poetry in many, and
finally by
receiving a long Micmac tale which had been sung by an Indian. I found
that all
the relaters of this lore were positive as to the antiquity of the
narratives,
and distinguished accurately between what was or was not pre-Columbian.
In
fact, I came in time to the opinion that the original stock of all the
Algonquin myths, and perhaps of many more, still existed, not far away
in the
West, but at our very doors; that is to say, in Maine and New
Brunswick. It is
at least certain, as the reader may convince himself, that these
Wabanaki, or
Northeastern Algonquin, legends give, with few exceptions, in full and
coherently, many tales which have only reached us in a broken,
imperfect form,
from other sources. This work, then, contains a
collection of the myths, legends, and folk-lore of the principal
Wabanaki, or
Northeastern Algonquin, Indians; that is to say, of the Passamaquoddies
and
Penobscots of Maine, and of the Micmacs of New Brunswick. All of this
material
was gathered directly from Indian narrators, the greater part by
myself, the
rest by a few friends; in fact, I can give the name of the aboriginal
authority
for every tale except one. As my chief object has been simply to
collect and
preserve valuable material, I have said little of the labors of such
critical
writers as Brinton, Hale, Trumbull, Powers, Morgan, Bancroft, and the
many more
who have so ably studied and set forth red Indian ethnology. If I have
rarely
ventured on their field, it is because I believe that when the Indian
shall
have passed away there will come far better ethnologists than I am, who
will be
much more obliged to me for collecting raw material than for cooking it. Two or three subjects have,
it is true, tempted me into occasional commenting. The manifest, I may
say the
undeniable, affinity between the myths and legends of the Northeastern
Indians
and those of the Eskimo could hardly be passed over, nor at the same
time the
identity of the latter and of the Shaman religion with those of the
Finns, Laplanders,
and Samoyedes. I believe that I have contributed material not devoid of
value
to those who are interested in the study of the relations of the
aborigines of
America with the Mongoloid races of the Old World. This is a subject
which has
been very little studied through the relations of these Wabanaki with
the
Eskimo. A far more hazardous venture
has been the indicating points of similarity between the myths or tales
of the
Algonquins and those of the Norsemen, as set forth in the Eddas, the
Sagas, and
popular tales of Scandinavia. When we, however, remember that the
Eskimo once
ranged as far south as Massachusetts, that they did not reach Greenland
till
the fourteenth century, that they had for three centuries intimate
relations
with Scandinavians, that they were very fond of legends, and that the
Wabanaki
even now mingle with them, the marvel would be that the Norsemen had
not left
among them traces of their tales or of their religion. But I do not say
that
this was positively the case; I simply set forth in this book a great
number of
curious coincidences, from which others may draw their own conclusions.
I
confess that I cannot account for these resemblances save by the
so-called
"historical theory" of direct transmission; but if any one can
otherwise
explain them I should welcome the solution of what still seems to be,
in many
respects, a problem. I am, in fact, of the
opinion that what is given in this work confirms what was conjectured
by David
Crantz, and which is thus expressed in his History of Greenland
(London, 1767):
"If we read the accounts which have been given of the most northerly
American Indians and Asiatic Tartars, we find a pretty great
resemblance
between their manner of life, morals, usages, and notions and what has
been said
in this book of the Greenlanders, only with this difference: that the
farther
the savage nations wandered towards the North, the fewer they retained
of their
ancient conceptions and customs. As for the Greenlanders, if it be
true, as is
supposed, that a remnant of the old Norway Christians incorporated
themselves
and became one people with them, the Greenlanders may thence have heard
and
adopted some of their notions, which they may have new-modeled in the
coarse
mould of their own brain." Among those who have greatly
aided me in preparing this work I deem it to be a duty to mention MISS
ABBY
ALGER, of Boston, to whom it is cordially dedicated; the REV. SILAS T.
RAND, of
Hantsport, Nova Scotia, who lent me a manuscript collection of
eighty-five
Micmac tales, and communicated to me, with zealous kindness, much
information
by letter; and MRS. W. WALLACE BROWN, of Calais, Maine. It was through
this
lady that I derived a great proportion of the most curious folk-lore of
the
Passamaquoddies, especially such parts as coincided with the Edda. With
these I
would include MR. E. JACK, of Fredericton, New Brunswick. When it is
remembered
that there are only forty-two of the Hiawatha Legends of Schoolcraft,
out of
which five books have been made by other authors, and that I have
collected
more than two hundred, it will be seen how these friends must have
worked to
aid me.
The authorities consulted in
writing this work were as follows: — Tomah Josephs,
Passamaquoddy, Indian Governor at Peter Dana's Point, Maine. The Rev. Silas T. Rand,
Baptist Missionary among the Micmac Indians at Hantsport, Nova Scotia.
This
gentleman lent me his manuscript collection of eighty-five stories, all
taken down
from verbal Indian narration. He also communicated much information in
letters,
etc. John Gabriel, and his son
Peter J. Gabriel, Passamaquoddy Indians, of Point Pleasant, Maine. Noel Josephs, of Peter
Dana's Point, alias Che gach goch, the Raven. Joseph Tomah, Passamaquoddy,
of Point Pleasant. Louis Mitchell, Indian
member of the Legislature of Maine. To this gentleman I am greatly
indebted for
manuscripts, letters, and oral narrations of great value. Sapiel Selmo, keeper of the
Wampum Record, formerly read every four years, at the kindling of the
great
fire at Canawagha. Marie Saksis, of Oldtown, a
capital and very accurate narrator of many traditions. Miss Abby Alger, of Boston,
by whom I was greatly aided in collecting the Passamaquoddy stories,
and who
obtained several for me among the St. Francis or Abenaki Indians. Edward Jack, of Fredericton,
for several Micmac legends and many letters containing folk-lore, all
taken
down by him directly from Indians. Mrs. W. Wallace Brown. Mr.
Brown was agent in charge of the Passamaquoddies in Maine. To this
lady, who
has a great influence over the Indians, and is much interested in their
folk-lore and legends, I am indebted for a large collection of very
interesting
material of the most varied description. Noel Neptune, Penobscot,
Oldtown, Maine. The Story of Glooskap. A curious manuscript in
Indian-English,
obtained for me by Tomah Josephs. The Dominion Monthly for 1871. Containing nine
Micmac
legends by Rev. S.T. Rand. Indian Legends. (Manuscript of 900 pp.
folio.)
Collected among the Micmac Indians, and translated by Silas T. Rand,
Missionary
to the Micmacs. A Manuscript Collection
of Passamaquoddy Legends and Folk-Lore. By Mrs. W. Wallace Brown, of
Calais, Maine. These are all
given with the greatest accuracy as narrated by Indians, some in broken
Indian-English. They embrace a very great variety of folk-lore. Manuscript Fairy Tales in
Indian and English. By
Louis Mitchell. Manuscript: The
Superstitions of the Passamaquoddies.
In Indian and English. A History of the
Passamaquoddy Indians.
Manuscript of 80 pages, Indian and English. All of these were written
for me by
L. Mitchell, M.L. Wampum Records. Read for me by Sapiel Selmo,
the only
living Indian who has the key to them. David Cusick's Sketches
of Ancient History of the Six Nations. Lockport, N.Y., 1848.
Printed, but
written in Indian-English. Manuscript: Six Stories
of the St. Francis or Abenaki Indians.
Taken down by Miss Abby Alger. Osgood's Maritime
Provinces. In this work there are seven short extracts relative to
Glooskap
given without reference to any book or author. CONTENTS PREFACE AUTHORITIES INTRODUCTION GLOOSKAP, THE DIVINITY. Of Glooskap's
Birth, and of his Brother Malsum, the Wolf
How Glooskap made the Elves and Fairies, and then Man of an Ash-Tree, and last of all the Beasts, and of his Coming at the Last Day Of the Great Deeds which Glooskap did for Men; how he named the Animals, and who they were that formed his Family How Win-pe, the Sorcerer, having stolen Glooskap's Family, was by him pursued, How Glooskap for a Merry Jest cheated the Whale, Of the Song of the Clams, and how the Whale smoked a Pipe Of the Dreadful Deeds of the Evil Pitcher, who was both Man and Woman; how she fell in Love with Glooskap, and, being scorned, became his Enemy. Of the Toads and Porcupines, and the Awful Battle of the Giants How the Story of Glooskap and Pook-jin-skwess, the Evil Pitcher, is told by the Passamaquoddy Indians How Glooskap became friendly to the Loons, and made them his Messengers How Glooskap made his Uncle Mikchich, the Turtle, into a Great Man, and got him a Wife. Of the Turtles' Eggs, and how Glooskap vanquished a Sorcerer by smoking Tobacco How Glooskap sailed through the Great Cavern of Darkness Of the Great Works which Glooskap made in the Land The Story of Glooskap as told in a few Words by a Woman of the Penobscots How Glooskap, leaving the World, all the Animals mourned for him, and how, ere he departed, he gave Gifts to Men How Glooskap had a Great Frolic with Kitpooseagunow, a Mighty Giant who caught a Whale How Glooskap made a Magician of a Young Man, who aided another to win a Wife and do Wonderful Deeds How a certain Wicked Witch sought to cajole the Great and Good Glooskap, and of her Punishment Of other Men who went to Glooskap for Gifts Of Glooskap and the three other Seekers Of Glooskap and the Sinful Serpent The Tale of Glooskap as told by another Indian, showing how the Toad and Porcupine lost their Noses How Glooskap changed Certain Saucy Indians into Rattlesnakes How Glooskap bound Wuchowsen, the Great Wind-Bird, and made all the Waters in the World stagnant How Glooskap conquered the Great Bull-Frog, and in what Manner all the Pollywogs, Crabs, Leeches, and other Water Creatures were created How the Lord of Men and Beasts strove with the Mighty Wasis, and was shamefully defeated How the Great Glooskap fought the Giant Sorcerers at Saco, and turned them into Fish How Glooskap went to England and France, and was the first to make America known to the Europeans How Glooskap is making Arrows, and preparing for a Great Battle. The Twilight of the Indian Gods How Glooskap found the Summer THE MERRY TALES OF LOX, THE MISCHIEF-MAKER. The
Surprising and Singular Adventures of two Water Fairies who were also
Weasels,
and how they each became the Bride of a Star. Including the
Mysterious and Wonderful Works of Lox, the Great Indian Devil, who rose from the Dead Of the Wolverine and the Wolves, or how Master Lox froze to Death How Master Lox played a Trick on Mrs. Bear, who lost her Eyesight and had her Eyes opened How Lox came to Grief by trying to catch a Salmon How Master Lox, as a Raccoon, killed the Bear and the Black Cats, and performed other Notable Feats of Skill, all to his Great Discredit How Lox deceived the Ducks, cheated the Chief, and beguiled the Bear The Mischief-Maker. A Tradition of the Origin of the Mythology of the 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 PartridgeThe 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 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. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 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 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 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 and meaning, utterly and
entirely
unlike anything else that is American. It is not like the Mexican
pantheon; it
has not the same sounds, colors, or feelings; and though many of its
incidents
or tales are the same as those of the Chippewas, or other tribes, we
still feel
that there is an incredible difference in the spirit. Its ways are not
as their
ways. This Wabanaki mythology, which was that which gave a fairy, an
elf, a
naiad, or a hero to every rock and river and ancient hill in New
England, is
just the one of all others which is least known to the New Englanders.
When the
last Indian shall be in his grave, those who come after us will ask in
wonder
why we had no curiosity as to the romance of our country, and so much
as to
that of every other land on earth. Much is allowed to poets and
painters, and no fault was found with Mr. Longfellow for attributing to
the
Iroquois Hiawatha the choice exploits of the Chippewa demi-devil
Manobozho. It
was "all Indian" to the multitude, and one name answered as well in
poetry as another, at a time when there was very little attention paid
to
ethnology. So that a good poem resulted, it was of little consequence
that the
plot was a melange of very different characters, and
characteristics.
And when, in connection with this, Mr. Longfellow spoke of the Chippewa
tales
as forming an Indian Edda, the term was doubtless in a poetic and very
general
sense permissible. But its want of literal truth seems to have deeply
impressed
the not generally over particular or accurate Schoolcraft, since his
first
remarks in the Introduction to the Hiawatha Legends are as follows: — "Where analogies are so
general, there is a constant liability to mistakes. Of these foreign
analogies
of myth-lore, the least tangible, it is believed, is that which has
been
suggested with the Scandinavian mythology. That mythology is of so
marked and
peculiar a character that it has not been distinctly traced out of the
great
circle of tribes of the Indo-Germanic family. Odin and his terrific
pantheon of
war gods and social deities could only exist in the dreary latitudes of
storms
and fire which produce a Hecla and a Maelstrom. These latitudes have
invariably
produced nations whose influence has been felt in an elevating power
over the
world. From such a source the Indian could have derived none of him
vague
symbolisms and mental idiosyncrasies which have left him as he is found
to-day,
without a government and without a god." This is all perfectly true
of the myths of Hiawat'ha-Manobozho. Nothing on earth could be more
unlike the
Norse legends than the "Indian Edda" of the Chippewas and Ottawas.
But it was not known to this writer that there already existed in
Northeastern
America a stupendous mythology, derived from a land of storms and fire
more
terrible and wonderful than Iceland; nay, so terrible that Icelanders
themselves were appalled by it. "This country," says the Abbe
Morillot, "is the one most suggestive of superstition. Everything
there,
sea, earth, or heaven, is strange." The wild cries which rise from the
depths of the caverned ice-hills, and are reechoed by the rocks,
icebergs, or
waves, were dreadful to Egbert Olafson in the seventeenth century. The
interior
is a desert without parallel for desolation. A frozen Sahara seen by
Northern
lightning and midnight suns is but a suggestion of this land. The sober
Moravian missionary Crantz once only in his life rose to poetry, when
more than
a century ago he spoke of its scenery. Here then was the latitude of
storm and
fire required by Schoolcraft to produce something wilder and grander
than he
had ever found among Indians. And here indeed there existed all the
time a
cycle of mythological legends or poems such as he declared Indians
incapable of
producing. But strangest of all, this American mythology of the North,
which
has been the very last to become known to American readers, is
literally so
nearly like the Edda itself that as this work fully proves, there is
hardly a
song in the Norse collection which does not contain an incident found
in the
Indian poem-legends, while in several there are many such coincidences.
Thus,
in the Edda we are told that the first birth on earth was that of a
giant girl
and boy, begotten by the feet of a giant and born from his armpit. In
the
Wabanaki legends, the first birth was of Glooskap, the Good principle,
and
Malsum the Wolf, or Evil principle. The Wolf was born from his mother's
armpit.
He is sometimes male and sometimes female. His feet are male and
female, and
converse. We pass on only twelve lines in the Edda (Vafthrudnismal, 36)
to be
told that the wind is caused by a giant in eagle's plumage, who sits on
a rock
far in the north "at the end of heaven." This is simply and literally
the Wochowsen or Windblower of the Wabanaki word for word, —
not the
"Thunder-Bird" of the Western Indians. The second birth on earth,
according to the Edda, was that of man. Odin found Ash and Elm "nearly
powerless," and gave them sense. This was the first man and woman.
According to the Indians of Maine, Glooskap made the first men from the
ash-tree.
They lived or were in it, "devoid of sense" till he gave it to them.
It is to be observed that primevally among the Norse the ash
alone stood
for man. So it goes on through the whole Edda, of which all the main
incidents
are to be found among the sagas of the Wabanaki. The most striking of
these are
the coincidences between Lox (lynx, wolf, wolverine, badger, or
raccoon,
and sometimes man) and Loki. It is very remarkable indeed that the only
two
religions in the world which possess a devil in whom mischief
predominates should also give to each the same adventures, if both did
not come
from the same source. In the Hymiskvida of the Edda, two giants go to
fish for
whales, and then have a contest which is actually one of heat against
cold.
This is so like a Micmac legend in every detail that about twenty lines
are
word for word the same in the Norse and Indian. The Micmac giants end
their
whale fishing by trying to freeze one another to death. It is to the Rev. Silas T.
Rand that the credit belongs of having discovered Glooskap, and of
having first
published in the Dominion Monthly several of these Northern legends.
After I
had collected nearly a hundred among the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot
Indians,
this gentleman, with unexampled kindness, lent me a manuscript of
eighty-four
Micmac tales, making in all nine hundred folio pages. Many were similar
to others
in my collection, but I have never yet received a duplicate which did
not
contain something essential to the whole. Though the old Indians all
declare
that most of their lore has perished, especially the more recondite
mythic
poems, I am confident that much more remains to be gathered than I have
given
in this work. As it is, I have omitted many tales simply because they
were
evidently Canadian French stories. Yet all of these, without exception,
are
half Indian, and it may be old Norse modified; for a French story is
sometimes
the same with one in the Eddas. Again, for want of room I have not
given any
Indian tales or chronicles of the wars with the Mohawks. Of these I
have enough
to make a very curious volume. These legends belong to all
New England. Many of them exist as yet among the scattered fragments of
Indian
tribes here and there. The Penobscots of Oldtown, Maine, still possess
many. In
fact, there is not an old Indian, male or female, in New England or
Canada who
does not retain stories and songs of the greatest interest. I sincerely
trust
that this work may have the effect of stimulating collection. Let every
reader
remember that everything thus taken down, and deposited in a local
historical
society, or sent to the Ethnological Bureau at Washington, will forever
transmit the name of its recorder to posterity. Archaeology is as yet
in its
very beginning; when the Indians shall have departed it will grow to
giant-like
proportions, and every scrap of information relative to them will be
eagerly investigated.
And the man does not live who knows what may be made of it all. I need
not say
that I should be grateful for such Indian lore of any kind whatever
which may
be transmitted to me. It may very naturally be
asked by many how it came to pass that the Indians of Maine and of the
farther
north have so much of the Edda in their sagas; or, if it was derived
through
the Eskimo tribes, how these got it from Norsemen, who were professedly
Christians. I do not think that the time has come for fully answering
the first
question. There is some great mystery of mythology, as yet unsolved,
regarding
the origin of the Edda and its relations with the faiths and folk-lore
of the
elder Shamanic beliefs, such as Lapp, Finn, Samoyed, Eskimo, and
Tartar. This
was the world's first religion; it is found in the so-called Accadian
Turanian
beginning of Babylon, whence it possibly came from the West. But what
we have
here to consider is whether the Norsemen did directly influence the
Eskimo and
Indians. Let us first consider that these latter were passionately fond
of
stories, and that they had attained to a very high standard of culture
as
regards both appreciation and invention. They were as fond of
recitations as
any white man is of reading. Their memories were in this respect very
remarkable indeed. They have taken into their repertory during the past
two
hundred years many French fairy tales, through the Canadians. Is it not
likely
that they listened to the Northmen? It is not generally noted
among our learned men how long the Icelanders remained in Greenland,
how many
stories are still told of them by the Eskimo, or to what extent the
Indians
continue to mingle with the latter. During the eleventh, twelfth, and
thirteenth centuries, says the Abbe Morillot, "there were in Greenland,
after Archbishop Adalbert, more than twenty bishops, and in the colony
were
many churches and monasteries. In the Oestrbugd, one of the two
inhabited
portions of the vast island, were one hundred and ninety villages, with
twelve
churches. In Julianshaab, one may to-day see the ruins of eight
churches and of
many monasteries." In the fifteenth century all these buildings were in
ruins, and the colony was exterminated by the pestilence or the
natives. But
among the latter there remained many traditions of the Scandinavians
associated
with the ruins. Such is the story of Oren'gortok, given by the Abbe
Morillot,
and several are to be found in Rink's Legends. When we learn that the
Norsemen,
during their three centuries of occupation of Greenland, brought away
many of
the marvelous tales of the Eskimo, it is not credible that they left
none of
their own. Thus we are told in the Floamanna Saga how a hero, abandoned
on the
icy coast of Greenland, met with two giant witches (Troldkoner), and
cut the band
from one of them. An old Icelandic work, called the Konungs Skuggsjo
(Danish,
Kongespeilet), has much to say of the marvels of Greenland and its
monsters of
the sea. On the other hand, Morillot declares that the belief in ghosts
was
brought to Greenland by the Icelanders and Scandinavians. The sagas
have not
been as yet much studied with a view to establishing how much social
intercourse there was between the natives and the colonists, but common
experience would teach that during three centuries it must have been
something. There has always been
intercourse between Greenland and Labrador, and in this latter country
we find
the first Algonquin Indians. Even at the present day there are men
among the
Micmacs and Passamaquoddies who have gone on their hunting excursions
even to
the Eskimo. I myself know one of the latter who has done so, and the
Rev. S. T.
Rand, in answer to a question on the subject, writes to me as follows:
— "Nancy Jeddore, a
Micmac woman, assures me that her father, now dead, used to go as far
as the
wild (heathen) Eskimo, and remained once for three years among the more
civilized. She has so correctly described their habits that I am
satisfied that
her statements are correct." 1 These Eskimo brought from
the Old World that primeval gloomy Shaman religion, or sorcery, such as
is
practiced yet by Laplanders and Tartars, such as formed the basis of
the old
Accadian Babylonian cultus, and such as is now in vogue among all our
own red
Indians. I believe that it was from the Eskimo that this American
Shamanism all
came. In Greenland this faith assumed its strangest form; it made for
itself a
new mythology. The Indians, their neighbors, borrowed from this, but
also added
new elements of an only semi-Arctic character. Thus there is a
series of
steps, but every one different, from the Eskimo to the Wabanaki, of
Labrador,
New Brunswick, and Maine, from the Wabanaki to the Iroquois, and from
the
Iroquois to the more western Indians. And while they all have incidents
in
common, the character of each is radically different. It may be specially noted
that while there is hardly an important point in the Edda which may not
be
found, as I have just shown, in Wabanaki legends, there is very little
else in
the latter which is in common with such Old World mythology as might
have come
to the Indians since the discovery by Columbus. Excluding French
Canadian fairy
tales, what we have left is chiefly Eskimo and Eddaic, and the
proportion of
the latter is simply surprising. There are actually more incidents
taken from
the Edda than there are from lower sources. I can only account for this
by the
fact that, as the Indians tell me, all these tales were once poems,
handed down from generation to generation, and always sung. Once they
were
religious. Now they are in a condition analogous to that of the German
Heldenbuch. They have been cast into a new form, but they are not as
yet quite
degraded to the nursery tale. It may be objected that if
the Norsemen in Greenland were Christians it is most unlikely that they
would have
taught the legends of the Edda to the heathen; to which I reply that
some
scholar a few centuries hence may declare it was a most improbable
thing that
Christian Roman Catholic Indians should have taught me the tales of
Glooskap
and Lox. But the truth is, we really know very little as to how soon
wandering
Vikings went to America, or how many were here. I would say in conclusion
that, while these legends of the Wabanaki are fragmentary and
incomplete, they
still read like the fragments of a book whose subject was once broadly
and
coherently treated by a man of genius. They are handled in the same
bold and
artistic manner as the Norse. There is nothing like them in any other
North
American Indian records. They are, especially those which are from the
Passamaquoddy
and Penobscot, inspired with a genial cosmopolite humor. While Glooskap
is
always a gentleman, Lox ranges from Punch to Satan; passing through the
stages
of an Indian Mephistopheles and the Norse Loki, who appears to have
been his
true progenitor. But neither is quite like anything to be found among
really
savage races. When it is borne in mind that the most ancient and mythic
of
these legends have been taken down from the trembling memories of old
squaws
who never understood their inner meaning, or from ordinary senaps
who
had not thought of them since boyhood, it will be seen that the
preservation of
a mass of prose poems, equal in bulk to the Kalevala or Heldenbuch, is
indeed
almost miraculous. 1 The word Eskimo is
Algonquin,
meaning to eat raw fish, Eskumoga in Micmac, and people who eat
raw
flesh, or Eskimook, that is, eski, raw, and moo-uk,
people. This word recalls in-noo-uk, people, and spirits, in
Eskimo, Innue,
which has the same double meaning. This was all suggested to me by an
Indian. |