December !, 1886.] 



♦ KNO^WLEIDGK ♦ 



' The Flood will come and drown you all.' Then these 

 Indians hurrahed again, and got their rattles and I'attled 

 them, and had a gi-and dance. The rain began to fall, and 

 they danced. The thunder roared, and they shook theii- 

 rattles and yelled at it . Then Glooskap was angiy. He 

 did not drown tlieni in tlie Flood, however, but he changed 

 them into Eattlesnakes. Nowadays, when they see a man 

 coming, they lift up their heads and move them about. 

 That's the way snakes dance. And they shake their rattles 

 in their tails, just as Indians shake their rattles wlien they 

 dance." * 



Among the Canadian Indians the dark storm-cloud is 

 supposed to be a gi-eat bird, and the lightnings are regarded 

 ;is writhing worms or serpents in its beak. These fiery 

 serpents are believed in to this day, and the thunder is 

 their hissing.f These serpents are also referred to among 

 the Algonkin traditions. Michabohad a great conflict with 

 the shining prince of serpents, who lives in the lake, and 

 Hoods the earth with its wateis. He destroyed him with a 

 dart, and, clothing himself with the skin of his foe, he drove 

 the rest of the serpents to the south, " where in that latitude 

 the lightnings are last seen in the autumn." The Iroquois 

 also tell of a great horned serpent '• which rose out of the 

 lake and devoured the people," until a hero destroyed it 

 with a thunderbolt. J 



Michalio not only overciime the prince of serpents, but 

 likewise became master of the thunder and lightning, and 

 with these he destroys his enemies. This again bears a 

 strong resemblance to an Iroquois myth, about their 

 thunder god, Heno. He rides through the heavens on the 

 clouds, and hurls thunderbolts at his enemies, often splitting 

 great forest trees, and making vast chasms in the earth with 

 his mighty weapons. He gathers the clouds, pours out the 

 warm rains, and is chosen as patron of industry, invoked at 

 seed-time and harvest, and called grandfather by his childfen 

 tlic Indians.§ 



Some tribes believe that thunder is the voice of the Gre;it 

 Spii-it of the four winds speaking from the clouds, telling 

 them that the time of corn-planting is near. |{ 



The Mississippi Indians believe that the first man 

 ascended into heaven, and thunders there.^ The following 

 Passamaquoddy myth relates the story of a man who became 

 a " thunder " for a while, but returned to earth after an 

 absence of seven years. The Passamaquoddies believe that 

 the rumble of the thundeistorm and the flashes of lightning 

 are the demonstrations of thunder-spirits, who are playing 

 ball and shooting their arrows in the heavens.** One day a 

 Passamaquoddy Indian wished to become "a thunder." All 

 at once his companions saw him mounting to the sky in the 

 smoke of the camp fii-e. He was taken up to the abode of the 

 thunders, |ilaced in a long box, and by some mysterious pi-o- 

 cess invested with the properties and existence of a thunder 

 spirit : or, as Louis Jlitchell puts it, he was " thunderfied." 

 He lived for seven years among the thunders, played ball 

 with them in the sky, shot his gleaming arrows with them 

 at the bird tliey are always chasing toward the South, 

 uiairied a female thunder-spirit, and pursued an active and 

 contented life of thunder and lightning. Seven years after 



• Leiand, " Algonkin Legends," p. iii. ' 



t Fiske, " Myths and Myth-makers,' p. 5] . 



t BrintOD, "Mvths of the New World," p. 122. 



§ Tylor, " Prini. Cult.," Vol. II., p. 30.5. 



II Schoolcraft, " Indian Tribes," i., p. .S19. 



f Tylor, " Prim. Cult.," Vol. II., p. 312. 



** In Xorth Germany, the peasants stiU say of thunder that the 

 angels are playing skittles aloft ; and of the snow, that they are 

 shaking the feather beds in heaven. Baring-Gould's " Book of 

 Werewolves," p. 172. [In Brittany, the same idea of skittles or 

 bowling games going on in heaven prevails : " The gods are playing 

 at bowls " the servants tell the children when it thunders. — R. P.] 



his translation a violent storm passed over the encampment 

 of the Passamaquoddies ; theie was an unusual and frightful 

 contention among the thunder spirits; the rumbles were 

 more terrible than Passamariuoddy had ever heard before ; 

 the air smelled of brimstone ; tlie sky blazed with red and 

 yellow flames ; the clouds opened, and great forks of fire 

 shot out of them : the rain fell in sheets ; peal answered 

 peal; one tongue of lightning spat out tire to another. The 

 Passamaqroddies, who never had beheld such a storm, 

 believed that the legions of the thunder-spirits were waging 

 their most awful war. They fell down and crossed them- 

 selves. In the midst of their alarm they s;tw a human form 

 slide down into their c;uup on a beam of light. It was 

 their old friend, who had made his escape from pursuing 

 thunders, shaken off his " timnderfied " existence, and re- 

 turned to them. He had changed somewhat, but all his old 

 fi'iends knew him. On this point, at least, he was more 

 fortunate than poor Rip Van Winkle, whose story, in some 

 respects, resembles the above. The legend quaintly concludes 

 with the words, " He lived with his tribe till he died."* 



This myth agrees almost word for word with a legend 

 found in the manuscript of Louis Mitchell. These 

 " thunders," however, had wings. The chief would give 

 them orders when to put them on, and always warned them 

 not to go too low, for " it is sure death for them to be caught 

 in the crotch of a tree." The roar and crash of the thunder 

 is the sound of their wings, and their great amusement is to 

 play ball across the sky. When they return they carefully 

 put away their wings for their next flight. Leiand considers 

 that this legend is unquestionably of Eskimo origin, or 

 common to the Eskimo ; also, because it speaks of thunders 

 as always endeavouring to kill a great bird in the south. 

 This is probably the thunder, or storm-bird, called by the 

 Passamaquoddies W(>chotvsen,that is, Wind-Blower. Another 

 legend makes Thunder and Lightning the sous of Mount 

 Ivatahdin.t 



With regard to the Wind- Blower, the following tale is 

 told by the Passamaquoddies : — " The Indians k-lieve tluit 

 this bird lives far in the north, and sits upon a great rock 

 at the end of the sky ; t aucl it is because whenever he moves 

 his wings the wind "blows, they of old times called him that. 

 When Glooskap was among men, he often went out in his 

 canoe with bow and iu-rows to kill sea-fowl. At one time it 

 was every day very windy ; it grew worse ; at last it blew a 

 tempest, and he could not go out at all. Then he said, 

 ' Wuchowsen, the Great Bird, has done this ! ' He went to 

 find him ; it was long ere he reached his abode. - He found, 

 sitting on a high rock, a large white bii-d. ' Grandfather,' 

 said Glooskap, ' you take no compas.sion on your Koosesek, 

 your grandchildren. You have caused this wind and storm ; 

 it is too much. Be easier with your wings I ' 



' The Giant Bird replied : ' I have been here since ancient 

 times; in the earliest days, ere atight else spoke, I first 

 moved my wings ; mine was the first voice, and I will ever 

 move my wings as I will.' Then Glooskap rose in his might; 

 he rose to the clouds ; he took the Great Giant Bird 

 Wuchowsen as though he were a duck, and tied both his 

 wings, and threw him down into a chasm between deep 

 rocks, and left him Iving there. The Indians could now go 



* Extract from Hie Lerciston Journal, and reprinted in Nem York 

 Tribune for September 30, 1886. 



t " Algonquin Legends of New England." Leiand, p. 265. 



{ Compare this with the account of Hroesvelgr, the name of a 

 giant referred to in the Edda. " In the shape of an eagle he sits at 

 the end of heaven ; from his wings cometh all wind upon men. He 

 sits at the north side of heaven, and when he flaps his wings, the 

 winds flap from under them." The Hindus also believe that tempests 

 come from Garuda's wings. " Somadeva," 22, 102 : the motion of 

 his flight stirs the wind. Grimm's " Teutonic Mythology," Vol. II., 

 p. 633. 



