J AS. 30, ISSo.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE * 



91 



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THE LEGENDS OF THE ALGONQUIN 

 INDL\NS.* 



By Edward Clodd. 



THIS is a valua^ile atldition to the trustworthy litera- 

 ture of Red Indian folk-lore. The accomplished 

 author of the famous "Hans Breitmann Ballads," aud of 

 other humorous verse in hybrid dialects, has done larger 

 service in exchanging bis intercourse with dwindling 

 nomads like the gipsies for researches among tribes whose 

 traditions and folk-tales are found to exist in an unadul- 

 terated form ; imcorrupted, too, by the foreign aud modern 

 elements which surround them. 



Mr. Leland has not only taken down many of the tales 

 from the Algonquins themselves, in whose memories there 

 was no confusion apparent between what was and what 

 was not pre-Columbian, but has confirmed his own work, 

 and enriched his stock, by materials from sundry MS. 

 collections of educated Indians and agents resident amongst 

 the tribes. As in Mitford's "Tales of Old Japan " and 

 Rink's " Tales of the Eskimo," native artists have in- 

 creased the interest of this book, the reproductions of their 

 "etchings'" on birch-bark being characteristic and amusing. 



The Algonquins were once dominant both in numbers 

 and possessions among the aboriginal races of the St. 

 Lawrence Basin. But that unending struggle in which 

 through the whole range of animated nature only the 

 fitte-t sm'vives, has reduced them to a handful, aud, sur- 

 rounded as they now are by white men who have brought 

 them into the fold of the Catholic Church, it is matter for 

 both amazement and congratulation that there yet exists 

 among them in oral form a far grander mythology than i.'', 

 found among the Chippewa and the Iroquois. It is from 

 the North-Eastern Algonquins — the Passamaquoddy, 

 Micmac, and Penobscot tribes that the myths, legends, 

 folktales, beast-tales (of which some excellent and droll 

 examples of the Uncle Remus type are given), and tales of 

 magic, have been gathered by Mr. Leland, to whom, he 

 tells us, " 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." 



The materials of which these tales are compounded are 

 familiar to the student of barbaric lore, the variety con- 

 sisting in the different proportions of the ingredients. The 

 central figure in the larger number of tales is the demigod 

 or hero, Glooskap. He elects to come into the world like 

 other folk, but his twin brother, the evil Malsumsis, 

 "bursts through his mother's side," and thus causes her 

 death. Both the brothers had charmed lives, and the 

 crafty Malsumsis seeks in vain to learn the secret of 

 Glooskap's vulnerability, but, revealing his own, is killed 

 by Glooskap with a fern-root, which alone could slay him, 

 as only the mistletoe could slay Balder. Glooskap is in all 

 his achievements both human and superhuman ; creator and 

 culture-hero, he none the less enjoys his little joke.s, and 

 shakes with the laughter of the gods. He makes man by 

 shooting arrows at ash-trees (which were typical trees of 

 life, both among Norseman and Greek), when the Indians 

 emerge from their trunks. He makes animals huge at the 

 outset, but smaller by degrees as they one after another 

 prove too strong for men. As culture-deity, he clears away 

 the trees that man may till the soil, and teaches him how 



* "The Algonqnin Legends of New England." By Chas. G. 

 Lelaxd. (London : Sampson Low & Co. 1884.) 



to hunt, how to build huts and canoes, aud weirs for fish. 

 " He the Great blaster showed them the hidden virtues of 

 plants, roots, and barks, aud pointed out to them such 

 vegetables as might be used for food, as well as what kinds 

 of animals, birds, and fish were to bo eaten. And when 

 this was done, ho taught them the names of all the .stais. 

 He loved mankind, and wherever he might be in the 

 wilderness he was never very far away from any of the 

 Indians. He dwelt in a lonely laud, but whenever they 

 sought him they found him. Ho travelled far aud wide i 

 there is no place in all the land of the Wabanaki where he 

 left not his name ; hills, rocks, aud rivers, lakes and islands 

 bear witness to him.''* 



Glooskap means the Liar ; and ho is thus ungratefully 

 named because he has not redeemed his promise to return 

 to the earth. The following extract from a !Micmac 

 legend, in which the story of his departure occurs, is a 

 fair specimen of the stately aud withal simple manner in 

 which the talcs are set down : — 



" Eoic Gloo/kap, leariifj the World, nil the animals mourned for 

 him, and how, ere he departed, lie 'jave Uifts to Men." 



Now Glooskap Iiad freed the world from all the mighty monsters 

 of an early time: the giants wandered no longer in the wilderness: 

 the ciillo terrified man no more, as it spread its wings like the cloud 

 between him and the sun ; the dreadful Chenoot of the North de- 

 voured him not ; no evil beasts, devils, and serpents were to be 

 found near his home. Aud the blaster had, moreover, taught men 

 the arts which made them happier ; but they were not gi-atef ul to 

 him, and though they worshipped hira, they were not the less 

 wicked. 



Now, when the ways of men aud beasts waxed evil, they greatly 

 vexed Glooskap, and ot length he could no longer endure them, aud 

 he made a rich feast by the shores of the Great Lake iliuas. -Ill 

 the beasts came to it; and when the feast was over he got into a 

 great canoe, and the beasts looked after him till they saw him no 

 more. And, after they ceased to see him, they still heard his voice 

 as he sang ; but the sounds grew fainter and fainter in the distance, 

 and at last they wholly died away; and then deep silence fell on 

 them all, and a great marvel came to pass ; and the beasts, who 

 had till now spoken but one language, were no longer able to under- 

 stand each other, and they fled away, each his own way, and nevei- 

 again have tliey met together in council. Until the day when 

 Glooskap shall return to restore the Golden Ago, and make men 

 and animals dwell once more in amity and peace, all nature mourns. 

 And tradition says that on his departure from Acadia the great 

 snowy owl retired to the deep forests, to return no more nntil he 

 could come to welcome Glooskap ; and in those sylvan depths the 

 owls ever, yet repeat to the night, " Koo-koo-skoos 1 " which is to 

 say in the Indian tongue, ' Oh, I am soiTy ! Oh, I am sorry ! ' 

 And the Loons, who had been the huntsmen of Glooskap, go rest- 

 lessly up and down through the world, seeking vainly for their 

 master, whom they cannot find, and wailing sadly because they find 

 him not."t 



In the above account of the confusion of speech among 

 beasts there is the underlying barbaric belief in community 

 of nature between them and man, which is due to totemism, 

 for, as another Micmac legend says : " In old times ; in the 

 beginning of things, men were as animals, and animals a« 

 men ; how this was, no one knows." In a Passamaquoddy 

 legend Glooskap's totemic name is Black Cat ; Mikchich, 

 another hero's name, means the Turtle ; aud in the boy 

 whose totem name was the Sable, and who has a flute, the 

 player of which could entice to himself all the animals, we 



* The author has the following footnote — "This is from the 

 Pvanch manuscript. The writer remarks that these expressions 

 were the very words of a Micmac Indian named Stephen Flood, 

 who had no idea that he was using almost the identical expressions 

 of Holy Writ with reference to God." 



t The Chenoo, about whom Mr. Leland has collected legends 

 (lide pp. 233-254), is a terrible cannibal with a heart of ice, which 

 is a replica of the monster, and which adds another " soul " to the 

 victor who svrallows it. 



J pp. 6S-C8. 



