MALLERY. } MYTHIC ANIMALS. 469 
of themes and their treatment were not conventional and showed some 
originality and individuality both in design and execution. From the 
appearance and surroundings of the rock drawings now specially under 
discussion they were probably of considerable antiquity and suggested 
that the Miemacs, who doubtless were the artists, had gained the idea of 
practicing art for itself, not merely using the devices of pictography for 
practical purposes, such as to record the past or to convey information. 
Fig. 654 is one of the drawings mentioned, and indicates one episode 
among the very numerous adventures of Glooscap, the Hero-God of the 
Abnaki, several of which are connected with a powerful witch called by 
Mr. Leland Pook-jin-skwess, or the Evil Pitcher, and by Mrs. W. 
Wallace Brown, Pokinsquss, the Jug Woman. She is also called the 
toad woman, from one of her transformations, and often appeared in a 
; 
oI chiens 
C00 ower K 
Fic. 654.—Myth of Pokinsquss 
male form to fight Glooscap after he had disdained her love proffered 
asafemale. Among the multitude of tales on this general theme, one 
narrates how Glooscap was at one time a Pogumk, or the small animal 
of the weasel family commonly called Fisher (Mustela Canadensis), also 
translated as Black Cat, and was the son of the chief of a village of 
Indians who were all Black Cats, his mother being a bear. Doubtless 
these animal names and the attributes of the animals in the tales refer 
to the origin of totemic divisions among the Abnaki. Pokinsquss was 
also of the Black Cat village, and hated the chief and contrived long 
how she could kill him and take his place. Now, one day when the 
camp had packed up to travel, the witch asked the chief Pogumk to 
go with her to gather gull’s eggs; and they went far away in a canoe 
to an island where the gulls were breeding and landed there, and then 
she hid herself to spy, and having found out that the Pogumk was 
Glooscap, ran to the canoe and paddled away singing: 
Nikhed-ha Pogumk min nekuk, 
Netswil sagamawin! 
