39 
The Great Serpent 
Nzagima, the chief of the water-serpents whose contest with the 
thunders was related above, has huge eyes like looking-glasses and travels 
at tremendous speed through the water with only its nose protruding above 
the surface. Leaving Sault Ste. Marie one evening it appeared at Niagara 
falls early the next morning. One informant, Pegahmagabow, ascribed 
to it seven heads, and said that it guarded the heart of the land, which 
lay between Georgian bay, lake Michigan, and Sault river. Only certain 
sorcerers could see it, sorcerers who during their childhood fasts had 
been visited by Nzagima in the guise of a man, and instructed to offer 
tobacco and to summon it when they needed its aid. Such a sorcerer, in 
later life, would sit on a sandspit on a cloudless day (for Nzagima dreads 
the thunder), and summon it with a medicine-song accompanied by a 
drum. A black hell-diver would appear, followed by a white; then a 
black loon, likewise followed by a white loon. Finally the serpent itself 
would rise to the surface and draw its long body over the sandspit, await- 
ing the man’s request. The sorcerer might ask for a medicine to cure 
rheumatism, or to kill some enemy. Then the serpent would quiver in a 
certain spot, and the man would scrape off his medicine there with a 
wooden spoon, or a knife, wrap it in birch bark and deposit it in his 
medicine bag. One informant, Pegahmagabow, stated that sorcerers 
occasionally sacrificed to Nzagima a white dog, in imitation of the wabeno’s 
sacrifice of a white dog to the sun and moon ; but some other Indians who 
were questioned on this point were unable to confirm the statement. 
There is current also on Parry island, however, a very different 
account of the great serpent, which makes it not the enemy of the Ojibwa 
and the patron of sorcerers, but, through the agency of mede medicine- 
men, a benefactor. In this account there are two great serpents, a male, 
Nzagima , that is black and has horns like a deer, and a female that is 
white. The usual name for both is simply mishiginebik, “ big snakes.” 
They punish persons who mock at the supernatural beings, or use their 
medicine-powers for evil purposes, by devouring their souls after death 
and thereby preventing them from sharing the joys of the afterlife in 
the home of Nanibush in the west. Mede medicine-men greatly covet 
pieces of Nzagima’ s horns, which they obtain in the same way as the 
flesh-medicine described above. The grandfather of Tom King possessed 
a piece, which he handed down to his son and grandson. Tom inherited 
only a tiny fragment which he has long since exhausted; but he claims 
that it was a wonderful remedy for fever when combined with certain 
herbs, and that it saved the lives of several Indians who were at the 
point of death. 
The contradiction between these two versions seems to reflect the 
different beliefs held by the Parry Islanders concerning the Midewiwin or 
society of mede medicine-men. To the two surviving members of that 
society, and to one or two other old people who are not members, but 
are familiar to some extent with its rites and purpose, the great serpent 
was but one of many manidos which could be employed for either good 
or evil. It might be the enemy of thunder, sometimes even of man, 
just as one tribe of Indians is hostile to another tribe; but it was not 
