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Mermen and Mermaids 
Mermen and mermaids, dibanabe , are human in form except that they 
have the tails of fish. Indians have seen them sitting on the shore, but 
their appearance presages the death of a relative. The majority are mer- 
maids, whose little children often create waves by their play. They 
originated from the following circumstance: 
“ Long ago the Indians discovered a sturgeon in a spring. Their elders warned 
them not to touch it, but some one imprudently cooked it and a number of people 
joined in the feast. When the hunters returned to the camp that evening they found 
all their relatives who had eaten of the sturgeon being rapidly transformed into 
fish. Some had changed completely, others remained half-human still; but all alike 
were struggling towards the water, or weeping near the shore with the water lapping 
their shoulders, while their unchanged kinsfolk strove in vain to draw them back. 
The medicine-men called on their manidos for help, but the utmost they could 
accomplish was to check any further transformation” (Jonas King). 
Invisible Indians 
There are two kinds of invisible Indians, both closely akin to manidos, 
and usually classed as such. One kind has no name, the other is called 
bagudzinishinabe, “Little Wild Indians.” To see an individual of either 
kind confers the blessing of attaining old age. 
The nameless kind uses the red fox for hunting instead of the dog. 
We see the tracks of the foxes, but not of their masters, except those 
they made on the rocks before the Indians came to this country. At that 
time the sun drew so close to the earth that it softened the rocks, and 
the feet of these invisible people left marks on them. When the sun with- 
drew the rocks hardened again and the footprints remained petrified on 
their surfaces. 
The “ Little Wild Indians ” are dwarfs that do no harm, but play 
innumerable pranks on human beings. Though small, no larger in fact 
than a little child, they are immensely strong. Sometimes they shake the 
poles of a wigwam, or throw pebbles on its roof ; or they steal a knife from 
a man’s side and hide it in his lodge, so that later he wonders how it came 
there. Often an Indian will eat and eat and still feel unsatisfied; he wonders 
how he can eat so much and still be hungry, for the dwarfs, unseen, are 
stealing the food from his dish. Occasionally you hear the reports of their 
guns, but cannot see either the dwarfs or their tracks. Yet Pegahmagabow 
once saw their tracks, like those of a tiny baby, on a muddy road on 
Parry island. Certain dwarfs haunt a crevasse in a rock on French river, 
where they sometimes make themselves visible; if you throw them some 
food they disappear. 
The “ Little Wild Indians ” are the Brownies of Parry Island 
mythology, except that the adults believe in their existence no less than 
the children. 
Nameless Manidos 
The various supernatural beings just listed are but a few of the 
innumerable manidos whom the Indians believe to surround them on all 
sides. The vast majority have no names, yet probably every adult on 
Parry Island reserve has seen one or more of them at some time or other 
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