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Senecas. A Lox Legend

      How Lox told a Lie

      THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF MASTER RABBIT.

      How Master Rabbit sought to rival Kecoony, the Otter

      How Mahtigwess, the Rabbit, dined with the Woodpecker Girls, and was again humbled by trying to rival them

      Of the Adventure with Mooin, the Bear; it being the Third and Last Time that Master Rabbit made a Fool of himself

      Relating how the Rabbit became Wise by being Original, and of the

       Terrible Tricks which he by Magic played Loup-Cervier, the Wicked

       Wild-Cat

      How Master Rabbit went to a Wedding and won the Bride

      How Master Rabbit gave himself Airs

      The Young Man who was saved by a Rabbit and a Fox

      THE CHENOO LEGENDS.

      The Chenoo, or the Story of a Cannibal with an Icy Heart

      The Story of the Great Chenoo, as told by the Passamaquoddies

      The Girl-Chenoo

      THUNDER STORIES.

      Of the Girl who married Mount Katahdin, and how all the Indians brought about their own Ruin

      How a Hunter visited the Thunder Spirits who dwell on Mount Katahdin

      The Thunder and Lightning Men

      Of the Woman who married the Thunder, and of their Boy

      AT-O-SIS, THE SERPENT.

      How Two Girls were changed to Water-Snakes, and of Two others that became Mermaids

      Ne Hwas, the Mermaid

      Of the Woman who loved a Serpent that lived in a Lake

      The Mother of Serpents

      Origin of the Black Snakes

      THE PARTRIDGE.

      The Adventures of the Great Hero Pulowech, or the Partridge

      The Story of a Partridge and his Wonderful Wigwam

      How the Partridge built Good Canoes for all the Birds, and a Bad One for Himself

      The Mournful Mystery of the Partridge-Witch; setting forth how a Young

       Man died from Love

      How one of the Partridge's Wives became a Sheldrake Duck, and why her

       Feet and Feathers are red

      THE INVISIBLE ONE

      STORY OF THE THREE STRONG MEN

      THE WEEWILLMEKQ'

      How a Woman lost a Gun for Fear of the Weewillmekq'

      Muggahmaht'adem, the Dance of Old Age, or the Magic of the Weewillmekq'

      Another Version of the Dance of Old Age

      TALES OF MAGIC.

      M'teoulin, or Indian Magic

      Story of the Beaver Trapper

      How a Youth became a Magician

      Of Old Joe, the M'teoulin

      Of Governor Francis

      How a Chiefs Son taught his Friend Sorcery

      Tumilkoontaoo, or the Broken Wing

      Fish-Hawk and Scapegrace

      The Giant Magicians

      MIK UM WESS, THE INDIAN PUCK, OR ROBIN GOOD-FELLOW

      GLOOSKAP KILLING HIS BROTHER, THE WOLF

      GLOOSKAP LOOKING AT THE WHALE SMOKING HIS PIPE

      GLOOSKAP SETTING HIS DOGS ON THE WITCHES

      THE MUD-TURTLE JUMPING OVER THE WIGWAM OF HIS FATHER-IN-LAW

      GLOOSKAP AND KEANKE SPEARING THE WHALE

      GLOOSKAP TURNING A MAN INTO A CEDAR-TREE

      LOX CARRIED OFF BY CULLOO

      THE INDIAN BOY AND THE MUSK-RAT. SEEPS, THE DUCK

      THE RABBIT MAGICIAN

      THE CHENOO AND THE LIZARD

      THE WOMAN AND THE SERPENT

      INTRODUCTION

       Table of Contents

      Among the six chief divisions of the red Indians of North America the most widely extended is the Algonquin. This people ranged from Labrador to the far South, from Newfoundland to the Rocky Mountains, speaking forty dialects, as the Hon. J. H. Trumbull has shown in his valuable work on the subject. Belonging to this division are the Micmacs of New Brunswick and the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribes of Maine, who with the St. Francis Indians of Canada and some smaller clans call themselves the Wabanaki, a word derived from a root signifying white or light, intimating that they live nearest to the rising sun or the east. In fact, the French-speaking St. Francis family, who are known par eminence as "the Abenaki," translate the term by point du jour.

      The Wabanaki have in common the traditions of a grand mythology, the central figure of which is a demigod or hero, who, while he is always great, consistent, and benevolent, and never devoid of dignity, presents traits which are very much more like those of Odin and Thor, with not a little of Pantagruel, than anything in the characters of the Chippewa Manobozho, or the Iroquois Hiawatha. The name of this divinity is Glooskap, meaning, strangely enough, the Liar, because it is said that when he left earth, like King Arthur, for Fairyland, he promised to return, and has never done so. It is characteristic of the Norse gods that while they are grand they are manly, and combine with this a peculiarly domestic humanity. Glooskap is the Norse god intensified. He is, however, more of a giant; he grows to a more appalling greatness than Thor or Odin in his battles; when a Kiawaqu', or Jotun, rises to the clouds to oppose him, Glooskap's head touches the stars, and scorning to slay so mean a foe like an equal, he kills him contemptuously with a light tap of his bow. But in the family circle he is the most benevolent of gentle heroes, and has his oft-repeated little standard jokes. Yet he never, like the Manobozho-Hiawatha of the Chippewas, becomes silly, cruel, or fantastic. He has his roaring revel with a brother giant, even as Thor went fishing in fierce fun with the frost god, but he is never low or feeble.

      Around Glooskap, who is by far the grandest and most Aryan-like character ever evolved from a savage mind, and who is more congenial to a reader of Shakespeare and Rabelais than any deity ever imagined out of Europe, there are found strange giants: some literal Jotuns of stone and ice, sorcerers who become giants like Glooskap, at will; the terrible Chenoo, a human being with an icy-stone heart, who has sunk to a cannibal and ghoul; all the weird monsters and horrors of the Eskimo mythology, witches and demons, inherited from the terribly black sorcery which preceded Shamanism, and compared to which the latter was like an advanced religion, and all the minor mythology of dwarfs and fairies. The Indian m'teoulin, or magician, distinctly taught that every created thing, animate or inanimate, had its indwelling spirit. Whatever had an idea had a soul. Therefore the Wabanaki mythology is strangely like that of the Rosicrucians. But it created spirits for the terrible Arctic winters of the north, for the icebergs and frozen wastes, for the Northern Lights and polar bears. It made, in short, a mythology such as would be perfectly congenial to any one who has read and understood the Edda, Beowulf, and the Kalevala, with the wildest and oldest Norse sagas. But it is, as regards spirit

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