Now it is told in another tradition — and men tell even this differently — that pitche, in these old times (P.) Glooskap's seven neighbors, who were all so many different animals, took away his family, and that he followed them, even as it has been written, unto Newfoundland. And when he came there it was night, and, finding Marten alone, he took him forth into the forest to seek food, putting his belt on the boy, which gave him such power that he hunted well and got much meat.

So it came to pass that the next morning Dame Kah-kah-gooch, the Crow,⁴² observed that Marten was drying meat on his wigwam. And this she spread abroad. But when the people learned that the child had done this, a great fear came upon them all, and they sat every man in his lodge and awaited death, for they knew that the Master had come.

And he indeed came; but when he saw them all as frightened as rabbits before the wild-cat, he laughed aloud and forgave them, for he was noble and generous. And as they were hungry — for he had come in hard times — he gave them much venison, and sorrow departed from their wigwams. But as they had left him of old, he now left them. When they knew him not they left him to die; now that they knew him they feared lest they should perish without him. But he turned his steps towards other paths.

Now having made a canoe, the Master, with Marten and Dame Bear, went upon a mighty river. As the story says, it was broad and beautiful at first, and so they sailed away down towards its mouth. Then they came to great cliffs, which gathered round and closed over them. But the river ran on beneath these, and ever on far underground, deeper and deeper in the earth, till it dashed headlong into rapids, among rocks and ravines, and under cataracts which were so horrible that death seemed to come and go with every plunge of the canoe. And the water grew narrower and the current more dreadful, and fear came upon Marten and the woman, so that they died. But the Master sat with silent soul, though he sang the songs of magic, and so passed into the night, but came forth again into sunlight. And there was a lonely wigwam on the bank, into which he bore Marten and the grandmother, and saying, "Numchahse! arise!" lo, they arose, and deemed they had only slept. And now Glooskap had gained the greatest power.⁴³

This incident of passing through darkness, on a roaring stream in a frail bark, before emerging to sunlight or illumination, was not only in the ancient heathen myths. We are reminded of it by the storm through which Jesus passed with the disciples. That it made a great impression upon the Indians is shown by its being told of Pulewech, the Partridge, who is a type of Glooskap, and who, like him, makes war on the powers of evil, set forth in the Porcupines. The Indians, who imagined and selected so many wild and terrible tests to form the Shaman, or sorcerer, as well as the warrior, would hardly neglect that of de profundis clamari, the storm, the waves, darkness, and the roaring flood.

If there is really any Norse influence in this tale, this river must be the one mentioned in the Vafthrudnismal, —

It will be observed that, having gone down or across this stream, Pulewech finds himself in the country of the Evil sorcerers; that is, Jotunheim. To conquer a river among the Norse, in a dream, was a sign of victory; to be carried away by one was a terrible omen.

^35. This legend of the tortoise is carefully compiled from six different versions: the narration of Tomah Josephs, a Passamaquoddy; the Anglo-Indian manuscript, already cited; two accounts in the Rand manuscript; the author quoted without credit in The Maritime Provinces; and one by Mrs. W. Wallace Brown. As the totem of the Tortoise was of the highest rank among the Algonquins, this account of its origin is of corresponding interest. Having employed an old Indian to carve the handle of a war or scalping knife for me, such as was used by his Passamaquoddy ancestors, he carved on it a tortoise. It was especially the totem of the Lenni-Lenape, called by the Passamaquoddies Lel-le-mabe, "the people."

^36. All invitations to festivals, or formal ceremonies, proposals of marriage, etc., were preceded among these tribes by a gift of wampum.

^37. In a verbal Passamaquoddy narrative (John Gabriel), and in one given in The Maritime Provinces, this was effected by Glooskap with tobacco-smoke from his pipe. In Mr. Rand's manuscript it is the smoke of the tent-fire. The Passamaquoddy narrations are invariably more spirited and humorous than the Micmac.

^38. This is amusingly, though not very clearly, set forth in the Indian manuscript as follows: "Make believe but you dond want be trown. So he shaken hands witt is nuncel kick hororch good by do him. Tell is uncle you — I shall not be kill and I am going Lever (to live) — we may meet again."

^39. This in the original is extremely like Brer Rabbit's prayer not to be thrown into the brier-bush. As this legend is one of the oldest of the Algonquin, and certainly antedating the coming of the whites, I give it the priority over the negro.

^40. I have met with an old Indian woman in New Brunswick who told me that her grandmother remembered to have seen tobacco raised there by the Passamaquoddy.

^41. In this "tale of tobacco," told me by John Gabriel, the evil-minded magician is described as a Black Cat. This is probably an error, as Glooskap himself appears as chief of the Black Cats in another tale. It may be, however, that this was Pook-jin-skwess in disguise.