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The Story of the Great Chenoo, as told
by the Passamaquoddies. (Passamaquoddy.) What the Micmacs call a
Chenoo is known to the Passamaquoddies as a Kewahqu' or Kewoqu'.
And this is their origin. When the k'tchi m'teoulin, or Great Big Witch,14
is conquered by the smaller witches, or M'teoulinssisk, they can kill
him or turn him into a Kewahqu'. He still fights, however, with the
other Kewaquiyck. When they get ready to fight, they suddenly become as
tall as the highest trees; their weapons are the trees themselves, which they
uproot with great strength. And this strength depends upon the quantity or size
of the piece of ice which makes the heart of the Kewahqu'. This piece of
ice is like distance. "There is a great female Kewahqu' coming to fight
me. In the struggle I may not know you, and may hurt you." So they went
away as fast and as far as they could, but they heard the fighting, the most
frightful noises, howls, yells, thundering and crashing of wood and rocks.
After a time the man determined to see the fight. When he got to the place he
saw a horrible sight: big trees uprooted, the giants in a deadly struggle. Then
the Indian, who was very brave, and who was afraid that his father-in-law would
be killed, came up and helped as much as he could, and in fact so much that
between them they killed the enemy. The old Kewahqu' was badly but not fatally
hurt, and the woman was very glad her father came off victorious. She had
always heard that a Kewahqu' had a piece of ice for a heart. If this can be
taken out, the Kewahqu' can be tamed and cured. So she made a preparation or
medicine, and offered it to him. He did not know what it was, nor its strength,
so he swallowed it, and it gave him a vomit. She saw something drop, so quietly
picked it up: it was the figure of a man of ice; it was the Kewahqu's heart.
She, not being seen or noticed, put it in the fire, when he cried,"
Daughter, you are killing me now; you destroy my strength." Yet she made
him take more of the medicine, and a second heart came out. This she also put
on the fire. But when a third came he grabbed it from her hand, and swallowed
it. However, he was almost entirely cured. Another time an Indian
village was visited by a Kewahqu', but he was driven away by magic. The people
marked crosses on the trees where they expected the Kewahqu' to come.
There was a great excitement among the Indians, expecting to hear their strange
visitor with his frightful noises. It was the old people who gave the advice to
mark crosses on the trees. Another time an Indian of either
the Passamaquoddy or Mareschite tribe was turned to a Kewahqu'. The last time
he was seen was by a party of Indian hunters, who recognized him. He had only
small strips of clothing. "This country,"' he said," is too warm
for me. I am going to a colder one." This story from the
Passamaquoddy Anglo-Indian, manuscript of Mitchell supplies some very important
deficiencies in the preceding Micmac version. We are told that the heart
of the Chenoo is of ice in human figure. This human figure is that of the Kewahqu'
himself, or rather his very self, or microcosm. It is this, and not the liver,
which is swallowed by the victor, who thus adds another frozen "soul"
to his own. Of the three vomited by the Kewahqu', two were the hearts of
enemies whom he had conquered. He could not give up his own, however. It is
much more according to common sense that the woman should have given the
cannibal the magic medicine which made him yield his heart than that he should
voluntarily have purged himself. In the Micmac tale he merely relieves his
stomach; in the Passamaquoddy version he, by woman's influence, loses his icy heart.
It is interesting to observe that the use of the Christian cross is in the
additional anecdote described as magic. It is the main point in the
Chenoo stories that this horrible being, this most devilish of devils, is at
first human; perhaps an unusually good girl, or youth. From having the heart
once chilled, she or he goes on in cruelty, until at last the sufferer eats the
heart of another Chenoo, especially a female's. Then utter wickedness ensues.
It is more than probable that this leads us back to some dark and terrible
Shaman superstition, older than we can now fathom. There is a passage in the
Edda which its translator, Thorpe, thinks can never be explained. "I
believe," he writes, "the difficulty is beyond help." The lines
are as follows: — "Loki
scorched up15 In his heart's affections, Had
found a half-burnt Woman's heart. Loki became guileful from
that wicked woman: thence in the world are all
giantesses come." Of which Thorpe writes, "The sense of this and the following line is not apparent. They stand thus in the original: Loki of hiarta lyrdi brendu, fann hann halfsvidthin hugstein konu, for which Grimm (Myth. Vorrede 37) would read Loki at hiarta lundi brenda, etc., Lokius comedit cor in nemore assum, invenit semiustum mentis lapidem mulieris." Whatever obscurity exists here, it is evident that it means that Loki, having become bad, grew worse after having got the half-burnt stone of a woman's soul. That is, his own heart, half ruined, became utterly so after he had added to it the demoralized hugstein, soul-stone, thought-stone, or heart of a woman. If we assume that stone and heart are the same, the difficulty vanishes. And they are one in the Chenoo, who, like Loki, illustrates or symbolizes the passage from good to evil, which a German writer declares is quicker than thought, or that very same Ilugi which the Norse myth puts forwards as swiftest of all runners. Loki, not as yet lost, gets the stone heart of a giantess, and becomes an utter devil at once. The Chenoo becomes an utter devil when he has swallowed the thought-stone of a giantess, and so does Loki. ____________________________
14 When legends from the Anglo-Indian
manuscript collection of Mitchell are given, many of the phrases or words in
the original are retained, without regard to style or correctness. Wizard is
here placed for witch. 15 The
Edda, p. 112 |