C
Then Gluskabe went away from there to the ocean. And he followed a river up as far as the great divide (the frontier between New England and Canada). There he started up a moose and this moose started to make away among the rivers in the direction of Penobscot Valley. Pukdjinskwessu knew that he was coming, for she could sense it, being a magic woman. Then she wanted to plague Gluskabe, for she wanted to scare away from him the moose so that he could not kill him. But that Gluskabe knew it, that Pukdjinskwessu, how she wanted to plague him. So he thought, “On account of this, you will not see me passing by.” Accordingly, that Pukdjinskwessu wandered all about to see if she could find out whether anyone had gone by. But she could see nothing except how the tracks of his snowshoes were left on the bare ledge. For a long time she followed the tracks, but at last she lost the tracks of Gluskabe, because he commanded, in his mind, that she could not find him. Then Gluskabe went down to a river, and he saw the very moose he was following; and he shot at it, and there it fell, the moose. And while he was falling he went up and skinned it, and after he had skinned it he took out its intestines. Then he threw them to his dog. He threw them where the moose was killed. That is now called “moose buttocks” by the people. And as the intestines of that moose were stretched out there they showed white underneath the water. And even, now and forever until the end of the world, they will be white.[60] That is as far as my story goes.
[60] Neptune stated that Gluskabe threw the moose’s head to a place which became known as “Musα̨dáp,” “Moosehead,” but he did not know where this was. This is also the native name of Moosehead Lake, which may have been the place indicated in the story. (Cf. Jos. Laurent, New Familiar Abenakis and English Dialogues, Quebec, 1884, p. 216, and Maurault, op. cit. p. IV.) Gov. Newell Lyon, of the Penobscot tribe, added that this is probably the upper end of Islesboro (formerly Long Island) in Penobscot Bay. This still has the name We·ni·α̨ŋgánik “Has a head” in the Malecite language, probably having been named by some Malecite. At Castine Head, where the lighthouse is now, is a place called Madə´ŋgαmαs, “Old homely snowshoe.” The Indians claim that this is where Pukdjinskwessu gave up her chase, the same story occurring in the Penobscot. In several large crevices in the ledge here are the marks of two snowshoes, one a regular one, the other a woman’s shoe, short and round.