“Take the wise four-legged man,” said the old Chippeway, “and pull from his jaws seven of his teeth.”
The man did as he was directed, and brought the teeth to the old man. Then he bade him call all his people together, and when they were come the old man thus addressed them—
“I am old, and am tired of life, and wish to sleep the sleep of death. I will go hence. Take the seven teeth of the wise little four-legged man and drive them into my body.”
They did so, and as the last tooth entered him the old man died.
MUKUMIK! MUKUMIK! MUKUMIK!
Pauppukkeewis was a harum-scarum fellow who played many queer tricks, but he took care, nevertheless, to supply his family and children with food. Sometimes, however, he was hard-pressed, and once he and his whole family were on the point of starving. Every resource seemed to have failed. The snow was so deep, and the storm continued so long, that he could not even find a partridge or a hare, and his usual supply of fish had failed him. His lodge stood in some woods not far away from the shores of the Gitchiguma, or great water, where the autumnal storms had piled up the ice into high pinnacles, resembling castles.
“I will go,” said he to his family one morning, “to these castles, and solicit the pity of the spirits who inhabit them, for I know that they are the residence of some of the spirits of Rabiboonoka.”
He did so, and his petition was not disregarded. The spirits told him to fill his mushkemoots or sacks with the ice and snow, and pass on towards his lodge, without looking back, until he came to a certain hill. He was then to drop his sacks, and leave them till morning, when he would find them full of fish.