Algonquin Legends of New England

by Charles Godfrey Leland

"There was once a young man who wished to become a very wise and brave warrior, like his father. And his father said to him, 'I get all my luck of every kind from my dreams. You can have such dreams; any man can, if he will do a certain thing; but that thing is not easy for a young man like you. You must sleep seven nights with a virgin, and never touch her.'

"The young man thought this over for a few days, and then asked his father how it could be arranged or managed.

"'I will tell you,' replied the old man. 'Find a girl; the more beautiful she is and the more you want her, the stronger the magic will be. Go to the parents for their daughter as a wife. Cheat them so. Before you marry get seven bear-skins, and let no man except one know anything about it. Make him clean them. One skin should be cleaned every twenty-four hours. Seven days must pass so.'

"The young man was accepted by the parents; he sent the seven bear-skins to the young woman; they were married; they went to their wigwam. He lay on the bear-skins; he directed his wife to make another bed and sleep on it. They lay apart. The bride thought this was strange; she told her mother of it. The mother said, 'Never mind. By and by it will be all right.' The wife thought it was all wrong. When seven nights had passed the bridegroom disappeared. He was not seen in his village for twenty-five or thirty years. Then he returned to his father. He could divine all things by dreams. He had but to take the magic bear-skin and sleep on it, and dream. He could tell where to find good hunting or fishing. He foredreamed war with the Mohawks. Can any man do this? They say so, and I have known many who tried it in vain. They could not pass the trial successfully."

"There are stones in the forest with names on them. They give great power to dream. I have seen in my dreams the m'teoulin of ancient times,—the magicians, my father told me, of long ago. I have seen them diving under the waters from one island to another. I have seen them dive ten miles.

"When I was, young, J. N., who was a great m'teoulin, offered to teach me the art. I could have become one, but I would not. I did not think it was right.

"Once old J. N. and my grandfather hunted in the woods. It was near Katahdin, the Great Mountain. [Footnote: Katahdin, like the Intervale near North Conway, is haunted and enchanted ground, abounding in fairies and other marvelous beings. But there is not a mile square of New England which has not its legends.] And they wanted everything. They had got out of everything. One night old N. said, 'I can bear this no longer. Would you like a nice pipe of tobacco? We have had nothing but meat for four weeks.' So he went away for a short time; perhaps it was an hour. He returned with a box. There was in it three pounds of tobacco; there was cheese, rice, and sugar; there was fifty pounds of provision in all."

This famous m'teoulin was long a popular governor of the Passamaquoddies. I have a curious old brass candlestick, said to be one hundred and fifty years old, which he owned all his life. The following remarkable reminiscences of this very clever old sagamore were given to me by Marie Sakis, a Penobscot:

"The old governor was a great m'teoulin. He had got it among the Chippewas. He said that it would come to pass that he would die before the next snow-storm. No, he did not care himself, but my husband's mother did, when she heard this, and she cried. Then he said, 'Well, I will try to live, or else die in a month; but it will be a hard fight.' So he made him a bow, and strung it with his wife's hair; [Footnote: In a Chippewa legend a boy confers magic power on a bow by stringing it with his sister's hair.] and having done this, he shot an arrow through the smoke-hole of his wigwam. [Footnote: This is also mentioned in a legend where it is said that every arrow killed a supernatural enemy.]

All this was at Nessaik, near Eastport. Then he said to his wife, 'Take one of your leggins and put it on my head.' She did so. Then he took medicine. A rainbow appeared in the sky, and a great horse-fly came out of his mouth, and then a large grasshopper. He cried to his wife, 'Do not kill it!' And then came a stone spear-head. [Footnote: This is all in detail perfectly Shamanic. The smell of the fresh fish after such a fight is the same in an Eskimo legend. The horse-fly (gan) is Lapp.]