(3) Nenebuc Transforms the Bear.[15]
Nenebuc in his tracks encountered the great Bear that killed and ate the Indians—so many of them that they feared they would all be killed. So Nenebuc went to the Bear and said, “You are eating so many of the Indians that they will all be gone soon. Now I am going to make you small and harmless.” Then he made him into the Squirrel and turned the Squirrel into the Bear, and the Bear, now in Squirrel’s shape, felt so badly that he cried until his eyebrows turned grey. That is the reason why to this day squirrels have grey eyelids.
“Now,” said Nenebuc, “what will you eat?” The Bear, now a Squirrel, said he would continue to eat people, but he was so small that he could not do anything. “That is good,” said Nenebuc. “Now you can’t do any harm to the Indians. But you had better change your food. Just run up that black-spruce tree and taste the acorn seeds and then see whether you want to eat people any more. You are too small to eat people as you used to do.” So the Squirrel ran up the black-spruce tree and tasted the sweet seed of the cone. He liked it so well, it tasted so sweet, that he chose this for his food and said that he would not want anything better any more. That is his food to-day.
(4) Wemicus.
Wemicus had a very large family. Many of his children had married the different animals who lived in various parts of the surrounding country. By and by he had nearly all kinds of animals for his sons-in-law, and there were still a great many children left in his family. When winter came, Wemicus was unable to support his family, as there were too many of them. They were all living in one wigwam.
One day Wemicus said to his wife, “We are all very hungry. I might go and see one of our sons-in-law; he might have some [[40]]food.” Next morning he started out. Wemicus always tried to imitate the actions of everybody he saw. When he reached the home of his son-in-law Ninicip (Black Duck) he saw that he also had a large family. Ninicip was inside of his wigwam, and when he saw Wemicus coming, he told his wife, “You had better begin to get ready for company and boil water in the stone pail.” Then he jumped up upon the cross poles in his wigwam[16] and in vas lapidum sub se[17] defaecavit, telling his wife to stir up the contents of the pot. Wemicus apparently saw nothing of this. Then one of the children of Ninicip took spoons and, dipping them in the pot, said, “Soup, soup, soup, rice soup.” Wemicus tasted the soup, thought it tasted good, and decided that after this he would make soup in the same manner.
The next morning, when Wemicus started for home, he was given some rice soup to take home to his children. Before leaving the wigwam of Ninicip, however, Wemicus had purposely left behind one of his mittens. One of the children saw the mitten and Ninicip’s wife sent the child to return it, bidding him not to go too close to Wemicus but to throw him the mitten. The child did the bidding of his mother and, when the mitten was thrown to Wemicus, he said, “Ask your father to come and see me,” and he named a certain day. On the way back home Wemicus thought, “I wonder what this soup tastes like when it is cold. I must try it. My children don’t need any of it, so I might as well eat it all.” So he ate all of the soup. When he reached his wigwam he said, “Ninicip and his family are starving also. To-morrow he will come to see us and perhaps he will bring us something. We had better fix up our wigwam.” Then they fixed up the wigwam in the same manner as that of Ninicip. The next day Ninicip came and they gave him the best place. Wemicus said to his wife, “We’ll get ready to eat now. Put some water in the stone pail.” “There is no use putting any water in the pail,” answered his wife, “we have nothing to cook.” “Well, bring the pail, anyway, and get some spoons,” said Wemicus. When the water began boiling, Wemicus jumped up on the cross-poles, in vas defaecavit, all over his children and the inside of the wigwam. Then Ninicip went out. His wife [[41]]scolded Wemicus, saying, “You always do something like that. You must have seen someone do that.” Then Wemicus kept quiet and everything had to be cleaned up. The wife then invited Ninicip to come in again and he told her that he would fix up the meal. Igituo interum in vas defaecavit and they had good rice soup, and everyone, even Wemicus, had a good meal. The following morning Ninicip made soup for the family again and then went home. Soon Wemicus and his family were starving again and Wemicus said, “I must go and see my son-in-law, Muskrat. He lives not far away.” “All right,” said his wife and Wemicus set out. When he had almost reached Muskrat’s home, the little Muskrat children called out, “Our grandfather is coming.” Wemicus told Muskrat that he was starving and Muskrat said to his wife, “You had better make a fire in the hot sand.” So the fire was made, and Muskrat went out with a big sack made out of hide and returned with the sack full of ice, which he dumped into the hot ashes. Wemicus expected that it would explode but it only cooked nicely. Wemicus wondered what it was. Soon Muskrat said, “We are ready now,” and they took off the sand and there were a lot of nicely baked potatoes. Wemicus thought that was an easy way in which to live—just to get ice for potatoes.
Next morning Wemicus started out for home and left his mitten behind as he had done with Ninicip. Muskrat’s wife sent a child after him and told the child, “Don’t go too close to Wemicus. He’s always in mischief.” Everything happened as before. The child threw the mitten to Wemicus and Wemicus sent an invitation to Muskrat to come to his home the next day. As Wemicus went on his way he had some potatoes which Muskrat had given him for his family. Half way home he rested and thought he would eat the potatoes, as they looked very good. So he ate every one. “I am the one who works hard,” he said to himself. “My family can wait until Muskrat comes.” When he reached home he told his wife, “Muskrat is also starving. I brought nothing. Muskrat is coming tomorrow to see us.” Next day Muskrat came and they put him on the opposite side of the wigwam. Wemicus said, “We have nothing much, but, wife, make a fire in the hot sand.” The wife answered, “I suppose you saw somebody else do something. Don’t [[42]]you try any more mischief.” But he made his wife make the fire. He then went out and returned with the sack full of ice, which he dumped on the fire. The sack blew up all over everybody and put out the fire. Then his wife said, “I suppose you saw someone do that again.” She made another fire and Muskrat said, “Give me that bag.” He went out and brought back the sack full of ice, dumped and buried it in the fire, and, after a while, they got the potatoes. All of them had a good meal. The next morning, before Muskrat left, he got them another bag of potatoes.
Wemicus does not work, although his family is so large. Well, pretty soon the whole family was starving again. Then said Wemicus, “I must go and see Meme (pileated woodpecker), my son-in-law.” He went into the bush and when he reached Meme’s wigwam he found a large white pine in back of it. He noticed that Meme had a sharp pointed nose. He saw that Meme had not much to live on, but nevertheless Meme told his wife to get the cooking pail ready. Then Meme began climbing the pine tree, which was at the back of his wigwam, and began pecking in the trunk with his nose. Pretty soon he came down with a raccoon.[18] When Wemicus saw this, he thought, “That is a great thing; I must try it.” Meme burned off the hair and cleaned the raccoon, and shared the meat on a stick to each one. Wemicus received the best part, as he was the grandfather.
The next morning they had another raccoon to eat. Then everything happened as before. Wemicus was given a raccoon to take home. He left his mitten behind, and sent an invitation to Meme to visit him the next day. On the way home Wemicus thought to himself, “I wonder how this raccoon tastes cold.” So he ate the entire raccoon. When he got home, he told his wife that Meme was starving but that he was coming to visit them the following day. They put the wigwam in order and Wemicus fixed up a big pine like that belonging to Meme and cut two pieces of wood, which he pointed and shoved into his nose to imitate Meme. When Meme came along he saw Wemicus sitting there with sticks in his nose. Wemicus told his wife, as usual, to prepare for supper, and she told him that they had nothing. When she had the water boiling in the pail, [[43]]Wemicus climbed up the tree and pecked upon it in imitation of Meme. He fell down, however, and drove the sticks into his head. He fell into the fire, but after a while he gained consciousness. Then Meme stepped out of the wigwam, climbed the tree, and brought down a raccoon. And then the whole family had a good supper. Next morning Meme got another raccoon and left it for the family, and then went home.