When they saw him, one of the girls said, “He is a very ugly man, but we will go in his canoe and, when we get to the village, [[51]]we’ll get rid of him.” So they called out to him, “Come over and get us; you will get married anyway.” Ciŋgibis was very glad to have two wives, so he paddled over and got the two girls. They said, “Your canoe is a very small canoe.” “Oh no,” said Ciŋgibis, “my canoe is a magic canoe. It is enough.” So the girls got into the canoe and they went down the stream. By and by one girl said, “I’m getting hungry.” “Well,” said Ciŋgibis, “not far down is a nice rock and there we will have lunch. You can pull roots for lunch.” So Ciŋgibis and the two girls went ashore and pulled roots and made a string out of them. “That’s enough,” said Ciŋgibis to one of the girls. “Tie the string to my leg and I’ll dive for something to eat. When you see the string jerk, pull me up.” They did this, and he dove into the water. When the girls saw the string jerk, they pulled him up and he brought with him a big beaver. They skinned and cooked the beaver for lunch; then Ciŋgibis and his two wives continued their journey. Soon Ciŋgibis said, “Well, we are not far from the village now. I am going to place my caribou snare.” He meant rabbit when he said caribou. So he placed his snares. He then told the girls, “At the village your sister-in-law will come down to see you. Maŋg (Loon) is the name of the chief of the village. But we won’t camp near them; we’ll camp a little to one side.” They went down the river until they came to the mouth, and at that point they saw the wigwams.
All the people yelled when they saw Ciŋgibis, for he was a great man, although he was the ugliest one among them. They cried, “Ee Ciŋgibis! He has two wives.” So they all laughed and the sister of Ciŋgibis came to shake hands with his two wives. Then Ciŋgibis pitched his wigwam. Soon a man who was a second chief came to Ciŋgibis and said, “Chief Maŋg wants to see you. He is going to have a dance tonight.” Ciŋgibis said to his wives, “Stay here and don’t go to the dance. There are too many nice-looking men there.” On account of this the two wives became angry with him. Ciŋgibis put on his best clothes and went to the dance.
By and by the wives heard drumming and fine voices singing. So they decided to go and peep in at the dancers if Ciŋgibis should not see them. They did this and peeped in through [[52]]the bark, and there they saw Loon singing. He was a fine-looking man with a fine voice and fine clothes. Ciŋgibis was beside Loon, looking exceedingly ugly in contrast to him. The wives said, “It is a shame that Loon is so good-looking.” They then went back to camp and put two stumps in the place where they were to sleep, covered them with blankets and ran off.
Ciŋgibis came back from the dance and, thinking that he was sleeping with his two wives, he lay down between the two stumps and fell asleep. But his two wives went to sleep with Chief Loon. By and by ants began to bite Ciŋgibis and he scolded his wives, saying, “Don’t do that.” At last he discovered the stumps and threw them out. At daybreak he went to the chief’s wigwam and there, sleeping with the Chief, he saw his two wives. “You are a dead man for this!” said Ciŋgibis.
He then went to his grandmother. “What do you want?” asked she. “I want a chisel and a flint.” “What do you want with them, grandchild? Are you going to be in mischief again?” said the grandmother. However, she gave them to him, and Ciŋgibis tied two flints to his feet and placed the chisel in the fire to make it red hot. Then he asked for some eagle feathers (but this was a wiske·djak (Canadian Jay) feather). He got them and placed them on his head. When the ice chisel became red hot, the old grandmother said, “Say, Ciŋgibis, don’t do any mischief again,” but Ciŋgibis picked up the chisel and ran away with it to the wigwam of Loon.
Loon always slept with his mouth open. When Ciŋgibis reached the wigwam, he found every one in it asleep. He shoved the chisel into Loon’s open mouth, killing him, ran off to his canoe, jumped into it, and paddled away to his snares. He did this so that no one would suspect that he had killed their chief. This is the reason why the Loon always has a black mouth—from where he was burned. Ciŋgibis found a rabbit in his snare. He placed the blood of the rabbit in some hay and tied the hay to his stomach.
When he returned to the camp, the people were mourning for Loon. Ciŋgibis came in slowly. The second chief said, “Ciŋgibis will be very sorry when he hears that Chief Loon is dead. He was his great friend. We must tell him before he arrives.” Then the people called to Ciŋgibis, “Ee Ciŋgibis, the [[53]]chief is dead.” “What!” said Ciŋgibis, “the chief is dead!” Then he drew out his knife and pierced the hay full of rabbit blood. The blood ran out and all the people thought that he had killed himself. Ciŋgibis then dived into the water and the people came out in their canoes to look for him. They saw the rabbit blood upon the water and gave up looking for him. After a few days, they made another chief, Goose (nixka′), since both Loon and Ciŋgibis were dead.
Ten days after this had happened, early in the morning the people heard somebody singing near the shore three times, “Who killed our chief? I am the one.” They awoke Chief Goose and he exclaimed, “I was thinking that that Ciŋgibis was in all kinds of mischief. So we must try to kill him.” Accordingly he sent all the men after him in canoes. When Ciŋgibis dived, they could only see his feathers which his grandmother had given him, but they could not catch him. Ciŋgibis said to them, “You are all spirits. Drink all this water and you will get me.” Then the Ducks and Geese drank all the lake dry and chased Ciŋgibis among the rocks, and thought that they would catch him. “No, no,” laughed Ciŋgibis, “I know some more tricks yet.” So he ran about and kicked the rocks with the flints his grandmother had given him, which were fastened to his feet, and water began flowing out and finally covered everything. The people who were pursuing him had to swim for their lives. They all became ducks. This is the origin of all the ducks. When the people left their canoes, they were obliged to swim and so they are swimming yet.
(6) Beaver Gives a Feast.
All the animals, once upon a time, were camped together—the Beaver, the Otter, the Muskrat, and the others. Their chief was Beaver. Every once in a while he would give a big feast, build a big wigwam, and invite all the men and women to come in and eat with him. He would tell them, “Well, I want to give a feast.” Then they would come in, sit around the inside of his big wigwam and pass the food around from one to the other. He would provide lots of grease in birch-bark dishes. Now, one time, when he gave one of his feasts, Beaver cut his grease [[54]]supply into cakes which he served around to his guests. Every time he passed a cake to a guest, pepedit. Indeed, every time he moved, pepedit, or when he would go and cut a new block of grease.[25] Now every time the Beaver broke wind, the Otter laughed. He did not seem to know that this would offend the Beaver, because he was a little foolish. The other guests told the Otter, “You mustn’t laugh when Beaver does that; he is our chief.” Despite this, every time they went to a feast, castore pedente, the Otter laughed at him.