(26) Legend of Obabika Lake.
Obabika lake is called Ma′nitu Pi·pa′gi·, “Spirit Echo.” On the eastern shore of this lake is a great rock where a Manitu is believed to live. Whenever anyone makes a noise in the vicinity, the Manitu becomes angry and growls. His plaints, the Indians believe, can be clearly heard when he is offended. The Ojibwa never go near there when they can avoid it; and they seldom throw a stone in the lake, splash their paddles, or shoot their guns near its shores.
(27) Iroquois Pictographs.
“The Iroquois used to come here to fight the Ojibwa because the Americans had driven them from their homes in the States and the Iroquois had to seek new countries beyond the settlements in the North. In their excursions, when they got far from home, they cut and painted pictures in the rocks on river or lake shores, so that their friends, if they ever penetrated so far, would know that their own people had been there before them. The characters of these pictures would tell what had happened, so that if the advance party never returned to their people, some record would at least be left behind of their journey.”[47]
The Ojibwa attributed nearly all pictographs to the Iroquois. On Lady Evelyn lake are a number of such figures, showing animals and men in canoes.
(28) An Iroquois Legend.
At that time there were people living, four in number: a woman, a young baby who could hardly walk, and two sons who were grown-up men. Their father had died and the family lived together in a wigwam. It was winter and the sons had two rabbit snares’ trails, one to the east and the other to the north, and they went to different lines on different days. The mother would attend to the snares and leave the baby, wrapped in a rabbit skin blanket, alone in the camp, while the two sons [[77]]would hunt and look around for game, having only bows and arrows.
When they came home in the evening, they would sometimes bring with them spruce partridge and other kinds of partridge. Their mother used to bring home partridges also, but she had no bow or arrows, and the men wondered how she did it, because she often brought home as many as ten birds. They could not understand how she was able to do better than they, so they asked her, “What did you do it with?” They never went with their mother to where she had her snares, but they were continually asking her how she caught the partridges. She answered, “I cut a pole, put a string there on the end, and catch them by the neck, since I have no bow.” But they didn’t believe her, as they often saw arrow wounds in the partridges’ breasts. They looked at these wounds and said, “Somebody must have shot them for you. Was it not the Iroquois?” “No,” answered the mother, “I caught them with a pole snare and poked them with a stick in order to bloat them with blood, so they will make more bouillon.” But still they didn’t believe her and they said to each other, “Mother doesn’t like to tell us. Some Iroquois, I guess, are going to kill us. We’ll fool our mother and these Iroquois. When we go to bed, we’ll sleep with our baby.”
So that night they said to their mother, “We want to sleep with our brother the baby, on his side of the wigwam.” They dried their moccasins, put them on, and also put on rabbit skin blankets, for they were preparing to run out during the night. They had discovered a place the day before where trees had fallen down and snow had covered them, thus making a tunnel. So that night they rolled their little brother up in a blanket and left early in the night, unknown to their mother. When they left, the Iroquois were getting closer. The mother awoke and cried out, “Madja′wαk they are going!” She did this to help the Iroquois find them. The Iroquois followed them on snowshoes, but the sons made a great number of branch trails in order to deceive them.
The three finally reached their windfall tunnel and there they stayed and waited for the Iroquois. At daylight the Iroquois took up the trail and followed until they finally reached them. [[78]]The three in the cave could hear the Iroquois talking above them. One of the Iroquois dug a hole in the snow above the tunnel and peeped down to see if the three were there. As one by one the Iroquois looked through the hole, the sons shot them, the arrow falling back through the hole so that they could use it again. They killed nearly all of them, and at last no more Iroquois faces appeared above the hole, but the sons could hear crying. Finally they decided to come out, and one of the sons went out first to look around, but he could see no one. They then started back to the wigwam, following the Iroquois tracks, but they only saw two trails. One of the sons went a little ahead and the other followed behind with the baby.