I asked Shagush Koda Waikwa, from whom this allegory is derived, whether the Northern Indians discriminated between a corpse, a ghost, a spirit, an angel, and death, considered as a personification. The answer was affirmative, and I received the name for each.
Pauguk, according to this authority, is the personification of death. He is represented as existing without flesh or blood. He is a hunter, and besides his bow and arrows, is armed with a puggamagon, or war club. But he hunts only men, women, and children. He is an object of dread and horror. To see him is a sure indication of death. Some accounts represent his bones as covered by a thin transparent skin, and his eye sockets as filled with balls of fire.
Pauguk never speaks. Unlike the Jeebi or ghost, his limbs never assume the rotundity of life, neither is he to be confounded in form with the numerous class of minor Manitoes, or spirits. He does not possess the power of metamorphosis. Unvaried in repulsiveness, he is ever an object of fear; and often, according to Indian story, has the warrior, flushed with the ardour of battle, rushing forward to seize the prize of victory, clasped the cold and bony hand of Pauguk.
"I shall never forget the fate of Owynokwa," continued the narrator. "She was a widow of my native village, who had been left with six sons. One after the other, as they became of suitable age, they had joined the war parties who went out against their enemies and fallen in battle. At last but one was left; he was her only stay and comfort, supplying her with food and protection in her old age. But he too, as he became old enough, spurning the dull life of a hunter, followed the war drum of his tribe, and went out against our enemies in the West. The absence of such a war party, is a time of anxiety and suspense with the women of a village. To relieve this, and at the same moment to prepare them for more particular intelligence, the returning party gives the war-cry of triumph, and the death-wail indicating the number slain, as soon as they come within hearing. On the present occasion, Owynokwa rushed from her lodge, the moment she caught the first sound. She stood with her lips parted, in an attitude of intense and agonized suspense; and as soon as the death-wail broke upon her ear, despair appeared to rivet her to the spot. She heeded nothing; not a muscle moved; she neither inquired nor heard, who were the slain, but sank slowly to the earth in the place where she stood. She was carried into her lodge, and the next morning showed signs of reanimation, but they were slight and brief—the rigidity of death soon seized upon her frame, and she followed her son to the land of spirits. Her son was indeed among the slain, but mortal tongue had not communicated the fact. It was generally supposed she had met the glare of Pauguk at the moment the death-wail or Chee kwau dum had broke on her ear."
THE VINE AND OAK.
AN ALLEGORY IN THE MANNER OF THE ALGICS.
A vine was growing beside a thrifty oak, and had just reached that height at which it requires support. "Oak," said the ivy vine, "bend your trunk so that you may be a support to me." "My support," replied the oak, "is naturally yours, and you may rely on my strength to bear you up, but I am too large and too solid to bend. Put your arms around me, my pretty vine, and I will manfully support and cherish you, if you have an ambition to climb, even as high as the clouds. While I thus hold you up, you will ornament my rough trunk with your pretty green leaves and shining scarlet berries. They will be as frontlets to my head, and I shall stand in the forest like a glorious warrior, with all his plumes. We were made by the Master of Life to grow together, that by our union the weak should be made strong, and the strong render aid to the weak."
"But I wish to grow independently," said the vine, "why cannot you twine around me, and let me grow up straight, and not be a mere dependant upon you." "Nature," answered the oak, "did not so design it. It is impossible that you should grow to any height alone, and if you try it, the winds and rain, if not your own weight, will bring you to the ground. Neither is it proper for you to run your arms hither and yon, among the trees. The trees will begin to say—"It is not my vine—it is a stranger—get thee gone, I will not cherish thee." By this time thou wilt be so entangled among the different branches, that thou canst not get back to the oak; and nobody will then admire thee, or pity thee."