All at once the sorrow left Hiawatha's heart, as the ice is swept from a river in the springtime, and like a man awakening from evil dreams he felt that he was healed, and he gazed about him where the medicine-men were still dancing. They were trying to summon Chibiabos from his grave deep down in the sandy bottom of the Big-Sea-Water, for the water-god had buried him so deep that his spirit could not go into the land of dead men, but was still in his drowned body, struggling to free itself. And the magic of the wise men was so strong that Chibiabos rose body and all, and stood on the bottom of the lake, listening to them.
Then the dead man floated to the shore, climbed out upon the bank and made his way swiftly and silently through the forest to the doorway of the wigwam where the medicine-men were singing. When he shook the curtain of the doorway and peered in upon them they would not let him enter, but gave him through an opening in the door a burning torch and told him to light a fire in the land of spirits, so that all who died might see it and find their way thither; and they made Chibiabos ruler in the Kingdom of the Dead. He left the doorway of the wigwam and vanished in the forest, and the wise men watched the twinkling of his torch until it disappeared. They saw that the branches did not move as he passed, and that the dead leaves and the grass did not even bend or rustle beneath his footsteps, and they looked at one another much afraid, because such sights are not good for living men to see.
Four days Chibiabos traveled down the pathway of the dead, and for his food he ate the dead man's strawberry. He saw many other dead men struggling under heavy burdens of food and skins and wampum that their friends had given them to use in the Land of Spirits, and they groaned beneath their burdens. He passed them all, crossed the sad, dark River of Death upon the swinging log that floats there; and at last he came to the Lake of Silver, and was carried in the Stone Canoe over the water to the Islands of the Blessed, where he rules all ghosts and shadows.
When he had disappeared in the dark forest, Hiawatha left the Sacred Lodge and wandered eastward and westward teaching men the use of roots and herbs and the cure of all disorders; and thus was first made known to the Indians the sacred knowledge of caring for the sick.
XVI
PAU-PUK-KEEWIS
YOU remember how Pau-Puk-Keewis danced the Beggar's Dance at Hiawatha's wedding, and how, in his wild leaping and whirling at the edges of the Big-Sea-Water, he tossed up the mighty sand dunes of the Nagow Wudjoo. And you remember also, how the warriors all disliked Pau-Puk-Keewis, and called him an idler and coward, for they knew his heart was bad within him. Only the women cared for Pau-Puk-Keewis, and the women were deceived by his handsome face and his costly dresses.
One morning Pau-Puk-Keewis came in search of adventures to the village, and found all the young men gathered in the wigwam of Iagoo, listening to the wonderful stories that old Iagoo always told when any one would hear him. He was telling how Ojeeg, the Summer-Maker, climbed up to the sky and made a hole in Heaven that let out all the warm and pleasant weather of the summer months. He was describing how the Otter tried it first, and how the Beaver and the Lynx and Badger also tried it, all of them climbing to the top of the highest mountain and hitting their heads against the sky.
"They cracked it but they could not break it," said Iagoo, "and then Ojeeg the Weasel came and the Wolverine helped him to make ready for the trial. Ojeeg climbed to the top of the mountain, and the Wolverine went with him. The Wolverine crouched down like a grasshopper on the mountain top, with his legs all drawn up beneath him like a squirrel or a cricket, and he leaped as hard as he was able at the sky.