Neen-nis-sah ween-neen-dah so-mah-we-neen-nah chah-ga-to man-i-to whah-ga, yah-we-he-ya! whe-ge-a! (Twice.)
I am he that giveth success, because all spirits help me.
15. Me-ge-ne-nah me-ge-ne-nah me-gwun-nah-ga me-ge-ne-nah, WHE-HE-YA! (Twice.)
The feather, the feather; it is the thing, the feather.
It sometimes happens that the hunter has wandered far from his lodge, and has neither birch bark on which to delineate his Me-zen-ne-neens, nor o-num-nu, or other powerful medicine to apply to its heart. In these cases he takes some of the ashes of his fire, and spreading it on a smooth place, he traces in it the figure of the animal; he then takes a feather and sticks it in the heart, then applies fire until it is consumed to the surface of the ashes, and on this he places the same reliance as on the more common method of treating the Me-zen-ne-neens.
16. 17. 18. 19. 20.
16. Wha o-man-i-to-whah? HE-AH-E-WHE-YA! ma-she-ge-na pe-po-sa-jeek wha-in-je man-i-to-whah, ah-keeng pa-mo-sah HAH-HE-WHE-YA!
Who is a spirit? He that walketh with the serpent, walking on the ground; he is a spirit.
This figure is nearly the same as is given to Nana-bush, in the beginning of the song, and an allusion is probably intended to the time when this interpreter between mankind and the Supreme Spirit, the Creator of all things, was driven from the presence of his father, to dwell with the meanest things of this world. The allusions in the traditionary fables of the Algonkins, to the quarrel between Na-na-bush and the Great Spirit, are frequent, and cannot fail to remind any one of the most important of the doctrines of the christian religion. It can scarce be doubted that, from some source or other, these people have derived some obscure conceptions of the incarnation and mediatorial office of the second person in the Divine Trinity.[63]