Then North West shook his rattles until the great storms came. Thus there was much ice and snow and wind. All the flag roots were frozen in hard ice. Still Shingebiss went fishing. He bit off the frozen flags and rushes, and broke the hard ice around their roots. He dived for fish and went home dragging strings of fish behind him on the ice.
North West noticed this. He said, “Shingebiss must have very strong medicine. Some manito is helping him. I cannot conquer him. Shingebiss is a very strange man.”
So he let him alone.
HOW THE HUNTER DESTROYED SNOW
Menomini
ONCE a hunter with his wife and two children lived in a tepee. Each day the hunter went out for game. He was a good hunter and he brought back much game.
But one day, after autumn had gone and winter had come, the hunter met Kon, Snow, who froze his feet badly. Then the hunter made a large wooden bowl and filled it with Kon. He buried it in a deep hole where the midday sun could shine down upon it, and where Snow could not run away. Then he covered the hole with sticks and leaves so that Snow would be a prisoner until summer.
Now when midsummer came, and everything was warm, the hunter came back to this hole and pulled away the sticks and leaves. He let the midday sun shine down upon Kon so that he melted. Thus the hunter punished Kon.
But when autumn came again, one day the hunter heard someone say to him, when he was in the forest: “You punished me last summer, but when winter comes I will show you how strong I am.”