When this ceremony was over Manabozho suggested to his friends, the assembled birds and animals, that the occasion was proper for a little merrymaking; and taking up his drum he cried out:
“New songs from the South! Come, brothers, dance!”
They all fell in and commenced their rounds. Whenever Manabozho, as he stood in the circle, saw a fat fowl which he fancied pass him, he adroitly wrung its neck and slipped it under his belt, at the same time beating his drum and singing at the top of his lungs to drown the noise of the fluttering, crying out in a tone of admiration:
“That’s the way, my brothers; that’s the way.” At last a small duck of the diver family, thinking there was something wrong, opened one eye and saw what Manabozho was doing. Giving a spring, and crying: “Ha-ha-a! Manabozho is killing us!” he made a dash for the water.
Manabozho was so angry that the creature should have played the spy that he gave chase, and just as the Diver Duck was getting into the water he gave him a kick, which is the reason that the diver’s tail feathers are few, his back flattened, and his legs straightened out, so that when he is seen walking on land he makes a sorry looking figure.
The other birds, having no ambition to be thrust in Manabozho’s belt, flew off, and the animals scampered into the woods.
MANAIBOZHO IS CHANGED INTO A WOLF
Adapted from H. R. Schoolcraft
One evening, as Manabozho was walking along the shore of a great lake, weary and hungry, he met a great magician in the form of an Old Wolf, with six young ones, coming toward him.
The Wolf no Sooner caught sight of him than he told his whelps, who were close beside him, to keep out of the way of Manabozho, “For I know,” he said, “that it is that mischievous fellow whom we see yonder.”