Far from having dried up the source of American legends and traditions, the Brasseur de Bourbourgs, the Rinks, the Bringtons and the Bancrofts have only drawn from it, showing us the way forward.
America is a Babel with no less than four thousand languages in its midst; a vast, fertile field, full of interest for science and observation. Long years will therefore pass before it has been ploughed, turned over and excavated so that none of its secrets remain hidden.
But we must hurry if we want to harvest a satisfactory crop before the aboriginal stock dies out.
North-western Canada, in particular, because of the lack of appeal that its location at the tip of North America and its inhospitable climate have for travellers and scholars, has remained to this day an unknown and mysterious land of which little attention is paid, and which the current owners of the land themselves know little more than we do, from a mythological point of view.
I am therefore the only ethnographer who has conceived the project of compiling in a volume all the national legends and traditions of the North-Western Dominion, wherever I have stayed or only passed through, and who has brought this work to a successful conclusion.
I began as soon as I could stammer a few words of the Chippewayan language, the first I had spoken, that is to say four months after my arrival at Great Slave Lake in August 1862.
From then on, I pursued it with zeal and with varying degrees of success until 1882, the last year of my stay among the Redskins. That winter again, at the foot of the Montagnes-Rocheuses, I collected the data and one of the Blackfoot accounts contained in this book.
I thus had the advantage of forming, not a compilation, but the largest, most consistent and most authentic collection of non-Eskimo northern traditions.
I had even thought of calling it Traditions of Arctic America; but, as several of the peoples whose records I transcribe in these pages hunt south of the Arctic Circle, I preferred the more general title of Indian Traditions of North-West Canada.
Gathered slowly, patiently and with a kind of scrupulousness for the smallest particularities, during twenty years of stay in the North-West of the Dominion; gleaned here and there with the cult of an antiquarian for the ruins of the past, for the debris of peoples, but with the persevering and avowed aim of discovering the American origins; translated literally, like a classical version, with the help of the Indians who were my language teachers ; then finally rendered in French with all the fidelity and concision compatible, on the one hand, with the genius and inversion of the Indians, and on the other, with my mother tongue, so that my phraseology could present a comprehensible meaning, free of all equivocation, making up for the reticence of the redskins, while preserving their original laconism, I dare to hope that my collection will amuse the public and interest science.
The order of this work was dictated to me naturally by the division of the tribes which provided me with the themes. From North to South, i.e. following the current of their immigration, these tribes are :
1. The Innoït or Eskimos ;
2. The Dindjié or Loucheux ;
3. The Dènè Hare-skins;
4. The Dunè Dogskins and Slaves;
5. The Dènè Tchippewwayans and Yellow Knives, with the Danè Beavers;
6. The Ayis-Iyiniwok or Cree; and finally
7. The Ninnax or Blackfoot.
Hence the division of this volume into seven parts.
If the Hare-skin stock is by far the most voluminous, it must be attributed to the long years I spent among this tribe, at Fort Good Hope or in the surrounding area.
There is no doubt that their neighbours would have been just as trusting and open, had I spent more time among them. I have no reason to believe that the memory of their elders is less faithful than that of old Lizette Kha-tchô-ti, my hare-skin language tutor, or that of the good blind Ekunélyel, one of my Montagnais or Tchippewayan teachers.
At the end of each legend, I have added a list of the heroes and divinities of the tribe to which these traditions belong.
I have attached a specimen of the language or dialect of each of these seven tribes, which provides an original text with a literal translation preserving all the Indian inversion. M. le comte de Charencey has kindly undertaken to publish, in the course of 1887, the original texts, with a literal translation, of almost all these legends.
Finally, in order to facilitate mythological and other research for scholars, I have appended to my collection an Index or concordance of the subjects it contains.
While I guarantee the fidelity of my translation, I cannot assume responsibility for all the ideas, practices and theories that these traditions virtually contain or openly profess. I must leave it to the good and naive, but sometimes misled or seduced, men who dictated them to me.
If the reader is observant, he will notice that, in this collection, the same facts, the same situations, the same ideas, even the same heroes, are found in the memories of each and every one of the above-mentioned peoples. They must have originally possessed the same truths or the same myths; but they seem to have taken it upon themselves not to repeat one another, to distinguish between them, to separate one from the other, by giving their traditions an idiosyncrasy of their own.
Perhaps these schisms were desired and sought by these sister tribes, by these neighbouring peoples; perhaps they were imposed on them by time and circumstance; perhaps, finally, they are one of the necessary consequences of oral tradition.
Whatever the case, it would not be difficult to reconstruct beautiful legends with a consistent meaning, a sustained sequence and a poetic genius, using these different fragments of tradition that complement each other in each tribe. The result would be a true Arctic and sub-Arctic Genesis of America, in no way inferior to the theogonies of the ancient world of the three continents, and which would also have the merit of being original and new literature for us.
The reader should not expect to find, in these pages, private tales, due to the efforts of individual imagination and genius. I am delivering to him a body of popular traditions; I am revealing to him the national archives of the Indians whom I have practised, archives known to many, checked by many, corrected or completed by others who, with the praiseworthy intention of rectifying this or that passage which they supposed to be erroneous, did no more than provide me with variants of the tradition which they claimed to rectify.
Some of these legends seem to be more or less faithful copies of the biblical accounts, adapted to the climate, customs and way of life of the American aborigines. Others, on the contrary, are a burlesque or malignant parody of these same archaic stories, and show a spirit of hatred, denigration and contradiction, hostile to the one who dictated the first traditions.
Others, finally, are myths incompatible with the Mosaic Genesis, but related to that of other nations of known antiquity.
Were it not for the unfortunate spirit of contention and envy that inspired the second of these traditions, I would be tempted to call the sum of them the Mishnah of North America, because of their close relationship with the books of the Hebrews.
However, the timid and faint-hearted should not be alarmed. Let them wait until they have read my book before they cry out against my proposal. Without taking the trouble to explain the self-evident identifications, I leave it to them to discover them, as I have done and as will happen to anyone who knows the Bible and meditates on it.
Moreover, these similarities can no more prove the veracity of the sacred historians than their parody can defeat it. The Bible provides its own proof. It defies the denials of unbelief, the prevarications of error, the mockery of the impious. It has no need to ask for proof of their testimony from obscure and ignorant Savages, who, by their agreement with it, prove only one thing: that the Pentateuch was known and believed in their original cradle, and that the Synagogue once spread, like the religion of Buddha, like Christianity and Islam.
But this indisputable fact is undisputed. Even in the time of Flavius Josephus, “there was not a country where there was not a synagogue, not a beach where there was not a Jewish colony”; and Dan, to whom Moses had prophetically said: Fluet largiter de Basan, Dan, the navigator, the emigrant, the nomad, Dan had not waited for the Roman invasion to transport his curious and vagabond penitents all over the place.
Moreover, I must confess in all simplicity that, in the course of my work, I have not only had the thought of coming to the rescue of a book whose authenticity is in no way in danger. I have done so without worrying about the concordances or discrepancies that these traditions contain, leaving it to the sagacity and good faith of the reader to make the distinction and determine his choice.
But, however naive, touching or droll these legends may be, history and ethnography will deduce several truths from them, and will note several things in them that are worth noting and studying.
I have made some of these observations myself, and have written them down with the intention of publishing them one day. The form of the present collection does not allow me to include these studies. At most, I have been able to extract a few rare and very brief notes, which I have added to my pages, here and there, like so many milestones indicating the value of my theories and the nature of my identifications.
Why do some people cringe when they hear about Asian beliefs, myths and customs in America? Why all the uproar when people cry “exaltation”, “bias”, even “clericalism”? What is it about this very simple fact that is so prodigious, so implausible, so appalling to their prejudiced or fearful minds?
For a long time now, others have noted that in Hindustan, Japan, Greenland and Oceania there are observances, traditions and customs identical to those of the ancients, whether they were Egyptians or Scythians, Phoenicians or Hebrews. So why should it be impossible for the same similarities to occur in America?
Polynesia seems to have inherited the Ra, Orus, Maui, Peleus and other gods from Egypt and Greece. Why should I not say that in America I found Men, Moses, Opas, Khons, Bel and Osiris?
More than Oceania, isn’t the Colombian continent ideally situated to receive an influx of Asian populations and beliefs?
Let us therefore be wiser in our judgements, and not reduce to the dimensions of our small States, to the narrow sphere of our own interests alone, the universal action of God’s providence on humanity.
The legends contained in this book prove to us, once again, this consoling truth: that there is no people, however relegated and ignored it may be, that has not received from heaven, in its past, a sum of truths sufficient to hold its place with dignity in the world, to constitute, if it so wished, an honourable society, and to bring about the spiritual salvation of its members, without having recourse to its neighbours. The theogonies of the most ignorant savages prove that God was faithful to his creatures and revealed himself to them through love and compassion, far from being the product of a frightened imagination. “Attraxi te miserans”.
Fear makes men cruel, grovelling and superstitious; love and trust alone can make them pious. Dryness of heart, selfishness and despair have created religious indifference. It is only a short step from there to hatred of God.
Until the days of Christianity, the most faithful of the peoples preserved, more or less intact, the repository of the healthy traditions and praiseworthy customs of which Judas and Israel kept the archives, but of which they were not the only custodians.
Take, for example, the idea of a God who is both one and triune, which has mistakenly been made the exclusive prerogative and glory of Christianity. We find this dogma among all civilised peoples. It is as old as the world itself. Egypt, Phoenicia, China, Assyria, Babylonia, the Celts and the Scandinavians all had it. In India, it is repeated up to three times, and America reveals it to us in the triad of white eagles, producers of day and night, dazzling in the clouds, whose son is the protector of fallen man and saves him from paternal wrath.
This universal dogma alone contained everything necessary for salvation.
In truth, this trinity is material; this triune God has a body; he is male, female and only son. But we must concede something to the rusticity and coarseness of the infant and barbarian peoples. This is not a fundamental error.
This universal dogma had its prototype in Jahowah, the all-spiritual Hebrew trinity, whose first person, the Father, created everything through his Word, and gave life to every creature through his Spirit.
The Synagogue also attributed the female sex to this Spirit of God, Ruach-Ellohim. Not that it recognised its attributes, which is corporeal matter; but by recognising its attributions, which is the domain of the spirit, of the soul.
These feminine attributes of the Spirit of God are vivification, love, consolation, grace and heavenly favours; in a word, all that is sensitive, tender, exquisite and maternal in God for his creatures. And this explains the words of Jesus Christ: “blasphemies against the holiness of the Spirit will not be forgiven”; just as, among us, an insult committed against the honour of a wife, against the holiness of a mother, arouses our indignation and calls for vengeance.
This theory is none other than that expounded by Thomas Aquinas in his Treatise on the Christian Trinity. The dogma has been refined and elucidated as human intelligence has progressively freed itself from matter. It has not changed since ancient times, and that is our consolation.
Universal and natural traditions abound in the memories of the Redskins. They are not peculiar to the Bible. They are the lot of mankind, and Moses only wrote down what he knew of them, or rather what was the Chaldeo-Hebrew version known at the time.
Here, then, we have no reason to be surprised. What would astonish us would be if the Americans did not possess these general traditions.
Nor should we be too surprised to find in their memories, fairly faithfully preserved, the story of Abraham and Sarah. Georges Le Syncelle says that, in Roman times, this patriarchal couple was known throughout the three continents, and that there was no people who did not claim them as their ancestors. Abraham was worshipped in Rome by Alexander Severus, as well as in Palestine, under the oak of Mambré. Châteaubriand rightly discerned his cult in that of Par-Abrahma and Sarah-Souvacti, the tutelary divinities of Brahmanism[1]; and the centuries-long spread of Islam in the Far East and Oceania has spread the name and history of the father of so many peoples who worship the true God, that is, who are believers.
It is only when we find, in the memories of the Redskins, the great features of the story of Moses, Joshua, Samson, Jonah, Judith and Tobit, that our astonishment is justified, because these characters belong exclusively to the Hebrew people, and if their story has penetrated America, it can only have been through the Israelites themselves. So they were there before us.
This conclusion is as logical as it is undeniable. There’s no need to go on about it in empty words. And when traditions are combined with evidence drawn from the use of circumcision, the Phasèh, the neomenae, the Judaic prescriptions, the certainty becomes irrefragable, even if the coat of arms of the tribe of Dan, which was also that of Sparta, has not been found in Mexico, namely the great white eagle holding the Canaanite serpent in its talons.
The fabulous story of the blind man who represents Tobias breaks the chain of traditions with a Hebraic stamp, as well as their Kuchite parody.
They then move on to stories that seem to bear a vague hint of obliterated Christianity, after a gap where only fights with cannibals and man-eating monsters, foreign to America but peculiar to Asia, such as enormous snakes, lions and crocodiles, are shown, or encounters with pachyderms and monstrous herbivores, unknown in the countries currently occupied by these savages.
Foreign elements were grafted onto the main trunk of Aramaic traditions, like wild scions on a fruit tree. Zoroastrian ideas and Moabite worship, Punic myths and Ammonite origins, lunar heroes and celestial women, the ancient claim to a sidereal origin, the cause of the rivalries and wars that divided the Khurus and Pandus in India: the erudite man will find all this in this Arctic pandemonium. I promise him more than one surprise, more than one cry of joy.
It has been claimed that the apologue is unknown to the Redskins, that their intelligence is too crude to have ever conceived of personifications. This is another of those errors inspired by the spirit of the system, and which must be left to the writers of the last century, in America, to Schoolcraft, the man who spread the most errors about the Redskins.
A glance at these legends will suffice to convince you of the contrary. Our Indians are no better than the Orientals on this point. If the Bible was written in the same cabalistic spirit, it is to be believed that we are still ignorant of the true meaning of a host of passages hitherto reputed to be very clear.
Finally, in these traditions we find memories of a completely physical nature, which corroborate the data or hypotheses of geology and history. These include the ice age, the change in the earth’s axis, a volcanic cataclysm that seems to admit the collapse of a western part of the Colombian continent, the primitive immigration of aborigines through the Behring Strait and the Aleutian Islands, the arrival of a nation of navigators who introduced metals, etc., etc. These historical facts are so intimately linked to each other that we can only guess at the origin of them.
These historical facts are so closely interwoven with the threads of religious tradition that they are often impossible to separate. They are like familiar patterns of foliage or flowers in the weave of an exotic fabric.
Now, do I need to say anything about the origins of the peoples who reveal to us these curiosities of the past?
My God, what are they? They are what we are. An amalgam of ten diverse peoples, perhaps, or the debris of ten fragmented nations, scattered and lost for centuries in the deserts of a world that is new only to us. They are a motley mix of blood, ideas, memories, languages and customs. Mongol faces and almost Caucasian faces; Arab and Semitic types and prognathic African types; brachycephalic skulls from the Copper Age and dolychocephalic skulls from the Stone Age: everything is mixed up here, as it is in Asia, as it is in Europe, as it is everywhere.
One thing, however, stands out amidst the wreckage of old human societies, labelled by the tatters of their symbols and superstitions; this thing stands out over there just as it stands out here, elsewhere, on all sides; it is the blood and race of Abraham Habar, which is spreading everywhere; this blood, which, affixed like a seal at the beginning of the book of humanity, has pierced all its pages, and still shows itself towards the end of the volume with its own vitality, autonomy and character. Here, the blood of Judas, the sinister wreckage of a people that the waves of the centuries have not been able to submerge, and which God, in his goodness, has reserved for himself as a faithful witness, living proof of the truth of his Revelation, of the reality of the Redemption. Over there, the blood of Israel, a providential lifeline for the shaken, the fallen, the shipwrecked of the faith; a seed cast into the desert to bear fruit alone and to be harvested in its own time, according to the words of Jahowah, faithful to Jacob and David: “Si ad cardines cœli (the Foot of Heaven, the Poles) dissipatus fueris, indè te retraham, dicit Dominus exercituum”. (Deuteron, ch. XXVIII, v. 61.)
Émile Petitot.
Paris, 6th August 1886.
In Indian names, the u has the Latin sound ou, the letter ρ is the Arabic guttural r, and the χ is the Spanish j. The ñ is also borrowed from this language; l’ is pronounced chl with palatal blowing, the tongue inverted; th, tth, dh, are varieties of the soft or hard English th; w is pronounced or forming a diphthong with the following vowel.
The Tchiglit Eskimos are a fraction of the Innoït people (men), one of the largest in the world in terms of surface area, although the smallest in terms of numbers.
The Tchiglit (sing. Tchiglerk), whose name also means men, inhabit the coast of the Arctic ice sea between Cape Bathurst in the east and Point Barrow in the west. They do not travel further than fifty leagues up the rivers that flow onto this coast.
These Eskimos differ from the eastern Innoït in that they wear marble, steatite or serpentine buttons, often decorated with glassware and similar to our binoculars, at the corners of the mouth, embedded in the fat of the cheeks. They have inherited this strange practice from the Eskimos of the West.
From a physiological point of view, they still differ from their brothers from the East and from the islands, in that their type offers a white and incarnate element, mixed with the purely Malay or Mongolian element of the Eastern Innoït.
As for the name Eskimo, it is the French corruption of the name of this people in the Algonquian languages: Wiyashiméw, Eskimantik, Eskimalt, which mean: Eaters of raw flesh. This is also the meaning of the name of the Samoids in the Ostika language.
Their chiefs are called Khatoun like those of the Tugouses and the ancient Khazars; but they also take the title of Khatétsé and Innok Toyok (great man).
The Tchiglit are Sabeists and of the solar race. In Tchikreynark (the sun), they worship Padmoun-a, a heroic lawgiver who once descended from heaven to enlighten them, civilise them and do them good, and who then ascended to the empyrean, where he dwells as the star of the day. He is Wichnu-Krichna.
In the moon, Tarark (the mirror, the reflector), the Tchiglit fear Tatkrem Innok, the lunar man, whose fabulous story is contained in the following pages. It has something to do with the story of Brahma.
The Tchiglit claim to have come from the West, as their tradition tells us; and, in fact, their figure, their way of life, their morals, their lack of any modesty, their pirate habits, their costume and even the shape of their clothes and utensils bring this people closer to the most oriental Asians, such as the Kourylians, Kamtschadales, Japanese, Chinese and Malays.
The Eskimos’ paradise is warm, and they place it at the bottom of the sea, the pelagic index. Their hell is icy and lies in the cloudy region.
They celebrate a solar festival at the solstices. They also have a festival of new fruits in autumn and a festival of renewal in spring[2].
The character of these ceremonies brings them into line with the festivals of other American peoples, such as the Blackfoot, Cree, Iroquois, Sioux and Caribbean. They have very little to do with the festivals of the Dindjié, Dana and Dénè, even though they are the closest neighbours of the Tchiglit Eskimos. They are derisorily called Irkréléït, Ingalit, i.e. Nits of vermin; but these Indians reciprocate by referring to them only by names that are opprobrious: Pieds-Étrangers, Ennemis, Stercoraires, Peuple de chiens, de courtisanes, etc.
In the beginning, Kikidjiark (the Beaver) created two men on a large island in the western sea.
These two brothers, having gone to the other side of the sea, came to this side to hunt white grouse.
They snatched them out of each other’s hands and fought over them, which led to the separation of the two brothers.
One of them became the father of the Tchiglit (Arctic Eskimos); the other was the ancestor of the Tchubluraotit or Blowers[3] (Western Eskimos).
(Told by Arviuna in July 1870).
When the water overflowed the earth’s disc, people were terrified, because the wind blew away the dwellings of the men and made them disappear.
The Eskimos tied several boats together to form a large raft. The water kept rising and its waves overtook the Rocky Mountains (Erret). A strong wind pushed them towards the land, and this wind did not cease.
The men were undoubtedly able to dry themselves off in the sun at first, but they soon disappeared and the universe with them, for they perished from the dreadful heat, as well as from the waves of this ever-rising sea.
The wretches wailed, and uprooted trees floated in the waves.
Those who had tied several boats together were shivering with cold as they floated on the waters, huddled together, alas, under a large tent.
Then a juggler called An-odjium, or Owl’s Son, threw his bow into the sea, crying out: “Wind, that’s enough; calm yourself! Then he threw in his earrings. That was enough to stop the flooding.
(Told by Arviuna in July 1870).
In the beginning, there was a man and his sister. They were both very beautiful, and the young man fell in love with his sister and wanted to make her his wife.
But he wanted to surprise her during the night, so that she would not suspect anything and would not know from whom she was receiving these visits.
Pursued night after night by this stranger, whom she could not discover because of the darkness of her hut, Maligna blackened her hands after the bottom of her lamp, and, as she embraced her worshipper, she smeared his face with soot without him noticing.
When the day came, her own brother’s mauled face told her of her misfortune.
She breathed out her pain in moans and groans, and escaped from the hut, never to return.
The incestuous one, carried away by passion, pursued his sister; but then she rose to the heavens, a bright and radiant sun; while he, a cold moon, with a soiled face, pursued her relentlessly, but without ever being able to reach her.
This pursuit continues to this day. Tatkrem Innok is the enemy of women, so they are forbidden to venture out at night when the moon is shining[4].
(Told by Arviuna, in July 1870).
“Un-avarner L’Ouest mun, à, pamàné, Kikidjiar ork, mallœrok innè-ortoar ork. Illaming nun, akkiang nin Kridjigili-orklutik. Arkridjigili-nurublulik ork, Katcharklutik inmingnun. Nukkaréït gork arviklarotork. Aypa Tchiglinorkluné, aypa Tchubluraotinorkluné.”
The West in the open sea, the Beaver therefore, two men fit therefore. The opposite shore from this side to they came to hunt frostbite. They snatched them out of their hands, so, they fought each other with. The two brothers therefore separated from each other. The one was the father of the Tchiglit, and, the other was the father of the Blowers (Tchubluraotit) etc.
Pin-ortitsioriork (sitting very high).
Kikidjiark (the Beaver).
Tornrark (the separated, the entrenched).
Krinwark.
Tchiutilik.
Krallok (the genie of lightning).
Anerné-aluk (great spirit).
Padmun-a (the Ascended One).
Tatkrem Innok (the moon man).
Maligna (name of the solar woman).
An-uya (the male, name of the lunar man).
Innuleït (the spirits).
The Dindjié (men) are the most northerly fraction of the great American family of the Déné which, from the Kænaï peninsula in Alaska, extends to the confines of Arizona, forming here and there islands surrounded by other red-skinned peoples.
Their neighbours, the Eskimos, call them Ingalit, Irkréléït, i.e. vermin nits. The Dene, their cousins, call them Dékkéwi, Dékkédhé, Louches; in Canadian, Loucheux.
The Germans, English and Americans have rivalled each other in creating misunderstandings about the true name of the Loucheux, which is all the more understandable given that their dialect defies the most musical ear and the most polished tongue. In the far west of Alaska, their homeland, these people are known as Dœna or Atœna (men). In the upper Youkon and lower Mackenzie, they are called Dindjié, which has the same meaning.
They have the characteristic features of the Hebrew race, combined with the Hindu type. Like the first of these two peoples and a fraction of the second, they practise circumcision. Their women are very beautiful and much whiter than the men. There is also a dull, floury white element among them.
As for their moral portrait, the Dindjié are gentle, humane, hospitable, intelligent, frank and good-natured. They are good to their wives, to whose advice they often submit to the point of making them chiefs: Rakrey, Toyon. They are ingenious and far-sighted.
But their energy and the proximity of the Eskimos, their enemies, have made them noisy, boisterous, loquacious, quarrelsome, enthusiastic, overexcitable and easily moved. It was these faults that earned them the name Quarellers from Mackenzie.
The Dindjié have never dipped their hands in the blood of Europeans.
Their costume is a samoeid suit made of reindeer skins in summer and white hare skins in winter. Their chlamydia, which comes down below the knee, ends in a pointed tail at the front and back, like the Chilean poncho; it is adorned with a large cape and is more or less the same for both men and women.
Their shoes are one with their trousers, which the women also wear.
They are never completely naked, as is the case with Eskimos. Like the Dene, they abhor nudity. But they have no qualms about fornication, divorce and polygamy. They have chiefs, but there are no laws, punishments or rewards.
What particularly distinguishes the Dindjié from their neighbours is the division of their nation into three camps or fractions, independent of the local division into tribes. These camps are called the men of the right, Etchian-Kρét; the men of the left, Nattséïn-Kρét; and the men of the middle, Tρendjidhættset-Kρét. Young men on one side are required to choose their wives from the opposite side. But the men in the middle have a choice between either camp. Children belong to the mother’s camp.
The Etchian are considered white, the Nattséïn black[5], and the Tρendjidhættset brown, indicating a mixture of two races and miscegenation. Among the Nattséïn are the Kuchâ Kuttchin (giant people), from Youkon, many of whom are over six feet tall.
The Dindjié are Sabeists and of lunar race. They worship in the night star Sié-ζjié-dhidié, the beneficent genie who once descended from the sky to enlighten them, instruct them and deliver them from the yoke of their enemies, and who, having risen to heaven and residing in the moon, has become the god of abundance and hunting, their protector against their enemies. However, in their eyes, this masculine divinity was also the genius of death and war.
Such was the triple character of Hecate among the Greeks.
But the Dindjié also worship Titρié (father of men), who is reminiscent of the Scandinavian Alfader. The paternal character that these people give to God is touching and truly remarkable. They are also, quite rightly, the most civilised and intelligent of the so-called wild aborigines of Arctic America. Their legends and traditions are strung together in a way that makes them seem like stories. They also bear the closest resemblance to the Pentateuch.
At the beginning of the world, two brothers lived alone on earth. The youngest liked to stay naked. He went in and out, stripped of all clothing. His most common occupation was making arrows.
One night, after they had gone to bed, the elder brother, who loved his younger brother dearly, said to him:
– My little brother, pierce my armpit with your arrow.
As it was night, the elder brother was also naked. He had taken off his clothes to sleep.
The younger replied:
– I don’t want to do that, my elder brother.
– That’s why you don’t want to hit me with them, because if you did, you know they wouldn’t pierce me.
Stung by this challenge, the youngest took his bow, bent it against his brother, pierced his chest with an arrow and killed him.
Then their parents wept, and the younger brother – the one who used to go naked – wept too; he despaired, left the tent and finally went away, never to return.
His parents looked for him in vain. He never came back.
After he left, his mother became pregnant again, and gave birth to a third boy who grew up to be very powerful. This is his story:
Dindjié, – this man’s name – having grown up, began to hunt and kill animals to feed himself. But while hunting, he was preoccupied with this thought:
– One of my brothers is dead; the other has disappeared. What can have become of him? I must find him.
So one day he went hunting on the banks of the Grande-Eau, where he heard the great Arctic loon hooting as it frolicked.
– Why is that loon crying? thought Dindjié. It’s probably seeing reindeer and being scared of them, which makes it cry.
So thought the young man. So, having spotted a reindeer trail, he set off along it, did indeed see reindeer, pursued them and arrived on the shores of the Great Water of which I have just spoken.
This lake (or sea) was immense and covered with aquatic birds that swam in it. Dindjié wanted to kill some of these birds and hid himself to watch for them.
Suddenly he spotted something black in the open sea that looked like a man’s head sticking out of the water.
– What could it be? he thought.
He hid again and watched.
After waiting a long time for the object to move, Dindjié clearly saw the head of a very tall man standing in the water. Hiding his head behind a clump of rushes, this man approached the waterfowl, grabbed their legs and pulled them under the water where he wrung their necks. This is how this stranger hunted[7].
When Dinjié went looking for the hunter’s clothes, he found them on the shore, for the man was standing naked in the water. Dindjié hid near the clothes to spy on the hunter.
When the hunter had caught and killed all the waterfowl, he came out of the water, ran to the place where he had left his clothes and put them on.
But then Lindjie, who had been hiding until then, ran up to the stranger, embraced him, clasped him and held him in his arms, saying to him:
– A long time ago, a child killed his elder brother and ran away after killing him. Is that not you?
– Yes,” said the other. That’s me.
– Well then, learn that I am your younger brother, who has been looking for you for a long time. Now that I’ve found you, I’ll never leave you again,” he said.
Then the elder brother, who had run away and got lost, became sad and said to his younger brother:
– Alas, my brother, I no longer resemble a common man; I have married the invisible and very powerful woman who cannot suffer the presence or sight of any man other than myself, and whose sense of smell is so subtle that she perceives men from afar and escapes them. It is therefore impossible for you to follow me. Go back to where you came from.
But the younger:
– I will not stray from you, my brother,” he replied. I want to see the invisible woman too.
So the two brothers went together towards the home of the elder, who, as he went along, told his younger brother:
– My younger brother, your sister-in-law is very powerful and terrible. So I’ll ask her first and tell her, ‘I’ve just found my brother; give me your consent for him to stay with me. And you will do as she says.
So spoke the elder brother.
This man had married two beautiful women. One, the actual wife, the one sitting by the door, was called Rdha-ttsègæ (evening-wife). The other, the concubine, the one at the back of the tent, was called Yékkρay-ttsègæ (morning-woman).
When the two brothers reached the house, they heard a woman standing outside the tent, tanning skins. The sound of the scraper scraping the skin could be heard, and the skin could be seen moving; but the woman was nowhere to be seen.
The two brothers entered the tent. There was plenty of game and venison. Female voices could be heard, but no human being could be discerned.
It was a beautiful tent, with a lot of meat hanging from it. The eldest said as he entered:
– My wives, give us some meat to eat, for this man is my younger brother whom I have just found.
Then it was as if someone had taken some excellent pemmican, placed it in a clean bowl and brought the dish to the newcomer. But the newcomer did not see the hand that did all this.
Nevertheless, the two brothers ate together.
When the two men had arrived, I said that the titular wife, the woman of the evening, was sitting on the threshold. When the meal was over, she left the tent, and the other wife, the morning wife, returned and, taking her rival’s place beside the door, she produced the day. As for the evening wife, she left.
But when evening came, she returned again, and immediately night fell. She brought a lot of game, the product of her hunt. They had another meal and went to bed. But the young traveller saw no woman lying next to his elder brother.
However, he said to his younger brother:
– My younger brother, our parents are not yet dead. You would do well to go back to them to help them; for I imagine you have not yet been able to see your sisters-in-law.
– No, my brother”, said the other, “I haven’t been able to see them yet, but I don’t intend to go back. I want to stay with you.
At that moment, the woman of the evening having left, the younger brother caught a glimpse of her from behind. All he saw was her garment, which was resplendent. But that was all he saw.
When evening came, the woman of the morning came out in her turn, and he also caught a glimpse of her from behind. So he said to his elder son:
– Now I’m beginning to get a glimpse of your wives, but only from behind.
The elder replied:
– My youngest son, I haven’t told you everything yet. When I was about to die, I left for the moon where I took these women. They belong to the lunar race, and that is why you cannot see them, since they are not of the same nature as you.
The younger man stayed with his elder brother for two more days and nights, and was then able to see his brother’s two wives perfectly. They were as white as snow.
The elder said to him:
– My younger brother, your sisters-in-law are pleased with you, so they let themselves be seen.
Now, it was autumn when the younger brother met up with his elder brother, and winter had already arrived as if in the twinkling of an eye. The elder said:
– My younger brother, behold, my father-in-law, the old man Moon, who gave me his two powerful daughters in marriage, has just sent me orders to return to his lunar land, and he is also giving you my two wives, but beware of this:
– On your way back to your homeland, don’t go over the ice,” he added. “I’m telling you this to test you. That’s what my father-in-law has just told me. So let’s go, my little brother.
Having said this, the older brother set off for the moon, while the younger continued on his own way with the women.
The three of them came to a waterfall formed by a strait where one water flowed into another, so that there was a great deal of water on the right and as much on the left, and the strait with its waterfall in front of them. There was a short portage at this point, which saved them the trouble of crossing the ice of the large lakes.
The man with the two women went through the portage first, obeying the old man, the Moon. Night came, however, and the two women who had followed him did not reappear.
– Why aren’t my two wives following me? thought Dindjié. He retraced his steps and set out to find them by the branch of the river that, through a waterfall, connected the two waters.
Then, far out to sea, he saw his two wives coming along the ice of the lake. But, as they were warm, the ice melted under their feet, opened up and they were swallowed up in the deep water where they drowned.
So the man went off on his own, back to his father-in-law. The moon. The old man was not satisfied. But he agreed to give him two more daughters, all the same as the first, saying to him:
– Go back to the land below. I will test you there.
Now, one of the two new wives of Dindjié, the one who was sitting at the door, refused her husband because she hated him. She didn’t work for him; she was surly and always unhappy; she never spoke to him.
When the day came, the woman disappeared, and Dindjié said to herself:
– Where on earth has she gone?
In the evening, the cantankerous woman returned, hiding something behind her back.
– Where did you come from?” asked her husband.
She didn’t answer him.
Dindjié had not yet had any dealings with his two lunar wives. So he had not yet had any children.
However, when daylight came, the evening woman disappeared again, and her husband followed her at a distance.
– Where is she going and why is she going out? he asked himself.
Then he saw her enter a black and foul swamp, naked. There she stood with a black snake tied to her. Witnessing this abomination, Dindjié was appalled and left the woman of the night in that place.
The next day, the two women were still at their posts as usual, and the one who loved her husband left towards evening. Dindjié also followed her and hid to spy on her. He saw her sitting naked on a bed of snow gooseberries, with a host of little gooseberries hanging from her teats and suckling.
When he returned home, Dindjié was careful not to talk about what he had seen, but he thought about it.
Some time later, while the man was sitting in his tent, busy making arrows, his two wives came in carrying their children, whom they laid in the tent. They were both hidden under a blanket.
– Let me see them!” said the man.
Then, lifting one of the blankets from his arrow, he saw that the children of the woman who loved him were white and pretty. Their noses were pierced with swan feather pipes, which their mother had adorned. In a word, they were beautiful children.
Dindjié looked at them and covered them with a smile. Then he looked at the wicked woman’s children. Ah! they were snake-men, black, hideous and with enormous gaping mouths. Struck with horror, the man pierced their mouths with his arrow, and having killed them, they died.
Their mother returned in the meantime and became terribly angry. The husband said nothing, went out and hunted hares; he caught some by the shoelace and returned to his tent so that his wives could prepare his food. The wicked wife did not want to eat the white hares. Her husband said to her:
– I can see that you refuse to eat because you think that these hares are my children.
She said nothing, took the hares, put some pemican in their ears, and immediately the hares came to life and ran off into the forest.
– What a wicked woman!” exclaimed the husband, indignant at losing the fruit of his hunt.
Then, to test him further, Dindjié went to bed and pretended to be ill.
– My stomach hurts,” he said.
The wicked wife took some urine and dog droppings, made a mixture and gave it to her husband as medicine. But the poison did him no harm.
That being the case, they broke camp the next day. Then the wicked woman of the evening said to her rival:
– Since you are the only one with children, stay with your husband. As for me, I’ve made up my mind to stay here.
Saying this, she fled into the marshes and disappeared. No one knows what has become of her since. When the Hudson’s Bay Company arrived in this country, we thought it was the wicked woman of the evening who was returning to us.
So Dinjié, disgusted with lunar women, left, determined to abandon even the one who loved him, and hurried back to his homeland to his old parents. But his wife followed him at a distance and followed in his footsteps.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t run as fast as he could. It was only with difficulty that she could keep up with him. The husband always made camp before she arrived, and the poor woman only arrived at the bivouac after the fugitive had left.
Thus walking and pursuing the infidel[8], she came to the banks of a large stream, when she saw her husband on the other bank, where he had already lit a fire. She ran to him, but before she had time to cross the lake, Dorje had left. Twice he had done so. She was sorry.
The morning woman said to herself:
– It’s obvious that my husband wants to abandon me, because he must have seen me coming across the lake. I’ll use my cunning.
So, when evening came and her husband was camped on the opposite shore of a large lake, the morning wife, instead of crossing the lake in plain sight, went round it through the woods. This was much harder for her.
When she arrived at the bivouac, Dindjié was getting ready to leave. He had already put on one of his snowshoes and was tying up the other, when the unfortunate woman ran up to him:
– What do you mean, you’ve abandoned me! So you want to leave without me?
As she said this, she grabbed him by the legs, clung to his knees and threw the children she was carrying onto him.
Then Dindjié took pity on her. He took his wife back and never left her again; he followed her, and this woman of the morning, who had become the man’s true wife, also became the mother of the Dindjié family. It is said that these are our ancestors.
(Told by the dindjié Sylvain Vitœdh,
in December 1870, at Fort Bonne-Espérance).
Etρœtchokpen, the boat-builder, was the first to build a canoe. In spring, he chose the most suitable bark and tried it out. First he tore off some fir bark, threw it into the water, jumped over it and followed it downstream. It sank to the bottom.
Then he tore off some paper birch bark, threw it into the water, jumped over it[9] and followed it downstream. It floated beautifully. He chose it to make his canoe. He made the canoe by the virtue of his medicine.
To this end, he climbed to the top of a tall fir tree, tied himself to it and slept there. At the same time, the bark, nails and varangues of the future canoe were laid at the foot of the tree.
Etρœtchokρen slept a second night, and when he awoke the ribs were in place and the canoe was built.
Then he launched it, but it was full of water. Etρœtchokρen climbed back onto his tree, spent a third night there, and the next day the canoe was caulked, covered with its bottom rails, and the oar was also ready. The navigator entered the canoe and sailed down the river.
At first, the otter and the mouse were said to live together. The boatman arrived at their home, and the otter, who was a man-eater, gave Etρœtchokρen something to eat. It gave him ground meat that looked like red dust. But it was human flesh dried and pulverised by the mouse.
So the otter, who is the devil, stayed there and warned the man:
– When you go downstream, you shall not drink the water of the river, but only the water of a stream that flows into it.
But the otter wanted to deceive the man.
So when the boatman got into his boat and looked for the stream, while the otter ran along the shore, he shouted to the devil:
– Is this the stream?
– No, further down.
– Is it here?
– Still further down.
– Is this the little river?
– No, I tell you, it’s much further downstream.
Etρœtchokρen continued on his way, but soon all he found in the river were vile corpses, skulls, bones, the floating dead. There were so many of them that they looked like islands above the water.
And the devil was always running along the shore following the pirogue. To avoid him, the boatman crossed to the other bank, but the otter-devil swam across the river, reached the shore before him and waited for him on the other side.
Not knowing how to make his way through the floating corpses, Etρœtchokρen said to the devil:
– Pass and repass in front of my boat, and clear the way for me.
The otter obeyed. It swam and swam among the dead, and the boatman, paddling after it and following it, sailed and sailed through the maze of islets formed by the heaped-up corpses. Eventually he reached the other shore, where he camped and slept for a long time.
The next day, the navigator killed two beavers and camped again. While he slept, the otter and the pegan entered his body through his rectum. But when he woke up, he picked a willow branch, made a loop in it, and with this instrument he removed these two vile parasites from his body, who gained nothing from their exploit other than the uneven colour of their fur and the stench they exhaled.
From there, the boatman set off again in his canoe and spotted a living man spearing fish with a trident. Etρœtchokρen, unaware of this, metamorphosed into a pike[10] and approached the man, who did not see him. The navigator climbed to the surface of the water and lay down in the sun. The man with the trident thought he had reached him and pierced him, but all he landed on was a silty mass.
Having regained his first form, the boatman sailed in search of men and reached the place called: Where only the human heart lived.
At the very bottom of the river[11] lived Nopodhittchi with his wife and daughter. He was away at the time. The boatman went into the giant’s house, settled in without any fuss, and sat next to his wife for several days.
Suddenly, the Violent arrived in a pirogue. His wife had said to Etρœtchokρen:
– If my husband shows up and the wind shifts to this side, get out of here in a canoe as fast as you can.
So the boatman set off on the water, pursued by the dogs of Nopodhittchi (the Violent) who were barking for death. He killed the wife of the Violent One, climbed a fir tree and pissed; the result was a great river into which he pushed the giant’s daughter. She drowned in it and drifted away.
Etρœtchokρen then went out to look for the men who had died in the waters. Sitting in his canoe, he swayed on the water. This rocking produced such waves that the whole land was covered and flooded. The water roared, the torrents roared, there was a general flood. It was all too much.
Struck with terror, Etρœtchokρen saw a giant straw[12] with a hole in it. He dug in and cudgelled himself, for his canoe had sunk, the water having submerged it. And his giant straw floated on the waters, which were unable to swallow it up.
The boatman floated in his giant thatch case until the waters had evaporated and the earth had dried up. He then landed on a high mountain where his thatch had rested.
The navigator stayed on this high ground for a long time. He did not leave until several days had passed. This mountain is called The Place of the Old Man, because it was there that Etρœtchokρen stayed. It’s that sheer rock you saw to the right of Fort MacPherson, in the Rocky Mountains.
Downstream from the river (Youkon) two very high sheer rocks form a kind of lock between them. The water is strong and the current very fast. There, standing on the two rocks with his leg here and his leg there, the river passing between his legs and his hands dipping in the water, the boatman would grab the bodies of the men as they passed, in the same way as you catch fish with a well.
When Etρœtchokρen got even further down towards the Beaver Sea, he saw a hydra lying gaping in the middle of the river, taking in all the water that rushed in. The current was violent. Etρœtchokρen, while sailing, entered the mouth of the sea monster, crossed its body on the current of water, and exited through the rear orifice. This was his last exploit as a navigator.
However, Etρœtchokρen, having disembarked, set out to find any men who might have survived. There were no more men. Only the raven, perched on a high rock, slept, full and satisfied, on one of its legs.
The boatman, bag in hand, climbed to the top of the rock, surprised the raven in its sleep and locked it in the bag, intending to get rid of it.
Then the Raven said to him:
– Please do not rush me down this rock; for, if you did, I would wipe out all the men who still remain, and you would find yourself alone in the world.
But Etρœtchokρen threw him down the rock, broke him into a thousand pieces and left his bones scattered at the bottom of the mountain. Then he set off again.
But the Raven’s prediction came true. Soon the boatman thought he heard the sound of men playing during the night; for it was the summer solstice, a time when the sun does not set and the night is spent in amusements. But he was mistaken, he saw no men. He travelled long and far to find some, but never found anyone. All the tents were empty; there were no more men on earth. Etρœtchokρen only saw a loche and a pike lying on the mud, basking in the sun.
So he returned to the corpse of the Raven, whose bleached bones lay scattered at the foot of the mountain. He put a blanket over them, farted on them, and by this fart put all the bones back in place and gave them back their flesh and spirit. But he had not been able to find one of the Raven’s toes, so he resurrected him with only three toes on his feet[13].
The boatman had done this so that the Raven (who was a wicked spirit) could help him repopulate the earth. So they went to the beach where the pike and the loche were sleeping in the sun, their bellies resting on the silt; then the Raven said to Etρœtchokρen:
– You, pierce the belly of the pike while I will do the same to the loche.
So Etρœtchokρen pierced the belly of the pike and a crowd of men came out. For his part, the devil-raven having done the same with the loche, a multitude of women came out of the body of that other fish.
It is said that this is how the earth was repopulated.
(Told by the dindjié Sylvain Vitœdh,
in December 1870, at the Fort of Good Hope).
Etρœtchohρen[14] was out hunting when he saw the burrow of a gigantic porcupine. He entered it, killed the porcupine and roasted it underground. Outside he saw the flames of the fire and the smoke rising from it.
Then Ehta-odu-hini went to this underground fire during a very dark night. He struck the earth with his stone axe, saying to the man:
– I am going to open a passage for you.
The man refused to come out. But “He who sees before and behind” took pity on his folly. For a long time he worked the hardened earth with his flint dart, striking again and again to make a way out, and he succeeded in digging up the man, to whom he said:
– Fear not, my grandson, I am good and never kill anyone. I have come to rescue you.
So Etρœtchokρen crawled out of the hole and went towards the good giant. Etha-odu-hini took him by the back of the neck like a little cat, lifted him off the ground and placed him on his shoulder; then he left.
Ehta-odu-hini had a louse on his stomach.
– Here,” he said to the man, “take this louse that’s biting me and put it under my teeth.
The man obeyed. The louse was none other than a large muskrat!
Carrying the man on his shoulder, the good giant walked around the sky.
– Look, my grandson,” he said, “look at those mice scurrying about.
And what he called mice were indeed reindeer!
The giant grabbed his javelin, threw it at the animals and pierced them.
He went on.
– My grandson, look over there at those hares sitting on their backsides.
What he called hares were moose! He pierced them with his darts, put them in his belt as if they were partridges, and continued his walk.
In a single meal they were all devoured[15]. He gave Etρcetchakρen the whole rump of an elk:
– Eat this,” he said. But the man was never able to eat it.
He went even further.
– My grandson,” he said, “we’ll both go to my fishing locks. On the way he added:
– Noρodhittchi (the Violent Fort) has resolved my death, for he hates me.
Suddenly a fox ran across the ice. He tried to penetrate it, because it was transparent, but seeing that he couldn’t, he got angry because of its hardness, crying out: “Ice is deceitful.”
Suddenly, the fox changed into a man, for it was the evil one himself, Nopodhittchi.
He pounced on Ehta-odu-hini and the two of them fought hand to hand for a long time. The latter was about to weaken when, remembering the man, he cried out:
– Cut, my son, cut the tendon of his leg.
Etρœtchokρen cut the tendon in Nopodhittchi’s foot, knocked him down and killed him. When Nopodhittchi’s wife came running, the navigator cut the tendon in the back of her neck with his flint axe and killed her too. She died.
– My grandson,” cried the good giant, “the Violent One has a son, run after him and kill him in the same way.
The little boy was still in his birch bark saddle. He rushed at the man shouting: “Wu! wu!” Etρœtchokρen opened his chest and smashed his skull with the iron of his spear.
Nopodhittchi also had a nubile daughter. Etρœtchokρen raped her; then, having climbed a tall fir tree, he urinated. The result was a river in whose waves the nubile girl drowned and drifted into the sea.
After these exploits, Etρœtchokρen returned. Ehta-odu-hini had many dogs, such as the bear, the reindeer, the elk, the lynx, the wolf and so on. They had all fled through the woods. So the good giant said to the man:
– Go back to your mother. He gave him his staff, adding: “Go, lest my dogs tear you to pieces, for they are all out for your life. If you ever find yourself in danger, call on me and I will come to you; for I am forever your powerful and good protector.”
Etρœtchokρen therefore separated himself from the good giant, and when night came, he climbed a high fir tree and tied himself to it to sleep, for he feared the dogs of the Mighty Good. Indeed, during the night, he heard animal footsteps, and a singular noise: “ρaw! ρaw!” It was the wolves gnawing at the foot of his fir tree to determine its fall and devour the man.
Then Etρœtchokρen raised his voice in fright and cried out:
– Grandfather, your dogs want to bring me down by cutting down my tree.
Immediately he heard “He who sees” calling to his dogs: “Vœdzey! Vœdzin! Vœdzey! Vœdzjn! tsey! tsey! vèh! vèh!” And at the same moment wolves, bears and jackals left the tree to run to their master. It is said that it was the mouse who arrived first.
From that moment on, Etρœtchokpen was a man. He went to join his mother and followed her on her nomadic wanderings, working wonders with the stick that the Mighty Good had given him.
(Told by Sylvain Vitœdh, in 1870, at Fort Bonne-Espérance.
Bonne-Espérance).
Kρwon-étan, the man without fire, and Nakkan-tsell, or the Pygmy, were at war over a beautiful woman called L’atρa-tsandia, the one who is plundered by both sides.
Nakkan-tsell had a large number of soldiers, all as small as himself, who destroyed Kρwon-étan’s relatives.
Kρwon-étan also had a large number of servants, and through his wars he completely destroyed the Pygmies. In the end, the two remained alone, fighting each other and seeking each other’s destruction.
One day, when they were fighting on both sides, the beautiful woman L’atρa-tsandia, the cause of this rivalry, hid behind the door of her tent, watching attentively through a crack what was happening outside; for, on the plain, a crowd of men were killing each other for her possession. Wearing snowshoes, they were running after each other. Kρwon-étan had already killed his brother, and he had resolved to make a great slaughter of his other rivals. As they pursued each other, the combatants came to the banks of a river, which Kρwon-étan crossed. But his younger brother had crossed it before him, and his wet snowshoes were covered with ice so thick that they became very heavy. Hindered in his march, the warrior fell, and Kρwon-étan came along and killed him.
The only son of the Fireless Stranger had climbed up the steep slope of a mountain and was hiding there for fear that his father would also sacrifice him. Kρwon-étan went after him armed with a cutlass and sat down on the mountain with his son beside him.
– My descendant,” he said to him, “I’m cold; light a fire and give me your mittens so that I can warm my hands. For he had left without his firebrand, carrying a firebrand that he had knocked over in the snow, so that he had just arrived half-frozen, crying over his extinguished fire and his forgotten firebrand.
His son took pity on him. He gave him his mittens, cut and piled the wood into a pyre, and set fire to it. Then Kρwon-étan, well warmed, seized his cutlass, split the belly of his only son and threw him down the rock. Then he said to the mountain:
– On the summit of the great mountain, I sacrificed to you before the beginning a fat victim that I sent to you. What have you done with it?
After this evil deed, Kρwon-etan went back down to his tent where he found his brother’s widow mourning the death of her husband. After his death, the Man without Fire had taken her as his second wife.
Sitting in the snow with her face to the ground, she was lamenting the fact that the nerve in her foot had been sprained and pulled out. She was the mother of a small dog that her husband had given her, because she belonged to the breed of Dogmen.
So Kρwon-êtan said to her:
– My mistress, tell me a story, something entertaining.
– Ah! the nerve in my leg has gone,” she said; “I’m suffering too much. I lit a fire in the tent for you. What more do you want?
The Stranger without a Fire got angry.
– Mistress, I’m going to sleep,” he said. As for you, go away with your dog, and even if your son cries, don’t ever come here again.
The unfortunate woman got up, took her dog, left and went off into the distance, her brother’s wife! She walked weeping, pressing her little dog to her bosom. So she walked and walked for a long time in barren lands, in treeless places, looking for a people who would not kill her and her dog. And so she wandered all winter in the pathless desert. Finally, lacking everything and exhausted, she lay down to die, and her dog with her.
Suddenly a wolverine (others say a white wolf, Pèlé) came running towards her. He shook her and pulled her by the hair. She did not stir. This wolverine came from the banks of a river. By dint of shaking the woman, he brought her out of her syncope. She was on her guard, threw a stone at the wolverine, hit him on the back of the neck and killed him. In this way, she obtained some meat.
Then, having followed the animal’s trail, she found the river and was able to quench her thirst. She was saved.
After these events, the Pygmy once again stole Kρwon-étan’s wife, forcing Kρwon-étan to set off again to take her back. But this time he was alone. As he walked on, he noticed that the path was becoming more and more recent. In the end, it was only yesterday. But the camp he reached was empty. Only one old woman had stayed there, beside a tiny fire, because she always had a small fire in reserve.
To warm the fireless stranger, the old woman lit a large bonfire, and the traveller fell asleep beside it. In the evening, the old woman went to tell the people, to whom the Man without Fire had arrived, of his arrival.
– This is a marvellous thing that has happened to me”, she said to them, lest they should find it reprehensible, or else pretending not to recognise her husband; “I have just seen a great smoke rise from my small fire. Come and see for yourself.
Immediately these people came running down the path, and they saw Kρwon-êtan awake, but lying in the middle of the blazing fire, of which he had made two parts.
They divided into two groups and surrounded him without his knowledge, surprising him in this strange position.
– What kind of man are you,” they asked him, “and where do you come from? What nation do you belong to?
Kρwon-étan got up, leapt out of the fire, and, escaping beyond the living circle, said to these men:
– I am a Stranger without fire or place. I have just been travelling all winter, wandering hither and thither without shelter; and that is why I am called Kρwon-étan.
– Stay with us”, these people told him. And he agreed to their wishes.
I repeat: it was not until a year later that Kρwon-étan went in search of L’atρa-tsandia, who had been kidnapped by Nakkan-tsell. But he led an army with him, because the Pygmy’s soldiers were numerous.
After his army had set out, it was plagued by famine, but the Pygmy country was still a long way off. They came to the edge of the sea, whose shores are barren and devoid of trees, and they circled it for twenty nights without meeting anyone.
In the end, they saw a mountain that seemed very far away. But by the virtue of his magic, the Man without Fire brought it closer, and by the same power he crossed it, for it was covered in thick black smoke that obscured the sky and hung over the sea.
There, on the edge of that sea, lived the troglodyte Pygmies. They lived in the earth. The Stranger went into their caves, but he did not find his wife there; she had gone to burn wood in the mountains. As for Nakkan-tsell, he was also absent at the moment.
Kρwon-étan went into the forest to meet his wife, and said these words to her, grasping the end of the tree she was carrying on her shoulder:
– Woman, behold, your parents have come to take you back; but they are hungry, for we are in famine. Give us some meat. As she said this, Kρwon-étan drew her flint knife and cut the flesh from her thighs.
The atpa-tsandia returned to the underground village without saying a word to anyone. She went to the back of her house, rummaged around, took a pemican and some fat melted into bread, put it all in her blanket and went back out to give it to her husband.
– How I have longed to see you again, O my wife!” said Kρwon-étan, “and the happiness of resting with you!
– Shut up, shut up,” she said. I am old and my fire is no longer good for anything.
So the Stranger did not insist on a more intimate interview. He went back to his servants who were sitting nearby, and, handing them the pemican, said:
– Here is the cake of meat and fat of the daughter of your people! He lifted it up in his hands, but the pemican melted between his fingers and smoke came out, but an immense smoke. It was this cake, it is said, that was the cause of the black smoke he had seen from the plain, covering and obscuring the mountain.
When the next day arrived, they set off again and passed the underground villages. Kρwon-étan had previously said to his wife:
– If tomorrow morning, at dawn, you hear a white grouse clucking, you will know that it is your compatriots who have arrived to rescue you. And wherever you hear an owl moaning, you will know that I am there. So come to me.
That evening, L’atρa-tsandia lay down between her two Pygmy husbands. All three slept under the same blanket, and L’atρa-tsandia had hidden a flint knife in her private parts. As dawn began to whiten, the hour when enemies usually attack, a ptarmigan began to cackle: “Iyaw! iyaw!” he said.
Immediately the woman split her blanket from head to toe with her flint, rose silently to her feet, killed her two captors and fled to the side where she heard a hooting cat. The Pygmies were surprised and massacred.
So Kρwon-étan and his people stayed on the high ground. His people had lost their hearing. He restored their hearing with his magic. They crossed an archipelago from island to island, and the Stranger took back his old wife, even though she had only a tiny fire left. This woman, though old, was perfectly beautiful, which is why she was constantly being plundered.
During the summer, something wonderful happened to them both. She went to gather her supply of lichen and put it out to dry; her husband helped her carry the lichen and lay it out in the sun, when all of a sudden the lichen turned into a great mountain. It can still be seen in the Rocky Mountains. It is called the Great Mountain.
Later, the Stranger without Fire dragged a man towards the sea, laid him on a large fir tree and tied him firmly to it. Then he went some distance away, not far from there. His old wife began to weep at the sight, but the Stranger said to her:
– Do not grieve, for my son will soon be reborn. Now I’m going to see “Him who sees and acts forwards and backwards”. So he withdrew weeping, went to the people and gathered together a great crowd of warriors[16].
Shortly afterwards, his beautiful wife was taken from him again. The kidnappers disappeared, as on the first occasion, by the sea. Kρwon-étan went in search of them and reached the shore, where he found two young men sitting under a tree and an old man looking for his son. As soon as they saw the old man, they hid to spy on his arrival. He reached the great water, whose shores are barren and whose end cannot be seen from either side. So the two young men transformed themselves into bears and, walking like these animals, crossed the great water where, becoming men again, they killed the old man.
However, Kρwon-étan arrived at the home of those who had stolen L’atρa-tsandia from him, and the better to spy on his enemies, he hid in the middle of a bush. Suddenly, his wife appeared and began to search and look around. Suddenly she saw her husband’s eyes shining through the branches of the bush.
– It’s a man, a liberator who’s hidden there, she thought.
To let him know that she had seen, she drew some water and, without pretending to do anything, threw some on the bush as a signal.
The Pygmy, who was in the tent at the time, came running over:
– Why are you throwing water like that? What is the meaning of this?” he said to L’atρa-tsandia in a jealous tone.
– The mosquitoes devour me and I chase them away,” she replied. Then Nakkan-tsell, believing that she was telling the truth, returned to his tent.
Kρwon-étan then returned, as he had done the first time, to the warriors he had hidden in the forest, and told them that he had just found his wife again, but that she was well guarded and that they would have to fight to get her back.
So they decided to go round the big lake. But they did not believe the lake to be so vast, for they circled it for twenty days and camped for twenty nights before returning to the Pygmies.
When they got there, L’atρa-tsandia was sitting on the threshold of her tent, wiggling her feet like a fool; for her poor feet were worn with old age and all torn.
– Auntie,” she said to another old woman, “my feet are all torn up.
The woman put a cake of pounded meat and sweet fat on them, and her feet were mended and put back in good order. Then she went out to meet her husband.
Kρwon-etan said to her again:
– Here are your countrymen coming to rescue you; but they have no provisions. Give us something to eat first.
The atρa-tsandia gave her some pemican, or a cake of pounded meat and sweet fat.
– Follow me into the forest,” he said, “I need you.
– What are you saying?” she replied. Stop talking like that, I’m old and my feet are all torn up.
So the Stranger without Fire returned alone to his warriors; but the next day, when dawn broke, they rose to fight, and killed many. Kρwon-étan killed all the Pygmies, and in the absence of their chief, who was absent, he fought his younger brother for a long time without being able to defeat him. In the end, however, he managed to overthrow him, thrust his knife between his collarbones, split his body from top to bottom and killed him. Then he ripped out his entrails and scattered them on the ground. He treated him like an animal, impaled him on a sharp stake and hoisted him onto the ridge of his lodge, after having carefully adorned him and combed his hair.
Then Kρwon-étan took back his wife L’atρatsandia and returned. As for Nakkan-tsell, the chief of the Pygmies or Little Enemies, the Stranger without Fire tried again to defeat him, but he was unable to do so. Their stone axes, flint knives and arrows always met point on point, slashing against slashing.
So they stopped fighting, and Kρwon-étan lived on for a long time. It is said that only old age was able to overcome him.
(Told by Sylvain Vitœdh, in 1870,
at Fort Bonne-Espérance).
A bigamous man named Kρwon-étan lived with his younger brother by the water. These two brothers were angry with each other, so the elder made a wooden trough while his younger brother was asleep, locked him in it, tied him up properly, closed the trough and threw it into the sea.
The chest floated. As it floated, it sailed through the heavy seas. A seagull spotted it and fluttered towards it. The man tied up in the trough said to her:
– Daughter-in-law, swim for me in front of my coffin.
The mallow began to swim and calm was restored. Then the coffin sailed quietly and reached the opposite shore, where it landed.
But it was impossible for the bound man to get out of his coffin, because it was so tightly bound. Then a white wolf came running to the coffin.
– My brother-in-law,” said the man, “gnaw these bonds that hold me captive.
The wolf tried, but he couldn’t do it. A marten came along and gnawed the ropes so well with its incisors that the man was freed from his shackles and got out of his coffin.
He set off along a path that only dogs had trodden and beaten. All you could see there were dog steps. There was a scaffold there, and on it the Stranger placed his wooden trough. On this scaffold was also venison, the opulent remains of animals killed in the hunt. He took the fat from one rump, but it stank so much of dog faeces that he could not eat it, and rejected the meat because of its smell.
The Stranger then set off along the path marked out by the dogs, and found himself surrounded by a deep darkness in which he could only advance slowly. Then he saw the feathered body of a great white eagle hanging there. He picked it up, put it on like a garment to help him on his journey, and flew towards a village that he saw from the air. Children were playing in the middle of the village.
– Look, there’s my white eagle’s clothing,” they cried when they saw the Stranger coming down towards them. So they threw themselves at him and pierced his white eagle-skin garment in many places.
But the Stranger went to the adults of that nation, who said to him:
– We don’t kill anyone. Stay with us.
He resisted their entreaties for a long time, but in the end he agreed to stay with them.
These men were half dogs and half men. In the tent where they brought him, there was a beautiful nubile girl. The Stranger went to her and looked at her. From the waist down, she had the body of a dog.
– Come in, stranger,” he was told.
A great crowd of people rushed up and fought over the traveller’s possession.
– I alone will have him; he must enter my home,” cried these hospitable people from all sides.
The stranger stayed in the house where the nubile girl was. She offered him some mouse legs to eat. He ate, lay down and went to sleep. As for the dog-men, they did not sleep, for they did not know what sleep was.
The stranger remained lethargic for two days, and the dog-men began to lament and sing the funeral song: “Atsina![17] hey! hey! atsina! hey! hey!” because they thought he was dead. But he suddenly woke up:
– Behold,” he told them, “in my dreams I have discovered a soporific medicine for you.
He threw the eyes of a white hare into the fire, and immediately the Dogpaws, who never slept, dozed off and fell asleep.
Now, the great white arctic owl was the Dog-Foot’s pasture. They hunted these birds with nets. Just then, two of these owls arrived and were perched some distance away.
A dog-man went towards them, chased them towards his nets and returned.
– I’m going to set more nets to catch these birds,” he said.
But when he returned to the place where he had seen the two white owls, the birds had already flown away. Nevertheless, he spread his nets over the trees to catch these fat, delicious birds.
Then he returned to the traveller and said to him:
– Or sus, stay here and watch over these birds, our food.
Atsina obeyed because he was a foreigner, and he spied the owls. But they had fled.
– Did you see the two white birds again?
– No,” he replied,
The marriageable daughter, who had become his wife, added:
– They’ve flown away, it’s impossible to catch them.
So Atsina saw the two owls perched on a tree, went towards them and pierced them with his arrows. One of them was left hanging by its head between two branches. The second was wounded but not killed. The dog-woman saw him running away and warned her husband. Atsina ran off, but the owl entered the tent and wounded the stranger’s wife so badly that she died.
Nonetheless, Atsina stayed with the Dogfooters throughout the winter, during which time the country went into famine.
– The owls have taken to the sea,” said these people, “let’s go and look for them.
On the water, they saw mice swimming. As mice are nocturnal animals, they were also the prey of the Dogfoot, the inhabitants of the night, and they hunted them down in dug-out canoes, piercing them with their arrows.
Then they went back up to the highlands where mice abounded, thanks to the complete absence of owls in these elevated areas, and they killed many of them. These big yellow mice were their reindeer. They could be seen running up and down the plains in large herds[18]. The Dogfathers gave them a proper hunt. They were pierced with arrows, others were taken by the collar, they were gutted, the women cut up the meat, they were treated like reindeer or elk, and their flesh was hung over the hearth to be smoked and dried.
Suddenly, in the absence of the population, this meat, exposed on the buckans, fell into the fire. All the meat, tents and utensils were consumed. The dog-men, attributing this misfortune to Atsina, said to him:
– This is not your country; go back, for you bring us bad luck.
So Atsina went off alone, sad and without knowing the way.
Then he met Ehna-ta-ettini, He who has eyes before and behind, the great hunter with the double face, who was leading his herd of reindeer. His snowshoes were curved at the front and at the back, for he was a double walker; and behind his snowshoes was a sharp sword.
At the sight of Atsina, the man with the double face stopped, planted his snowshoes in front of him on either side and sat down between them. He promised the stranger that he would give him a large number of reindeer. But, as he was extremely thin and had only skin and bones, Atsina laughed.
– Why are you laughing at me?” said the man with the double face. Do you know that in all my life I’ve never fired a single arrow in vain?
As he said this, he took the sword he had stuck between his snowshoes and cut bacon from the stranger’s flesh. By this magic, he granted him possession of an immense number of reindeer. Then he left, saying to Atsina:
– If in four days you find no living creature, sacrifice a reindeer to me, and save yourself far from the path of the Dogfeet.
This is what He who has eyes behind and in front said to Atsina.
Now it was very hot, and Atsina continued to stay in the land of the night because of the shade he found there. For their part, the dog-men continued to live in their old way, which is why Ehna-ta-ettini went to visit them.
The dog-men were playing pelota in the public square. One of them said:
– I smell human.
Then a very small child, who was pawing a dog for fun, said:
– Oh yes, I can smell people too.
Suddenly, the Man who has eyes from behind as well as in front cried out:
– It’s my sword that smells of humans, you wretches! Know that I do not hunt with impunity.
Immediately he pierced them and slaughtered them all.
Atsina was absent. When he returned to the Dogfathers, he saw nothing but corpses. There was nobody left alive in the village. So he fled from their path, picked up his white eagle-skin garment and put it on.
Then the Man with Two Faces said to him:
– If your eagle carries you too far, cry out: “Stump, arise!” Atsina promised him.
So, having put on the white eagle, Atsina flew across the immense sea. He flew into the distance, and all land disappeared from his sight. When he thought it best to rest and sleep, he cried out:
– Sandbar, arise!
Immediately a sandy islet sprang up in the middle of the sea, and Atsina flew down to it, slept and rested.
Having set off again, he flew even further. Then, wanting to rest again and sleep, he called out:
– Stump, arise!
Immediately a stump arose from the sea, on which he rested and drew breath.
From there he flew back to his barbarous elder brother, who had rejected him and made an attempt on his life. He found him visiting his nets in his canoe. Then, carried away by his eagle, he flew around him and grabbed his elder brother by the hair:
– My younger brother,” cried the latter, “is that really you? I thought I’d do well to give you one of my wives.
– I don’t want any,” replied Atsina.
He immediately threw himself on his elder, dragged him into an underground stream and, still holding him by the hair, paddled him in the water until he was drowned. Only then did he let go of the corpse, which sank to the bottom.
From there, Atsina went to the place where her elder brother’s two wives lived. These two women were sisters and lived in a small tent on the top of a mountain. The Stranger climbed the mountain, entered the lodge and sat down.
– Women,” he said to the two sisters, “I have just travelled the length and breadth of the earth in my white eagle-skin garment. All the inhabitants are dead[19].
He sat down between them as if he had been their husband, and gave them something to eat. On one of them there were weasels, on the other mice, which lived there as parasites. Atsina got rid of them. When night came, he slept between them and with them.
Atsina pierced the breast of one of the women with the tip of her white feathers, and she conceived a son and gave birth to him. The other woman did the same.
But one day, while Atsina was out hunting, a large pike knocked him into the water, biting him on the tendon of his heel and dragging him into the river, where he drowned, and Atsina also died. The huge pike was his elder brother, whom he had drowned in the river earlier. That was the end.
(Told by Sylvain Vitœdh, in 1870,
at Fort Bonne-Espérance).
Once upon a time, an old woman found a small child by the water’s edge and brought it up. As the child grew, he became very powerful and provided his adoptive parents with reindeer by laceing them up at night. He killed them with the power of his magic and fattened them up with it.
One day he said to his parents:
– Separate for me the fat from the intestines of the animals I will provide for you.
The ingrates refused. So the child wept and wailed a great deal as he went round the tents. Then his adoptive uncle said to him:
– Go back to the sun from whence you came. We have no need of you.
The child was silent, and when night came, they went to bed. The powerful child lay down, as usual, between his adoptive mother and her husband.
However, he disappeared during their sleep, which made his mother cry a lot. In fact, the child had gone up into the sun; but as he could not bear the extreme heat, he returned again, so that the next day he was found in the tent.
He took his blanket and, before leaving again, said to his old grandmother:
– Mother, prop up your tent and make it strong, because it’s going to be badly shaken tonight.
The child was wearing marten skin bolsters. He split them in two and hung them on the ridge of the tent; then he said to his parents:
– Put some marten blood above the door, in a bladder, and tie up my little white dog by the door, outside the house, because you are all going to die soon. Crimes abound on this earth, and I can bear them no longer, so I am going to the Moon; there those who hate me will see me again. Shut up, don’t cry,” he then added, “there’s nothing there to make you cry. But act as follows: When you want to cook some meat, cut it up, cut all the flesh off the right shoulder of a reindeer, but take care not to break the bones. Then display this shoulder bone outside the tent in the light of the moon, with all its joints intact. In this way, I will provide you with plenty of meat.
So spoke the Moon Child. He was obeyed punctually. When night came, the tent was carefully bound and closed, a bladder full of blood was hung over the door, a reindeer shoulder was cut up without breaking or dislocating the bones, and it was roasted. As for the little dog, they tied her to the door outside the house.
Then, during the night, a great smoke rose from the ridge of the tent, but the magical young man was never seen again. He had left for the Moon.
At that moment, the moon appeared pale and discoloured; an impetuous wind arose, carrying human creatures through their homes; the houses remained empty; all the enemies perished and all the Zhœnan, or nation of Public Women, with whom they lived, were carried to the top of the fir trees, where they remained frozen and suspended; all their animals disappeared.
As for the Magical Child, after taking the marten’s blood, the torn skin mitts and the little white dog, he left for the Moon, where he can still be seen, holding his bladder in one hand and his little dog under his other arm.
After he left, his parents ate only the right shoulder of the reindeer they killed. They carved the flesh without breaking the bones, and these bones they placed outside in a saddlebag, and the shoulders grew back on their own.
For a long time, they did this, living comfortably without having to hunt or kill reindeer.
If they only ever ate reindeer shoulder, the bone would always remain whole and the shoulder would grow back on its own. It was cut off again and reborn intact. But in the end, the Dindjié tired of eating nothing but shoulder meat. Once they’d eaten it, they broke the bones, and that was it – the shoulder never grew again.
(Told by Emma Lebeau, a dindjié woman, in 1870,
at Fort Bonne-Espérance).
Consequently, when the snow melts and there is a lunar eclipse, in the evening, at dusk, they chop up small pieces of meat, tie them in bundles, fill their game bags with them, and start creeping around the tents.
Suddenly, you sneak into one of the tents, go through it and eat the meat of those who don’t own the lodge. Then they sneak out like snakes and slip into another lodge to do the same thing.
From time to time, we divide into two gangs and go to meet each other. We move around the tents, walking as if crawling. At the same time, we hit two, sometimes four arrows, one against the other, and these arrows are painted red.
At the same time, we sing the following:
– O yellow mouse, pass quickly twice over the ground forming the cross. Aéχuha!
We do this following the example of Siè-ζjié-dhidié, the inhabitant of the Moon, who recommended it to us before leaving for heaven, in order to obtain many animals to hunt and, consequently, abundant food.
(Narrated by Sylvain Vitœdh, in 1870,
at Fort Bonne-Espérance).
Etsiégé is so named because, when he was very small, those who raised him rubbed him with musk ox dung in order to give him the magic spirit.
An old woman found him by the water and brought him up. When he grew up, he became a renowned and powerful magician.
At that time, we were living in the midst of a foreign nation that had enslaved us and was systematically destroying us. They were called the nation of the Zhœnan or Public Women. These people were very rich; they possessed metals, clothes, glassware and all sorts of trinkets; but they had conspired to destroy us.
For this reason, Etsiégé said to his brothers:
– Let’s go against them in canoes.
So we set off to fight them, for we were so miserable among them that we could only laugh in a reindeer pericardium; and they still mistreated us when they heard us laugh. So we laughed into a reindeer bladder or pericardium so as not to be heard, because they thought we were laughing at them.
So the Dindjié went to war against the Zhœnan. They were much mocked, both for going naked and for cooking the carrion of a nasty little dog, which they ate as a feast. They even forced us to eat their cooked dogs. We ate them, but Etsiégé never wanted to taste the filthy flesh.
Etsiégé saw a very handsome Zhœnan boy and wanted to kill him. So he walked with him, hit him from behind with a clod of earth that broke his backbone, and killed him.
– After a blow like that,” his compatriots told him, “you can expect all the Zhœnan to kill you in retaliation. It’s better to run away from them.
Etsiègé therefore left and his parents with him.
But the old Zhœnan, the young man’s mother, said to Etsiègé:
– Why have you done this to my son?
In reply, Bouse punched the old woman in the middle of the forehead with his fist and knocked her over. She lay motionless on the ground.
Bouse was very strong and very powerful with his magic, not the kind of magic that our modern jugglers boast about and which produces nothing, but a real power whose nature we do not know today. However, despite his power, he was the gentlest of men. He never got angry with his compatriots, and when he did, he never hit them. He worked wonders with a reindeer antler or a stick of red willow, and called all men his brothers.
When Etsiege left for war, he found the Zhœnan unsuspecting and his brothers living among their enemies. When he reached the village where his brother and sister lived, he found his sister mourning for her son, whom the Zhœnan had just killed. Her hair was sprinkled with vermilion and dotted with white swan down, like people in mourning.
Bouse entered his brothers’ house during the night and used evil magic against the Zhœnan. He attached sharp bones to the tips of his snowshoes, like two horns. In the middle of the village, a young man, bound by Ettsun, the genie of death, was leaping up and down through the tents. This was the curse or Akρey antschiw (magical young man).
So Bouse broke through the crowd of spectators, his feet shod with snowshoes armed with the aforementioned horns in front and behind, and he dashed after the magical young man who was whirling around the camp. He jumped on him with his sword-armed snowshoes; he ran with the young man into the midst of the Zhœnan and slaughtered them all. Then our enemies became fewer in number than the Dindjié and separated from us.
But the old woman who had brought up Bouse, sitting on the path, moaned and lamented, saying:
– Ah! if my sons were still alive! Bouse didn’t even enter old Zhœnan’s house, even though she had brought him up. He merely glanced around her tent in compassion.
– Who’s there?” said the old grandmother. Ah! it’s you, my son, coming back! Oh, my son, last night your youngest son slaughtered them all when he made the Magic Young Man.
All Bouse said to the old woman were these words:
– Mother, I’m thirsty!
She gave him a drink, and he continued on his way to join his brothers the Dindjié. He had taken two wives from the Zhœnan, whom he repudiated. He had received a brand new tent from his old grandmother. He abandoned it. He left everything behind to flee with his brothers, and together they left the land of the Public Women.
As they fled, they saw on a trestle, next to the dwellings of their enemies, beautiful goatskins spread out. Bouse took them, made a bundle of them and continued on his way. They all went to the place where their original homeland once stood. While the Zhœnan slept, they took away a very fine booty. Unfortunately, they left a little late.
And as they set off :
– What’s happening out there on the sea?
It’s a great wind that’s rising; the waves, like fir trees in their height, are piling up. The water swells and rises, rising up on either side like rampart rocks.
– Get ashore, quickly, get ashore!” shouted Bouse to his brothers.
They hurried ashore. Then he, alone at the water’s edge, swung his oar over the land and swept it away. At the same moment, the prop that supports the universe fell, the earth’s disc sank, the rising water flooded and covered the land, and all the rest of the Zhœnan were swallowed up in the sea. Not one of them escaped.
– Come, come this way, my brothers!” cried Etsiégé again.
– Yes, yes!” they replied.
They all followed him, and he led them across the sea on dry feet. They all reached the other shore safe and sound.
When evening came. Bouse said to his brothers:
– Our country is still a long way off, but don’t worry, I’ll bring it closer.
Saying this, he took a yearling reindeer fawn, killed it, ripped the sinew out of its leg and said to his brothers:
– You shall not eat this.
By this magic of the torn nerve, the land of his ancestors came closer to them. When night came, it wasn’t far away. But at dusk Bouse had returned to his brothers, who said to him:
– Alas! our children have no meat to eat, and men made are without provisions.
Now there were an infinite number of tents there, an innumerable crowd, and yet they had nothing to eat. In one tent there was only a remnant of a reindeer’s head. Bouse ate it and went to bed to perform his inquisitive magic.
It was a monster, a snake, that was depriving the Dindjié of meat. This snake kept all the fish, which were frozen and as hard as stone.
– I’ll destroy it,” said Etsiégé to himself.
But he didn’t know where the snake was retreating to. Nevertheless, he went to bed, as I have just said, to perform the inquisitive magic.
During the sleep of the Dindjié, the Magic Child appeared to Bouse who said to him:
– Where is the path that leads to the Isle of Snakes?
The Magic Child replied:
– It goes this way.
Etsiégé got up in the middle of the night, taking advantage of the moonlight. He armed his arm with the reindeer antler with which he worked wonders, a wood so heavy by itself and yet so light for Bouse and those to whom he entrusted it. He also took his goatskin blanket and went to the Isle[20] of Snakes.
This island stretches far out into the sea. It is long, immense and full of exquisite red fish called Zhikki, which are eaten raw[21] and taste delicious. But in the middle of this island lies the lair of the great Serpent of Death, who guards these excellent fish and has turned them into hard stones.
When Bouse arrives at the cave, he plants his blanket on the end of a post at the entrance to the cave, to lure the snake out. As for Bouse, he was on his guard, in the spotlight from behind. Then he hears the monster growl and sees it emerge from the cave. Immediately he brandished his reindeer antler and, striking it, broke its head, leaving it lifeless at his feet. He then entered the cave, which he found to be full of fish and huge. He filled his blanket with them and returned to the camp. When he got there, he said to his brothers:
– Over there, I’ve just killed that cursed dog. I trampled it underfoot and it’s lying on the ground.
From that moment on, the Dindjié had no shortage of provisions.
Now, there was another very powerful people whose warriors wore globular wooden caps like the forcines on our fir trees. On their chests they wore a garment made of small stones coagulated with pine resin[22]. They were also armed with large shields hanging from their left shoulder, and stone darts fitted with a ball. So it was not easy to defeat them. They were a large people who lived in the barren, treeless desert, in tents of moss.
Eziege set off to fight them with his young men. He could no longer fight, because he had become very old. But he had said to them:
– Carry me to the enemy and put me in my sledge.
They put him in his parchment sledge, and his two sons hoisted him to the top of a mountain, at the foot of which there was a huge crowd of people fighting. There was a great uproar and a huge crowd. The enemy had come in great numbers and had the upper hand over the Dindjié,
At the sight of this multitude, Bouse’s compatriots said to him:
– You alone, speak, pronounce, Etsiégé, and we will judge what will happen over there.
So he answered them:
– Put me back in my sleigh.
And they put him back:
– Now, rush me at the enemy from the top to the bottom of the mountain.
His two sons pushed the sledge over the precipice and let it roll down. Then, suddenly, among the Eskimos[23], there was the sound of thunder. It was Bouse’s sledge making this noise as it rolled down the mountain. Lightning flashes and a sound equal to a hundred thunders came from the sledge. At this sound, the enemies in the wooden helmets fled. The brothers of Etsiégé pursued them and killed many of them. But Bouse killed no one.
Etsiégé had a younger brother called Nedhvè-hègtihi (the one dressed in ermine). Dressed in a long white magical garment, he held suspended by a rope an instrument similar to a fish caught on a hook. This singular object, which had eyes, he swung and swung again and again, as priests do with a censer. The first time we saw the priests swinging their steaming firepans, we thought about our story: It must be the same thing they’re doing there, we said to ourselves. That convinced us.
Now, Nedhvé-hèg-tihi was slaughtering our enemies together with Etsiégé, his elder brother, but not in combat. When we fought, Nedhvè-hèg-tihi didn’t kill anyone, he didn’t shed human blood. Prostrate on the ground, though not without purpose, he spoke, he mumbled incessantly, swinging the instrument I have just mentioned. And by his words and this swinging, he delivered us from our enemies. But it wasn’t magic like that of our jugglers. We don’t know what it was.
Once, a very large number of these Stercoraires (Anakρen), people of the barren desert, gathered against the Dindjié, and yet Etsiégé was sleeping. He slept for a whole day and only woke up in the evening[24]. Although night had fallen, they were about to fight when he arrived. The Dindjié had the upper hand and fled before the enemy. But the man in the white garment, prostrate and speaking softly, began to swing his instrument hanging from the end of a thong.
Bouse, seeing that the Stercoraires had the upper hand, passed over and over his brother, jumping in the shape of a cross from one shoulder to the other [25]. And every time he jumped, he uttered the word “Itsch” and an enemy fell. The two brothers did nothing else all evening, one swinging his instrument while muttering mysterious words, the other jumping over his brother’s arms in the shape of a cross.
Suddenly, however, courage returned to the hearts of the Dindjié, who were fighting on the barren plain. They no longer feared the Stercoraires and defeated them.
Only one was spared, an old man, because Bouse had given him life.
– Go away,” he told him, “and in future, you and your kind must never come this way again. Don’t ever come here again.
This old man was very old.
– It’s all right,” he replied; “if my compatriots come here again in the future, it won’t be my fault.
So they let him go; they didn’t kill him out of pity for his white head. He looked so miserable! But when all his relatives had left, the old man, ashamed of their defeat, strangled himself with the string of his bow and, killing himself, died.
As for Etsiégé, no one could ever defeat him. Only old age could overcome him. That was the end.
(Told by Sylvain Vitœdh, in 1870,
at Fort Bonne-Espérance).
IX
TCHIA
(The Young Man)
There once lived an old man, his wife and their only son, a handsome boy called Tchia. The old man, having reached a very old age, had lost his sight. His wife, who had also become very old, had become cantankerous, angry and wicked. She constantly deceived the poor blind man.
Even though he was deprived of his sight, the blind man hunted. He would go and stand by the reindeer, armed with his bow and arrows and accompanied by his wife. When she signalled the presence of an animal within range, he would bow to it and usually kill it.
One day the old woman said to her husband:
– There’s a moose grazing over there.
– Give me my bow and arrow and I’ll go and kill it,” replied the old blind man.
She held the bow out in the direction of the animal. The blind man strung it, released an arrow, pierced the elk and killed it.
– Well, you’ve missed!” said the mean old woman with an apparent bad temper.
– Oh, I’m too old!” said the blind man, sighing. However, he heard the moose moaning and bellowing as it breathed its last:
– What is that animal I hear moaning over there?
The old woman pretended to go and find out. She went to the water’s edge where the moose had fallen. She hid from the blind man, disemboweled, gutted and butchered the animal; she carried the meat away and hid it carefully under her own blanket, which she spread over it.
However, the old woman couldn’t hide it for long, because she was anxious to eat some fresh meat. So she roasted a piece of the moose, but while it was roasting and moaning, the blind man said to his wife:
– That’s funny, it sounds like meat moaning. What’s making that noise? It’s like the rump of a moose roasting.
Then he added:
– I can even smell roasting meat. What are you roasting?
– Oh, it’s a marten I caught on the trebuchet,” replied the mean old woman, “and I’m roasting it for you.
Indeed, she served the old blind man some bad marten meat, while she feasted on the fat rump of the moose that the old man had killed. When she had finished eating, the old woman left the tent and went away.
The blind man could take no more. Life was taking its toll on him. So he groped his way along. It was difficult, but by groping, he was able to get out on his own and head for the big lake. A white-headed loon was screaming and hooting. The old man set off in that direction, slowly, to try to kill it. He groped his way to the water’s edge.
– Alas! I’ve lost my eyes,” he said in a sorrowful tone, “and now my wicked wife and my young son have left me to go who knows where.
Then the white loon took pity on the blind man and swam towards him:
– Come with me,” he said.
The old man climbed onto the back of the gigantic Arctic bird and dived in with him. They both went far underwater. When they returned above, the white loon said to the blind man:
– This dry land that appears from here, can you make out any of it?
– Alas, no,” replied the blind man.
Then the white bird took the old man back out to sea. Again he made him dive with him, and again brought him to the surface.
– Well, now the land looks fine. Can you see it?
– Not very well yet,” replied the blind man; “but I can see it a little.
Once again, the white diver went under the water with the blind man, and did so well that the blind old man became a young boy (Tchia) again, enjoying perfect sight.
But the old man, now young, strong and sighted, concealed his identity and continued to deceive the blind man. He went to find his wife, following in her footsteps; he headed for the scaffold on which she had placed the meat of the moose he had killed; then, fully aware of the falsehood and selfishness of this shrew, he continued to conceal.
Walking like a blind man and holding out his satchel to his wife, he asked her for a piece of fresh meat.
– There’s no meat in the house,” was the harsh reply.
Her husband then asked for a drink:
– Go and get me some water,” he said to his son; “I’m very thirsty.
His wife replied:
– I’ll go myself.
She went out and came back with brackish, stinking water full of worms and nautonectes swimming in it. This is what she gave him to drink, thinking it would poison him.
She did so because she thought he was blind. But he said:
– Surely you want me to die, since you are doing this to me. So die yourself.
So he grabbed his wife, threw her out of the tent and, having broken her head, she died. That was the end.
(Told by Sylvain Vitœdh, in 1870,
at Fort Bonne-Espérance. )
In the very beginning, two brothers lived together in the land to the west. One day they said to each other:
– Let’s go and look for the little ducks on the other side of the Great Water,
They got into their canoe, came to this side, and lost their way on the sea[26].
– My younger brother,” said the elder, “alas, this land is nothing like ours. These fir trees are not like our fir trees.
– Alas, my elder brother, we are very unhappy. How can we return to our homeland?
When the two brothers set off from there, they suddenly saw many people arriving in dug-out canoes, it is said. These strangers approached the two lost ones.
– Do you want to come with us?
– Yes, that’s fine,” replied the two brothers. They boarded with the strangers, got some food, re-boarded and left the shore to head out to sea.
We probably sailed for a long time; for a long time we were at sea. In the end we arrived at the home of some yellow men with whom we traded; but we didn’t stay long with them.
Having left there, we headed south and landed on another island, among a people of men as black as coal. However, we did not stay long with them, because they were wicked.
From the south, heading west (Tahan), these foreigners arrived among white men. We saw them and traded with them. The white men gave the sailors many things. But they didn’t stay there either: having set sail again, they headed for a river that comes from the sun.
There, too, we found a people of the land, with whom we landed and disembarked. We stayed there for quite a long time. They were red-skinned men.
As they were about to set sail again, the two brothers said to the bargemen:
– We won’t be going any further with you, as we like to stay here.
– Do as you please”, the sailors replied.
So the two brothers settled in this place, at the mouth of the great river that comes from the sun (i.e. from the east), and lived there with the people of the land.
They lived there happily for a long time, when one day they met an old man and an old woman, both very old, with white heads.
– You two,” said the old men to the young men, “what sort of people are you, I suppose?
– Ah, we two are two brothers who got lost and lost at sea, far from our homeland,” they replied. We got lost in a canoe and since then we’ve been all over the world.
– Aren’t you the two brothers who were said to have lost their way at the beginning of the world, after the earth was made?
– Precisely!” they replied, “those two brothers are ourselves.
That was enough. Their father and mother recognised them and stayed with them.
These two brothers, they say, were undoubtedly our ancestors. From these two, it is said, we descended. Now, we are obviously men (Dindjié). This is the end.
(Told by the dindjié Touldhoulé-azé,
a Yellow Knife slave, in June 1863,
at Grand-Lac des Esclaves).
“The wind is blowing on the Youkρon river, and my husband is chasing the reindeer over the Koyoukon mountains.
“Xami, Xami, sleep, my little one!
“There is no wood to feed the fire. My flint axe is broken, and my husband has taken the other one. Where is the heat of the sun? Ah, it’s hidden in the Great Beaver’s lodge, waiting for spring.
“Xami, Xami, sleep, my little one; don’t wake up!
“Don’t look for fish, old woman; the crib has been empty for a long time, and the raven no longer comes to perch on the fish scaffold. My husband is long gone. What’s he doing in the mountains?
“Xami, Xami, sleep peacefully, my child!
“Where is the one I love? Is he starving on the mountain slopes? Why does he delay so long? If he doesn’t come soon, I’ll go myself; I’ll fetch him from the mountain.
“Xami, Xami, sleep easy, my child!
“The raven arrived, laughing and cackling. His mandibles are red with blood and his eyes shine with hatred, the liar!
– “Thank you, for the succulent morsel provided for me by Kouskokρala, the Juggler! On the mountain, woman, on the sheer mountain, peacefully lies your husband!
“Xami, Xami, oh, sleep, my child; do not wake.
– Twenty reindeer tongues are bound in bundles on his shoulder; but he has no tongue left in his mouth to call his wife! Wolves, crows and foxes are fighting over his body and vying for a bite. His nerves are hard and tough. Ah, it is not so, woman, with the child that sleeps on your breast! ”
“Xami, Xami, sleep, my child; don’t wake up.
“But slowly Kouskokρala the Hunter walks up the mountain, He carries two goats bound across his strong shoulders, with bladders of melted bacon between them. Twenty reindeer tongues hang from his belt. Go and gather wood, old woman, for away flies the lying, treacherous, deceitful crow!
“Xami, Xami, wake up, little sleeper; wake up and call your father!
“Behold, he brings you reindeer meat, melted marrow fat, fresh fat venison from the mountains.
“Tired and weary, he carved a toy for you, a child, from the antler of a reindeer, as he watched and waited impatiently for the caribou on the slopes of the mountains.
“Wake up and see the raven hiding itself with its arrows! Wake up, little one, wake up, for here is your father!
Translated from the English of W. H. Dall, esq,
by Émile Petitot, 1876.
Etρæ-tchokρen ttρotchédi ttṣi dheltsen. Udell’et zjæ aṭṭi ρa-itρien, tρè- adjia llae, la, khétρow ntillklet. Aṭṭi étρelldjia, tchi djanen gwoρat. Yendjit kkρi-ṭṭizjé ρa-itρien tthey, tρè- cndow-dedildjia, akρon khétρow ntillklet ayu, étella. Ey vizjit ttṣi-tchρô t’eltsia, tiño. Ey kowtlen llæ ttsævi-llé kkρag tedhtchijia- yu, ey kkpag atæ-tédhelklia – yu dheltchi. Akρon kkρi-ṭṭizjé ρal’àtanen detchρan-koyézjæg dhitllé. Aρwodh tchρantchρat zjig dhitllé. Koyendow-dzjin ttṣi kozjé ρanædhitllé. Ttṣi tédhitlin dhitρin tchρan ; tchion kkit on niltρan, kukkan-zjœ vækkρag tchion gonllen. Akρon tchρan Etρæsetchokρen dhehchi yu, ñikkρaon ttṣi djizé, dœtchρan væklen kelhchen tchρantchρat, akρon tρenhen yé-kkρag dheltρin. Tchion ttset à nétchidhéllik kuyu, ttṣi zjit in ilya. Anzjæsgae yendjit tchi nitschié tag- ttset neïnhé, tchion-kkit dhéhèn. Tté-tsien tchi nekpag steep kkit on tédhidié yu, dheltchi. Etpæatchokpen ténihey kuyu, tæ ontschiw tidihey, akρontag ρatchihey, tetesien dheltchi vænantρagæ-ttset ontschiw zjit in dheltρin. Ttesian akρontté yaño llæ : la : Tchi nékρag gwottsen kvotρé-şæ tρinlttha its ! Ey neltsi ll’édji, si, kuttié ni- you ttschié far from dindjié ellkρwa tetρidjia lanval’i, tiño Akρontté kukkan zjæ Etρœtchokρen ρan ttset han-yæ- dhalhyèdh yu, kwotρé yæ – natthæt. Tρatchotlé, væ zjek tρadænanen, akρon væ tthen yézjiugu dhitllé. Etρætchokρen tag-ttset nætρakρè, kwottset dindjié konllen odhasdhanttchi tthé. Koné the ætsénedha enzjit, zjégse-naha, eygwoρat dindjié khetiyin. Kwottset ρakρè, kukkan zjas zjé teytthen tρakρè, kukkan zjæ èdindjié konlli, zjionhon tintchô. Akρonllae ttétsien ttset natρakpéyu væ tthæn kuñahiyu, væ tthæn dakay dhitllé él’adæ ninillæ, ttsædé ku- kkρag ninantschiw yu, væ tthæn os tρatenanen kodathako sié ninillæ. Akρon kukkan vækρèy-ttsédæ inl’ag éllækρwa. Akρon Etρætchokρen tettsien-tthæn kkpag dhétlet ttiet, tlad zjit dindjié nadheltsen. Naρudenday akρon, tetesian. Kukkanzjæ væ kρey-ttsédæ tρieg zjéy. Akρon llæ Etρœtchokρen væ ttṣi zjigæ tédhidié yu, ttétsien kkayu yœρé dhidié : Dindjié nakwotllé kunkρat, yénidhen gwoρat. Akρon ey tchiéllugu, ey elltρin tchρan zjandheltchi. Tchρantchρat yéïndjit kwottset odhædhanttchi ; kwottset ntρakpé, kukkan zjæ èdindjié konlli, zjionhon tintchô. Akρonllæ tthey dindjié link tinégutizjik.
“The through-and-through first of all canoe fit. In spring so fir bark he plucked, to the water he threw them they over he jumped. The barks disappeared, at the bottom of the water they fell since. There birch-tree he plucked also, to the water he threw them into the sea, then they over jump having, they floated. That with large canoe I will make, he says. This after so fir-tree on being mounted, there top se being attached he slept. So birch-tree plucked the tree-at the foot of lay. The curves also there lay. The next day the canoe inside they were placed. The canoe sewn lay also; water on he carried it, but then him through water much. So again the navigator having slept, the next day the canoe is caulked, the woods its bottom woods also, and rowing him on lies. Water transported having, the canoe in he embarked. But over there a mountain, big at the top towards which rises, water on lies. The raven the rock steep on perched being, was asleep. The navigator disembarked having, his bag holding, at the top to climb, the raven asleep without his knowledge the bag in he placed. The raven in the same way he says: The rock steep beyond in space me throw its ! do not ! That you do , in return you far from men no longer there will be no doubt, he said. That being the case however therefore the Nautonnier all suddenly far away he pushed with his foot having, in space him he brought down. He broke him to pieces, his body was pulverized, and his bones all the way down lay. The navigator high more goes by canoe up to there, of men many he heard the noise. The early day came together as, below (the earth) was, therefore the men played. Until then he went by canoe, but then the houses in their bones alone lay ; of men more. A loche and a pike also were sleeping. Still over there until he hears (noise) ; until then he goes by canoe, but so not of man there is, useless it’s like. So then the raven towards having sailed, his bones having seen, his bones bleached (which) lay together he put them, (a) cover them on he extended having, his together one is not there. So the Nautonnier the raven-os on peta since, (the) pet with man again he did so. He resurrected then, the raven. But then finger-footed three only. Therefore the Nautonnier his canoe in having seated, the raven also him next to sat down: The men I’m going to do it again I must, he thought given that. So this loche, this pike also were sleeping. He pierced this pike his belly it! said the raven. This way he made because therefore, his belly pierced having, then of that of men many from there go out. So the loche and the raven likewise he did given that, his belly delà (of) women many went out. So again of men a lot it happened again.”
Anakρen (the Stercoraires).
Atṣina (the Stranger).
Akρey añtschiw (the magical young man).
Dindjié (the man).
Dindjié nàh-tædhet (the snake-men).
Ehna ta-ettini (he who has eyes from behind as well as in front).
Ehta oduhini or Ennahi (he who sees backwards and forwards).
Etρætchokρen (the navigator among obstacles).
Etschiégé (musk ox dung).
Ettsun (the otter).
Klag datha (the yellow mouse).
Klan (snake)
Kρwon-étan (the man without fire).
Kpwon-tρet naχatṣétætρal’ (the funeral passage through the camp).
Ttsell-vœt (the white dive).
The alρa-tṣandia (she who is ravished from both sides).
The en-akρey (the Dogfoot).
Nakkan-tsell (the Pygmy).
Nèdhvè-hèg tihi (the one dressed in ermine).
Nitchρa kpet (the two brothers).
Nopodhittchi (the violent one).
Ratpan (the traveller)
Rdha-ttsèg (the evening woman).
Sié-zjiè dhidié (the inhabitant of the Moon).
Tchia (the young man)
Tchia-tsell (the little boy magician).
Yékkpay-ttṣèg (the morning woman).
Zhænan (the public women).
The American nation of the Dene (men) stretches from the icy Arctic Ocean to the plains of New Mexico, and from east to west, from the shores of Hudson Bay to the Cascade Mountains.
In these pages I have given the legends and traditions of five peoples or fractions of the Dénè nation, apart from the Dindjié, who have just been mentioned. I have classified these legends into three groups: 1o those of the Déné Hare-skins; 2o those of the Déné Slaves and Dog-whites; 3o finally, those of the Yellow Knives and the Tchippewayans or Montagnais of the North.
The Leverskin Dene inhabit the steppes and stunted forests that stretch between Hudson Bay, the Rocky Mountains, the Glacial Sea and Great Bear Lake.
The Slaves and the Dog-whites are found between the latter basin and Great Slave Lake.
Finally, the Yellow Knives and the Chippewayans descend from Great Slave Lake to the 54th parallel.
The Hare-skins owe their name to their Samoed-style winter garment, which is made entirely of cloth with white rabbit skin straps. This garment, which they wear from head to toe, gives them the appearance of large white bears.
Their tribal name is twofold. The Kha-tchô gottiné, or people living among the hares, live in the interior, to the east; the Khaitρa gottiné, or people living among the rabbits, hunt along and to the west of the Mackenzie River. They practise circumcision, as do the people of Great Bear Lake.
They are lively, laughing, boisterous, enthusiastic and very loving; they live together in large camps or flying villages, preferably hunting desert reindeer.
The Slaves owe their French name to the abjection and servility of their manners towards the whites. Their real name, apart from Dènè which is appropriate for the whole nation, is Etcha ottiné, or people living in the shelter, by which is meant the Rocky Mountains.
They hunt between these mountains and the Mackenzie; they are deceitful, mocking, sly and not very friendly to whites, although they are as honest as their brothers.
The strange name of the Flancs-de-Chiens refers to their alleged origin from a dog-man. Under this ignoble epithet, the Dènè refer to a Western people whose prisoners and slaves they were once. There is every reason to believe that they are referring to the Kolloches.
The Flancs-de-Chiens, far from being circumcised, are devoted to an unbridled and truly cynical lust; but they are very hospitable, attached and faithful spouses.
The Yellow Knives differ from the Chippewayans only in the locality they inhabit and in a slight difference of accent. Their dialect is virtually identical.
Both are proud, haughty, stingy, sullen, suspicious and not very hospitable, but gentle, honest, religious, fundamentally good and peace-loving.
They are not circumcised, and live alone or in small groups, hunting elk, caribou and beaver.
The Hare-skins worship Ebœ-Ekon (the Lunar Genie), who is reminiscent of the Mesopotamian god Lunus. For them, he is the god of hunting and abundance, but also of death. In the latter case, he takes the name of Ettsonné and Ya-tρéh-nonttay.
The Slaves have the same belief, but call the male lunar deity Edattsolé.
The Tchippewayans, who recognise the same threefold character, call him Ya-tρéh-nantlay; but both know and revere, albeit with an entirely internal cult, the Mighty-Good or Yèdariyé NèΖun, whom they distinguish from the evil genius or Yèdariyé Slini, Tta-beslini.
All the Dénè are nomads and live by hunting and fishing. They also trade in furs and dry provisions for the English Hudson’s Bay Company’s long-established trading forts.
In the very beginning, Inkfwin-Wétay (he who dwells at the zenith) sent his young men to make the earth. They spread over the chaos something supple, soft and silky, similar to the skin of an elk turned into basane. By this means, they embellished the earth a little. When they had removed the veil, they spread it a second time, and the earth came out even more beautiful. Then he sent his servants to do the same thing three, four, five and six times; and the earth was finished.
We knew about these things long before the French arrived. I was still a very small child when my mother told me about it. My mother saw the first white people to arrive in our country. My mother used to say to me: “Inkfwin-Wètay made the land in the beginning. At that time, we didn’t yet know God; the priests hadn’t yet come, and no one had told us about him.
(Told by the Shaman Lizette Khatchôti,
in January 1870).
Origin of the Hare-skin Indians.
In the very beginning, there was a single woman on earth who was mistreated by her brother-in-law in the absence of her husband. After covering her head with his blanket, he hid all her clothes, leaving her absolutely naked in a small tent or lodge, on the threshold of which, out of pity, he left a bit of moosehide. Then he abandoned her without mercy. However, I think he had lit a fire for her when he left.
The poor woman was therefore very unhappy, and wondered how she could save her miserable life.
However, she did not despair. With the little nerve her brother-in-law had left her, she wove a hare’s lace, which she went to stretch in the forest. With this lace, she caught a hare; with the sinews of this hare, she made other snares which she also stretched. She caught so many hares with these laces that she was able to weave a light, warm, soft dress from their skins.
In this way, she did very well by her own efforts and without anyone else’s help.
In the spring, her husband returned and found Ttséku-Kρuñé (or the egg woman) perched on a tree leaning over the water, on which she liked to swing for fun. As she swayed, she sang: “Why come back for the Egg Woman?
When the husband heard his wife’s voice echoing in the woods, he shuddered. He ran to her and said:
– Shall I take you back for my wife?
– It’s over,” she replied. I must no longer be the wife of any man, for I am the mother of hares.
So all of a sudden there came a prodigious number of hares, large and small, which have not dried up since. This is why, when there is an abundance of hares during the winter, we say: “Ttséku-Kρuñé yadukha: the woman with the eggs made hares.”
There was never a wiser man on earth than Kuñyan. And his sister was his equal in spirit. It was she who made the first rackets, even before her brother knew about them. He made them from dry willow, and as soon as they were finished, he gave them to his sister, who wove them. She did this work before anyone knew it. It was her own work: “Ha Déné wéré gonèha[28]”.
In autumn, she wove the first dress from hare skins, it is said. Before her brother knew it, she cut the skins into strips, tied them, plaited them and braided them. She made this dress from the skin of a single hare, and she made it during the night, before the man knew it.
Inkfwin-Wétay lives at the bottom of the Pied-du-Ciel (Ya kké tchiné). One of them is a man, the other is a woman. Their clothes are very beautiful, and made of selected furs. They create all things through their dreams and by the virtue of their medicine. They lie down, they sleep, and everything is done.
The husband is called Yanna tchon-édentρini (the one who, when he lies down, stretches out to the other side). The wife has no name; however, she is most often referred to as Êtρinta Yénnéné (the woman who cannot be seen coming out, or the invisible woman). Between them, they produced beavers and hares. As Inkfwin-Wétay wanted to produce many animals, at the beginning of time he threw a beaver’s head on the earth, and immediately the beaver abounded on that land.
As for the hare, he took it in his hands and showed it the earth. The hare was frightened: “They’re going to make a wretch of me; they’re going to treat me like a slave,” he thought, and began to shout: Kea! Kea!
Inkfwin-Wétay let him go. And since then, hares have abounded in our country.
The husband lives at the zenith, his wife at the nadir. One day, their son, walking in the sky, saw the earth. Then, having returned to his father, he spoke to him thus: “Sétρa tayitay yèhta odéyinkρon; tédi ndu yazè kkè, tchaëkhé khétρédatti lonnié, kkanéuntρa. Ekhu ” séρa ninondja, ” sétpa!” nendi déné étρunettiné.” That is to say: “My father, who dwells on high, light the celestial rod (the Great Bear); on this little island (earth), my brothers are very unhappy, so see it. And then the wretched man cries out to you, “Come to me, Father[29]”.
That’s why, before the arrival of the Europeans, our elders told us: “Once upon a time, a great fire was discovered in the sky, rising like a tail; a flaming, burning star (fwen-lléré) appeared; that’s why some men went out into the open, heading towards this fire. So they moved away from us and we heard no more about it. Since that time, the Kkρja-tsélé-ttiné (the Tchippewayans) have not formed a band with us.
In the beginning, Enna-guhini and his wife played on the edge of heaven. You could hear them playing palm together. His wife was also dancing, and you could hear her large, powerful breasts beating and jiggling.
Suddenly, they began to cry: “Our children, alas! alas! Our children, alas! alas!” they cried.
Since then, people have been dying on earth, they say. And it was because they knew the man was going to die that Enna-guhini and his wife began to cry.
The L’agotsuté (Lamia obscura, a kind of callid beetle that gnaws the bark of fir trees) cast a spell on the earth in the beginning, saying: “Man will die. Fortunately, the frog[30] returned the spell, replying: “But man will rise again.
So it was the Lamia who, by throwing a stone into the water, caused the death of man; so we kill her whenever we meet her.
Origin of the lunar race.
In the beginning, two brothers went out in a dugout canoe to hunt ducks in order to collect their white down. But they lost their way on the water and were carried far from their homeland to shores they did not know.
Soon an immense land appeared before their astonished eyes. They headed for it, landed on it, and saw a great crowd of people living there.
But from that moment, the younger brother disappeared and went astray. His older brother, very worried, set out to find him, and finally spotted his brother’s pirogue coming up from the shore. How could his younger brother have been swallowed up in the bowels of the earth? The eldest saw a tree root sticking out of the water, so he pulled it out and freed his brother, who was holding the root by the other end.
– My younger brother, I’ve saved your life,” said the elder to his brother. Well, from now on, listen to me and obey my word.
The two brothers returned to the people of this new land. These people were wolves[31]. Among them again, the younger brother disappeared and went astray.
So the elder brother looked for him again and set off in a dug-out canoe. He sailed from island to island until he reached a strait (the atρa-nihà), and there he dived to find his younger brother. An otter-man, who accompanied him, also dived into the sea. They sailed off into the distance and spread their nets. It was in these nets that they caught the younger brother and pulled him out of the sea.
Then the elder threw back his boat:
– This land is not ours; give up your canoe,” he said to his younger brother.
And the younger man threw away his canoe too.
The canoes abandoned, they both set off along a large beaten track, along which poles were planted from distance to distance.
– My youngest, don’t you dare steal anything in this country,” said the eldest.
They saw a large tent to which the main road led. A woman, ravishingly beautiful, was staying there:
– My sons-in-law,” she said to them, “what sort of people are you, I suppose?
Then they said:
– We were young boys when we left with our father to go hunting for game on the shores of the western sea. We got lost in the canoe and now time has passed, we have grown old and we do not know the way to our homeland.
These were the words of the two brothers.
– My sons-in-law,” said the beautiful woman, “I am the Sun, and your grandfather, my husband, is the Moon. My sons-in-law, you are very unhappy, you say; so obey my husband, and he will protect you; for he is good.
In the evening, the husband of the sun-woman arrived. Her husband was handsome, they say. Then they said:
– My grandfather, we have acted like this and like this, they said to him again; we have lost our way far from our homeland, and we no longer recognise our country.
The old man rested for a while, and at the same time we heard men shouting from below on the ground below.
– Our parents are probably looking for us and calling us,” thought the two brothers.
Then the old moon said to them:
– If this is so, take hold of my wings and sleep with me.
The two brothers snuggled up under each of his wings and took hold of them.
As soon as he saw them asleep, the old man got up and ran off, like the moon in the clouds.
At this point, he stopped for a moment to catch his breath, and said to his two protégés:
– Now I give you my feathers. Live in the land below.
And he lowered them to the ground.
The feathers of the old man turned into a multitude of water birds and ducks. The two brothers descended to the land we inhabit, and from the Moon the little ducks fell. And that’s why there are so many ducks in our country.
The two brothers had disappeared and gone astray, so the elder thought:
– My younger brother may have drowned, so I’ll go and look for him.
So he set off in search of his brother, but to no avail. He found nothing.
Two winters went by without any news of his brother, so one day the elder went duck hunting in his bark canoe. Suddenly, on the shore of a lake, he saw an unmanned canoe that looked abandoned, and a beautiful swan on the lake, singing. Then he heard the sound of someone travelling in a canoe and the sound of a dugout canoe sailing. Suddenly, he saw his younger brother out to sea, on his way.
The older brother took his pirogue to the lake, got into it and ran to his brother:
– My youngest, how, there you are! What have you been up to in the two years since we last saw you? I’ve been looking for you for a long time.
– Well, my eldest, you know I got lost on the water. That’s all there is to it.
His clothes were very fine; his hair was well combed and arranged, and his face was white and radiant. He killed two swans with his arrows and turned back.
– Come to my house,” he said to his elder brother.
When they went together to his house, the elder brother noticed a host of precious and beautiful things. There was a great abundance of elk skins, meat, porcupine stings, feathers, in short, all sorts of riches; but there was no woman to be seen.
The younger brother had married Étρinta Yennéné, the invisible woman. But his elder brother never saw her, for no man living could see her. However, when this woman longed for a man and loved him, he was allowed to see her; but all those who could not see her had no hope of being cherished by her and receiving her favours.
This is why the eldest brother did not see her, because the Invisible Woman already possessed the youngest.
He did see a beautiful swan come into the tent and stay with his younger brother.
– What is that swan doing with my brother, I suppose?
He didn’t see anything else, and he didn’t see a woman.
We saw the cooking being done, they roasted swan meat, they feasted, they talked; but it was always the same thing: no woman.
The younger brother gave his elder brother many gifts. He gave him lots of beautiful elk skins, meat and feathers. He placed his head next to his brother’s and slept next to him during the night. And the next day, everything was gone. No tent, no swan, no riches, no younger brother.
The elder brother was left alone with the things his younger brother had given him: skins, meat and feathers.
From then on, the elder brother never saw his brother again, the husband of the Invisible Woman, it is said.
This is what happened in the beginning.
At the beginning of the world, two brothers got lost; they were separated from each other, and went off looking for each other around the Foot of Heaven, it is said. This is what happened in the beginning, in the very distant past. – (Enwin.)
At first they were just little boys and said to each other:
– Let’s see who can run the fastest. Let’s see who’s the most ingenious at going round the sky.
They set off in opposite directions, grew older and older, and only met again when they were dragging themselves with great difficulty on crutches.
– Who are you?” one said to the other without recognising him.
– Well, I’m so-and-so. At the beginning of the world, my younger brother and I said to each other: Let’s run around the sky to find out who is the most powerful, the most ingamous.
– Do you remember that?” said the second brother. But that presumptuous brother is me. Alas, yes, my elder brother, I wanted to put everything in a better order; I wanted to see everything, to know everything. How far did I go? I can’t remember. Then make me remember, O my brother!
– As for me,” said the elder, “I made the earth grow. Are my legs light and ungainly? So I ran round the foot of the sky and, in doing so, I made the earth bigger; but I also made myself miserable and unhappy by my presumption.
Then he continued:
– Let us act so that in the future there will be a new earth; let us repair man,” said the elder brother.
Then, all of a sudden, a great mountain appeared:
– Who put that mountain there, I suppose? Enter it, my brother; go into it,” said the elder brother.
The younger brother went in, and suddenly the mountain spread out and expanded, bursting, as it were, and after filling the earth, the old man emerged rejuvenated and like a child.
Then the mountain returned to its original proportions.
– I’m going to go in there too,” said the elder. We’ll probably meet up again later.
The eldest entered in his turn, and once again the mountain expanded and burst open, and the second old man emerged rejuvenated and childlike.
Then the two old men, now children again, or young boys, said to each other:
– We must become again what we were on the primitive earth, when we were its inhabitants at the beginning of time. When we want to carry out a plan around this sky that surrounds us, well, we’ll carry it out in so many years. We will put all things back in order, we will kill the man-eating, murderous giants, the lions too, the whales and other sea monsters too; we will chase them away; we will mercilessly annihilate everything that is evil. We’ll live on meat, which we’ll cook by throwing reddened stones into a vase of water; we’ll weave ourselves waterproof pots from roots. This is how we will become more human than we were in the past, on the primitive earth.
And so the two brothers agreed. They lived a very long time again, and were still overwhelmed by old age, having seen their youth renewed.
It is said that in the very distant past, the mountain of rock remade man (Kfwé dènè naëssi).
Continuation of the legend of the Two Brothers.
In the beginning, therefore, the two brothers were going away together, having lost their way on earth and having lost their country, when suddenly the spider[32] appeared in the blue of heaven.
– This spider and its web will be ours,” they said to each other, and they set off to find it. So they went far, far away from their country and came to the slope of a mountain where there was a lodge, and in the lodge an old man was sitting.
Then he said to them:
– My little children, what have you come here to do?
They replied:
– Well, Grandpa, we saw the spider spreading its web, and we came running to capture it. That’s how we got so far away from our homeland that we lost it,” they said.
Then he said:
– But also, why did you set out to capture this rainbow? You contemplate it, you feast your eyes on it, but you don’t set out to capture it. But now I feel sorry for you. I’m giving you my arrows, but beware of what I tell you: whenever you want to kill or capture an animal or a bird, shoot one of these arrows at it, but never take back the arrow you’ve shot. They’ll come back into your quiver by themselves,” said the old man to his grandsons.
He gave them something to eat, then dismissed them.
After they had left, the youngest brother said to his eldest:
– Look at that squirrel; I’ve got to kill it.
But the animal remained suspended between two branches, within reach of the young hunter’s hand, and the latter instinctively made a gesture to take back his arrow, which then rose a little higher.
– Isn’t that funny?” he said; “there goes my arrow.
He stood up on tiptoe to grab it, but the arrow rose even higher.
The younger brother climbed the tree despite his elder brother’s advice, and grabbed the arrow; but immediately he felt himself being swept away to higher ground. And the elder, who had clung to his brother, was carried there with him.
And so it happened.
Suddenly a great mountain rose up, spread out and filled the whole earth, reaching up to the heavens.
The arrow shot up the steep slopes of the mountain and stopped halfway up. The two brothers got to their feet, out of breath.
Then they heard giants talking in the hollow mountain. They mocked the two brothers, saying:
– But your tongues are not alike; you speak differently from one another.
– Ah, my younger brother,” said the elder, “now they’re talking in the great mountain, now they’re making fun of us.
They would have liked to throw away the arrow that carried them away, but they could no longer separate it from their hands. So, after resting a little, it set off again and stopped only in heaven, at the very top of the great mountain.
This summit was wide, vast and solid; the two brothers saw many people arriving from all sides and saying to each other:
– What are we going to do? We are becoming numerous, and yet this mountain is a hard, solid rock.
So they were all wondering how they were going to live on top of the mountain.
Nevertheless, they lit a fire there to keep warm and prepare their food. Suddenly the great mountain was demolished, collapsed and turned into an immense plain. The mountain disappeared, and all that was left was a great plain full of people who no longer understood each other or knew what they were saying to each other.
So they scattered; they went from side to side in different directions, and nations were formed.
Since then, it is said, we no longer speak the same language. This happened in the beginning.
One day, a man who used the kkρa-la-yiyay or wooden-handled slingshot to fight, and who had the power to kill just by looking at it, decided to follow the bagged game when it was heading south in autumn. The thaumaturge (nayéwéri) set off and arrived with the game among the souls of the dead at the Pied-du-Ciel (Ya-kké tchiné).
In the south-west, at the foot of the sky, is a large, gaping cavern, and from the foot of the sky flows a river, and in front of the cave stands a great tree.
The interior could be seen through the opening, but the fall of the vault prevented the inhabitants from being seen, except up to knee height. That’s where men go when they die. It is through the cave that their spirits pass, along with the game that has been stuffed, when winter returns. It’s from there that they all emerge each spring. When the game returns to our country from this place, so do the spirits called ttsintéwi.
When the magician looked into the cave, he saw masons casting their nets for small game and catching it. They visited their nets with double dug-out canoes.
Others were enjoying themselves on the other bank. He could only see the dancers’ legs, but he could hear the souls singing in chorus, repeating the words: “We rest apart from one another!
Nayéwéri could not go and find these spirits. He was kept on this side among the dead, who are called the Burnt Corpses {Ewiè lluré), among those who have not been given a burial, but who have been treated as slaves and prisoners of war.
These poor dead, in pain and wandering, hunted down little foetuses that had died in their mother’s womb, nautonectes, frogs, squirrels, rats and mice. It is these small dead animals that they feed on.
For two days and two nights, the Thaumaturge dwelt among these decayed spirits, and on earth he passed for dead. But having succeeded in killing a small natsa-hole, this capture allowed him to resurrect and return to earth.
It was only by uprooting and capturing the tree growing in front of the cave that the magician was able to jump into it, and enter it, it is said.
This, then, is the marvel that this man of wondrous powers, called Nayéwéri, performed in the beginning.
Now, this land of spirits is called L’ey-Néné (the other world).
(Gigantomachy)
A young man, having discovered a porcupine burrow, penetrated it; he went underground, crawled in, pulled out the porcupines, killed them, and having found some earthen wood (yué détchiné)[34], he built a fire in the earth and roasted his game, ate and threw the bones further down.
In the earth, he heard genies talking to each other, saying: “He’s running through the flames!
Having done this, the young man wanted to return to the light of day, but that was no longer possible. It was horribly dark underground and he lost his way, never to return.
Nearby, lightning sounded. Enna-Guhini struck the earth with a thunder stone and a sharp axe; he opened it up and made a passage for the young man. This is what happened, they say.
The young man looked up at the giant and said:
– Grandfather, I’m afraid of you,” he said.
And he threw himself back to hide again in the bowels of the earth.
Once again, the good giant threw his sharp stone axe, once again he let loose his thunder and split the rocks. As he did so, he managed to pull the man out from under the earth, but with great difficulty.
– Ah, my grandfather,” said the frightened man, “how afraid I am of you!
– My grandson,” said Enna-Guhini, “do not be afraid, I am good and do not destroy men. Stay with me, I will be your protector.
And the young man stayed with the giant.
Enna-Guhini took him by the back of the neck, like a small animal, and placed him like a little cat on his shoulder; then he withdrew. As they walked along, they saw a herd of reindeer grazing.
– Look, my grandson, at those grazing rabbits”, said the giant to the young man.
He shot them with a flint dart and killed two of them, putting them in his belt like field rabbits.
– My grandson, light a fire for me,” said Enna-Guhni; “take this straw and make a fire.
What he called straw were big dry fir trees.
He roasted the two reindeer whole, broke their heads as we do with hares, and ate his dinner. He fed the young man the entrails of a reindeer, as we do with a small dog. But the young man couldn’t get enough.
– My grandson, your stomach is so small!
And he devoured everything.
– My dogs will come and devour the bones,” he added.
A large muskrat was perched on his collarbone. He picked it up, placed it between his thumb and forefinger and crushed it.
Then he saw a large moose:
– See,” he said, “that cock of the heather over there.
He bent and killed it. He wanted the man to swallow it, but the man couldn’t help himself:
– Ah, my grandson, how narrow your throat is! said the giant.
After that, Enna-Guhini took some giant beavers and cut off their tails. He skinned them, took a well roasted female tail and passed it to the man:
– My grandson, have a bite!
He brought the giant beaver’s tail to the young man’s mouth:
– Swallow this, it’s delicious! he said.
The young man couldn’t drag it, even with the help of a rope, and only ate a small piece.
Enna-Guhini then said to him:
– Ya-na-kfwi-odinza (he who wears out the firmament of his occiput) is angry with me. He has plotted my downfall.
He placed the man in the scabbard of his flint knife, which he wore hanging around his neck, and left with him. This man (Dènè) became his friend, companion and adviser. He slept on the pillow of the good giant.
– My grandson said to him: “If Ya-na-kfwi-odinza kills me, the clouds will be stained with my blood; they will probably be reddened.
He went to set a hook to catch fish, and from a giant beaver’s tooth he made an axe. Then he went off to meet his enemy, the evil giant; for Enna-Guhini and Ya-na-kfwi-odinza hated each other cordially.
– I’m off to check the tracks,” said the former to the young man; as for you, go round the lake and examine the terrain. If you hear the noise Pa! pa! pa! pa! that would be a clue to his approach.
As he said this, he gave him his axe, made from the tooth of a gigantic beaver.
The man left.
Then, under the ice, he heard a dull sound: Pa! pa! pa! It seemed to him that someone was fighting in the water, under the ice that covered it; but it was a whale that was making all that noise, because, being naked, it was cold.
The young man ran to warn Enna-Guhini, who went to meet the whale. Then the cetacean, becoming a man again, threw himself at the good giant. It was none other than Ya-na-kfwi-odinza.
The two giants fought furiously.
– I hold high the beaver-toothed axe!” cried the young man, warning Enna-Guhini.
As he said this, the man struck the evil giant on the phallus, which he detached. The phallus rolled in the snow like a birch bark cone.
– My grandson,” shouted Enna-Guhini, “cut off the tendon in his foot.
– I hold the axe high,” shouted the man again.
So the man cut the nerve in Ya-na-kfwi-odinza’s leg. The giant fell over backwards. The man entered his body through the opening in his penis, which he had cut off, and killed him. Ya-na-kfwi-odinza died.
When his wife appeared, Dènè killed her too. Then the man said to the giant:
– Grandfather, the giant has a son.
– Kill him too”, replied the man.
Dènè couldn’t get rid of him, even though the toddler was still in his bikini. Enna-Guhini squeezed his throat, as one does a bird, and he died.
Ya-na-kfwi-odinza had a nubile daughter. Enna-Guhini poured out water. Its waters formed a river that carried the girl adrift and she drowned in it.
And so the race of evil giants was destroyed.
After Dènè had stayed with Enna-Guhini for a long time, the good giant finally sent him away.
– There are still other Ya-na-kfwi-odinza,” he told him again. Not all of them are dead. If they manage to defeat me, you will see the clouds stained with my blood; the sky will be reddened. As for you, withdraw, you’ve fought enough.
Saying this, the good giant gave the man his stick, or at least half of it, for he was very tall.
– When you want to sleep,” he said, “plant it by your bedside. And when you find yourself in some great difficulty, climb a fir tree and shout at the top of your voice to me.
Dènè left his protector and went away sad. From that first day, he went very far. When night came, he climbed a tree to sleep, because he was afraid of ferocious beasts.
During the night, he heard Xa! xa! xa! It was the giant’s dogs, who had followed him and were trying to cut down his tree to eat him.
– Grandfather,” cried Dènè, “now your dogs want to chop me down with my tree!
Enna-Guhini’s dogs were very numerous. They were bears, wolves, foxes, wolverines, reindeer, moose and even mice. All the animals were the giant’s dogs. And all of them, mistaking the man for their enemy, tried to cut down his tree to destroy the man.
But immediately he heard the voice of the good giant echoing through the air: “Kopa-èko, L’éléziñè! Kopa-èko ! llé ! llé ! llé ! (Aube-qui-fuit, Cendre-Légère, Aube-qui-fuit, here, here, here!)” Immediately, all the animals escaped through the wood, running towards their master, and the man was freed. He climbed down from the tree, lay down at the foot, planted the giant’s stick next to his head and, falling asleep, found himself enchanted back to his mother.
Dènè’s mother was already mourning him as if he were dead. She had discarded his clothes as if they were the clothes of a dead man.
When he reached her and her parents, he wanted to show them the power he had received from his friend and protector the good giant:
– You’ve burnt all my clothes,” he told them. You have burnt all my clothes,” he said.
And they all died,
– Well, now get up! he said to them.
And they became new men again.
In their presence, he took his snowshoes and planted them in the ground:
– Or sus, transform yourselves,” he said to them.
And the snowshoes became two beautiful green trees, two little birch trees.
– Well now, become snowshoes again,” he shouted to them.
And immediately the trees returned to their original form.
Suddenly, as Dènè was with his parents, the sky turned red. Then he remembered what the good giant had said, and went off into the woods, crying:
– Oh, grandfather, alas, alas! Oh, grandfather, alas, alas!
After that, he followed a beautiful young girl and married her. He made the fat very fatty; the fat he turned into steam, and the meat he made excellent[35].
In the end, due to old age, he no longer rose to his feet; he no longer commanded anyone. On an island he made a tomb of a great heap of earth and stone.
– When I die, you will put my bones in there,” he said to his children.
That’s the end of it.
(Flood)
Kuñyan (the Wise One) lived alone on earth, with his own sister as his wife, who was as sensible as he was. He was an old man without ancestors or descendants.
This is how he got married: He was living alone when he went somewhere and found a beautiful woman who pleased him. He asked her for something to eat. She served him. Immediately he lived with the woman, who, as I have already said, was his own sister.
The mice and weasels, who were like men, also lived there. So the mouse said to Kuñyan:
– My son, what have you come here to do with us? Don’t you have your parents to stay with?
But the Sensé stayed with the mouse and took her as his wife. While they were sleeping, the mink and the weasel penetrated his anus to try to destroy him; but he rejected them, got up and became angry with the woman who had just deceived him.
The mouse left him and went to complain to her father, the polar bear, a big man to whom she said:
– The man did this and that to me; he got angry, beat me and insulted me.
Immediately the polar bear, very moved, got up and went towards the Sensé to ask him to explain his behaviour. But the Sensé, who was waiting for him under the wild pear trees that grew there in abundance, first ate the pears to his heart’s content, then killed the bear and his daughter and left.
After that, the Sensé felt like making arrows. He found the biggest pear tree and hit it on the trunk, and immediately a shower of ready-made arrowheads fell from its branches.
– Now I need stingers,” he said.
He went to the water’s edge and saw a large flaky stone. He threw it into the water, then into the fire, and immediately the rock split into a number of flat stones, which he made into stingers in an instant.
– Now I need quills for my arrows,” he said.
He went towards a large fir tree, at the top of which a large bald eagle had set up camp. In the absence of his father and mother, he climbed up and nestled in with the eaglets.
– Is there one among you who is a reporter and who could betray me?
– Yes,” said a little eagle, “this sister of mine slanders and commits treason.
Kuñyan took her, killed her, threw her down from the nest and took her place.
– So tell me, little one, when your father returns to the nest, what will happen?” said the Sensé to the eaglet.
– If it’s my father who comes back, you’ll be flooded with a great light,” replied the bird.
– And if it’s your mother who arrives at the nest, what will happen? continued the man.
– If it’s my mother, it will be pitch black.
Saying this, the little bird sat back down in his nest. There was a great sound of wings, thunder and lightning, and suddenly the great eagle returned and it was daylight.
– I smell human flesh! I smell human flesh!” cried the bird of lightning.
– You bring me human flesh to eat every day,” replied the eaglet, “and you’re surprised to smell it!
The male flew off again. Another clatter of wings followed, and the female eagle arrived at the nest. Immediately it was dark.
– I smell human flesh! I smell fresh flesh!” cried the carnivorous bird.
– Mum, you put some here every day for me; why are you surprised to smell it?” replied the little eagle.
She left in her turn, and the man found himself alone with his liberator. Immediately he pounced on the eaglet, plucking out its budding feathers and burning its nest; he took the little one, plucked its feathers one by one, killed it, and left with a quantity of thunder feathers with which to garnish his arrows.
From his union with his sister, Kuñyan had a son, a sullen son who wept incessantly.
– He probably doesn’t have any toys, he thought.
He went to the seaside, climbed a tall fir tree, pruned off all the branches except for a bunch at the top, then cut the tree off at the foot and gave it to the child as a rattle. From then on, he never cried again.
After that, Kuñyan wanted to destroy all men. To this end, he made a large supply of dry willow wood, which is very hard and as sharp as iron spikes. He blunted these dry branches and planted them like frieze horses all around his tent. When night came, many people came to visit the Sensé, and they all disemboweled themselves or straddled the stakes.
Then he said to his sister:
– Use birch bark to make me a child’s seat.
– What do you want to do with it?” said his sister.
So she made the saddle and filled it with moss.
When Kuñyan had his harness, he transformed himself into a little child, sat down in the little seat, fastened it around his little body, and staggered off, leg this way and leg that, towards the people gathered by the sea.
– Look at this little child coming to us!
Immediately, throwing off his saddle and his swaddling clothes, the little child became a terrible giant. He threw himself on the crowd and slaughtered them with fury.
After that, the Sensé said to his sister:
– Over there, at the foot of the sky, I’m going to build a great raft.
– And what do you want to do with it?” she replied.
– If there’s a flood, as I expect, we’ll take refuge in it,” he said.
He shared his plan with what men were left on earth. They laughed at him.
– Oh, oh, oh! If there’s a flood, we’ll take refuge in the trees,” they replied.
– That’s good, that’s good,” he said. If there’s a flood, I’ll sail my cajeu.
So he wove thick ropes of roots; he made lots of them, he worked hard, he gathered large pieces of wood and built a big raft all by himself.
Suddenly there was a flood the like of which had never been seen before. It was as if the water gushed in from all sides. The men rushed to save themselves on the trees, but the water rose, rose, reached them and drowned them. All the men died.
As for the Sensé, who had a good, large raft, all the pieces of which were joined together and tied with ropes, he floated on the water and did not perish. While floating, he thought about the future and gathered two by two of all the herbivorous animals, all the birds and even all the carnivores he met along the way.
– Place yourselves on my raft,” he told them, “for soon there will be no more land.
In fact, the land disappeared for a very long time and no one felt like going to look for it, no one, they say. The muskrat dived in first and tried to reach the land. Alas! he returned half dead to the surface of the sea, without having touched it.
– There is no land! he said.
A second time he dived, and this time, as he came up, he said to Kuñyan:
– I could smell the earth, but I couldn’t reach it.
After the muskrat, it was the beaver’s turn to dive. He remained underwater for a long time without reappearing. In the end, he came up on his back, out of breath and unconscious, but in his paw he was holding a bit of silt, which he gave to the Sensé.
The old man placed this mud on the water, thinking:
– I want there to be land again!
At the same time, he blew on this bit of earth, and as it came to life, it grew. Immediately he put a little bird on it, and it grew even more.
The old man kept blowing and blowing, and the earth kept growing. So he put a fox on it, and the fox circled the floating disc in a single day. But the earth grew even bigger. The fox ran around again, and the earth continued to swell. The more the fox ran, the more the earth shrank before him, increasing in size.
Twice, three times, four times, five times, six times the fox ran around the earth, and it kept getting bigger. When he went round it a seventh time, it was as complete as it had been before the flood.
Then the Sensé took all the animals out of the raft and put them on land. Then he himself, his wife and his son disembarked:
– It is through us,” he said, “that this land will be repopulated.
So the land was repopulated with people.
After that, Kuñyan was faced with another difficulty. All around him stretched the immense sea, which had absorbed all the water, and he could not control it. Then the monster bird, called Yikôné or the Bittern, drank all the water; it saw the difficulty and helped the man. But when he had drunk all the water, he lay motionless on the shore, his belly swollen beyond measure.
The Sensé said to the plover.
– The Hydra, the water-drinker, is lying in the sun, his big belly full of water, pierce it.
The plover went to the Bittern, who was not suspicious of a being like him:
– My grandmother probably has a stomachache,” he said.
And, pretending to feel sorry for her, he ran his hand over her belly as if to rub it.
Suddenly the plover scratched the bittern’s belly with a vigorous claw. Immediately the water rumbled and the roar could be heard. From the hydra’s belly came rivers that formed lakes. And the land, watered once more, became habitable again.
XIV
TρATSAN KOTTCHA DÈNÈ DUGODÉLLI
(The Raven that Destroys Men)
(Continuation of the previous tradition.)
Now Kuñyan was alone with the Raven, which was constantly stealing from him.
– Stop doing this,” said the Sensé.
– No,” said the Raven, “I will continue to steal; and if you kill me and throw me into the fire, beware, for all men will disappear.
So the raven continued to steal from the Sensé, who became angry, killed him and threw his body into the fire. Then all men disappeared from the earth as if by magic; not a single man was to be found anywhere on the face of the earth.
– How could this have happened? thought Kuñyan.
So he went to visit the raven’s bones. He found its burnt and bleached bones in the hearth, picked them up, put them in another place and piously covered them with a small skin. The raven’s tail alone appeared intact. The Sensé bent down and farted over the bones.
Immediately the raven sprang back to life and, in gratitude to its creator, cried out:
– Now I’m going to make all men again. Over there on the beach, let’s go together.
So Kuñyan and the raven set off for the shore, where a large female pike and a loche lay in the sun almost flush with the water.
– I’m going to approach one of these fish,” said the raven to the Sensé. You, you’re going to hook up with the other.
And so they did, and immediately Kuñyan brought forth a host of men from the body of the pike, and the raven brought forth a host of women from the body of the loche.
And this is how the earth was repopulated, it is said, in the beginning.
More or less a long time later, people noticed that the animals were disappearing without anyone knowing what had become of them. As the raven made the forests resound with its cawing, all the ruminants fled, and there were none left. So a large troop of men set off in search of the animals they were feeding on.
Along the way they came across a raven.
– They said to him, “Raven, you are a thief, for we have run out of food.
Now the raven had built himself a house on an isolated island, where he had amassed a prodigious quantity of beaver meat, which he had cut up and smoked. An old woman called the Owl, who had made the discovery on a daily visit to her hare laces, led the troop of men. She even entered the raven’s house alone, crying out:
– Well, do you have any cooked meat?
– No, it’s not cooked yet,” replied the crow.
The Owl was displeased and scolded the Raven. They contradicted each other, and the raven, finally realising that there was a plot against him and that he was being betrayed, flew away, cawing.
The Owl laced up the large park where the Raven kept all the animals, and took many reindeer.
The raven’s cries drew a crowd of hunters, who found the thief to be full of fat and meat. The merry band took over the house and settled in.
But: “Shh! shh! Quiet! Quiet! The raven will be back; let’s not make any noise, so that we can catch the cursed thing.
Now, the raven, who was a very powerful magician, had put some dog droppings, a very strong medicine, in a bag. In his absence, the troupe sat and waited in silence. On the path, they found some reindeer fat. The men wanted to eat it. Ugh! it turned into dog droppings in their mouths.
Further on, they found some meat that looked excellent. The same mystification happened to them. The crow had caught them all by scattering the contents of his medicine bag, which contained dog droppings.
– What can we do to punish this infamous person? they thought furiously.
So the same old woman, called Intla-otsihiñè or the Owl, built a medicine box and said:
– I am going to make medicine in order to discover the raven’s retreat; for I am vainly looking for it, I can no longer see it; my eyes seem to me as if they were cooked.
Immediately, juggling, she saw him and said:
– Do you see that land over there, stretching out on the horizon? That’s where the thief is. Go there.
The troupe set off again. They wandered through the woods and finally discovered this last lair of the raven. It was a skin tent, and under it there was an abundance of meat. Reindeer bellies were being dried. The raven, surprised by the hunters, was unable to escape:
– Do you have any meat to give us?
– Of course I have, and it’s excellent,” he replied.
So they plundered all his meat and took back all the animals he had marked, and the land was repopulated with ruminants.
– Now let’s kill the thief, that cursed raven, they thought.
All the men wanted to pounce on their executioner, but he was quicker than them, he metamorphosed again, and taking off on wings: “Krwa! krwa! krwa!” he cried as he flew away.
(Continuation of the same legend.)
Ekka-dékρiné was the first man to build a boat. After conceiving this plan, which he didn’t know how to carry out, he went to the banks of a small river and stripped some fir bark to build his dugout canoe. He threw one into the water, ran after it and got there before it. It floated well, but slowly.
– It’s no good,” he said. It’s slower than me.
He then tore off some papyrus birch bark, threw it into the river, ran alongside it and saw that it floated well and drifted quickly.
– That’s good,” he said.
So he built his dugout canoe on the bank of the river from birch bark.
This man did so many things that I could go on and on, for he hunted down the giants, remade the land and repopulated it with animals.
When Ekka-dékρiñé had finished his canoe, he set off, playing, far down the Mackenzie River, towards a rapid that could be heard roaring in the distance. When he got there, he met a pike swimming. The Navigator picked it up and put it in his canoe.
A little further on, a frog jumped into the water, and the pike leapt over the gunwale of the canoe to grab it, tearing its flesh. The navigator separated them and placed them in his canoe.
Further on, another frog and an otter were also quarrelling. The frog was tanning a beautiful skin, and the otter a nasty one.
– Frog,” said the Sensé, “if ever in the future you tan a man’s skin, macerate it in the belly of a fish.
The frog pierced a small fish for him, and the otter gave him a big fish, which she caught for him. The sailor said to the frog:
– Grandfather, give me back my small fry, my friend; why are you piercing it?
He took them both and put them in his dugout as he sailed along.
A Dènè man had a wife so beautiful that, in order to steal her, everyone waged war against him. So he was always on the move and his wife went with him.
– I mustn’t let my wife get away from me”, he thought.
That day, as there was a portage to be made, he carefully marked out the path over a frozen lake that they had to cross, so that by following it she would be able to follow and recognise his path. He placed fir branches in the snow and made cuts in the trunks of the trees.
But this woman was vain, and she abused the love her husband had for her. So she stepped on the beacons, cleared the path and made for the open sea where there was a strait. There she camped and waited for him in a foreign village.
She did this out of vanity and coquetry.
Her husband, worried, set out to find her, and her parents with him. They followed L’atρa-natsandé’s footsteps to a fountain on the other side of the lake and lit a fire there.
The woman was staying with the strangers in a large village by the lake. There were a lot of people there, and their houses were full of coal. There were also large chunks of meat hanging up.
When one of the villagers saw L’atρa-natsandé pass by, he thought it was his own wife, even though their clothes were very different. He went out to her and took her by the elbow:
– Come and sleep with me,” he said.
The beautiful woman laughed in his face and the man struck her.
– Bring some wood here,” he added; “bring some wood into the house.
The woman pretended to go and get some, but returned without any wood, saying:
– My rope broke.
He hit her again. So she fled into the woods. But the enemy caught up with her.
When night fell, L’atρa-natsandé’s husband and relatives surrounded the enemy village to sack it.
She said to her captor:
– I think those who have come to kill you have abandoned their plans. They are lazy, no doubt. Their country is so far away that they are hesitating. What can you fear?
In the forest, L’alρa-natsandé had met her true husband and given him this signal:
– You will strike the lighter, but you will hide the spark.
During the night she heard the lighter being struck outside the tent, but she could not see any sparks[36]. Then, all of a sudden, she heard a grouse clucking. Immediately L’atρa-natsandé, knowing that her husband was waiting for her outside, struck her captor with her axe and killed him.
The husband jeered outside the tent when he heard these axe blows:
– Ah! ah! I suppose my enemy is being stroked by his mistress. She probably annoys him,” he laughed.
Immediately he and the young men in his retinue threw themselves on the inhabitants of the sleeping village; they massacred them all; he took back his wife, L’atρa-natsandé, and not only her, but also the kidnapper’s wife, whom he kept from then on as his second wife. From then on, he had two wives.
In this large village there were five large meat caches full of excellent meat. He took them, seized their contents and burnt the five sarcophagi.
The atρa-natsandé was very gluttonous. She had an appetite like a wolverine. But when famine struck the country, she spared no effort. So her husband set off on a reindeer hunt and said to his wife:
– It is very hard for me to stay with my fellow men, because they only want to destroy me because of your beauty. I can no longer stay here; let’s go to the sea.
In fact, they were trying to kill him to get his beautiful wife.
So they left. They took their son, their only child, with them.
When they got to the edge of the lake, the husband set hooks for the salmon trout and caught two during the night.
Suddenly, in the middle of the darkness, a fox ran away. The man shuddered.
– Maybe it’s an enemy spying on my wife,” he thought, “because she’s beautiful and gluttonous, and she’s always eating our neighbours’ food.
So he got up.
– Let’s go to bed,” he said to his wife.
Her husband knew her. She looked at him, and from the bird’s head she removed a white skin; then he fell asleep, and his son with them.
During the night, armed people arrived, but the husband and his son continued to sleep. However, there was the sound of people fighting, of people being killed; then there was silence and nothing more was heard. Only their camp was awash with blood, and you could see corpses lying here and there, like large animals that had been killed while hunting.
As for L’atρa-natsandê, she had disappeared; but by the sea, a large wolverine was devouring the corpses with its teeth.
When the husband and son woke up the next day, they saw the blood and the corpses, and they also saw the gluttonous animal eating the dead bodies. They ran towards it, but the animal laughed at them and ran off without them being able to reach it.
As for L’atρa-natsandé, she never appeared again. All this was an inexplicable mystery to the two men. However, night fell again and they went back to sleep, but she had not returned. They were used to it.
The next morning, when they woke up, she was there, beside them, as if nothing had happened. But in the future, they say, she was not very hungry for meat; she had eaten too much human flesh[37].
(Continuation of the previous legend.)
A man called Kρon-Édin (Fireless) had a wife called L’atρa-natsandé, for whom everyone fought because of her beauty.
A chief called Yamon-kha (the whitening Horizon) had stolen her from him. Both had many servants. It is from this
struggle between these two men that the name
of this beautiful woman.
When Yamon-kha had taken L’atρa-natsandé, she lived with him and with the people to whom Yamon-kha belonged.
In that place there was a vast mountain situated near the sea, and at the foot of the mountain itself was a spacious lake. These people lived in the earth, digging burrows and dwelling there[38].
As they were always fighting and she was always the subject of it, L’atρa-natsandé resolved to put an end to this subterranean people. So she piled up a lot of wood in the mountain caves, set fire to it, shattered the rocks and killed many people.
Underground, these people did as we do in the tent. They piled up their meat there, they hung it up there, many people stayed there, dogs played there and foxes too. But when L’atρa-natsandé left for the south, her husband’s men of war, who were looking for her, went away to the west; then there was no one left underground. So she retraced her steps and followed the troop, thinking she would still find people underground.
Suddenly, a man emerged who she recognised as her husband. It was indeed Kρon-édin and his people. They came out of the caves and her husband took her back again, it is said.
(Continuation of the previous legend.)
Yamon-kha was a man whom everyone treated as an enemy. His own parents held a grudge against him, so he went off to the mountains
where he stayed. One day, on a mountain plateau
one day he saw a ram which he wanted to seize, when all of a sudden he heard someone shouting. It was like the voice of a young boy living up there. The boy shouted:
– What did your uncle say to you?
– He told me to go beaver hunting,” replied a man called Kba-tρa-endié.
Yamon-kha killed the boy, got up and set off to find the path for his followers. He himself was at the head of the party that was going to hunt beaver in the mountain valleys.
Suddenly, Yamon-kha became angry for no reason at all. With his travelling stick – a large log – he struck his people here and there and killed them. He killed all his relatives and fled.
But Kfwin-péli managed to escape him, and Khatρa-endié, another of his relatives, having climbed the mountains, he made his home there.
Yamon-kha soon followed him there.
– You have killed all our relatives,” said Kha-tρa-endié; “what are you still doing here?
This man was his nephew.
– Since you say I killed your parents,” replied Yamon-kha, “then kill me in your turn.
– No,” said Kha-tρa-endiè; “it won’t be like that. We are not murderers. But withdraw from us.
Suddenly Yamon-kha was angry again; he threw himself on his nephew and hurled him down the mountain. He also threw down Kha-tρa-endié’s two wives, and by the virtue of his medicine turned them into rocks.
These people became stone statues. They are still standing on the slope of the mountain called Onta-ratρu yué, where you could see them[40]. The one called Ekhètsiñyè, who was also his nephew, Yamon-kha also threw him down.
After this great deed, Yamon-kha left and headed for the Mackenzie River, lighting a fire in the forest and staying on the plateau to hunt beaver.
Taking advantage of his absence, all his remaining relatives fled into the woods, so fearful were they of him. In order to get rid of him, they even indulged in the evil magic known as Ekhéa-tayètlin or the Bound Young Man.
As for Kfwin-péli and his younger brother, they were hunting.
Suddenly, while they were away, Yamon-kha returned, hiding from everyone, and transformed himself into a bear to spy on his parents. He saw them playing with the Bonded Child and performing the curse.
Two old women saw the evil one disguised as a bear and said to the troop:
– See Yamon-kha over there coming like a bear.
He heard her and went into the woods.
When night fell, Kfwin-péli and his brother returned from their hunt and went back to their tent to have their meal. Yamon-khat also went there, surprised everyone asleep and made a great slaughter. However, Kfwin-péli managed to escape and told all.
Yamon-kha saw that he had escaped and went after him, reaching a waterfall where the other had taken refuge alone, luring him with a hook and tormenting him with the intention of killing him. But he couldn’t get rid of him.
He was the only one of Yamon-kha’s family to survive.
Yamon-kha was the first man who dared to kill otters[41]. Large otters were living in a lake. He went there and was not afraid to kill them.
Another time, he saw a gigantic beaver, one of those beavers whose species is extinct. Yamon-kha saw it, began to sing, and when the beaver came out of the water, he took it and killed it.
He and Kfwin-pèli warred until they were very old. They were so old that they plotted each other’s deaths: Yamon-kha with his knife, Kfwin-pèli with his arrows. But they couldn’t defeat each other, and finally they gave each other a rest because they were too old.
(Continuation of the previous legend).
Two women were the wives of two men who were brothers (or cousins)[42]. These two men became angry with each other, and the elder, having split and hollowed out a tree, made it into a chest in which he placed his younger brother; then he tied the tree and threw it into the river.
The chest floated and drifted towards a certain region, where it landed and came to rest on the shore.
A fox saw this strange object and ran to it; it gnawed at the cords, which were made of elk sinew, and by this means freed the man, who got out of his trough.
After examining this new land, the Stranger noticed numerous human footprints on the sandy shore. Their snowshoes were so funny, so funny!
– How are these men made? thought the Stranger.
There was also a path winding through the deep darkness. It was a dense, thick night. He couldn’t stand it any longer, as he could barely make out the path.
Suddenly, the Stranger heard a noise and hid, or thought he had hidden, to spy.
– What’s that animal disappearing over there?” said a voice in the middle of the darkness.
So the Stranger left the path and hid. Suddenly, two of the people went off to discover him.
– Who’s there? I’ve got to know! they said.
At the water’s edge, these people, on the slopes of the hills, used to set nets for passing birds. They kissed and embraced these birds. They were a people of dog-men. They were men from the top down, but from the waist down they were shaped like dogs.
– Where is this stranger that we don’t know?” cried the two dog-men who were looking for the stranger.
A young boy came out of a house and said:
– I smell human.
An old man with dog legs also came out and said:
– And I too can smell a man.
As he said this, he sniffed the air like a bloodhound on a trail. Looking behind his house, the old man added:
– If it’s a man, I’ll go to him. There are no doubt birds in our traps that we fuck. No, it’s like a friendly little man,” he added.
Immediately the two young dogs ran to the stranger.
The latter, being in the middle of the darkness and far from the path, hoped not to be discovered; but he was flushed out by the two dogs, who cried out:
– Father, he is indeed a man; he is a stranger, a foreigner.
– Well then, seize him,” cried the old man, “and return with him.
So they took him and brought him to their father. Then they looked at the stranger, considered him, kissed him, kissed him, caressed him, took him by the arm and petted him like a dog. So he stayed with them, and the old man, who had a marriageable daughter, gave her to him in marriage, and the Stranger slept with her.
Now, the white owl was the main and favourite food of these dog-men, the inhabitants of the darkness.
The old man of whom I have just spoken said:
– I’m going to give my lakes to the owls.
He went away, spread his nets, then, returning, said to his new son-in-law:
– Watch my nets.
So the Stranger took up a position in the spotlight and kept watch.
– There are two white owls coming, you see!
Then they added:
– That wicked Stranger has just scared them away from our nets, no doubt. What kind of bad guy is watching our nets! Now he’s made the owls run away!
So we got angry with him and dismissed him.
– Yes, it’s him! It’s his fault that our birds have run away!
He was bitterly rejected.
The Stranger withdrew; he pierced the two flying owls with his arrows, put them in his belt and continued on his way. As he went, he saw a small, solitary lodge (nibali) in which elk skins had just fallen into the fire. From outside, he heard people saying:
– My daughters, how did you manage to burn these skins?
He wanted to go in, but they wouldn’t let him, so he continued on his way.
He went away and killed several reindeer; then, having returned to the dogmen’s village and entered his house, he found no one there. During the night, he went in, threw a white hare’s head on the fire and immediately it was daylight. But everyone had left during the night, because the houses had burnt down. He heard that people were saying: “His son had put some fat on the trestle above the fireplace; it fell, caught fire and set the tents on fire”.
So the Stranger went back to the little house where he had seen two sisters living alone; he drew their lard, with a hook, out of the fire, and said to them:
– Become like that.
Immediately the two larders were transformed into two young reindeer that set off into the desert.
– And yet it was the anathema of the lard that did all these wonders,” said the two nubile sisters[43].
When the stranger came out of the little house, he saw the old man, his father-in-law, running away from the village with his children. His old wife, who had gone to see what was going on, called out to them:
– Save yourself, save yourself, my children, a man-eating monster, an Etièra-kotchô (gigantic ruminant) is hiding by the side of the path.
And she added:
– This must be the kind of reindeer these people kill and feed on. Well then, young men, make camp.
The old man looked at the monster, killed it, gutted it, skinned it, removed the fat from its intestines, swallowed it and got drunk.
– Oh, good meat!” he exclaimed.
After that, the Stranger said to the old man:
– Grandfather, I want to go back to my country.
The old man gave him the skin of a white eagle so that he could fly faster, plus two packets of dried meat which he tied under his armpits to be his viaticum.
– If your wings are too strong and carry you too far,” said the old man, “you will cry out: ‘Kokkakρaë’ and the eagle will stop.
This is what happened to him. When he felt tired, a rock arose on which the Stranger rested and slept, and his eagle lost its strength. Further on, the same thing happened, and another rock arose in the sea, on which the man descended, slept and rested, while his eagle grew weaker and weaker.
At last he reached the other shore of the sea, but as the eagle had nothing left to eat, the old man gave it the flesh from his thighs. When that was done, the white eagle set him down on dry land.
Now, in that place there was a mountain; on the mountain there was a small, isolated house, and in the house lived two women who were sisters.
The Stranger went to the mountain, transformed himself into a lecherous old man and a bad boy, and went to find these women. As soon as the two sisters saw this man, they said to him:
– Well, you wicked little man, give us something to eat and sleep with us.
He made them something to eat, but they laughed and mocked him and slept with him. One of the sisters said to him:
– I have no husband, though I am not a widow, but he has gone astray.
As she said this, she laughed at him, as if to make him understand that she recognised him.
But the other sister, whose husband’s name was Kρon-edin (the Fireless Man), did not laugh at him, even though he had kidnapped her and made her his wife. Suddenly Kρon-èdin, her husband, arrived and she said to him:
– Ah, here’s a bad little man who came to us and gave us something to eat[44], and we ate what he gave us.
But all of a sudden he who was like a little evil-doer grew up again and took on his first form; his evil little knife became a sword, and he became angry with the Man-without-Fire, that heartless brother who once sacrificed him by exposing him to the waters; he became angry, threw himself on him and killed him.
And the woman who laughed and said, “I am the widow of a husband who is still alive and has fled to the woods”, he killed her too. But he kept the other good woman who had shown sadness at the memory of her husband, and he made her his wife for life again.
This is the story of “He who travelled as a stranger through the land of the Night People”.
In the beginning, the two brothers, on the reverse side of this earth, destroyed men by fire, it is said. They destroyed so many that no one was left; they were all burnt and consumed.
One of them took credit for this sad deed, but his elder brother challenged him, saying:
– You lie and speak in vain; for it was I who burnt the men.
But he spoke like that out of pride. So the younger brother challenged him, saying suddenly:
– Since you are so powerful, my brother, seize me and throw me into the sea so that the fire does not reach me there.
The elder brother lifted up his younger brother and threw him into the water. He landed on it and was not burnt to death. The elder brother did the same, and these two were saved from being burnt to death.
Two women, wives of the same man, had gone to fetch eggs on the shores of a small island, but in their absence their pirogue drifted with the water and disappeared in the distance.
How could they get off this small island? There was nothing they could do. So they thought of living there.
As the island was heavily forested with fir trees, they found plenty of resin and stocked up on it. They also found flat rocks like tables on the shore, on which they lit a fire and melted their heap of resin.
So, after the gum had liquefied and spread out in sheets, the birds arrived, which landed on the flat rocks and stuck to them. Their feet remained attached to it, and the two women took quantities.
There was a cave in the islet. The two women took refuge there, ate the birds and had those they couldn’t eat smoked.
And so the summer and autumn went by. Meanwhile, the harsh winter arrived and found them in the same place, catching and eating birds with glue, which prevented them from dying.
When spring returned for the second time, they again found eggs and lived off their hunting.
Suddenly, they heard the sound of rowing, a splash on the water. Someone was coming in a canoe.
– Where can the bones of my two wives be?” said a man’s voice.
The two abandoned women hid to watch their husbands’ manoeuvres. One of them cried out:
– Sé ha, I want to talk to you; come to me in the canoe,” she said.
But he remained mute with astonishment and full of incredulity.
Then his wife began to sing:
– Kfwè ékkè-réssè, kfwè ékkè-rékρon! (I have split the rocks, I have set fire to the stone!)
But the husband was terrified; instead of going ashore, he fled across the water. He went round the island and landed on the other side to watch the two women, wondering if he was seeing ghosts.
Then he heard one of them whispering to the other:
– I don’t want to sing for that man; I consider myself a widow now; I no longer have a husband.
And she said this, mocking this shy man.
But the other woman was distressed. She mourned the loss of her husband and did not speak.
So the husband didn’t hesitate any longer, he landed on the island, killed the indifferent and mocking woman, took back the one who was mourning for him and left with her.
In the very beginning, after the earth was made, men did not know about war; they did not think about slaughtering each other.
But war did break out between us, and it was over an owl.
Several people killed an owl together, one of those called Ekfwen étl’é (owl), and fought over it. Everyone wanted it and no one would give in.
Then an old man took it, and said to the plaintiffs:
– This owl is mine, I’m taking it and I won’t give it to any of you.
Saying this, he fled from the crowd and escaped.
They gave chase, pounced on him and killed him. But one of the dead man’s relatives in turn killed the main murderer. The latter was also killed in retaliation, and the matter reached the point where they slit each other’s throats and killed each other, it is said [45].
In the beginning there was an old woman, the mother of three children, whose husband was unknown. She was a witch. She used porcupine hair to weave magical fringes (or phylacteries to wrap around the arms and legs).
One day, as she was weaving her fringes, her eldest son said to her:
– Mother, what are you doing here for me?
– My son,” she replied, “as you can see, I’m carrying out your father’s strong medicine.
But the young man didn’t know his father.
This young man had just killed a moose while hunting and had butchered it.
– Mother,” he said to the old woman, “do you have a rope I can use to carry my venison here?
The old woman gave him the rope that closed the slide of her own saddlebag. Hidden in the saddlebag was a living otter, lurking among the magic fringes.
Her sons ignored her. When night fell, the old woman hung the bag in a tree and they went to bed. Her sons heard her laughing and playing in the darkness as a woman would with her husband.
However, the hunter, the eldest son of the old woman, went to fetch the moose he had killed; then, on his return, he lit a large fire to feast and cut up some meat.
The resultant extreme heat was so uncomfortable for the otter, which was hanging in the tree, that it began to stir in the skin pouch, where it had been numbed by the cold among the magic fringes. It even revived to such an extent that it gave the alarm to the young hunter, who picked it up and threw it, the pouch and the porcupine fringes into the fire. The fringes crackled as they fell into the flames and went: “Tra! tra! tra!”. That’s why they say the fire has been fizzing ever since.
The otter, Ettsun, was therefore thrown into the fire, where it burnt and died.
When the old mother came to look at her bag and found it all burnt, she was furious, because the otter was her husband and her three sons didn’t know. So she grabbed a log, hit her children with it and chased them away.
The children were so afraid of the old witch that they fled to the river. But there they were stopped.
– Mother, at least give us your big bonnet so that we can use it as a pirogue”, they said to the old juggler.
She threw her big bonnet over the water. They climbed into it and crossed the river without a hitch. On the other side of the water, there was indeed a monster, a Nahay, lying on the shore. But they passed under his nose without him making a move.
The old woman did the same. With her ice-cutter, she even tore the monster to pieces. A multitude of tiny pieces of flesh flew out of it and into the sky, where they disappeared and were transformed into woodcock.
– Wé! wé! wé! they cried in a plaintive voice.
Since then, you can hear the woodcock moaning in the clouds, but you can’t see them, you just can’t see them.
Now this woman is the same L’atρa-natsandè, whose husband is called Kρon-èdin or the Fireless Man.
(Continuation of the previous legend.)
This old L’atρa-natsandè had a son whose temper was very atrabilious. He was called the Hunter or Chi-ahini. She also had a daughter whose sons killed, in concert and all together, a very brave man.
They killed him for no reason. One day, they met a man, imagined him to be their enemy and, pouncing on him, killed him.
But, strangely enough, even though it was winter, they disappeared; they fled to an island, separated from all their relatives and from then on kept to themselves, always remaining alone, since they had killed this innocent man for no reason.
However, one fine day, one of these voluntary exiles had the audacity to leave his island and go into the company of other men. Suddenly he heard someone shout to him:
– Tell me, you, you killed my elder brother, a perfect good man; you killed him all together. You have slaughtered a good man!
At these words, the exiled volunteer shuddered and ran back to his tent. He told his brothers what he had heard, what they had been accused of.
– You know,” he told them, “that man we once killed, well, his younger brother blamed me for his death. You killed a very good man,” he said. You slaughtered him all together!
Then the murderers’ family went into an uncontrollable panic. They fled and spread out among the nations, but always living separately.
And these men said to each other:
– Whomsoever you look upon and he who turns his face away from you, he hates us, kill him,” they said to each other.
And so they did.
But the other men wanted to destroy them all at once. So they found them asleep in the middle of some tall hay, which they set on fire to burn them alive. All the dry grass did indeed burn, but they managed to escape to higher ground, running towards the flames. From the high ground they taunted their enemies, shouting:
– See, now our flesh is roasted, isn’t it?” they taunted them.
From then on they always lived alone and apart from other men.
On the banks of a river, a tiny child no longer than a finger was heard crying. Many young girls looked for him but could not find him. A little old woman set off in search of him, accompanied by these girls. She alone found him, took him in and entrusted him to one of the young women so that she could nurse him. The child was naked.
So the old woman brought up the child she had found naked in a nest of moss. This is why he was called Nni-ottsintanè or the Moss Child.
Even though he was still very small, the Moss Child worked wonders with a red willow wand, and used his magic to provide his adoptive mother with a large number of reindeer.
When he was a little older, the Mushroom Child said to his mother:
– Mother, tell my brothers to separate the shoulder and stomach for me from each animal I get them.
The old grandmother obeyed, but all she got from the Dènè was refusal. So the child went to bed angry, without taking any food.
So the old woman went from lodge to lodge telling the men:
– My son, who is so powerful, has asked you for this and that. It is very wrong of you to refuse him. It is very dangerous not to grant him this tribute.
But he was not listened to. The men would have given him the tribute, but a powerful old man, a great chief called Tρatsan-Eko, or the Running Raven, said to them:
– Don’t give it to him; this little stranger is too conceited.
When night fell, they went to bed, and while the old woman and child slept, the Dènè set up camp and abandoned them.
The old woman noticed this move, woke the child and said to him:
– My son, they are breaking camp. Come, I’ll carry you.
But he didn’t move from his bed and stayed there pretending to be asleep. So they left them and set off.
At midnight, the Infant-Mousse woke the old woman, who was sleeping next to him, and said to her:
– Mother, light two fires at the entrance to the tent.
She obeyed and made a fire for the child.
– Now go back and forth between the two fires, Mother,” he said.
Then he added:
– How are reindeer hooves made? Are they cloven-footed?
– Yes,” she said. Their feet are made this way and that.
– Well, now, throw me out of the tent over the fire, and you lie down and sleep, Mother.
The old woman did as she was told. When she woke up the next day, the Magic Child had returned to the tent. He was sleeping numbly on his little bed, and his chest was cold.
The old woman lamented, thinking he was dead.
She did everything she could to persuade him to follow the Dènè. But he wouldn’t agree.
– Look in my mittens,” he said to the old woman.
She put her hand in. She was astonished to find them full of bits of reindeer tongue. While his mother was asleep, and by virtue of his magical powers, the Mousse Child had killed many caribou.
The old woman was therefore pleased; she went to fetch the meat, ate, along with her adopted son, and was sated.
However, he did the same thing every night, and the Dènè benefited from his magical hunts, because he had joined them.
One day he killed a large number of caribou on a large lake in the area, butchered them, had them smoked and dried; then he went to his mother:
– Mother,” he said to her, “my brothers (he called all the men his brothers) probably have nothing to eat. I’ve brought you some meat. Make me a pemikan. I’ll take it to them.
The old woman obeyed him as she always did. Then, during the night, he disappeared again as usual. But the old woman was no longer surprised by his disappearances. She was used to him looking like a magician.
– He’s probably gone for his medicine, she thought. He’s looking for some game.
So she was not saddened by his absence.
Towards midnight, the old woman’s heart having turned to ice from the excess of cold, she woke up, relit the fire and placed the cake of meat and fat outside the lodge.
Meanwhile, L’Enfant-Mousse had killed an ermine. As he walked, he spilled its blood on the path and around the tent, and sprinkled it on the cake or pémikan. Immediately, the great lake he had crossed with the people split open, and in its bed appeared quantities of reindeer meat that he had hidden there.
So it happened that, thanks to the magic of the cake and the spilt blood, the Mousse Child’s parents killed many musk oxen and lived comfortably.
But the men still refused to pay him the small tribute he demanded. The Moon Child wanted to punish these ungrateful men. One day, when the Dènè had killed a large number of musk oxen and reindeer, had butchered and butchered them, as was their custom, and their meat was being hung on scaffolds in the boucans, Nni-o’ttsintanè thought to himself and said: “Nonna tamine! nonna tamine! We no longer know what these words mean, but at the same moment the beef sparkled and rustled; the pieces came together, the animals came back to life, climbed out of the bushes and ran off into the woods. All the meat disappeared and your (famine) reigned once again in the Dènè camp.
– It was that bad boy who did it,” said the infant’s adoptive parents. He must be punished so that he remembers. So they tried to seize him, but he slipped through their hands like a shadow and somehow escaped. Oh, how they hated him! The Dènè harnessed their best draught dogs and set off in pursuit of their meat, which was running away, but they could not catch up with it.
He did this for a long time, always remaining alone with his old mother. He pitched his tent far away, visiting his people from time to time and always asking them for the tribute of the shoulder and the stomach. But they refused him again. And again the meat disappeared.
– What a wicked boy, they thought; why does he want to starve us to death?
But he, remembering that these wicked people had persecuted and killed his parents, and seeing that they were refusing him such light tribute, did not put down his anger.
After this, the men set nets for the fish in the great lake, but they caught nothing. The fish were as scarce as the meat. So the Infant-Mousse went down to the shore, sighed, and said only these simple words:
– From the foot of the sky I have come to the homeland of my brothers. Why, then, is the Great Water closed to them now?
He said only these words, and at once the fish abounded.
Once again, the Moon Child solicited tribute from the stomachs and shoulders of reindeer killed in the hunt. The Running Raven still refused. So the Child went to bed without eating and said to his mother:
– Mother, tie up our lodge with ropes.
– Why?” she asked.
He didn’t answer her, but she obeyed him promptly; she tied the tent tightly and went to bed. Then, during the night, a strong wind was heard blowing, bringing desolation to the camp. The Running Raven cried out:
– He has dipped (in blood) the tuft of grass; he has hung up his vessel and the spirit has entered into it!
Then the whole camp arose in great astonishment, for a great many dead lay in the camp. They ran to the Magic Child’s lodge to see what he was doing, but he was nowhere to be found. He had left for the Sun, where he stayed.
For a long time after that, the men stood by the reindeer and took many of them; then they left, leaving the old woman to her own devices as usual. So she did her best to live, set snares on the caribou tracks and caught a small one. This little reindeer seemed to her to resemble her son, the Moss Child. She looked at him for a long time, took him in and slept with him with the intention of resurrecting the son who gave her life and whom she mourned as dead; but she was unable to free the spirit of the Moss Child. He said to her:
– Mother, leave me in peace; I will teach you, let me speak. I’ve just come back from the Sun. I had hoped that men would see me there and I had set off for that star; but its fire is too strong, it is impossible to live there. So I’ve come back to you and I’m going back to the Moon. There, those who hate me will see me. In two nights’ time, if I do not appear again, I will have left for the Moon. That’s where I’ll be staying. Go there too.
As his mother wept at hearing him speak like that, he added:
– Don’t grieve. There’s nothing I’m saying that will make you cry. Sleep tomorrow and the day after; between each night, tie your shoelaces to the reindeer, and in this way you will reach the Moon.
He girded his head with his headband and said:
– The star will do so, and his head will be encircled by a diadem. But you know, my mother, when man dies, the sun will fade.
That’s why when the sun fades, it’s a sign of mortality for men, and we say that the star is fighting for us.
So the mother returned to her tent and told all these things to her old husband.
– My son has ordered me to do this and that”, she said. So they slept and camped twice more, and immediately the Moss Child appeared in the moon. This comforted them. So they set their snares on the reindeer and lived off the meat, still hoping that they would make it to the Moon. They camped again. Suddenly, over there, they saw the Moon running. It looked like a handsome old man with white hair running like the Moon.
– My son! My son!” cried the father, overjoyed.
He said nothing. The old man said nothing to them.
– Ah, my grandson, I’m in too much of a hurry,” he said indifferently.
And he ran off again, leaving them there.
Since then, it is said, the Moon Child has lived in the Moon.
(Continuation of the previous legend)
It is said that an old woman had raised a very small child. He was one of the hated and evil people who were being destroyed. This little evil subject was treated as an adopted son by the old woman.
There was also a powerful chief who lived in a beautiful wooden house and was the husband of two women. He was called the Running Raven. He was rich, and you could see his pretty dishes and his cups arranged in order in the back of his house.
Then the little misfit said to his old adoptive mother:
– Mother, I’m off to the Running Raven.
– What are you going to do there? He’s a powerful and fierce man. It’s very difficult for you to introduce yourself to him, my son.
– But I’m going,” he said. It doesn’t matter.
So the child magician went to the home of the Running Raven; he knocked over all those beautiful vases he was so proud of, scattered some flammable material around them and set them on fire.
From inside his house, the great chief heard the commotion.
– Who burnt my beautiful utensils?
– His wife replied: “It’s little Beloved, that nasty little taboo of Bouse.
She called him that because the child’s body had been rubbed with musk ox dung to give it magical powers.
However, as the Running Raven was furious, the Dung-child hid himself, but he acted in the shadows. When daylight returned, the Running Raven found his house filled with the white down of birds that the little villain had scattered around it, for he was wearing a bird amulet around his neck. The chief was angry and wanted to punish the child. But he was asleep, or pretending to be, unconscious.
Nevertheless, we set off for war.
– Let’s go to where our enemies are hiding,” the men said to each other; “let’s set off to fight them.
So they set off, leaving the Magic Child in his tent.
But when the warriors had gone, he said to his old mother:
– Grandma, I want to follow the fighters.
– What are you saying to me?” she replied. You’re so small and your clothes are so inadequate! You’ll freeze to death.
He said nothing, but during the night he disappeared and joined the warriors of the Running Raven. The latter was on the threshold of his tent when he saw him arrive with his little blanket all damp from the serenity of the night.
– My son,” he asked him, “what have you come here to do?
– I’ve come to fight with you,” replied the boy.
He carefully hid his hair, as the people of the Short Raven shaved their heads.
So they set off to fight the enemies; they were on their way to meet them when he killed the warriors in their sleep; he pierced them with invisible arrows, he broke them all as they slept; he destroyed everyone. However, he had not fought, but he had performed the curse called Ekhé-tayétlin or the Bound Child. He pierced a little white bitch, split her nose open, smeared her faeces in her blood, rubbed the blood into the tent and then went to bed peacefully.
Well, during that same night, and all night long, the blood flowed freely in every dwelling. All that could be heard were these mournful words:
– There’s blood in the house!… His blood is flowing!… Alas! My son is bleeding to death!…
That’s what was heard everywhere. It was truly terrible and inconceivable.
The Running Raven was thinking in silence. His only words were mournful:
– The Great Mountain has been blasphemed! He has eaten our fetish, the animal god!
So the chief squeezed the little magician’s heart like a chicken’s to kill it, and killed it. During the night, he whipped its heart with his mitt and magically brought it back to life. He remade the little Beloved, he made him good; so that he was one of the first to return before the whole army, after he had been resurrected and made good by the Running Raven[46].
The Moss Child, who killed all men by Ettsonné, the Spirit of Death, and by the virtue of spilt blood, left for the Moon. He can still be seen there, holding his little white dog on a leash, which he immolated, and carrying on his back the sack full of blood that he had hung from his tent when the Great Wind swept through the enemy camp.
He is now called Sa-wéta or the Dweller in the Moon, Ettsonnè or the Genie of Death; but he is also called Ebœ-Ekon or Shield-Belly, because he fights for us and, through the death of our enemies, provides us with the caribou on which we feed[47]; Klodatsôlè or Pointed-Nosed Mouse, Shrew, Sand-Mouse, Mole. Finally, he is called Edzée or the Heart of Nature, because of the great kindness he showed us.
This is why, almost at the melting of the snow, at the spring equinox, when the sun turns over on its bed, in the month of the rutting of the reindeer (March-April), we celebrate the feast of Sa-wéta called the Funeral Passage through the tents to the sound of the rattle.
To this end, meat is stewed in the earth in pots made of woven fibres, then filled into game boxes that the young men load onto their backs; they carry sticks like people on the march, gird their loins, and all gather at midnight in the same tent to eat the contents of the game boxes together, but hastily and as if with fear.
Then one of us gets up and looks at the moon and starts singing:
– Ufsédha! Klôdatsolé él’èkkè-tρa-nondatρalé! Ttsu-chiw yèèn!
Which means:
– Pass! Shrew, hurry up and jump over in the shape of a cross! Wooded mountain, come!
Then, coming out into the snow one after the other, singing the same invocation to the Moon, they ran around the tent and the other lodges in the camp, singing from time to time.
Why is the Moon so bored, as if she were about to fall from the sky? Surely this star is suffering. So, lest we kill it, we shout and sing[48].
Then we feast for the rest of the night in the tents. In so doing, we are obeying the orders of Sa wèta or the Shrew himself, who once told us:
– When the Moon appears to want to fall into syncope, you will do as follows: When the Moon passes, you will make a night meal and spend the night in the snow and in the open air.
Other tribes sing:
– Enékhèw! Klodatsolé nè kla tρèh nasikhin! Ttsu-chiw yèen! – How heavy it is! O shrew, carry me across your backside! Wooded mountain, come!”
Others:
– Klodatsolé! êhtρè nni na-dintl’a! Ku sê ya!
– Shrew! Jump over the earth! Just a little longer! (Or: Or sus, little fawn!)”.
The Dènè Nnè-la-Gottinè sing:
– Nétasolé! né kla tpèh hèlè gunli, yanhè! Ttsu-chi yengé! ta ttchiré dinζè. Uhséyé! – “Shrew, through your bottom is a causeway, oh la la! Wooded mountain, come! tear us from here. I’m coming through! ”
The Dènè Esclaves do not make a procession around the tents; they are content to eat their nightly meal together, in a tent, singing from time to time:
– Klô-da-tsolé, né Ma tρèh nakodèfwiwé! – “O shrew, through your backside we have gone, or we have passed.”
Others sing:
– Edatsolè! né kla tρèh naséttiñè! Ttsu-chiw yéñgè, ni nattchirè dinζè! – “O shrew! you pulled me through your backside! Fir Mountain is coming, snatch us up and pull us out of here[49]!”
One day a giant of our enemies kidnapped two sisters. Here is the occasion:
– I want a soul, said the giant. I need a head. I only ask for one, but I need it.
When he was refused, he became angry, kidnapped two girls, who were the sisters of a Dènè, and, escaping, took them to the land of the Dogmen.
The man from whom his two sisters had been taken was called Kotst-datρéh or Stick Operator. He set out on the trail of the enemy giant to take back his sisters.
He first arrived in a country whose inhabitants ate small white birds called Ettsè-nonttsé. He stayed with them for a while, living off their life. Like them, he set nets in which he caught many small birds, as he hunted them in his nets.
When he had set out from there, he came to a region where the people lived on large partridges. As soon as he was in that country, his body took on the lightness of those birds. Even though the ground was covered with deep snow, he could not sink into it any deeper than a partridge.
As he walked along, he spotted a fire and headed for it. He found a lodge where an old partridge woman was living.
– My son,” said the old woman, “welcome; I’ll serve you some meat to eat. Don’t worry, we’re good people. But if you go any further, you’ll find nothing but bad men, the Dogfooters.
Soon the old woman’s sons arrived at the house. They were loaded down with partridges, the fruit of the day’s hunt. These birds were very fat. Their fat was cut in the same way as venison. They gave Kotsi-datρèh partridge heads to eat, just as we give reindeer heads to foreigners who visit us. They filled a cauldron with these heads and made him eat partridge meat too. From that moment the Stranger acquired the lightness of it.
However, Kotsi-datρèh did not stay there; he soon passed into the country of the Dogmen, using their double-tipped snowshoes, which at first seemed very difficult.
Seeing a large tent, he headed that way, but without seeing anything, as it was very dark in their country. He was guided only by the noise. As soon as he reached the tent, he threw some hare’s eyes into the fire, and it was daylight.
It was in this dark land that he found his sisters. Their captor, the Great Enemy, was out hunting. So he went to his sisters, and found them with their children, two little Dogpaws, playing around the fire.
– Mother, mother, here’s our uncle to see us!” cried the little dog-men.
– Follow me,” said Kotsi-datρèh to his sisters. I’ve come to free you from the giant’s servitude.
– Ah, your brother-in-law is powerful,” they replied. He will certainly kill you if we leave with you.
– Follow me,” he said resolutely.
So they abandoned their little dog-children and followed their brother. When night fell, they made camp.
But while they slept, the Great Enemy dispensed medicine, so that at daybreak the three of them awoke on the summit of a high mountain.
The two women were terrified.
– Go back to sleep,” said Kotsi-datρèh to his sisters, “and trust me.
They went back to sleep. Then, by the virtue of his medicine, he levelled the mountain and turned it into a comfortable plain.
When they camped a second time, the three of them awoke on a small desert island.
– Go back to bed,” he told them.
Immediately, he made a road or causeway of dry earth emerge from the middle of the water, on which they crossed the lake.
When they had bivouacked for the third night, the giant thundered down on them. But the brother of the two women picked a willow branch, bent it into a noose, caught the thunderbird Iti by the collar and killed it.
Having done this, they built a pirogue so they could cross the sea, but as soon as they were on the water, it spread out and swelled as far as the eye could see. They themselves sank into it. His two sisters wept as they sank. But Kotsi-datρèh pulled them out of the water with his wand, and they survived the sinking.
They camped a fifth time; then the giant conjured up a rapid, a bottomless abyss, into which the river rushed with a roar. All three drifted towards the cataract and were about to be swallowed up by it. But Kotsi-datρèh caused the abyss to rise and the bottom of the land to rise, so that the result was a slow, calm current, on which they continued their journey.
On the sixth night, by the virtue of the great Magician, it suddenly became so dark that the sisters could see nothing. They began to sob.
– Go back to bed and sleep,” he told them, “and have faith.
Immediately, at his voice, day broke and they came back to life.
They camped for a seventh night. Then suddenly in the darkness they heard: Rho! rho! rho! It was a huge monster, a Nahay, that the giant had sent to devour them. I don’t know what Kotsi-datρèh did to the monster. He pierced its throat with his arrows, no doubt, because he laid it lifeless at his feet.
When the eighth night arrived, they ran out of water. So they began to weep again, for their position was becoming very difficult in this desert. But their brother threw one of his arrows down the slope of the mountain, and immediately a spring of clear water gushed out, where his sisters quenched their thirst.
Finally, they reached the edge of the sea, where they found a tent. On the other side of the dwelling, an abundant spring gushed up from the ground. There they spent their ninth night and the following days.
Soon they saw people arriving in that fortunate place, for the inhabitants of the oasis said to each other:
– Behold, three people have come to us, a man and two women.
– What sort of people are you?
But they gave no answer to these questions. We couldn’t get a single word out of them. They understood nothing.
Then a venerable old man arrived from the opposite bank, bent over with the weight of years and walking on crutches. The old man spoke to them as follows;
– My children, my old mother, who died a long time ago, once told me that an enemy giant had stolen two sisters from our parents, and that their brother had gone in search of them. Are you, by any chance, those people? That’s what my mother told me. These three people are probably you?
– Yes, of course,” they replied.
This is what happened to the old man Dènè, they say, at the beginning. This is the end of the story of the Two Sisters.
Kotsi-datρèh delivered his sisters, in the beginning, from the slavery of the Great Enemy, the chief of the Dog-Men.
We invoke Kotsi-datρèh or the Great Yellow Father to obtain for us a great abundance of animals. He is also invoked to gain the power to work wonders. Kotsi-datρèh used a white stick to strike the earth and water.
Anyone wishing to engage in this benevolent magic must not blaspheme or strip off his clothes, but must be content to walk around singing and beating his stick here and there, as Kotsi-datρèh did.
Kolsi-datρèh, the Yellow Grandfather, lives at Heaven’s Foot, where he led his Dènè brothers. Using his staff, he performed wonders and destroyed giants and evil animals. Here are some of the wonders he performed:
Once, a Na-hay or Man-eater, with small eyes and a long nose[50], came running from the shore to a woman who was living alone by the sea.
– This woman works for me,” said the monster. She prepares food for me.
She was defenceless at his mercy.
– Kotsi-datρéh,” she cried, “you who are so good and so powerful, come and defend me from the Nahay.
Then immediately a fire came out of the earth, which opened up, and from the middle of the flames leapt the Man with the rod. He struck the waters of the sea with it, dividing them on either side; he opened a passage in the sea, chased the Nahay into it and drowned it there.
Another day, in the middle of a large lake that had dried up, thunder was heard rumbling. People ran to see what it was. Kotsi-datρèh, the Great Yellow Father, was dancing in the dried-up sea. His head was whitened by age. He gave the Dènè two reindeer hooves as a powerful talisman, with which they could kill countless caribou.
Another time, Kotsî-datρéh came to a tent in which a tiny child was crying. He was alone and exposed to the voracity of a man-eating giant who had already devoured seven people. Kotsi-datρéh grabbed the giant by the arm and wrestled with it all night, but could not overcome it. In the end, however, he managed to pull the nerve out of its leg, crippling it and knocking it to the ground. Then, picking him up again, he healed his foot and sent him away unharmed. But later, changing his mind a third time, he pursued the giant cannibal, struck him with his staff and knocked him to the ground forever.
Once again, Kotsi-datρéh met an Etié-ra-kotchô (gigantic reindeer) on the path, who was inviting passers-by to commit a crime.
– Se tsoukhé! (Come near me!) cried this foul beast.
The Great Yellow Father ran up to the hideous monster and snatched its jaw. He struck it with his jaw, knocked it to the ground and then finished it off with his stick.
Finally, on another day, as the brothers of Kotsi-datρéh (for he called all the men his brothers) were running out of food, he hastened, in his kindness, to make a bundle of dry, smoked meat without their knowledge, which he secretly deposited in the middle of their camp; then he withdrew. But at the sight of this meat, these ingrates, far from thanking their benefactor, poured out their invective against him. The Yellow Grandfather, Etsié-dèkfwoë, was irritated at first, but as his anger never had any untoward effect, he quickly calmed down.
– They probably want fresh meat,” he said to himself.
He immediately went to a lake, took a beaver, butchered it, roasted it and brought it to his hungry brothers, without touching it himself. He ate only the fat after roasting it. He then divided the fire into two parts, and lay down in the middle of the flames without being burnt.
Through this magic, Kotsi-datρéh provided his brothers with plenty of meat. Then he gave them this prescription:
– Do not forget what I tell you: In future, when you kill any animal while hunting, observe this: You shall place the animal’s blood on one side and its flesh on the other.
That is the end.
Efwa-ékè[51] made all men suffer, and in those days they were like animals. He called all the animals “My sisters”, and used them as one uses women, inviting them to come to him so that he could mock and abuse them.
Once, several black bears were browsing among berry bushes, the kind known as bear grapes. Efwa-éké went over to them, picked a lot of attocat berries, then said to one of the bears:
– Sister, rub this medicine into your eyes.
The black bear obeyed, and it burnt his eyes, leaving him blind.
On another occasion when he had escaped, Efwa-éké met a large number of young girls on their way to pick wild berries.
– Sisters,” he said, “do you want me to go with you?
– Come along,” they replied.
They went off together to pick the berries. They picked a lot; then, suddenly, he filled his hands with the sour fruit, rubbed it into the eyes of the poor girls and they all went blind.
One day, while Efwa-éké was playing, swinging on a leaning tree, he saw some musk oxen grazing below him.
– My sisters,” he shouted, “come and run to me. There are some excellent pastures here that I have discovered for you. There is grass in abundance.
The buffalos came running happily. They were accompanied by their cows, and all were very fat. Efwa-éké then invited them to take part in a dare, which was to be won by the one of them who reached a designated goal the fastest. The oxen began to run out of breath, and as they were very fat, I said, they suffocated and died of asphyxiation.
After this blow, Efwa-éké melted down a great many loaves of marrow fat and filled a great many bladders with them; then he went to the shore of a large lake, where beavers and muskrats lived together in peace.
– Sisters,” he told them, “there are some good roots around here, come and gnaw on them. I’m going to tie these loaves of fat to your tails to help you season them.
So he tied these loaves of rendered fat to the tails of a large number of beavers and muskrats.
– Now, off you go,” he said to these amphibians, “go to the open water and play together; make carp jumps in the water.
Rats and beavers naively obeyed him. Suddenly, the bladders burst and the water became whitish and saturated; it filled the eyes of the amphibians, who became blind and even lost their lives.
The black fox was performing magical operations on Efwa-éké. The giant grabbed him by the tail and tied it; he dragged him along the ground so long that he lengthened this appendage in the way we see fox tails today.
On another occasion, Efwa-éké chased a lynx and, seizing it by the tail, made it turn around his head, throwing it against the walls of his house, where he broke its nose. This is why the lynx has the flat snout we see today.
One day, when Efwa-eke was lying asleep in a meadow, all the animal-men said to each other:
– Come and let’s kill him!
So they circled round him and said to the fox:
– You, fox, since your leg is more alert than ours, run to Efwa-eke and burn him.
So the fox set fire to the tall dry grass, so that the whole immense meadow was devastated and burnt.
– He too will burn, the animals thought.
In fact, Efwa-eke was hit by the flames and even had his buttocks burnt, because his axe had escaped him. For Efwa-éké always carried a large, sharpened stone axe hanging from his right thigh. When he was armed with it, the giant’s strength was unequalled; but when he dropped his axe or lost it, he became like any other man.
On this occasion, having been caught in the fire, his axe slipped out of his hand while he was asleep. As a result, his buttocks were burnt. Suddenly, however, he got up and seized his weapon again, and as soon as he had regained all his power, the animals cried out:
– Oh, wicked man, now he rises up against us!
– My sisters, my sisters,” he cried, “why do you curse me, who love you so much? Can’t you see that my bottom is burnt? But now you’ll know me. You call me evil, well, I’ll be evil for you.
After this event, Efwa-ékê married a foreigner and had a daughter who was very beautiful. She was so beautiful that the unfortunate father conceived a guilty passion for her so violent that it led him to forget himself in her regard.
This incest made Efwa-éké’s wife very angry, and she promised to kill him and even confessed it to him.
– If you want to destroy me,” said Efwa-éké, “build a bonfire over my body and burn me. That’s the only way. It is the only way that death can have an influence on me.
So his wife killed him, and having piled wood on top of her husband’s body, she set fire to it to destroy the corpse. Then she gave herself to another man and remarried.
However, Efwa-éké’s big stone axe had not been burnt; it was sticking out of the ground, from under the big stump under which the giant’s ashes had been buried. From underneath, the axe emerged. Efwa-éké’s daughter, the beautiful girl he had made his mistress, told her mother about it.
– My mother,” she told her, “my father is not dead, he is probably only asleep, for I saw his axe rise from the ground.
Then the woman who had been Efwa-eke’s wife went to the burial place of her husband; she pulled out the axe and struck the burnt body of the dead man with it. But she couldn’t get rid of it.
– So this is how you took your own daughter to be your wife! she shouted at him as she struck.
But Efwa-éké, resurrecting full of life, promised her that from now on he would behave wisely.
A short time later, however, he fell back into his crime. The old woman couldn’t stand it any longer. She killed him again and burnt him with a fire so great and violent that the flames rose to the heavens. That’s why in the old days, before the arrival of the Europeans, we used to burn our enemies, at least those who had killed one of our own, and make them die slowly in torments. We tore off their skulls and even poured hot embers and ashes over their exposed heads.
However, the old woman could not overcome Efwa-éké. As on the first occasion, the giant awoke alive, thanks to his stone axe, which had not been burnt, and he promised his wife to be good in future.
They then got together to destroy him by another means. They made a spear and ran to him to pierce him with it and make him suffer as he had made the others suffer. They burnt his manhood and bound him tightly with ropes. Then all the girls he had despised went to him to abuse him in the way you abuse a woman; they went and burnt him. An old blind woman also did the same. She went up to him, mocked him, treated him as a man treats a woman, and then burnt his genitals.
– Behold,” she cried, “the great Efwa-éké; now an old woman is his husband!
However, Efwa-éké did not die from these horrible treatments. He even managed to escape and took refuge with the Dènè.
In the end, he said to those who had stayed out of the way (the animal-men):
– From now on, I want to be good to you. So make a great festival public, prepare a great dance, and only then will I be kind to you.
They did as he wished. A large circular house was built, a vast and deep house, large at the entrance and also large towards the back. Efwa-eke invited all the animals and birds to come. When they had all gathered there, he said to them:
– Now dance,” he said to them, “now rejoice!
They danced, while he stood in the middle of the huge circular box supported by a central pole.
All the animals dancing around him laughed at him, saying:
– You must have promised yourself to do us more harm, Efwa-eke; that’s why you cast your shameless eyes on us.
Then the giant became angry. He pushed the walls of the house from side to side and shook the central post. Suddenly the roof collapsed, and all the animals in the house became a heap of corpses. Only the birds managed to escape through the top of the exposed house, but the others were buried under its debris. However, among the rubble, several animals were still able to escape. The moorhen escaped into the water, as did the Arctic loon and the loon. They were both black. Efwa-éké went after them; he threw chalk at the second one after its head and made it white again.
On this occasion, Efwa-éké destroyed more animals than he had done in the past.
Soon he said to himself:
– I’m going to go through the villages inhabited by the enemy giants, and I’ll make them suffer.
So he did just that. First he scattered them. The giants had hunted down swans, ducks and scoters, which they had roasted with the intention of feasting on them. During the night, Efwa-eke went to them; he revived all the game and made it fly away again.
One day, while he was asleep on the seashore, a giant of the Shaved Heads, or Kfwi-dètèllé, swam out to him, caught him in nets and bound him tightly.
– My grandfather,” said Efwa-éké, “I’d like to go up that mountain.
The giant immediately loaded him onto his shoulders, carried him across the water to the top of the mountain, where Efwa-éké fled and managed to hide.
Efwa-éké successively metamorphosed into a tree trunk, a bear, a moose, a beaver and a corpse, constantly deceiving and defying the vigilance and hatred of his enemies, the Shaved Heads.
In the end, he threw down his great flint axe, the club in which his strength lay, into the sea, and departed. He went so far away that he was never seen again among the Dènè, and no one ever knew what had become of Efwa-éké.
That was the end.
The ρata-yan were very small men who swarmed in the country they inhabited. It was difficult to get rid of them because, when you wanted to get rid of them, they covered themselves with a large shield under which they disappeared.
A young man, tormented by his parents, having left them, went, it is said, to visit the country of these Pygmies. He was a bearded man, as far as we can remember.
So the young bearded man went to the country where the ρata-yan were swarming, entered a lodge and asked for hospitality.
– Please give me a drink,” he asked an elderly pygmy.
– My wife,” said the old man to his wife, “I’m too old to serve this stranger, so go and get him a drink.
As he said this, he passed him the cup.
They treated him fairly well, but only called him a stranger.
– Why do you call me that,” said the young man with the beard, “when I have come to live among you?
However, the Pygmies set up camp to move it further away, and the bearded stranger followed them.
– You go first,” he told them suspiciously, “and I will follow you.
But they would not; then, when the young man had gone, the ρata-yan followed him, no doubt with evil intentions.
But the young man left them and went off into the distance. He reached a high land whose steep slopes stretched far into the distance. There he camped at the top of the mountain.
But the Pygmies joined him there and they soon covered the slopes of the Terre Haute. They hid from him in order to surprise him, which was not difficult given their extreme smallness.
He didn’t know how to get rid of them. Suddenly he had a good idea. He cut them up, made a big clump and rolled it over the Pygmies at the top of the mountain. It bloodied their flesh and destroyed them completely. Not one of them survived.
An old man, his wife and his only son lived together. The old man had lost his sight as he grew older. His wife was a bad woman with a foul and cantankerous temper. What’s more, she was always cheating on him.
One day, the blind man’s wife said to her husband:
– There’s a moose grazing over there.
– Give me my bow and arrow so that I can go and kill it,” replied the blind man.
She gave him her arrows, accompanied her husband to the place where the moose was grazing; they set up ambush, and she bent the bow in the direction of the animal. The blind man fired, pierced the moose with an arrow and killed it.
– Did I hit the animal?” he asked.
– No, you didn’t kill it,” replied the woman.
– Alas! alas!” he said sadly, “I’m very old and I can’t see any more.
However, the moose was not dead on the spot; mortally wounded, it moaned and struggled.
– What kind of animal is this that I hear you pitying?” the blind man asked his wife.
Without answering him, she went off in search of the beast and found it shot dead by the water; she finished it off, butchered it and threw her blanket over the meat to hide it. Then she returned with one of the sides, which she roasted without the old man knowing.
But he said:
– What’s that noise I hear?” he asked. It’s like meat moaning as it roasts. Where did you get this meat? I smell roast meat; what are you roasting?
– Oh, it’s a marten,” replied the wicked woman, and she disappeared.
The old man, being blind, could not defend himself from this shrew or outwit her malice. Out of patience and courage, he left his lodge and groped his way through the woods. He walked a long way and came to the edge of a long lake, in whose waters he heard the cry of a black loon.
– My brother-in-law,” said the blind man to the loon, “I’ve lost my sight, I could only reach your lake by groping, and my wife and son have abandoned me.
The diving boat went towards the old man and said to him:
– Come with me and let me lead you, I’ll give you back your eyes.
He made him ride on his back and swam towards the middle of the lake; then he suddenly dived, taking the blind man with him under the water. They stayed underwater for a long time. When they emerged on the surface of the lake, the diver said to the blind man:
– Well, this dry land that appears from here, can you see it?
– Not very well,” replied the old man, “but I can see something.
So the black bird dived in again with him, and when they came up, the old man had become a young man again and had regained his sight.
So he left the beneficent plunge, returned easily to his home, and saw there, on a scaffold, the meat of the moose he had mortally wounded. But he disguised it, and pretended to be blind, groping his way. He handed his wife his satchel so that she could put some meat in it. But she gave him nothing, and lied to his face.
– I’m thirsty,” said the blind man, “bring me a drink.
– I’ll get it,” said the old woman.
She went and drew some rotten, stinking water, full of worms and notonectes (tρé-tsaë) swimming in it, and served it to him to drink, because she thought he was still blind.
But he said:
– Do you want to kill me that you do this to me?
He got up in a rage, threw her out of the dressing room, broke her head and killed her. That was the end[52].
In the beginning, the Ghosts[53] lived in the Levant. At first these Ghosts were dogs who metamorphosed into men.
Then we, the Men (Dènè), dwelt in the West (Tahan); for we, of course, are men.
So we fought ceaselessly with the Phantoms; on both sides we waged war against each other.
Then all of a sudden the earth did just that: it turned on itself, reversing the points of the compass. It was as if it had pirouetted on its heel.
Since then, the Phantoms have remained to the west of the Rocky Mountains, while we have come to the east of those same mountains.
So at the very beginning, on the edge of the great western sea, we lived, whereas east of the Mackenzie, there were as yet no inhabitants; for we are inhabitants of the plateaus of the high mountains. We did not yet know the Nakotsia-kotchô (the Mackenzie) and we lived in the middle of the Rocky Mountains.
Then an old man went down to the river and saw fish swimming there. He put out a net and caught a lot of fish. So he went back to bring us this good news, and the Dènè came to settle along the Nakotsia-kotchô; for before that time we lived on the western side of the mountains.
That was not very long ago. It’s not like the previous stories. This old man was called, it is said, Tchané-ζèlé (the Bald Old Man).
In the beginning, we dwelt in the mountains, I said; then it happened that a great crowd of Dènè reached the foot of a high mountain and dwelt there. Then something like small pieces of meat fell from the sky, so the Dènè lived for a long time.
Many people went to gather this little meat that kept the world alive. We called it: Bœ ttassin yan taellay (a sort of little thing full of meat). Every morning, a measure full of it fell; for at first there was nothing in this country, we couldn’t take it any more, when all of a sudden food fell from the sky, they say. They filled containers with it.
That’s all I know about it, my father told me when I was young.
In the beginning, a blazing star was discovered, it is said; it appeared in the south-west. At that time, the Tchippewayans, Loucheux, Beavers, Hare-skins, etc., were one and the same people, one and the same nation; but when the comet was discovered, everyone wondered:
– But when the comet was discovered, everyone asked: “What strange thing has happened over there? Why don’t we go and have a look?
Then a young Chippewayan went this way, in other words to the south-west, and separated from us. He passed into another country, but he wasn’t much. He only had small arrows, and his wife didn’t know how to embroider with multicoloured porcupine hair.
There were also some Dindjié who went there and separated from us like the Tchippewayans; but they couldn’t speak, and that was the reason why they ran away from us. They were good for nothing.
As for us, we are superior men; that’s why we have a proverb about a good person:
– He practices the observances of the ancestors like a Tchin-tρa-Gottiné (or Dènè Peau-de-Lièvre).
At that time, metal was unknown in this country, when the old man called Tchanè-zèlé or the Old Bald Man went down the river to the small tributary where there is sand that falls (L’é-ota-la-délin). There, the old man found something red that resembled the red droppings of the black bear. That’s why he called it Sa-tsoñné (bear smoke). It was metal.
This red metal was used to make adzes and lancets. Before that time, we didn’t have any metal; but we bought small pieces of iron the size of a little finger from the Epa-tρa-Gottiné (the Dènè Antelopes), who live on the other side of the mountains, for ten skins of woodland caribou.
My mother saw that time again, before the arrival of the white men. My mother told me about these things.
The beaver and the porcupine lived on the other side of the river Nakotsia-kotchô[54] (the Mazkenzie). They were sisters and loved each other dearly.
Then the sister Castor {tsa) swam to the western shore and stayed by the water, at the place where there is this large mountain called Tsa-tchô-èpèli. He camped there.
Then, on the left bank, sister Porcupine (tsi) lamented and wept after the beaver, for she could not swim. She missed her sister, while living on the mountain we call Ttchiuñé chiw.
And the Porcupine said, crying:
– Mè né nènè ttsen niawotté, scuré! – May I come to your country by water, O my sister!
But as he couldn’t swim, he added:
– Ta yê wottèri yènéfwéni, souré, nné añnasakhèlé! – In this land where I wish to dwell, O my sister, carry me over the waters[55]!
For at first, it must be said that the two sisters lived together on the shore of the western sea. Then water formed, a great lake perhaps, a river perhaps, I don’t know, between the one and the other; so that there was a sea between the two peoples, there was no longer any possible passage, and that is why the Porcupine remained on the western land, while the Beaver passed over to the eastern land.
When we were living on the edge of the ocean, a small rock was pushed out to sea.
Then a little boy built a pirogue out of bark. This was long after Ekkadékρini had built his.
Having made this canoe, the child played with it and constantly walked on the water.
His mother used to say to him:
– Child, your canoe is worthless. Why are you playing with it?
But he would say:
– Ah, my mother,” he replied, “what are you saying to me? There’s an island on the high seas that I go to in a canoe. I want to go there again, whatever you say.
So the little boy made an oar and went for a walk on the seashore. While the camp was sleeping, he disappeared.
– What a naughty little boy! Where did he go again with his canoe? said the Dènè.
They looked for him by the sea, in the canoe. But they found neither island nor boy. There was no one there.
His father searched in vain, when suddenly, while they were asleep, he reappeared.
– Mother,” he said, “I’ve gone back to the island.
– We were already weeping for you,” replied the mother.
– Oh mother, my canoe is excellent. I sailed safely in it. There’s an island made of rock just over there where a very beautiful woman lives. I’ve been there, Mother, and I want to go there again. Go there too, all of you, Mother.
When the little boy had said this, they said to each other
– Let’s go,” said his parents. This child has genius. When he becomes a man, we’ll behave according to his orders; we’ll imitate him.
His father went with him; he went to sea with him, and so did all his parents. They looked for the little island where he said there were plenty of fish, but in vain. There was no island at all, because they did not believe what the boy said[56].
So, after that, the little boy came back and said again:
– Father, let us go to the island. There is a very beautiful woman there. Let’s sail that way. You can eat with her for as long as you like; you’ll eat excellent fish, and if you feel like sleeping, well, you can do as you like.
This is what the little sailor said to his father. At the time no one thought he was telling the truth, but the father said:
– Is it not my son who is telling us these things? Of course he is telling us the truth. So let us do as he tells us.
His mother also said:
– Let us imitate him, let us do as he says; it will certainly bring us reproaches from our fellow countrymen; but we are his parents, let us imitate our son.
That’s why, when these people said something, it always sounded like a lie to other people. Everyone refused to believe them or imitate them.
But the little boy grew up and became a man; he became powerful in all sorts of ways and could do whatever he wanted.
This family stayed with the other Dènè. But not everyone believed them. Only a few believed them.
This is why, from then on, the Dènè say as a proverb to this day:
“When you have an appetite and eat what you are given, you are full.
“If, being hungry, you despise the meat offered to you, you run the risk of going a very long time without eating.
This is what we have been saying ever since.
Origin of the Dènè Flancs-de-Chien from the Dènè
Hare-skins.
In the beginning, the wife of a Dènè gave birth to a child, but not without difficulty. The little boy came to term, for he cried when he came out, but the mother remained motionless and as if dead. In vain did her husband stimulate life in her by pricking her with a sharp stick, but she did not stir.
As he was getting up, the Dènè saw a Shaved Head coming along the path behind the walls of his fir hut. The unfortunate man immediately threw the branches that formed the walls of the hut at his wife and child; he hid them and ran out of the hut to distract his enemy.
Shaved Head immediately followed him. When night fell, they both bivouacked; he then took advantage of the darkness to return to his lodge, where he found his wife out of her trance and nursing her child.
But the Shaved-Head followed him, entered the Dènè’s tent and took up his position on the other side of the fire, coveting the Dènè’s new-born son so that he could kill and devour him, for he thought the flesh should be tender.
Finally, he pierced the Dènè’s heart, took out his chest, roasted and devoured it, then left, abandoning the unfortunate woman without killing her. So she remained alone with her child, living by hunting birds and raising her son on magpie brains. In this way she managed to keep him alive.
When little Dènè was grown up, his mother said to him one day:
– My son, go and visit my hare snares; in the meantime, I’ll set up the lodge and make camp. Take the Shaved Head’s snowshoes and go with that.
So the young boy set off to visit his mother’s rabbit laces, walking on the snow with the help of the Shaved Head’s snowshoes, which had one point in front and another behind.
When evening came, the child did not appear, and his mother remained worried. She followed the trail of the Tête-Rasée snowshoes, saying to herself as she went:
– Alas! must my son die before me!
As she went along, she came to a lodge that was none other than that of the Shaved Head who had killed her husband. She surprised him in his sleep and killed him and his wife. Horror! She saw, hanging in the tent, the backbone of her son, who had been devoured by these monsters. She wept bitterly over him. Then, outraged, she threw herself on the little children of the Flathead, whom she saw sitting in the lodge, and killed them all, except for one little child still in the scrapyard[57], for whom she took pity.
– Kid, what are you eating there?” asked the poor woman.
– They gave us a little moose,” replied the child. We killed it ourselves and we’re eating it.
This little moose, of which the child Flat-head spoke, was none other than his own son. The poor mother realised this and wept even more.
Little Shaved-head left the lodge, fetched a tree trunk, loaded himself with it and headed for a beaver lake. The Dènè woman followed him.
Little Shaved Head threw his flint axe into the water, dived in himself and disappeared under the water. The Dènè woman sat on the edge of the lake waiting to see what would happen.
Shortly afterwards, she heard the beavers saying into the water:
– Well then, eat our flesh.
So the woman went to the beavers’ lodge with little Shaved Head’s hammer-axe; she demolished the lodge, and immediately heard the little Enemy at the back of the lodge beating a lighter with a pyrite and a flint. Little Shaved Head had killed all the beavers, and emerged from the lake through the exit of their lodge.
However, the Dènè woman left. She was bored with her solitude and mourned the loved ones she had lost. She bivouacked, roasted a beaver, ate a piece and went to bed crying.
Shortly afterwards, she heard footsteps, and little Shaved Head, dragging his birch saddle between his legs, came hither and thither. But she took no notice. The boy lay down beside her. She let him, she felt sorry for him, and she didn’t kill him.
The next day, she set off again; she ate at midday and again in the evening. Then she bivouacked again, and again the little marmot Flathead followed her, ate and slept with her, without her doing him any harm. But by then he no longer had a jersey or a hat. He had become a rather large boy.
Once again she decamped, once again she bivouacked, and little Shaved Head had become an adult. He slept with the Dènè woman and approached her.
– See!” she said, “I’m afraid of him, I’m running away from him; why is he doing this?
Once again she left, once again she camped. But by then Shaved Head had become a full-grown man.
– Ah, my son is dead,” said the poor Dènè woman, “it was you and your kind who ate him; I’m not of the same race as you. Why are you following me like this?
At the next camp, she suffered her natural infirmities, left the path and built herself a little hut to purify herself; and yet, when evening came, the Shaved Head arrived. He followed the defiled path because he found her beautiful and loved her, even though she was afraid of him. He entered the hut without disgust, hung up his carnivore, laid his fur robe on the ground and sat down next to the sick woman.
It was wrong, but there was nothing she could do about it. Love made her forget about the prescriptions. As she was still afraid of him, the Flathead said to her:
– I consider you a member of my family; why are you afraid of me? You know we have no children, so why do you refuse me?
In the morning, he went hunting, killed a moose and brought it to her. He swallowed it a second time, and when he spat it out, it had turned into beautiful parchment.
– Why are you looking at me?” he said to his wife. These are things you can only do when no one is watching you.
He placed his stone scraper on the parchment, slept, and the next day the skin was faded and tanned.
From then on, the woman stayed with the Shaved Head, and they had children. But now, during the night, she heard what sounded like a big dog gnawing on bones. But they didn’t have a dog with them.
– What kind of dog could it be? thought the Dènè woman. There are no dogs here.
So Shaved Head threw a big bone in the direction where a dog was heard gnawing on bones and killed one of the little children.
The poor mother wept.
– If your son is a dog, then kill him,” she said. But why did you kill my child, who is a man (a Dènè)?
These are the ancestors of the Flancs-de-chien, Dènès by their mother and Têtes-Plates by their father, it is said.
White Flower had been taken I don’t know how many winters ago and married off to two men. In those days, people lived on the banks of a fishing lake and lived on fish.
One of Fleur-blanche’s husbands had undoubtedly wronged the Dènè, for they set out to fight them, and indeed they did. One of the two husbands was killed; the other returned to the camp with the warriors.
Then White Flower saw some canoes by the water and went to see what was in them. In one of them were men’s heads, severed heads, and among them she recognised the heads of her two elder brothers, whom she had not seen for a long time.
The unfortunate woman wept a great deal, but as she was in the power of the Eyunnè, or nation of Courtesans, she deemed it necessary to conceal her grief. She played with the severed heads, bouncing them like palms, then dragging them here and there to give her persecutors the slip.
– As my father was killed, so you were killed! she would say to the two heads.
After this event, how many more nights did she sleep next to the enemy who had taken her as his wife? I don’t know; but one fine day she said to herself:
– I’ll go back to my parents.
And what she thought, she did. One evening, she said to her husband:
– Sharpen me that knife.
He, unsuspecting, sharpened it for her. When they had gone to bed, she playfully said to him:
– Lie on your back; that way you’ll fall asleep faster.
When he was asleep and the whole camp with him, she cut her husband’s throat.
His old mother was roused by the gurgling of blood and the dying man’s moans.
– My daughter-in-law,” she shouted to Intton-pa, “get up, the dogs are eating our fish.
– Ah, sleep is killing me,” she replied in the tone of someone who is half-awake.
– My daughter-in-law, chase the dogs away, I tell you,” said the vixen.
So White Flower got up and pretended to chase away the dogs, who were quite innocent; she went out in a hurry, took a dugout canoe, crossed the lake and took the boat to a cave where she hid herself.
A long time later, she heard her mother-in-law crying out:
– Woe! She’s cut off his head! Behold! My son is dead!
There was a great commotion in the camp; all the men took their canoes, got into them and set off far away to look for Intton-pa.
When she saw no one on the shore, she said to herself:
– I’m going to leave too,” said the courageous woman. But which way is my country?
Nevertheless, she set off following the course of the sun.
After sailing for a long time, she spotted a crowded flying village on the water’s edge.
– This looks like my country! she thought.
She bivouacked on the shore and fell asleep.
A white wolf (Pélé) roused her from her sleep by scratching her with his paw:
– Get on my back!
Intton-pa grabbed her tail, the wolf swam out, and White Flower, having abandoned her canoe, swam with the wolf, and with him landed on a shore that she immediately recognised as her father’s fishery. From the shore she heard a crowd of people playing. An old man was on his way to check his nets in his pirogue. White Flower saw him and recognised her father. To be sure, she hid in a bush, and imitated the little bird that says in its song:
– Intton-pa! tchi! tchi! Intton-pa! tchi! tchi[58]! she began to whistle like him. But her father took no notice.
For two consecutive nights, the good man went to visit his nets, and each time he heard: “Intton-pa! tchi! tchi! “Then he said to himself:
– The courtesans once took my daughter away from me. How can it be that I am hearing her name[59]?
The old man told this to his wife.
– Why does that little bird sing like that, I suppose? It intrigues me. Give me a dried fish so that I can drop it off for him.
So the old man went off into the woods, placed his dried fish on the branches of a willow tree and hid. The dried fish disappeared and the old man shuddered.
Then he went back to the place where the bird had been singing, and was astonished to find his daughter huddled under the leaves!
– My father!
– My daughter!
That was all they could say to each other.
When they had recovered, the old man said to his child:
– My daughter, there are a lot of young men in the village. They would certainly take you away from my love. Stay hidden in this place.
So White Flower stayed in her willow bush, and when it got dark, her father went to fetch her in his canoe and take her to his tent, where he had made a hiding place for her. There, her old mother fed her fish and gave her water to drink.
For a long time, the two old men managed to keep the knowledge of their daughter’s return from the young men, and they enjoyed her presence in their jealous love. But one day, the young men danced, it is said, and a tiny child was left alone in the company of the old men, who took no notice.
– Go to the dance,” Intton-pa’s father had said to all the people staying in his tent. When everyone had left, except the little child, the man roasted a fish, opened the hiding place and fed his daughter in the presence of the child.
The child was well enough acquainted. He was in no hurry to tell the others what he had seen. Then a large crowd gathered at the old man’s tent and caught him arguing with his daughter.
– Behold! White Flower is here! they cried. I want her! I’ll have her!
Then her father, seeing that they didn’t consider his child a ghost, but recognised her as a living being, and that therefore her life would not be in danger, gave White Flower in marriage to a handsome man. That was the end.
XL
ÉL’É-KρA TSÉTENPA
(The Departure for War)
One day it happened that they left to fight, that they left to fight, because they wanted to fight each other. It wasn’t the Shaved-heads they were after, it was the Phantoms (the Kollouches); but in the path of the warriors were many giants, so that it was impossible to reach the enemy.
So an old man with a shaved head built a medicine chest, put firewood in it and boiled a cauldron, filling it with skulls, cartilage and human flesh all mixed together. They stayed with him.
– Don’t go to the other tents,” he told us; “all of you stay here with me. I will soon give you some good meat to eat. I’m going to give medicine to our enemies, and with my power I’m going to pierce them all for you; I’m going to kill these foreigners on your behalf.
As soon as he had spoken these words, he began to sing, saying: “L’aéyi kwa, Eyunnè tρa, yékkρay tchô nitchénindéwé éyé[60]!” that is to say: “In one blow, among the Public Women, I will devour large fat oxen.”
As he sang, two ravens flew in from the sea to find the Juggler.
– Go to the Enemies,” he said, “and turn them into musk oxen on the lake.
As soon as he had said this, a herd of very fat oxen arrived. By killing these fat oxen, he killed our enemies; by butchering and boning these oxen, he butchered and boned our enemies, tearing their flesh to pieces. Then he said to his wife:
– Chop for me the best meat.
She chopped up the best pieces and gave them to the guests, and as she did so, the Juggler chopped up and fed them human flesh.
By the same token, he filled their sledges with this musk ox meat.
– Now,” he said, “I’m going to make your sledges light, but don’t look at me.
He put down the loaded sledges and made them light. But lo and behold, a woman wanted to look over her shoulder to see how her sleigh looked! Immediately all the meat scattered everywhere and the flesh became heavy again. Since then, they say, meat has become very heavy.
XLI
KOTTÈNÉ-TCHÔ
(The Giants)
Before the Sensé, all men disappeared, and there remained only one man who went somewhere. As he passed along a path that crossed a frozen lake, he saw a moose wandering along and chased it.
Soon he saw that the path forked.
– What does this mean,” he thought, “there are no more people around here, so how can there be a double trail? I’m going to turn myself into an ermine, so that if these people are giants, I can get away from them.
So he turned himself into an ermine, and what he had thought happened. They were indeed giants. When night came, he went to find them as an ermine, and seeing a well-trodden path by the lake, he climbed a tree, perched on it like a weasel and watched. Then he saw a giant approach the path, reach the foot of a mountain and enter it; for mountains are hollow. He heard a noise in the mountain, and immediately lit a small piece of birch tinder and threw it into the hole. Then he heard it being said underground:
– There’s a smell of burning earth!
In fact, there was bitumen there; it caught fire and turned into a great conflagration, which burnt the whole mountain and all the giants or Kotténétchô it contained.
When we see the aurora borealis glow brightly, it indicates the presence of the Heart of Nature, the Genie of Death. He who has crossed the sky; for he has been given all these names. He seeks man’s death and burns humans. Some men call themselves diviners and sorcerers, who implore the Genie of Death. These are the people who make us sick and cause us to die.
The Aurora Borealis is therefore the Heart. When it falls like a bolt of lightning, when it runs swiftly and brightly close to the ground, it makes human beings’ heads spin; it seizes man and strikes him with lightning. That’s why we fear it and confess our sins to it, so that it will let us live long.
In the earth there is a central strut called the earth strut.
At the very bottom there is, it is said, inferior wood which produces a great fire, and the inhabitants of the centre of the earth, like bears, dwell in its bowels with weasels, rats, mice, shrews, moles, worms and snakes; for all these have been thrown down and doomed to the fire. These inhabitants of the lower earth we call Kρon-tρa yèkρon (Those who burn in the fire).
In ancient times, when a girl had not yet reached marriageable age, her mother would never say to her: “I’ve had my period”; but to teach her, she would say: “The first time you feel something in your body that frightens you, run away quickly, hide your head in your bonnet and lie down”.
So when a girl noticed something that moved and surprised her, she ran away from the company of men and hid her head in her bonnet and under her blanket.
They would follow her, come up to her, examine her clothes, and when her dress looked soiled, they would immediately set up a hut for her, where she would be served like a sick person. They brought her something to drink, and she stayed there for five days, weak and considered sick. Some clothes were sewn for her, her belt was decorated, her face was painted and her hair was combed.
From then on, during the first day, she was served nothing but broth, which she was made to drink little by little, not in an ordinary vase, but with the help of a torch made from a swan’s bone. A large pointed capulet was sewn on her, reaching down to her shoulders, and two wooden crosses were placed on her breast.
She was forbidden to break the hare’s bones and eat its blood, heart, bacon and eggs. She had to keep this observance for a whole month.
Such was the taboo of the Dza-ttini or nubile girls, when they experienced their period for the first time.
You must not eat wolverines, otters, weasels, dogs, foxes or wolves. The raven and the eagle are also forbidden foods.
For, at the beginning of time, the animals were men, and the carnivores devoured their flesh; that is why we must not eat the flesh of carnivorous animals. We must keep this taboo, “Gofwen etsinttchin”, we must keep the observances. That is the term.
In the beginning, men were reindeer and other herbivorous animals, and the horned beasts were men, but men so stupid that they couldn’t kill a single herbivorous animal to eat it. So their spells were exchanged, and it was the raven who made this transmutation; these beast-men took our place, and that’s why we kill them and eat them.
Before the French arrived in our country, when a boy was born to a Dènè woman, she did not live with her husband for forty days, and she was treated as I said above for nubile girls.
As soon as the new-born child became a little strong and its face took on a carmine tinge, it was treated as follows against the disease called tρandé (trembling):
The skin of his penis was cut with a sharp stone; then, with an awl, his cheeks and arms, the lobes of his ears and the septum of his nose were pierced.
Finally, with the same awl, a little blood was drawn from the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet.
Once, the bear and the caribou fornicated together. When they did so, the bear would say: “Ekkρawégé!” and the caribou would reply: “Ay gè” [61]!
That’s why girls and young women never eat the bear’s paws, belly or rump. And when a bad woman is mocked, she is proverbially told:
– “You’re nothing but a taboo ay”; in other words: “All your flesh has become taboo and anathema.”
As for the great reindeer of the woods, the fat glands (Ekkρa-wé) on its belly must not be eaten.
A young woman, the mother of a little boy, was living with her husband and his old mother, when her husband suddenly disappeared.
The old woman was very unhappy, even though her daughter was a skilled reindeer hunter. She quarrelled incessantly with her daughter for no reason.
In the end, the daughter, who felt sorry for her husband, couldn’t stand it any longer.
– My son,” she said to her child, “gird my head with phylacteries or fir-root fi-anges.
She wanted to go into medicine to find her husband. This woman had never been seen to uncover herself. So she took off all her clothes, juggled, scratched herself under the armpit and immediately pulled out a reindeer’s caul. It’s likely that this woman had been doing this for a long time and that she was killing reindeer with her evil spells.
– My son, when you become a man, I’ll teach you how it’s done,” she said to the child.
This woman sighed for her husband, for whom she wept incessantly, and she wasted away for want of food; for one night, when her husband had lain down beside her, he had suddenly disappeared, and in his place, as well as on the ashes of the hearth, were seen, the next day, the prints of a reindeer’s cloven foot.
As for the husband, he was never seen again.
But the child grew up and became a man. Then his mother said to him:
– My son, you must act as your father acted. Now gird my head with my phylacteries.
The young man did as his mother told him, wrapped fringes around his head and immediately took a large number of desert reindeer by the lace.
Suddenly, he ran back to his mother.
– Mother,” he said, “I’ve seen a beautiful reindeer; it has human hair on the top of its head, between its horns. How come he grows hair between his antlers? Why don’t you juggle so that I can capture him?
So the witch did, and the young man took the reindeer in his shoelaces and brought it to his mother.
As soon as the woman saw this strange animal, she said to her son:
– My son, leave me a moment.
She lay down with the dead reindeer, and immediately the animal came back to life and became a man again[62]. The magician was therefore very happy to have resurrected and remetamorphosed her husband. From that moment on, he remained a real man and took back the woman who had loved him so much.
This is why so many reindeer are caught by means of fringe bindings or phylacteries.
Since then, we no longer eat the fat from a reindeer’s anus, the inside of its intestines or the tendon from its legs. In doing so, they observe the customs.
A woman who lived with her husband never ate moose fat, because in the old days, women did not even eat moose meat. It was reserved for men, and even now they never eat the head.
Her husband, thinking that she was lying, mixed moose fat with a pémican and served it to her, saying:
– There’s no moose fat in it.
So the woman ate without a second thought. Then the husband left for the hunt, leaving his wife in the lodge she was guarding. But when he returned, she was no longer there. She had disappeared.
So the hunter set off in search of her, and all he saw was a moose track, which he followed patiently until he came to a small, winding river, by the bank of which he lay in ambush, having sent his little dog after the animal; for in the old days, we hunted with dogs.
Some time later, he heard his bitch calling in the distance and chasing the animal from the side where he was lying in wait. Suddenly, he saw a large moose pass by, carrying the bones of a woman entangled in its antlers.
The hunter waited for it, stared intently at it, pierced it with his arrows and killed it. Then he disentangled his wife’s bones from the animal’s antlers and lay down with the beast for a whole day.
Immediately he remade his wife and brought her back to life.
That’s why our women don’t eat moose fat and never cross moose tracks.
In the past, when a small child was born, its arms and legs were pierced with an awl, and its foreskin was cut off, for fear of trembling leprosy.
When the child began to eat, the soles of its feet were incised and its wrists burnt, so that it would become an excellent walker and good at everything; then the parents gave a feast to their friends and acquaintances.
When the child began to crawl, a feast was also given. This was still done when the child could walk on its own. Finally, when he managed to kill some animal, however small, his parents would offer presents to their friends, and the banqueting would continue.
Before the arrival of the French, we used real cooking pots. They were made of fir roots, plaited and braided so tightly that the utensils held the water. Meat was cooked in them using stones reddened by the fire.
Then a man called Bo-yan (Little Meat) said to his wife and father:
– The children of the Most High (He who sits at the zenith) have arrived in the country. They don’t cook meat with heated stones; they boil it in hard pots.
Sa-Wètay, the Moon dweller, was the first to teach us how to make proper cooking pots from woven roots. After that, we carved ourselves wooden vessels, like the Eskimos. Finally, the French arrived and brought us metal vessels.
Initially, our snowshoes resembled those of the Dindjié. They were made from a single circular hoop. The front part was round and flat. After that, we made snowshoes proper, with sharp points; however, we still make snowshoes with a round, flat head for small children.
Our shoes also had no openings or laces. It was one with the trousers, as the Dindjié still wear them. However, they bore no resemblance to the shoes of this people in terms of shape. Now, our shoes are cut like those of the Tchippewayans; they have fittings and laces like theirs.
Our chlamydes were made of reindeer skin, long and narrow, with pointed tails at the front and back. They were adorned with a cape called a kko-l’a, which hung behind the back. Men wore it as well as women. This camail was very ornate with fringes and charms.
In winter, we wore trousers sewn into our shoes. The women wore trousers like the men, but they were not like the French trousers. They had a drawstring at the bottom and no front opening.
In summer, the men wore a loincloth. Some even wore nothing else during the winter, but then it was the large loincloth called a fwon. The small summer one is called kwé-tρa-wèttili.
When one of us was ill, a healthy person’s vein was opened with a flint, and the sick person drank the healthy man’s blood in order to drink the life from him.
They also drank the urine of a healthy person; they bled a man’s flesh, cooked the blood and gave it to the sick person.
They would kill a dog, divide its body into two parts and apply the hot, naked pieces to the sick person until they putrefied and caught a fever.
Dog flesh was also cooked and made to be eaten by the patient; this is where the proverb “dog flesh gives fat to the sick” comes from.
We also knew about steam baths, where cold water was poured over white-hot stones.
These were all the only remedies we knew of before the arrival of the French.
When a Dènè dies, before he has breathed his last, his hands are tied with cords and his legs are stretched out; then, when he has recovered his spirit, the cords are cut and he is tightly sewn into a skin envelope that is painted red with vermilion.
Red lines are drawn from the forehead to the feet, along the arms and legs; the palms of the hands are reddened. All the customs are observed. An embroidered headband is placed around the forehead, two war feathers are placed on the forehead, fringes are cut and twisted and wrapped around the wrists, ankles, arms and legs.
No one lies down, everyone works; many things are prepared for the deceased. They draw blood as a sign of mourning; they don’t drink; they barely take a little food from time to time. Blood and fat are withheld; no animal’s head is eaten. All customs are faithfully observed.
When we drink, we do so with a swan feather torch, so as not to stain the vessels.
A small sarcophagus made of tree trunks, called “the wood of the corpse”, is built and the body of the deceased is placed inside. The brothers of the deceased, if he is a man, or all the men a woman has known, if the body is that of a woman, cut down the trees and square the boards with an axe.
Then four men quickly remove the body; it is carried away quickly, as if fleeing, and placed in the sarcophagus, which is raised three or four feet above the ground.
Then the relatives of the dead man wail around the tomb; they draw blood with lancets; they bruise their faces, chests and fingers; they cut off their hair; they throw off their clothes and go naked, to make themselves miserable, as a sign of mourning.
Afterwards, a banquet is held around the sarcophagus.
At the end of a winter, the corpse is seen again. The sarcophagus is opened and the remains of the deceased are contemplated. They sit around it and place something beautiful and good on his grave. Afterwards, another feast is held.
Sometimes, a large tree trunk is split and dug up; the dead person is placed in this trough, the two parts of which are joined together, and the tree is replanted.
At other times, the body was buried. Of the clothes worn by the dead, some were distributed to relatives, some were buried with the corpse, and some were anathematised and thrown into the water, fire or winds.
When a Dènè dies, his parents take it in turns to carry him; they sing his praises as they carry him through the tents, accompanied by rattles. They sing the hymn of death, sounding the sistrum or rattle called Eρèli.
– In the upper land, stretch your laces to the white reindeer around the mountains; pierce the antilo goats with your stings. This is what your parents tell you.
– Why then did you come to this land to hunt moose, which caused your death?
If it is a man killed in war or murdered whose death is mourned, his elder brother sings the following verse to the sound of the rattle:
– My younger brother, the reindeer will deceive you and take you too far!
– My younger brother, come back, come back to earth!
But if we celebrate the death of our enemies after a battle, the words are different:
– The mists of the Arctic Ocean descend on the waves. The sea moans and laments; for the Enemy of the Arid Shores will not return safe and sound as he left!
A brother, lamenting the death of his sister, sings the following:
– Around the big island, the black water leaks from its double current, woe!
– My sister (such a one) drank to excess from this wave, which swallowed her up; woe!
– My sister, whom the Little Sparrowhawk despised; woe!
Love songs vary from person to person. Each one celebrates his or her mistress or lover according to his or her genius. However, here are some of the most common:
Maîtresse, maîtresse, puissè-je te serrer dans mes bras!
Maîtresse, maîtresse, puissè-je aller à toi!
Mistress, mistress, I’ve come to you!
Mistress, mistress, you have left me unfulfilled!
My little mistress, how unhappy I am!
My little brother, come to me!
Wicked woman, you have not satisfied me!
At the beginning of time, the men of today were animals, and the animals we eat were men, but men who had no spirit and who could not kill a single animal.
That’s why they reversed roles, men became animals and animals were transformed into men.
This explains why we sleep with these pure animals, and eat as if they were human creatures; but we must not eat the flesh of those with whom we sleep. There is an inviolable taboo against them.
Those of our enemies whom we call ghosts, madmen and public women[63], were originally dogs, who were later metamorphosed into men.
This is why we make dogs suffer and make them man’s slaves; but we do not kill them: it is a crime to kill a dog, because they are our ancient enemies, and therefore human creatures[64]. So we sleep with dogs as with men.
Sometimes men die only to be reborn almost immediately in a different way, without going to the land of the spirits. When these souls have chosen a woman as their mother, they go to her and incarnate in her womb.
The Dènè women recognise these migrations by several signs: 1. when they stop menstruating at the time prescribed by nature in our country; 2. when small children come into the world with two teeth at the top and as many at the bottom; 3. when a small child comes into the world immediately after the death of a dead person; 4. when a child remembers what it was like during its primeval life; 5. finally, when a child resembles a deceased person trait for trait.
We must never name the deceased. But every time you pass a grave, it is good and proper to pay the spirit of the deceased the tribute of tears, by singing a little death song, or by throwing a green branch, a piece of tobacco or a piece of clothing onto the grave.
Once, the owl was the eagle, and the eagle was the owl. Then the owl, wiser than the eagle, said to the eagle:
– My brother-in-law, give me your feathers and in return I’ll feed you all my mice.
Blinded by his gluttony and greed, the eagle gave up his feathers to the owl to get the mice; and so the owl became the eagle and the eagle became the owl.
There are four kinds of Shadow or Magic: 1. The benefactive, whose purpose is the healing of the sick; it is called the Passage under the Sea; 2. the malefactive or the evil spell, the volt, the spell; its purpose is the death of those who hate or persecute us. It is called the Fallen, the Dance or the Resurrection; 3. the third is purely operative and of simple amusement; its aim is to do marvellous things, and it is called Juggling or Reflection; 4. finally, the fourth proposes the happy outcome of hunts, the recovery of lost objects or persons, the knowledge of the future. It is called the Bound and Leaping Young Man.
Magic or Benefactive Shadow is called this because the magician, in order to bring back the spirit of the dying or sick person he wishes to cure, must go and find it under the waves of the Great Black Lake.
When someone is ill, three magicians spread a large blanket of sewn skins over him, under which they perform magical operations. They lie beside him, chanting incessantly for two consecutive nights, cupping him with their own mouths and chasing his spirit to the places where it has flown. They capture the dying man’s breath, they seize his hidden spirit, and they overcome him by singing.
Then the genie of death, Ettsuñé, enters the patient, and sometimes the patient comes back to life. But if Ettsuñé loves the man too much, the magicians cannot capture his spirit, and the man dies.
For a sick man to recover, he must confess to the magicians all the evil he has committed in his life; for if he hides any sin, he cannot live long, because the proverb is right:
– Etendi Koëdenyè: It is in return for sin that one dies quickly, they say.
This is what we believe.
In order to force Ettsuñé (the Devil) to enter the sick person to restore his spirit, clothes and meat are thrown into the fire. Those with whom and in whom Ettsuñé resides through him know magic and are said to have found it.
He who proposes to perform magic towards the Fallen One who crosses the sky must paint his whole body red. To do this, he strips himself entirely of his clothes, rubs and paints himself with vermilion, girds his head with a headband, straightens his hair and binds it in a bundle at the top of his head; he does not keep the thinnest piece of clothing; he makes himself a tail and horns, and pierces his arms with an awl to draw blood.
When it is women who make the Devil (the Ya-tρèh-nonttay), they act in the same way[65].
Then fringes or phylacteries are plaited from the hair of the porcupine, a vicious and angry animal, and placed in the juggler’s hands so that he can bind and untie them around his limbs, invoking the Fallen One.
With all this ready, the magician goes down on all fours on his hands and feet, like a beast, and, kneeling and prostrate, he sings, he flails from side to side, he blasphemes, he howls, he goes into a rage. Soon he falls into convulsions, longing with all his might for the Fallen One to come, and wanting him to fly to him.
To this end he sings:
– Over the Great Trout Lake, fly to me!
For the country where the Fallen One dwells is the one where the Great Lake of Trout stretches out[66]. It is therefore from the South that he must come flying.
This medicine is only used to kill enemies. He who indulges in it does great harm, we think, for he desires the coming of the Evil One, and the Evil One does indeed come to him.
In this magic we invoke Kotsira-tρèh, the beneficent man who once worked wonders with a wand, who struck the earth with his white rod.
When this shadow is cast, people wander about, singing and shouting. It’s like playing a game. You don’t uncover your nakedness
nudity, you don’t blaspheme. It is from Kotsiratρèh
comes the gift of prodigies, and it is through him that the Dènè work wonders.
He who wishes to take many reindeer by the lace, and moreover who wishes and desires something, he takes a small child, wraps it in a reindeer skin, and fixes four ropes around the neck and four around the feet of the swaddled child, in order to swing it as in a hammock. At the same time, the operator shouts and sings.
So if anyone outside hears him performing this magic, he shouts out to them: “I trust your child won’t kill me? And depending on the answer he gets, he either goes inside the tent or passes over it. Afterwards, they have a meal, celebrate, and play with the bound child by swinging him from one side of the lodge to the other.
Iti is a gigantic bird that lives in the land of the spirits with the migrating game. He stays there all winter underground, at the foot of the celestial vault, far away, at the foot of the sky, in the west-south-west.
But when it’s warm again, when the winged game flies back to us, Iti comes to our land, followed by all the souls and ghosts.
Then, if he ruffles his tail feathers, we hear the rumble of thunder, and if he blinks his eyes, we are dazzled by the flashes of lightning, it is said.
This one is an evil deity, because he causes the death of men.
The Wind (the Spirit) comes from the foot of the sky.
One day the West Wind said:
– When the Dènè are hungry, I will come to their aid.
Then the south-west wind added:
– And when men freeze from cold, I will come to their aid.
That is why the south-west wind blows on the side of the Most High[67], and it is warm and benevolent. But the wind from the West (Tahan) is bitter and hungry. Its breath bites, for it is icy.
Two old men lived alone with their two sons. One of them had gone to the seaside to hunt and did not return when night fell.
– What is my son doing!” said the old mother in anguish.
And she sent her other son to look for his brother.
He found him. The two of them camped and stayed in the forest to spend the night together. They both arrived at the home of Kuhχè (He who is dark), and his wife Kunhè (She who tramples). Kunhè was perched on a tree leaning over the water, swaying. Her husband was absent.
– Grandmother,” the two brothers told her, “we were chasing a moose when night caught us. That’s why we took refuge in your house.
Then the old ‘Tramp’ said:
– Your grandfather, my husband, is a powerful Shadow[68]. However, stay here.
As she said this, she took their heads on her knees and began to unwind their hair on her bony fingers. Suddenly she pushed their heads back, struck them with her little axe and killed them; then she went off to find the moose they had left in the forest.
However, the old man, the father of the two young men, was worried that his two sons would not return, so he set off to find them. He called on the wind to help him, and the wind came and blew very hard. In this way, the path that Kunhè had made through the snow on his way to find the moose was filled in and disappeared. The old witch was unable to retrace her steps; she lost the trail and was forced to bivouac twice outside her home.
Meanwhile, the old man had found his murdered sons; he had slept with their corpses and brought them back to life by the virtue of his magic.
At the beginning of time, when water had destroyed all mankind, it rose above the highest mountains; the earth disappeared and immense waves agitated the sea, which covered everything. That’s why the chain of the Antilochèvre Mountains (Rocky Mountains) looks like great crashing waves.
The Antelope Mountains, which stretch from the left of the Naotcha (Mackenzie) to the icy sea, are called Ttsu-chiw nadeko: the Mountains of the Great Peaks. But the one that runs along the right bank of the river, stretching out to the water’s edge, is called Tchané ttsu-chiw: the Mountains of the Old Man (their Noë).
Together, these two ranges form what is known as the Giant’s Highway.
On the other side of the river and beyond the chain of the Great Peaks is a third row of mountains that we call Betta-sitsin nadéninhay [69], or the row of Bettasitsin.
In those primitive times, Caribou Island (which is at the top of the Grand-Rapide of the Mackensie) was a pirogue; it was the canoe of He who wears down the sky with His head {Ya-na-kfwi-odinza). It was He who placed it there and it remained there intact. That’s what we’ve heard from our earliest childhood.
In the earth there is a stanchion which supports it, and which is called Ti-gottcha-wéha.
Further down, there is subterranean wood that burns incessantly and produces the multitudes of skunks that burn and smoke along the river.
The inhabitants of this lower land are similar in every way to those of the land we occupy. They dwell there, as bears dwell in their cribs
in their cribs during the winter. It is with these
Weasels, rats, mice and snakes live with these people.
They probably live on some unknown food. They have been thrown into the fire, and that is why we call these inhabitants of the subterranean earth Kρon-tρa yêkρon (Those who burn in the fire).
A little boy, whose mother had gone to collect linen and clothes from the people by the sea, went to meet his mother accompanied by his grandmother.
Suddenly the child said:
– Grandma, here’s my mother who’s come back from the sea, and here’s the Great-Bondissant who’s lying there.
– Go and fetch your mother,” said the old woman. But immediately there was a great crunch of bones, the great Nâhay had leapt up, swallowed the child, swallowed him, swallowed him in his stomach.
A man lived alone with his wife. When the husband went hunting, the poor wife stayed completely isolated in the forest.
One day, after the husband had left, the wife heard people shouting: “He’s lost his way!
– Who could be shouting like that? she asked herself; it could only be the great Bondisseur.
She immediately put a ragged figure of a man to sleep in her dressing room, then went outside and climbed a tree to hide in fear of the Nâhay.
Shortly afterwards, the great Bondisseur arrived slowly; he entered the tent, sniffed out the rag man and returned without sinking his teeth into it.
Then he came back again; he even returned to the poor woman’s lodge two, three, four nights in a row; but as he never found anyone there but the ragged man, he got bored and left for good.
The tenth night was the last he visited, and when he left the Dènè house, the woman heard him shouting:
– What is that woman doing? She’s probably on the lookout for his rags!
That was it; he left for good. The woman understood him well, for she climbed down from her tree and returned to her dressing room.
The husband of a Dènè woman had gone out hunting and had not returned. Her son, who was still very young, went out to play outside the tent and began to show signs of great fear.
– What is he afraid of? What did he see?” wondered his mother; “he must have seen some monster.
Then over there, by the sea, in the same place where her husband had passed earlier, she saw a great Bondisseur lying on the sand. That’s who the little child wanted to talk about.
What could she do to protect herself from the Nâhay? She fetched a large quantity of fir resin, melted it and shaped it into a large loaf which she fixed to the end of a stick. Then, when the great Bondisseur appeared at the entrance to her tent, she shoved this hot ball of resin into his mouth. The monster’s jaws were smeared and his snout sticky; he immediately withdrew to get rid of the resin and never came back to the tent.
One fine day a little white dog arrived at the Dènè’s house. In the dressing room where he entered, there were two beautiful women, who immediately fought over the dog.
– This dog will be mine! I want him!” they cried.
The dog was thin, very thin, and had been fasting for a long time; to reach the lodge, he had had to swim across the river. He was shivering with cold. The girls laughed at him, saying:
– You’re so skinny, dog, you’re so skinny!
An old man rebuked them for their lack of heart.
– Why are you laughing at this dog?” he said to the pretty girls. Perhaps it’s not a dog; perhaps it’s a very powerful and skilful sorcerer.
So he took the white dog and placed it over the fire to dry; he put it on the firepit so that the smoke would dry it quickly.
Suddenly, the little dog fell from his scaffold and became a great monster that pounced on the inhabitants of the lodge, biting them, killing them and devouring them. It was Ekkwen.
The old man wanted very much to catch him by the shoelace, but he didn’t know how. So he fetched a large pole, at the end of which he fixed a moose snare; then he stoked the fire so as to make it violent. Ekkwen was prowling around the fire looking for new prey. The old man put his shoelace round his neck, shook him, pulled to strangle him, and finally threw him into the fire, where he was burnt.
Once upon a time, two sisters bivouacked after the departure of a caravan on the move, as they had left before them. When they reached the seashore, they camped, and the elder asked her younger sister to sleep with her. But she didn’t want to, and camped on her own.
Suddenly, the eldest was woken by a long whistling sound; she got up and, in the moonlight, inspecting the surroundings of the bivouac, over there, in the portage leading down to the sea, she saw, lying on the water, a being similar to a large living worm. You could hear it eating and crushing the limbs of a human being.
Immediately, the young girl slipped quietly around the camp; she moved forward, tapping and hiding, she ran towards the caravan and said to the Dènè:
– Behold, at this very moment, the creeping Nâh is devouring my younger sister, whom he surprised.
Men rushed to the scene; after a long search, they reached a large tree in whose branches the snake was hiding; but they were unable to kill it.
Then an old woman got up and, throwing the small stick with which she twisted the skins she was tanning at the snake, she killed it.
– The stomach of this monster is near its anus”, she said.
So she threw her stick at the Nâh; he swallowed it, and the stick stopped at the monster’s anus, so he died.
That’s how she got rid of it.
On another occasion, two brothers were looking for food during the summer. They had bacon and dried meat at home.
– Where are the animals? they asked themselves.
Suddenly, they heard whistling during the night and were astonished.
– My elder brother,” said the younger brother, “it’s obviously the Great Bear making that noise. He probably eats where you hear the whistling. Let’s go there.
The two brothers went there and saw something very big and very long on the path. So they set up an ambush and ran away from the monster.
It was beautiful, so beautiful that once you saw it, you couldn’t take your eyes off it[70].
They threw him a large bone, the rump of a ruminant. The crawling Nâh swallowed it; the bone entered his anus, stopped there, and the monster died.
The great sea serpent rose up from the sea to the sky, and if you had the misfortune to approach it, you were lost.
When they wanted to destroy it, they armed a huge hook with fresh meat, tied it to a thick rope and threw it into the water. Suddenly, from the bottom of the sea, the monster sprang up; it swallowed the armed hook, dived again and died at the bottom of the waters.
Kkwinpè, the Black Loon, and Tρutsié, the White-headed Loon, were walking on a beautiful lake. Both were black.
The Raven saw them and said:
– Our heads are all the same!
Then, stung with jealousy, he threw chalk at their heads and hit Tρutsiè, whose head has since turned white.
Tρutsiè’s son, the White-headed Loon, was moaning on the shore. Then his mother sang to soothe him and said:
– My son, it is in vain that you call me, my son, for my entrails are hard[71].
The Water-soaking Rock said to the Tchippewayan, “Push me, if you can!”
So do you think he was able to satisfy her! Eïyanhéhè! Eïyanhéhè[72]!
When the beaver appeared on earth, he uttered this apophthegm: “As many scales as there are on my tail, so many beavers will there be on earth.”
That’s why there are so many beavers on earth.
Then the frog also made a prophecy and said: “There will be three hot moons in the year, and three cold moons.”
And that is why it is so.
The mouse went underground and began to pull up liquorice roots.
– How rancid they are! How yellow! she said.
You could hear him mumbling like that underground.
That’s why liquorice is called kfwa (rancid), because its roots are as yellow as rancid bacon.
When the heather cocks cluck, they say:
– Ti gokkè naχé-dié wéha! – On this earth is our homeland!
When the trumpeter-swans leave in autumn, they sound their bugles in the clouds, crying:
– We are returning to the warm and fertile lands!
When the white-crowned sparrow sings in the first days of spring, he says:
– The inhabitants of the Rocky Mountains are ridiculous men!
(Told by Lizette Kha-tchô-ti, Chamane Peau-de-Lièvre, in 1870, at Fort Bonne-Espérance (Mackenzie)).
Yénnènè bé dènè bé ullé ;bé tchinzé tρinadéta : Enén! bétsékhéwa! bétsékhéwa! Your yé diniha illéw. ρon-ensi: “Ey! tchô yeri Yénnènè yamat’ué té-dènè nahay tchô éyi aéndi, Ayétitsuté ullé, wésé, yénifwil’, otρiéta kokpatanétchu, tsé dzé Nahay yihè b’inρon yintρel, naρon- b’inρon kottè t’inttcha.
A woman son man hunting was not there ; his son (who) was great not sortit : Mother! his wife too! mother, his wife too! he said. him paid no attention. Suddenly: “Ah! something huge there is, of what is he talking about?” The woman having gone out, the sea at the edge of her man where he had passed a great leaping lay, this one therefore he said, his son! We didn’t know what to do, of the resin, she gathered, she put it in a vase, melted it, her tent very well she closed, the threshold on the resin she placed. The Leaping One big inside entering, his snout inside she pushed (the resin), backwards rejected him, his nose stuck thus far at him she pushed back.
Chi-ahini or Chi-kρa-attini (the hunter).
Béoniχon-gottinè-tρa-éyay (the traveller among the nation of the night).
Bétsuné-yènéchyon (the child brought up by his grandmother).
Ebœ-ékon (shield-belly).
Edζéè (the Heart of nature, of the universe).
Ehna-guhini (he who sees behind as well as in front).
Ekfwen-étl’é (the owl).
Ekhè-ta-yétl’è (the leaping young man).
Ekka-dèkhini (the navigator among obstacles).
Ekkètlay-tchéné (the wind)
Ekkwen (the skinny one).
Etié-ra-kotchò (the gigantic reindeer)
Etρinta-Yènnè (the invisible woman).
Etsen-nullé (the beloved).
Etsié-dékfwoë (the Yellow grandfather).
Ettchuñé (the porcupine).
Fwa-éké or Fwa-naéké (the pederast).
Ghu-tuwé (the giant worm).
Inkfwin-wétay (sitting very high).
Intton-pa (White flower).
Iti (the thunderbird, the luminous one).
Kha-tρa-éndiè (the eater of hares).
Kfwin-pélé (the light-headed one).
Klô-da-tsôlé (the mouse with the pointed snout).
Kfwi-détéllè (the shaved heads).
Kottènè-tchôp (the giant men, literally: the great entrails).
Kotchilé (the two brothers).
Kotiéζè (the two sisters).
Kotsiratρèh (the one who acts by the wand).
Kρon-édin (the man without fire).
Kun-hè (the one who tramples).
Kun-yan (the Sensate).
Kun-yan-bétiéζé (the sister of the Sensé).
Kkwinpè (the black diver).
L’atρa-natsandé (the one who is ravished by both sides).
L’atρa-niha (the strait).
L’ènnènè (mutual women).
L’ey-nènè (the other world).
The in-akhéni (the Dogfeet).
L’in-tchan-ρè (the Dog-Footed).
Nâh-duwi (the snake).
Nâh-hay (the leaping one).
Nan-di-gal’é (the earth is made).
Na-yéti-éwer (the one who operates by thought).
Néwèsi-bè-yañé (the Son of God).
Nni-otisintànè (the Foam Child).
Pélé (the white wolf).
Rata-yan (the Pygmies, lit.: the Little Elks).
Ratρonnè (the Traveller).
Sa-kké-dènè (the man of the moon).
Sa-wétay (sitting on the star).
Suré-khé (the two sisters).
Tchané-ζélé (the bald old man).
Tρa-tsan (the raven, lit.: Excrement of the wave).
Tρatsan-èko (the running crow).
Tρutsié (the white-headed loon).
Ttséku-kρuñé (the egg woman).
Ttsintané-kkiñèttô (the little boatman).
Ya-mon-kha (the white horizon).
Ya-na-kfwi-odinζa (he who wears out the sky with his head).
Yanna tchon-édentρini (he who fills the sky with his recumbent body).
Ya-tρèh-nonttay (he who flew across the sky).
In the beginning, the old man Tchapèwi had two male children. It was the time of the heather berries, in autumn.
The old man said to his two sons:
– My children, here before you is a prodigious quantity of fruit in this land that I am giving you. Live happily, grow and multiply, hunt wherever you please; the land is open to you. But be careful to observe this: Never eat white fruit[74], for your teeth will be irritated by it, and the teeth of your children, for ever. Eat only black fruit[75], and never go out at night.
So said the old man Tchapéwi.
For a while, his children obeyed him; but soon the prohibition they had been given had the opposite effect on them. They conceived a great desire to break it. The youngest brother laid his hand on the white fruit; they both ate it, and their teeth ached.
Then the old man, their father, got angry with them.
– How could you obey me on such a minor matter!
So he chased them away from him and relegated them to a small island called nan (the earth), where they lived in misery.
Since that time, we say that our fathers ate white fruit, and that their children’s teeth were irritated by it. That’s what we say in proverb.
(Told by Yétta-nétel,
at Grand-Lac des Ours, in 1868).
A woman from the Copper People or Yellow Knives[76] lived alone with her brothers, as she did not yet have a husband.
One day, a stranger (Edùni) arrived in their camp; he was, they say, a handsome man. He spent a few days in the tent of the Yellow Knives.
Then the woman’s brothers said to their sister:
– Here’s a very handsome husband coming to you. Why don’t you marry him? Marry!” they were told.
And they immediately sat down next to each other.
When night fell, they went to bed and the stranger slept with the Dunè woman, but she woke up during the night and was surprised not to see her husband beside her.
– Where could he have gone? she wondered.
Suddenly, however, she heard an unusual noise in the lodge after the fire had gone out. It sounded like a dog gnawing on bones in the fireplace.
– Who could this dog be that I hear gnawing on bones like that?” one wondered, for there was no such thing as a dog with these people.
We quickly got up, relit the fire and searched every nook and cranny. But no dog.
The inhabitants of the tent went back to bed after this alarm, and the same noise was heard as soon as it got dark again.
– Where did that dog come from, prowling around our lodge? We don’t have a dog with us,” said the Dunè brothers.
Then one of the brothers threw his stone axe into the corner where the noise that had frightened them was coming from. A cry of pain rang out in the middle of the night. Quickly they got up, stoked the fire and produced some light. And what did they see? There, on the ashes, bathed in his blood, was a big, beautiful black dog that the axe had killed.
As for the Stranger, he never appeared again!
– Ah! so it was this dog who, a man by day and married to our sister, turned into a dog by night! said the Dunè brothers to each other. It’s an Enemy, an Eyunné (revenant, ghost).
So thought the two brothers.
They immediately chased their sister out of their company, because she had slept with the dog, the enemy magician, the Dog-Man. They showed her no mercy, so as not to die themselves.
So she settled far from the land of her fathers, weeping and carrying in her womb the fruit of her love affair with the Enemy Dog who had seduced her. She lived all alone in the desert, to the east of the Dènè territory, handing out shoelaces to the white rabbits of the woods, and bone or bone hooks to the green trout of the great lakes.
This is how she managed to provide for herself.
However, the Yellow Knife woman gave birth to a litter of six little dogs. Ashamed of her fruit, but in love with her offspring, she hid her puppies in a naltchieth [77].
One day, when she had gone, as usual, to visit her hare snares, on her return she saw, on the warm ashes of the central fireplace, the bare footprints of little children.
– Where did these human tracks come from? said the poor mother to herself. I’ve only got my little dogs in my satchel!
The next day, when she returned to her snares, the same thing happened again.
– Obviously it’s my puppies who are doing this,” said the Yellow Knife. They go out during the day to play, and then they are men like their fathers. But when they get back into the darkness of the sack, they become dogs again. I know what I’m going to do…
So the poor mother attached a long strap to the slide with which the opening of the saddlebag was equipped, and, taking it in her hand when she set off on her ordinary errand the next day, she said:
– Ah, my little ones, behave yourselves, Mummy is off to get some white hares for your lunch.
As she said this, she set off dragging her strap, but instead of leaving, she huddled behind a thicket of bushes and waited, trembling, for the little dogs to come out of their warm, dark nest.
This moment was not long in coming.
A few moments later, she heard the little dogs saying to each other: “Mummy’s gone. Let’s go out and play”.
Then a little dog put his nose in the air, sniffed the air on all sides with an inquisitive look; then, seeing himself alone, he leapt out of the sack and, as soon as he was on the hearth, he became a beautiful little naked boy. Another, then another, followed the first, and there they were, all six of them, little boys and girls, playing, dancing and enjoying themselves around the central fire of the lodge.
The Dunè woman’s heart palpitated with emotion.
– Ah, if I can prevent them from returning to the darkness of the sack,” she said to herself, “they will be men forever.
As she said this, she quickly pulled the strap that closed the slide; but before the opening of the bag had time to close, three little children had jumped in and become dogs again.
As for the other three, two little boys and a little girl, they also tried to hide from the light, but they stayed out of the bag and retained their human nature,
Then the poor woman came running. She took hold of her three children, caressed them, gave them little white clothes made from plaited hare skins, and brought them up.
As for the other three, who had stubbornly reverted to being dogs, she destroyed them without mercy.
The two brothers became very powerful by virtue of the magic they had inherited from their father. Their tent was always well stocked with venison.
Then they thought of going to visit their maternal uncles, and the latter no longer rejected them, as they had done their mother, because they were good hunters and formidable men with magic.
The two brothers then married their sister and had many children. And these children are us, we the Dunè, whom our maternal parents call L’in-tchan-ρèh or Flancs-de-Chiens, in memory of our ancestor, the Dog-Man.
(Told by Yétta-nétel,
at Grand-Lac des Ours, in April 1866).
After Tchapèwi (the old man) had banished his two children from his presence, he moved in anger towards a strait that joins two immense waters (seas), towards the North.
There he lived alone, angry and sullen, because his children had broken his orders.
Suddenly, the abyss was heard to roar, as if it were about to rise and pour down upon the earth. A torrential downpour fell from the sky while the old man slept, and the waters of the seas rose and rose and soon covered this little land.
So Tchapéwi or Etéwékwi, standing on the strait with one leg resting on either shore, used his large hands to fish out the animals and men that the waters had swept away and put them back on dry land. But as the water continued to rise, he made a large raft on which he placed a couple of each kind of animal, and he drifted away on his raft after the water had covered all the land.
The rain fell for a long time, and the water rose above the highest peaks of the Rocky Mountains. We couldn’t take it any more, and all the animals on the raft sighed for land. But there was no more land.
So Tchapéwi successively plunged all the amphibious animals, the otter, the beaver, the rankanli or Miquelon duck[78]. But it was all in vain.
In the end, he let go of the muskrat, which came up belly-up, pale and breathless, so far away was the land at the bottom of the water.
But the little muskrat held tightly in its paw a bit of the earth’s silt, which the old magician placed on the surface of the still water.
This bit of silt expanded under his powerful breath; it spread and spread until it formed a disc large enough to support a small bird that the old man placed on it.
He continued to blow, and as the earth grew even larger, Tchapèwi placed a raven on it. He continued to blow, and soon the earth could support a fox. It was finished, it had reached the proportions we see now; and on this great disc, Etéwékwi placed all the other animals so that they could live there as before[79]. Then he supported the disc with a large, strong stanchion, and everything was complete.
Tradition of the Tρa-kfwélé-ottiné and the Ttsé-ottiné
of Great Bear Lake, collected in 1868.
A young man was walking along the seashore when a whale (L’ué tchô; lit.: big fish) appeared on the surface of the water.
– Big fish, swallow me!” cried the young man.
Immediately he leapt into the waves and was swallowed by the sea monster, which held him for three days.
Meanwhile, the young Dunè’s sister wailed incessantly on the shore. She was mourning the cruel fate of her younger brother, when suddenly the whale appeared again on the surface of the sea.
Then, from the depths of the monster’s entrails, a voice was heard crying out: “Oh, my sister, my sister, how unhappy I am in the belly of the big fish! Its viscera is burning me. Oh, I beg you, throw the big fish one of your shoes, holding the strings in your hands, and get me out of here.
So the young girl untied one of her shoes and threw it at the monster, holding the long cords in her hands. The whale opened its mouth and swallowed the shoe. But the young man seized it at once, and his sister pulling at it by the cords, she forced the monster to swallow her brother again.
He vomited him onto the shore, more dead than alive, but still unharmed. Then the monster, incensed at seeing his prey escape him, swung his tail so vigorously at the sea that huge waves were created. They rose like mountains, and falling back on the land, they swallowed it up, and it was flooded.
Only the two young men were saved.
(Told by Sa-kρa-nétρa-wotρa, in June 1864).
This legend of the flood could just as well be called, as we can see, the Jonah flanker.
The other Dènè tribes do not have this tradition, with the exception of the Hare-skins of Fort Bonne-Espérance, who may have learned it from their dog-faced neighbours. But it is worth noting that the parabolic or marvellous story of the Hebrew Jonah is also found in the memories of the natives of the Touamotou Islands.
In fact, according to an account by Father Montiton in 1874, “a Kanak man from this archipelago was swallowed by a whale and was burning in the bosom of the sea monster. After several days, he disemboweled the monster who, in pain, threw himself onto a reef and returned his prey alive”.
So the two fables had the same origin, and it was from the Pacific that the myth reached the Colombian continent.
These same Kanaks also attribute the cataclysm of the flood to the antiphysical morals of a race of men whom they call, like my Dènè, Dogmen. (Missions cathol., 1874, page 343).
So they set off to war, to destroy their fellow human beings, with the exception of an old woman who lived with her son. Many warriors passed along the path. There were also many women. But the old woman took her son’s arrows to stop him going off to war. She cried and shouted in vain: “Don’t go.
Nevertheless, they left.
After they had gone, the young man said to his old mother:
– Mother, I want to follow the crowd too.
And he set off alone.
He followed the great warpath, examined the region, and having discovered a large tent on the top of a mountain, he sat down on the slope of the mountain and examined the country. Finally, he went back down the mountain and came to the big lodge he had seen from the top.
An old man and his old wife were staying there. They were cooking rabbit and fish in pots made of woven fir roots, which they served him to eat.
The two old men had a very pretty daughter, whom the young man began to long for. So when they had eaten what the girl had served them, and the girl had gone to bed, the old men said to their host:
– Here is our daughter who is alone. Lie down with her and sleep with her.
So the young man Dunè went to the young stranger; he lay down beside her, took her breasts and wanted to get to know her; but immediately all he felt beside him was a white weasel.
But he didn’t think he was beaten, he got to know her all the same and became her husband by force.
The next day, the girl said to her father and mother:
– This one has taken all my magic.
– Never mind!” they replied.
– So I’m going to visit my hare laces,” she said.
The young man accompanied her on her visit. He took some hares by virtue of his medicine. Then he went to a small lake, threw a stone in and killed a huge pike.
He was short of arrows. He threw a piece of wood into the branches of a tree; they fell, converted into arrows. But the arrows were not feathered.
So he needed feathers. He looked up and saw the nest of a bald eagle at the top of a tall fir tree, so he climbed up and entered the eagle’s nest.
The eaglet was there all alone.
– Man,” he said to the young magician, “my father and mother are away. If they find you here when they return, you are lost. Hide under my wings.
– Then tell me how I can tell your father from your mother.
– The male eagle makes the snow; the female eagle makes the rain,” said the eaglet.
He took cover for the man and crouched in his threshing floor, hiding him with his outstretched wings.
Suddenly, the giant eagle Nontiélé returned to the nest with some pasture. It was the female, and she was wearing a large cap. She served her son some fresh meat.
The man killed her and she died.
The next moment, the giant male eagle arrived in his turn, with a great sweep of his wings.
– It smells of human flesh!” he exclaimed.
As he said this, he placed a small child on the threshing floor and fed it to the eaglet.
The man in turn killed it. But he said to the little eagle that had protected him:
– As for you, you are going to leave and from now on you will live only on the fish you catch.
And he let him go.
But he stripped the other two eagles, and so obtained feathers to feather his arrows, thunder feathers.
Suddenly, an Etiê-kotchô (gigantic reindeer) appeared on the path. It was lying there, immense, gigantic.
We couldn’t help it; how could we kill it? Everyone hid under the trees.
So the young magician said to the mouse:
– Dig for me an underground route to the monster.
The mouse went into the earth, dug it out, and dug a tunnel right under the monster’s flanks, right under his heart. The magician followed. The two of them emerged from the earth at this point, pierced the sides of Etié-kotchô, killed him in the heart, and he died instantly. The magician took the nerve and left.
He then wished he had some points for his arrows, flint points, and set about finding them. Suddenly he saw a huge toad juggling on a block of flint on which it was lying. The man took some clay and made hard, compacted balls, which he threw hard at the toad, killing it. Then he took the arrow stones that the toad had made by the virtue of his medicine.
Thus equipped with a woman and magic arrows. Dunè set off to war.
Suddenly he heard a dog barking, a sign that man was about, and saw a wolverine crossing the path.
Having spotted him before the wolverine saw him :
– I saw him first,” he says to himself. So he’s mine.
He ran after the wolverine, caught up with him, threw his coat over his head, pierced him with his arrows and lay on top of him. It was a man, an enemy warrior. He immediately scalped him and set off again.
There was a river there; he leapt across it and found himself on the other bank, in Wolverine country. There was a great crowd of wolverines there, and their dwellings could be seen on all sides. He heard the little wolverines crying for food.
Immediately the magician hid; he disguised the dead man and lay in wait. The wolverines, believing him to be dead, rashly approached him. He immediately struck one of them, hitting it in the nose. The wolverine sneezed, blew its nose, and fir resin came out of its nose.
Then the young man went back to his wife, whom he had left with his mother.
– Turn yourself into a bear! he said to his wife.
The old woman objected, fearing that he would kill her afterwards. But he wanted to, and so he did. She became a bear.
– Ah, my son-in-law,” cried the old mother, “if the young men see my daughter in this state, they’ll think she’s a real bear and kill her.
As she said this, she took away all his weapons, but he threw himself on the fleeing bear and killed it with his arrows.
As she died, the bear reverted to her female form and called out to her father for help, demanding vengeance and justice. The old man attacked the magician, who ran to a lake, jumped in and, as he dived in, turned into a beaver.
Then the old man, indignant and furious at Yamon’s wickedness, transformed himself into a hydra (Yikóné), a gigantic animal similar to an ox, but with wings on its back.
It descended from the sky, landed on the waters of the lake and swallowed them all up, then rested on the shore. Its immense belly was stretched out like an inflated bladder, so full was it of water.
The magician then commanded the plover to run towards the hydra and pierce its belly with its fine, sharp beak. The bird obeyed. He pierced the hydra’s belly, and immediately the waters it contained came roaring out. Since then, the great waters have been roaring.
As for the winged ox, it left for heaven; and the flood caused by this huge influx of water drowned the two old men.
Nevertheless, they wanted to get rid of such a fearsome sorcerer. But Dunè-Yamon-riya threw himself back into the water, became a beaver again, travelled up the Naotcha (Mackenzie River) and went to build a huge causeway at Na-déinlin tchô (the Ramparts Rapids), where he stayed for some time in the form of a fish on Etié-ndué or Reindeer Island.
Then, having left this lodging, still fearing to be surprised by the enemies, he again went up the Mackenzie, on the shore, in the company of the Porcupine. When he reached the second rapids on the river, the Nadéinlin-tsélé or Sans-Saut Rapids, he had the Porcupine cross the river on his back and placed him at the top of the Rapids so that he would remain there on the left bank until the end of time.
As for himself, still a beaver, he built in this place, across the Naotcha, a second dam which is the Rapide Sans-Saut; then he crossed the river again, settling on the right bank at the place called Tsa-tchô-tρè-niha (the big beaver who dips his tail in the water); for this island so called is actually his tail. This is the end[80].
(Told by Yékki, a Slave woman
of Fort Norman, in 1877).
VI
DATTINI
(The Kolloches)
They were living on the shores of a lake in the Rocky Mountains, hunting beaver. A woman, who was accompanying her husband on the hunt but following him at a distance, arrived at the crossroads of two paths at dusk. She couldn’t work out which of the two paths her husband had followed, took the wrong route, got lost and soon came to a large fire that strangers had lit in the forest.
As it was raining and she was all wet, the Dunè woman hurried to the fire to dry off and warm up. A stranger was sitting there alone. She soon recognised him as a Khà-tsélè-ottinè[81]; but it was no longer time; he took her as his wife that same night and took her the next day to the seaside on the other side of the mountains.
Shortly after Dunè’s departure, her husband, who had been looking for her, arrived, but she had disappeared. He searched in vain throughout the summer and autumn.
As for her, she arrived at the Khàtsélé-ttiné camp with her captor, and spent the winter there.
The following spring, they moved to the fishing locks along the rivers and stayed there. There, the Dunè woman recognised the head of her unfortunate husband among the human heads that were laid out on a bucket to dry in the smoke, and she began to lament.
Her captor was furious and wanted to kill her for showing such emotion. But she used trickery and pretended to be suffering from an imaginary illness. She even took her husband’s skull and played with it, the better to deceive her killers.
However, she secretly asked a child to sharpen her copper knife for her; then she went to the water’s edge during the night and perforated all the canoes of her persecutors, with the exception of one, which she set aside so that it could be recognised.
She then went to bed and played with her captor as with a husband she would cherish tenderly. He, without suspicion or mistrust, slept peacefully and lay on his back. The Dunè woman then drew her sharp copper knife from her breast and cut her captor’s throat.
She took her little dog and said to her:
– Friend, produce a thick mist for me with your medicine.
Then she left the lodge, climbed into the canoe she had set aside and abandoned herself to the current.
Then an old woman, the mother of the enemy chief whose head the woman had just cut off, cried out loudly and said:
– Behold, my son’s head has been cut off and his head has disappeared. It was his wife who took it away! Seize her! Cut off her mouth and bring her to me!
The whole tribe went after the poor woman. They all threw themselves into their pirogues in the middle of the darkness and hurried after her. But suddenly they cried out that their canoes had stalled and that they were drowning.
They were all drowned, and all that remained of the uncircumcised people were the women and children.
Then, during the night, the woman Dunè returned to the camp of her enemies and bound all the children and women while they slept; then she took provisions and fled to her country.
This is what a courageous woman from our nation once did. We don’t know her name. But her enemies were Dattini (Kolloches)[82].
(Told by Yékki, a Slave woman, in 1877).
After the earth had been remade by Tchapéwi, all the men took refuge on a very high ground, a high mountain, and there they built something round and tubular, like the pipe of your stove, but very vast and very high.
– If the flood comes again and overwhelms the land, we’ll take refuge in this high fort, they said to each other.
Right next to this great stone tube were burning coal pits (Derkρonni).
Now, as they had already raised their fort very high, all of a sudden they heard terrible voices coming from the side of the mountain, mocking them and saying with a sneer:
– Your language is no longer the same; your language is all changed! they said, laughing sinisterly.
The men shuddered with fright. At the same moment, the bitumen mines smoking around them burst into flames, the rocks exploded, the mountain opened up and a huge fire came out; then it collapsed with a great crash, and in its place there was nothing but a vast, bleak plain, covered with smoking debris.
As for the men, appalled and full of fear, they had scattered in small groups in all directions, no longer able to understand one another.
This collapse of the high ground took place in the west.
(Told by the mountain chief Téti-wotρa, known as
Timbré, in 1869).
Long before we came to live on the shores of this great Bear Lake, there was a people in these parts whom we called Tρu-né or Lake People[83].
They had been there for a very long time and were very simple, naive and extremely shy.
So when the Dunè arrived on the shores of Bear Lake, they wanted to chase away or rather destroy the Tρu-né, in order to take over their territory.
We reached the shores of the great lake via the Little Fish mountain, which dominates it and from which you can see the strong country in the distance.
The Tρu-nè were not on the defensive; they thought they were alone and were unaware of the imminent danger threatening them.
The Dunè therefore reached the shores of Bear Lake via the large peninsula that separates the two western bays, and via the heights you can see from here.
When they reached the top of the mountain and the slopes facing south, they camped and lit a large campfire on the cape over there.
The Tρu-né were camped on the shores of Keith Bay, unaware of the danger. When they saw the great fire blazing in the darkness at the very top of the cape, they were quite surprised and had the simplicity to mistake it for a large star.
They slept no less and snored in complete safety. While they slept, the Dunè surrounded them and surprised them, so that not one of them escaped.
This is why, in the victory song that the Dunè dedicated to celebrating this great feat of arms, they have the Tρu-nè say:
– Kokkèra ghé kkè, ta fwin nétchay ya kkè tahay? – On the height of the path, what is that big star that sparkles in the sky?
That’s why the cape you see over there is called Kokkèraghé (the height where there is a path)[84].
(Told by Edjiéréttsi,
at Grand-Lac des Ours, in 1866).
In the spring of 1799, an officer of the Franco-Scottish North West Company came to build a trading fort at Great Bear Lake, on the northern shore of Keith Bay. His name was Mackenzie, because he was Scottish. But his servants, who were all French Canadians, derisively called him Grand-Cou. He was loathed by them because of his stiffness and his arrogance, and because he overworked his unfortunate servants while rationing them.
He made them work in winter from six in the morning until six in the evening, without giving them anything to eat other than six herrings; for, in those days as now, the great Bear Lake fed a large quantity of herrings; but these fish, as you know, are no longer than your hand.
In those days, the bourgeois who traded in furs were not dressed as they are today. They wore a long, wide red suit with lapels and big buttons, knee-high shoes, a hat with horns, and a big, pointed knife on their left side that dragged all the way to the ground: quite a ridiculous costume, really.
While Mackenzie Long-Cou’s indentured servants were necessarily fasting, while working twelve hours a day, their bourgeois were gorging themselves on good, fat venison, reindeer tongues, small cakes and firewater. So there was widespread discontent.
One day, when the Canadians were working as usual, felling, pricking and squaring the fir trees from which they were to build the new fort, Mackenzie arrived and found them resting on a tree trunk, smoking their pipes. I was there too, because I was living in Great Bear Lake at the time; I was sixteen or seventeen and I hunted for a living. I was sixteen or seventeen and I hunted for a living. That day, I had beaten the woods in vain and had only killed a pheasant, which I had put in my belt. Even though I’m very old, I remember it as if it had just happened.
One of the Canadians, whose name was Desmarets and who was busy making a door, was also resting with the others when Grand-Cou appeared.
– Allons, allons, à l’ouvrage, tas de paresseux!” he exclaimed in French when he saw us sitting and smoking.
– Lazy!” replied Desmarets. You’re not lazy, M’sieu, when you’ve only got a little breath, and you’ve only got herring to eat. Herring doesn’t give you strength, come on.
– Silence! and get to work!… cried Mackenzie angrily, for if you don’t shut up…
He did not finish, but put his hand to the large knife lying at his side.
– Ah, you rascal Englishman, are you threatening me?” cried Desmarets. Do you think you’re going to treat us like slaves because we’re in your pay? You eat like a c… four times a day, while we sink our teeth into your herring. So leave your sabre alone or I’ll take my axe…
But before the Frenchman had finished speaking, Mackenzie had drawn his sword and struck him in the thigh.
Blood gushed from the wound and Desmarets fell to the ground shouting:
– Ah, you rascal Englishman, you’ve killed me!
He had a wound as large as his hand on his thigh. I was seized with anger at the sight; although I was a savage, I loved the French because my grandfather was French. If Mackenzie had made another move, I would have shot him point blank; but he wiped his long knife on his boot, put it back in its sheath, and hurried back to his house, where he locked himself in.
However, Desmarets’ comrades had gone to fetch a blanket. They laid the wounded man on it and carried him to his hut, swearing at the burgher.
– That’s it!” they all said in one voice. Since we’re being treated like dogs, killed and shot at like slaves, we’re all going to disarm. Let the Company sort it out as best it can. Let them look elsewhere for swimmers, helmsmen, knackers, voyageurs and all-purpose men. We’re all going to go into the woods and live with the Chavages; that’s not worth anything to us.
Mr Leblanc arrived. Mr Leblanc was the clerk and he was French. The French liked him because he wasn’t proud and he spoke to the world, but not the other one.
While proving his boss wrong, Mr Leblanc tried to calm the anger of the Canadians. He promised them, on behalf of Mackenzie, that these scenes would not be repeated and that they would be treated better. He carefully dressed Desmarets’ wound. He brought out good moose meat, fat and reindeer tongues from the storehouse. He also brought flour, sugar, tea and tobacco.
– Here, my friends, eat and enjoy,” he said. This is what Mr Mackenzie sent you, on condition that you forget everything and tell no one about the scene that has just taken place.
– Ah well, things can be arranged. If we’re treated well, we’ll be stronger, we’ll work better. If they don’t raise a sword against us, we’ll be respectful towards the bourgeois. You can tell him that,” said the Canadians.
And that’s how things worked out. That was eighty winters ago, and I still remember it as if it were yesterday.
(Told in Chippewayan, in 1863, at Grand-Lac des Esclaves
des Esclaves, by François Beaulieu, former chief
Couteau-Jaune, of Franco-Cris-dènè origin).
Akfwéré-ton Etéwékwi inl’ané, Tchapéwi ulyé yinlé, wéya wéya étaient. ρattanhè itta, de fruits yakhinli. etéwékwi wéyazé-khié sin : khié, voilà ici cette terre sur de fruits yagunl’i ensin, de cela heureux Là ρottsen jusque je vais chasser vous pensez lorsque, jusque-là allez-y ; mais très bien obéissez- moi : Les fruits blancs mangez ne pas ! Vous les mangez si, vos dents agacées seront, vos descendants aussi. C’est pourquoi les fruits noirs ceux-là seuls vous les mangerez. Et de plus la nuit ne sortez pas, leur dit-il. Enh ! enh ! répondirent les deux frères. Loin un peu jusque les deux frères leur père obéirent à, mais tout à coup le cadet : Des fruits je veux manger, pensa-t-il vu que, c’est pourquoi des fruits blancs il cueillit et les mangea, L’aîné aussi son cadet comme agit. C’est pour cela que contre eux se fâcha : Comment donc n’avez-vous pas pu m’obéir ? leur dit-il. Alors c’est pourquoi loin de lui il les pourchassa, cette île petite sur loin il les plaça misérables ils vivent pour que. C’est pourquoi ainsi nous disons : Nos ancêtres des fruits blancs ont mangé, donc, et nous, leurs descendants qui sommes, en avons eu les dents agacées, disons-nous.
In the beginning one, Tchapéwi called was, two men were. autumn towards it was seen that, many there were. The old man his two sons said to them to them: two, here is this land on of fruit there seen that, of this live. There where until you think when, go ahead; all right obey me: The fruit eat don’t! You eat them if, your teeth will be, your descendants too. This is why the fruits these alone you will eat. And moreover at night do not go out, he said. Yes ! replied the two brothers. Far away a little to the two brothers their father obeyed, suddenly the younger: Fruit I want to eat, he thought because, that’s why fruit he picked and and ate it, The eldest also his younger as acts. This is why against them got angry: How therefore could you not obey me? he said to them. So that is why far from him he pursued them, this island small on far he placed them wretched so that. Therefore so we say: Our ancestors of the fruit have ate, so, and we, their descendants who are, have had our teeth knocked in, we say.
Dattini (the Kolloches).
Dunè ya-mon-riyay (the man who circled the sky).
Etié-Kotchô (the gigantic reindeer).
L’intchanρè hètρa (the father of the Flancs-de-Chiens).
Nontièlè (the gigantic eagle).
Tchapéwi or Ennèdhèkwi (the old man).
Tρatsan (the raven).
Tρu-nè (the inhabitants of the lake).
Tsa-tchôρ (the giant beaver).
Yikônè (the hydra or winged ox).
In the beginning, there were no men on earth. Then, all of a sudden, they said, “Here is man”. Who made this man? We don’t know.
Then, as winter approached, the first man (ttathè Dènè) made something: snowshoes, no doubt.
– How am I going to do that? he thought.
He didn’t know, but he managed.
He cut some birch wood and used it to make the frame for his snowshoes; the next day, after drying them, he put them in a bundle. On the third day, he finished them all except for the mat that was to cover them.
– Alas, how will I ever lace them? he thought.
He couldn’t do it, because it was a woman’s job and he didn’t have any women.
So he left his snowshoes in his tent, unfinished, as they were, and went to bed exhausted, because he hadn’t been able to find a way to plait them. When night fell, he went to sleep.
The next day, the first man got up and found one of his snowshoes half laced.
– Who’s been plaiting my snowshoes while I’ve been asleep? thought the man.
He couldn’t guess. But he was pleased.
When evening came, he went to bed again, and the next day the snowshoe was fully laced. Then, looking up from the top of his conical lodge, he saw a snow grouse flying out of the tent.
– Ah, so it’s this snow grouse that’s doing this to me,” said the man to himself.
Having slept a sixth night, the work on the snowshoes was completely finished, and the grouse flew off again.
– I know exactly what I’m going to do to get hold of this partridge”, said Dènè to himself. So, when evening came, he set up a device to block the top opening of his tent and went to bed.
The next day (seventh day), when he woke up, he saw the snowshoes at his side and the grouse about to fly away; but he put the mechanism into action, closed the opening of the tent, and the partridge, being caught, became a big, beautiful woman. She was white, they say, with very long, beautiful hair, and she was naked. At first she was just a white grouse; now she is a woman.
So they got married right away; they multiplied and begot many men and women. And these men are ourselves; for we are obviously men, men properly speaking and from the beginning.
Told by the blind Ekunelyel,
at Grand-Lac des Esclaves, in May 1863.
Then all men were contained in one, and were like one man. And his name was Dènè (the earthly one). It was he who gave names and colours to all the animals of the earth.
When he had finished giving them all the names and colours that suited them, Dènè saw a bird that didn’t yet have a name or a colour.
– Hey, bird, what do you want to be?
The bird replied:
– I want to be a beautiful bird.
– Well, that’s what you’ll be,” replied Dènè.
– No,” said the bird, “I wouldn’t be beautiful enough.
– So you will be like that.
– No”, said the bird again, “that doesn’t suit me.
– Well then, you’ll be like this.
– No,” he said again.
The bird continued to contradict Dènè for a long time, until he had pushed him too far.
Then the impatient man seized the bird, threw it into the fire and rolled it in the embers until it was completely black.
He came out crying: Kρwa! Kρwa! and that is why, even today, this bird has no colour. We call it Excrement of the Air (Tρa-tsan), or Dirty Feathers (Ttatsan)[85].
So the raven left angry and swore eternal war on man. He flew away with the intention of harming him, and in his flight, having encountered an unsuspecting starling, he seized it by the throat in his anger, strangled it half to death and rubbed himself against it in all directions.
This is why the starling, although a friend of man, is all black and has such a sour voice.
At that time, man lived on earth just as he does today. But the beasts conversed and lived with man and obeyed him in everything.
So people didn’t die on earth. People grew old for a very long time without dying.
In the end, however, man’s feet wore out from walking so much that he died, and his gullet became perforated from eating so much that he also died.
Since then, people die of various causes.
(Told by the same Indian).
At the beginning of time, there was an old man who had two sons. One day he said to them:
– My children, get into your dugout and go hunting, for there is nothing left to eat here.
The two obedient sons got into the boat and set off straight away to hunt. The old man said to them:
– You are going to head west, for there lies your first homeland, and only there will you live happily.
So they set off.
On the fourth day of their journey, they reached a waterfall called Eltsin nathèlin or the Swirling Abyss. There they caught some bustards, but when evening came they couldn’t find them and got lost.
The next day and the days that followed saw the two brothers no further forward. However, they had eaten their little bustards, and set off along the steep, deserted shores of the great Slave Lake, on the edge of which they discovered a mountain called Dènè-chethyaρè: the mountain that contains men.
– My eldest brother,” said the youngest to his brother, “this country is nothing like ours. So where do you think we are?
– Alas, my younger brother,” said the elder, “I don’t know any more than you do, but don’t worry, let’s keep walking.
Suddenly the two brothers heard underground voices, the voices of giant men (Otchoρé), who lived on this northern shore of the Great Lake. In front of the mountain, a little giant and his sister were playing together. This conical mountain was their tent.
– Oh, what little men!” they cried out in delight when they saw the two Dènè brothers.
They ran to them, took them in their hands, put them in their mittens, like little birds that have fallen out of the nest to be warmed, and carried them to their parents.
– See, father and mother, what little bits of man we’ve just found on the shore,” they said, laughing.
– Don’t laugh at them,” said the giant father, who was a very brave man. My children,” he added, addressing the two brothers, “stay with us, you won’t be harmed.
As he said this, he served them each a trout eye, from a giant trout.
So the little Dènès stayed at Dènè-cheth-yaρè, on the north shore of the Great Slave Lake. Together with the giant’s children, they visited the fishing hooks and nets, and never lacked for anything.
But they eventually tired of this easy, comfortable life, and asked to continue on their way.
– Gladly,” said the giant.
He made them a pemmican of fish and gave them each two arrows.
– With this bull’s arrow, you will kill the bull moose,” he told them; “and with this cow’s arrow, you will chase the cow. These two arrows are very powerful. They come back by themselves after you shoot them, so don’t run to get them back, because you’ll be in trouble. I absolutely forbid it.
The two brothers promised everything and left.
As they set off, the good giant pointed to the Sunset as the point on the horizon where their original homeland lay, and advised them to head that way.
Shortly after leaving the good giant’s house, the younger of the two brothers spotted a squirrel perched on a large fir tree and shot one of his arrows at it. Then he immediately ran to her to take it back.
– Ah! my younger brother, be careful; don’t take it,” cried the elder. You know we were forbidden to do so. People think it’s bad manners to disobey.
But the younger boy persisted.
– She’s within my reach,” he shouted to his brother, “I can reach her.
So he stretched out his arm to grab it, but it climbed higher, following the squirrel, which mocked the hunter.
– Ah! now I’ve got her! he exclaimed triumphantly.
But she kept escaping, climbing and climbing. In the end, the young man grabbed the arrow. But immediately it shot off like a bolt of lightning and soared skywards, taking the unfortunate younger brother with it. The arrow took him to heaven.
Up there is a superior land, similar in every way to the one we inhabit. When the young man arrived there, he found it covered with frost, and on the snow he saw a prodigious number of animal tracks of every kind whose flesh is edible.
He also saw a wide, white path, planted with fruit-bearing trees and signposts. On the path, a pair of brand new snowshoes were planted in the snow, seemingly waiting for him.
The younger brother, carried away from his homeland by his disobedience, put on the snowshoes and followed the white path. He came to a huge tent where he found three women who gave him hospitality.
The oldest, mother of the other two, said to him in secret:
– My son-in-law, I warn you that my daughters are wicked. They deceive humans. So beware of them. Don’t sleep with them and don’t even watch them sleep.
With this in mind, and to prevent any affair between this young man, whom she found handsome, and her daughters, the old woman blackened his entire face with coal, lest he fall in love with them.
In the evening, the two celestial daughters arrived from the hunt, for they were hunting Amazons. One was called: Sein full of weasels (Delkρaylé-tta-naltay); the younger: Sein full of mice (Dluné-tta-naltay).
As soon as they saw the negrillon sitting in the mother’s tent, they couldn’t help but laugh out loud and make fun of him.
The old woman was triumphant. But the next day, the young man, stung to the quick, having washed his face and hands, appeared so handsome to the two sisters that they both cried out simultaneously:
– I want him! I want him! He’ll be mine!
In vain did the old woman oppose their union; the two girls threw themselves on the handsome young man, dragged him onto their bed and made him sleep between them.
But no sooner had they spent a night together, despite their mother’s defences, than an abyss opened beneath the young man and he was swallowed up alive in the bosom of the earth above.
– Nari! (poor wretch!) cried the old woman when she saw him disappear. There’s another handsome man you’ve stolen from me, you wicked women!
However, a huge wolf appeared and, smelling human flesh where the young culprit lay, began to dig into the earth with his powerful nails. By dint of his digging, he freed the man, who finally emerged from his horrible grave. He waited on the white path, Sein full of mice. He wanted to take revenge on her, but he couldn’t kill her because she was immortal. So he tore off her clothes and tore her to shreds, and all the mice, rats, moles, snakes, worms and other evil beasts that were trapped in her womb came out and spread over the earth, where they have lived to this day. It is since then that there are so many evils (llay), diseases (tata), famine (dan), forced fasting (etchiéri), death {edzil’) and cold (klu) on the earth. All this has come upon us through the disobedience of the young man and the malice of the woman.
That is why we kill all the mice (klu), the moles (dan), the beetles (llaë), the evil beasts (éttchiéri), which caused man’s misfortune.
Then the old woman, who lived in the big tent, said to the handsome young man:
– Come away, trust me in the end. I will give you the means to return to the land from whence you came. I know a place on this upper earth where there is an opening from which you can see the earth below. I’m going to take you down through that opening.
As she said this, the old woman cut elk skins into strips and made a long rope, at the end of which she tied the young man under the armpits. Then she lowered him through the gaping hole.
– As soon as you feel the earth beneath your feet,” she told him, “let go of the rope.
So the old woman lowered young Dènè down through the hole, and he went down for a long time, for the distance was great and the rope very long.
In the end, his foot felt an obstacle:
– I’m coming ashore,” he thought.
So he let go of the rope, and in the blink of an eye it shot up into the sky, and he saw himself – where? In the threshing floor of Orelpale (the White One), a huge eagle that fed on human flesh.
All around Dènè, in the gigantic nest of the man-eating eagle, he saw nothing but human skulls and bones.
He looked down, but realised to his horror that he was far, far away from habitable land.
Fortunately, the eagle’s young had compassion on the man.
– I pity him,” he said to himself, “he’s so young! Hide under my wings, brother-in-law,” he said to the young man. And if you see it getting light, it’s because my father, the giant eagle, is coming to the nest. But if it gets dark, then that’s a sign that my mother is coming.
Suddenly, Dènè, hearing a great noise of wings, went to take refuge under the eaglet’s wings. Immediately it was light, and the male eagle returned to his nest.
– Ah, that smells like fresh meat!” he said, sniffing around.
– Is that surprising,” said the eaglet, “when you bring me human flesh to devour every day?
Orelpale, the father, left, and Dènè regained some of his composure. A moment later, the sound of thunder was renewed, night fell, and the female Orelpale entered the nest with human debris in her claws[86].
– How it smells of fresh flesh!” she exclaimed, sniffing inquisitively.
– Come on, Mother, is it any wonder, when you bring me some yourself?” said the eaglet.
The female eagle also left.
It couldn’t go on like this much longer. Orelpale finally realised that there was a mortal living in his area. He was incensed and wanted to kill the reckless man who had come to brave him at home.
So the eaglet threw himself between his father and the man.
– If you kill him,” he cried, “I’ll rush from my nest to the ground.
For fear of causing the death of his son, the father eagle consented to let his son live. Then the eaglet said to the man:
– You can’t live here forever. My father could surprise you and kill you for my benefit. Here, take these feathers from my wings, adapt them to your body, and try to fly around my nest. If you can circle it three times, you’re saved and can fly back to your homeland.
So the young man put the feathers of the thunderbird on his arms and legs and tried to fly. The first time he took off, he fell and hurt himself badly.
But the eaglet picked him up again.
– Do like this and like that,” he told him.
And little by little he taught him to fly by supporting him with his wings. In the end, the man succeeded, helped by the eaglet; he was able to circle the threshing-floor once, twice, and finally three times; and immediately he flew back to earth, thanks to the feathers of the charitable eaglet. That was the end.
(Told by Pacôme Kkiρay-khρaa, known as Baughen, Dènè Couteau-Jaune-Castor of Grand-Lac des Esclaves, in July 1863).
(continued)
The interesting legend that I have just translated above has a very strong variant among the Tchippewayans of Lake Athabasca, where Father Faraud collected it. I am transcribing it here literally and in its original simplicity, that is to say by deleting from the account of this missionary, since bishop of Anemours in partibus injidelium, everything that conforms to the previous account. This is the Genesis of the Danè or Beavers.
The discrepancy between these two versions, that of the Great Slave Lake and that of Lake Athabasca, begins at the point where the reckless young man disappears into the bowels of the earth, after having broken the order of the old Goddess by sleeping with the two youngest.
In this second version, the two sisters are now mere mortals who, like the two brothers, travel under the eye and protection of invisible Providence.
I begin:
When, the next day, Sein full of weasels and Sein full of mice noticed that their host had disappeared, they wept and lamented a great deal.
– Let’s go and look for him,” they said.
Immediately they and their mother ran outside. They didn’t know what had become of the young man.
Suddenly they saw a monster, a giant with a human face but only one eye in the middle of his forehead, digging into the earth with his bear claws. It had only one arm and one leg, and its mouth ran from ear to ear.
The three women were terrified and hid to see what would happen. They saw the Cyclops dig up the young man with his claws, then prepare to devour him in his dressing room. It was Edzil’ (death).
The young man was not dead, he had only fainted; so when he was in the open air, he regained his senses and, seeing the Cyclops, gave a frightened cry.
– Don’t kill him,” said the two sisters to Death.
– I won’t kill him if one of you agrees to marry me,” said Edzil’ or Death.
As they hesitated, Death was about to devour his prey, when a gigantic eagle named Orelpalé (Candour, the Immense, He who stretches out into the distance) rushed at the Cyclops, picked him up in its powerful talons and took off with him.
– The good Spirit has just saved us. What shall we offer him?” cried the three women.
At the same moment, they saw a sparrowhawk chasing an unfortunate wren.
– Kill the hawk!” said the old woman.
The young man immediately shot an arrow at it and, by killing the sparrowhawk, saved the little bird.
Having left this place, the four of them set off on an adventurous journey, arriving at a large tent which they entered.
There they found a little child asleep.
– Little child,” said the old woman, “where are your parents?
The little boy woke up, pointed to the east and said:
– They are over there.
Then he went back to sleep.
– Little child,” said the young man, “tell me, where is my country?
The little child pointed to the west and said:
– Over there.
Then he went back to sleep.
– Little child,” said the two sisters, “where is the good Spirit, our protector?
The little child raised his arms to heaven and said:
– Up there.
Then he went back to sleep.
– It’s wonderful,” said the old woman, “but you mustn’t try to understand.
As they left, they saw an old man coming towards them a little further on. It was the father of the sleeping child. He too gave the young Dènè two magic arrows, and at the same time forbade him to let the young girls handle or even touch them.
– Why is that?” asked the young hunter.
– You should never ask why,” replied the old man.
They set off from there, and the younger brother killed many venison animals with his magic arrows, one of which was male and the other female. And the young girls did not touch the arrows. But one day they got up early in the morning and, having spotted an elk, wanted to use the young man’s arrows to kill the animal. No sooner had they touched them than they were buried alive in the bosom of the earth, and suddenly found themselves in an underground cave, which they recognised as the home of the thunderbird Orelpalé, the giant eagle and the good genie.
Orelpalé seized the two girls in his talons and carried them off, depositing them on a deserted sandy beach not far from the home of the giants, where he left them sleeping.
This disappearance caused so much grief to the old mother of the two girls that she died; but when she died, she predicted to the young man that he would marry Sein-plein-de-souris, and that one day he would find his elder brother who would become the husband of the other girl, Sein-plein-de-belettes.
She told them to keep walking towards the west, because that was where their first homeland and promised land was, a beautiful land covered with tall trees and situated on the edge and at the end of a western sea.
The young boy split a large fir tree, dug it up, placed the body of the old woman in it and then replanted the tree trunk in the manner of his ancestors. He then went to bed very sad, because he was all alone in the world.
No sooner had Dènè gone to bed than he saw a huge bird fly down beside him, landing there with a tremendous thump of its wings.
– Don’t be afraid,” said the giant eagle. I am the son of Orelpalé, the good Spirit, and I have come to save you from death. Now I’m going to take you to your homeland, a beautiful high country with lots of snow and trees and elk and reindeer and fat beavers. But don’t forget this command: “When you get there and live there, never leave the tent at night, and don’t hunt beaver until the sun is up”.
– Why this order?” asked the young man.
– You should never ask the Spirit why,” replied the eaglet.
Saying this, he continued:
– Place yourself under my wings, and behave yourself.
The young Dènè having obeyed, Orelpalé rose into the air, hovered for a moment; then, with the sound and speed of lightning, he plunged into the bowels of the celestial earth, crossed it, reached this earth below and came to deposit the man on the ground we inhabit,
– Now,” he said to him, “go towards the place where the sun sets until you meet a large body of water; take this piece of wood, place it on the water and it will become a dugout canoe. Then wait for orders from above.
Having said this, the son of the Good Spirit disappeared.
But the two sisters had been taken in by the good giants, just as they had taken in the two brothers in the beginning.
One day the giant father said to them:
– My daughters, you must think about leaving here. Walk towards the Sunset, for that is your homeland. Do you see that swan soaring through the air? That is the spirit of your dead mother. Follow it, it will show you the way.
The two sisters set off, but as they were all naked, the good giant gave them each a fox skin to cover their nakedness, plus a few dried fish for food on the way.
After ten days’ walking, they reached the great lake (or sea) of which they had been told, and stayed there.
For his part, the eldest brother, ever since his imprudent younger brother had been swept away by the magic arrow, had also always headed westwards, and he had reached the shore of the same great lake on the same day that Orelpalé’s son deposited his younger brother’s sleeping body there, equipped with the piece of wood that was to become a canoe.
The two brothers met and happily recognised each other. The elder always carried his pemmikan, which had not diminished since the day the giant had given it to him, because he never ate the whole thing and always gave it time to grow back. The youngest had his canoe and his two magic arrows, a gift from the eagle protector Orelpalé.
Suddenly, at the far end of the shore, the two sisters appeared. Sein-plein-de-belettes and Sein-plein-de-souris, who came to them in great joy. The younger brother introduced these two heavenly women to his elder brother. The two couples embraced, weeping with happiness. Then the wood was placed on the water and transformed into a dugout canoe, and the two young married couples took their places in it, while the beautiful swan, the spirit of the old Parque, guided them in flight.
In this way they crossed the Grande-Eau and reached the land they had been promised, after spending four days and four nights on the water without seeing land. The place where they landed was a green and laughing shore. There they landed with shouts of joy and gladness.
At the same moment, Orelpalé father and son appeared in the air. The two couples thanked their patron spirits effusively. Shortly afterwards, the same old man who had given the younger brother his second magic arrows also appeared, accompanied by his son, the sleeping child. This old man said to the two Dènè brothers:
– My children, I’m going to teach you who you are. You are the last descendants of a great people who came from the East, who for a long time obeyed the orders of the Mighty Good One, but who later forgot him and abandoned themselves to the evil genius, Edzil’.
The Good Spirit abandoned them to themselves, for they had become so wicked that they devoured each other.
Only one family had kept intact the good customs of days gone by. It was your grandfather’s family. Left alone with you, his grandsons, the good Spirit Orelpalé had said to him:
– Leave your country and go far away to a foreign land.
Your grandfather got up, took you in his arms and, leaving his anthropophagous parents, went off to camp on the banks of a great river.
Later, the gigantic eagle Orelpalé appeared to him again and said:
– As soon as you are dead, I will completely abandon the land where you live because of its inhabitants; so order your grandsons to leave it and wander about until I lead them to the beautiful land I have promised them. There they will be the founders of a new nation.
So the old man, your grandfather, faithful to the orders of the Great and Good Spirit, commanded you to leave your country and head west until you reached the beaches of the sea. Do you remember, my children?
– Yes, yes, grandfather,” they replied. We remember.
The good old man then said to the two sisters:
– As for you, you are the last descendants of another nation, which at the beginning was also faithful to the good Spirit, but which soon abandoned him to follow the teachings of the evil Spirit who governed the anthropophagous peoples.
The Evil One destroyed them all, except for your family, which had remained pure.
They fled to a mountain where they escaped the fire that devoured the others, and where they remained. It was your mother and you, my two daughters.
The Great Spirit had foretold your mother that you would find a husband, even though you were alone in your country. This has just happened.
You,” he added, addressing the eldest brother, “take Sein-plein-de-belettes as your wife, and live in this part of the forest. And you,” he said to the younger brother, “take Sein-full-of-mice as your wife, and hunt in this part of the country. Go now, hunt and multiply.
So said the heavenly old man, then he disappeared, never to be seen again. As for the beautiful swan, he let out a cry of joy when he saw the happiness of those whose mother he had been, and then he disappeared into the clouds.
Now, we are the descendants of these two couples, we, the first men (ttathé danè); for this is our story.
This is the end.
(Told at Lake Athabasca by Dènèdègouzié to R.-P. Faraud in 1859 (?); confirmed and modified in 1880 by Alexis Enna-azé to E. Petitot. Petitot).
In the beginning people dwelt on this earth just as they do today; for what is has always been, and what is done has always been done. Man has always been a pilgrim on earth, he has always hunted and fished to earn his livelihood, he has always drunk, eaten and slept, he has always slept with his wife and procreated children.
Then, one winter, something happened that had not always been the case: so much snow fell that the earth was as if buried under it, and only the tops of the tallest fir trees could be seen.
It was unbearable. So all the animals that lived and conversed with man at the time left for the sky, in search of warmth; for on this land, converted into a glacier, people were dying of cold and want. It was clear that if they didn’t hurry, everyone would perish.
The squirrel, being the lightest of animals, climbed to the top of the tallest fir trees, made a hole in the vault of the firmament and, through this opening, penetrated the sky. This hole is the sun.
Everyone marvelled at this feat and declared the squirrel a great leader.
Through this hole, all the animals entered the sky after the squirrel. But the squirrel came so close to the heat that his fur was scorched, which is why it is yellow.
So the squirrel brought forth the day, for before this great deed it was dark and cold on earth. But the bear, who is master of the upper earth, where he kept the heat for himself alone, said to the squirrel:
– If it is always daylight, how will you hunt?
So he spread a thick skin over the celestial opening, and it was night again.
So it was the bear who produced the night. So he is always black. He loves darkness and lives underground, in a dark and murky crib.
The bear is evil. In the upper earth, he and his son kept warm. They had tied it to the branches of a great tree that rises in the middle of the sky, and it was contained in a skin pouch.
From this tree also hung all the other elements, all the good things and all the bad things that come down to this lower earth: rain, a wineskin; snow, a wineskin; fair weather, a wineskin; storms, a wineskin; cold, a wineskin; heat, a wineskin.
So we had to get hold of the latter, and that certainly wasn’t easy, because the bear and his son were camped at the foot of the tree, guarding the heat.
– Who among us will be able to unhook this wineskin,” said the animals, “and who will be man enough to fight against this strong and ferocious bear?
The reindeer then presented himself as the most innocent and lightest man in the race. He swam towards the bear (for the tree stood on an island), and seized the leather bag containing the heat before the bear, whose movements are slow, had time to reach it.
He then resorted to his canoe. He threw it into the water, climbed in and pursued the reindeer, which was swimming away in the heat. He was just about to reach the reindeer when his paddle suddenly broke in his hands, leaving him helpless. It was the mouse that had dug into it, working for the common good.
This accident gave the animals time to escape in the heat. The wineskin was very heavy; it had been suspended in the middle of a stick, and the animals carried it two by two in turn.
There was a long way between the land above and the land below, so they had to camp quite often. One night, at the bivouac, the mouse, whose shoe was in tatters, wanted to mend his shoes and thought it best to cut a piece of skin from the wineskin.
Unfortunately, when the sack was opened, the heat it contained immediately spread over the earth, and with such intensity that it melted the immense quantity of snow covering it in an instant. The result was a flood so great that the water kept rising, invading the mountains and covering even the highest ones.
A little white-haired old man, foreseeing this, said:
– My friends, let’s make a big canoe and save ourselves in it.
But he was laughed at.
– Do it yourself,” he was told, “you’re so sensible. As far as we’re concerned, we’ll live on the mountain, where the waters won’t reach us.
But they were obviously mistaken, for the waters met them there, and they all perished, every last one of them. It’s over; the water has overtaken the highest peaks of the Rocky Mountains; there is no more land. It is the end of the world (nni na oudlé).
All men, animals and birds perished.
As for the little old man who had been laughed at, and who had built a large dugout canoe all by himself, he withdrew into it, took in a couple of all the animals and birds he met along the way, and drifted away with the flood.
This old man was called Etsié, the grandfather, or Ennèdhékwi, the old man.
However, they could not take it any longer, and the canoe’s inhabitants could not have lived long in this state. So all the amphibious animals began to dive to find land at the bottom of the water. But there was no land. It was so far, so far away, at the bottom of the water!
The eagle flew off in search of it, and returned without having found it anywhere. The turtle-dove set off in turn, flew for a whole day and returned exhausted without having seen anything.
The next day, she left again and stayed away all day. When she arrived in the evening, she was exhausted, but she was holding a bud of green fir in her paw. She had seen the treetops and rested there.
Encouraged by this discovery, all the waterfowl and amphibious animals began to dive again, hoping to lift the earth.
The muskrat dived in and came up short of breath without having found anything; the otter dived in, stayed underwater for a long time, and when it surfaced again, it was dying.
– Nothing!” she said.
The little trumpet duck dived in too. And he came back with a bit of mud in his paw. He lifted the earth, he remade the earth. That’s why all the animals cried out:
– The Rankanli alone is all-powerful; he alone is a great man, a leader.
This is the end.
(Told by Tsinnayiné, Yellow Knife
of the Great Slave Lake, in September 1862).
However, before leaving his large canoe, Etsié had let the raven go, but it never returned. We searched in vain for him, but he did not appear. And then we realised that we had nothing left to eat, and that all the ruminants and edible animals had disappeared.
So they suspected the raven, whose malice was well known, of having done this; and all the animals that feed on flesh, all the birds of prey, as well as man, went in search of the thief.
The owl, named Ethi-djiazè (little hairy head), was sent as a scout. It flew for a whole day and returned exhausted.
– I didn’t see anything,” she said.
The blue jay (Djizé) was also sent to scout. When evening came, he returned exhausted.
– I saw,” he said, “I saw the raven resting on the top of that high mountain you see over there. He is fat and full, and around his blood-stained collar he wears a necklace made from the eyes of all the animals he has blinded in order to guard them; for he has locked them up and they are his prisoners.
So said the Blue Jay.
Then they all shuddered with anger, and so did the man, and they said to each other:
– Let’s go after the crow!
At the top of the mountain stands a huge lodge. It’s that of the old raven, that evil witch. There she had parked all the animals that graze and ruminate. She had pushed them in, gathered them together, and guarded them carefully, with the help of her little crows. She stood on the threshold with her family, ready to defend the entrance.
– Who will open the door of this tent for us? the animals asked each other. This raven is powerful and wicked.
The wolf and the fox tried in vain. The raven harassed them with its powerful beak, forcing them to turn back.
Then the blue jay said again:
– I’ll be the one to get rid of the crow.
He went and perched harmlessly on the ridge of the lodge, tore off its skin, undid its bindings and toppled its cover. Immediately all the ruminants came out of the enclosure and repopulated the land, fresh from the waters. Then all the animals cried out:
– Now let us kill, let us kill the raven, that evil and useless bird. He is our enemy.
But he said:
– For pity’s sake, let me live,” he cried, “and from now on I’ll be content with the mass grave.
– Well, if you want to live,” he was told, “give us some meat.
What was said there was necessary; for since the raven had locked up the ruminants, all the animals that feed on grass were invulnerable, they were all covered with bone and horn like a breastplate, so that our arrows were dulled on their bodies. As they could not be killed, life became impossible.
So when the raven asked for his life on condition that he would give the men meat, he went away and perched himself on the top of the mountain, where he began to gnaw, to gnaw bones. He carved them, shaped them and cut them into ribs, which he threw like arrows among the ruminant animals. All those he reached were framed with ribs and flesh, and became vulnerable and edible. As for the others, they remained safe from our arrows, and could neither be killed nor eaten.
But people were saying to each other:
– Where are the corpses of the men destroyed by the flood, and why don’t we see any?
In vain they were sought. There were no human corpses to be seen anywhere. Then the blue jay said again:
– Over there, on the shore, I saw, yes I saw the seagulls fighting over the shreds and devouring them.
That was enough; there were again many people, many animals, and people continued to live in the same way as they do nowadays on land.
Some time after the flood, the water ran out completely. The Great Bittern (T’ulkudhi), who had drunk it all, was lying on the sand with his belly in the sun. He was as swollen as a wineskin.
Etsiyé (the grandfather) therefore went towards the hydra, followed by all the animals who, like him, were thirsty and looking for water.
When he saw himself surprised and surrounded, the Great Water Drinker tried to win over his enemies by appealing to their pity, so that they would spare him. So he pretended to be ill:
– I’ve got a stomachache,” he moaned; “alas, I’m hydropic. My stomach hurts!
Then the lynx approached him with a pathetic air:
– My grandmother has a stomachache,” he said. The truth is! That’s a shame!
And he started rubbing her belly with his velvet paw. But all of a sudden he pulled out his claws, dug them into her skin and tore her belly open.
Then, from the rebounding sides of the punctured hydra, came rivers and streams. Water gushed from them in torrents, and lakes were formed, and every hollow in the ground was filled with water. The earth, watered again, turned green and became what it was before. That was the end.
(Told by the old blind man Ekounélyel,
at Grand-Lac des Esclaves, in June 1863).
In the beginning, people lived on a mountain and all spoke the same language. So there was only one language.
And some young men were playing together in a wood, saying:
– Let’s imitate everything our parents do.
So they counterfeited the action of hunters who kill an animal. They seized one of them, killed it like a vile animal, skinned it, quartered it, butchered it, skinned it, dismembered it, and, still playing games, went and distributed the quarters to each lodge.
Then something unheard of happened: as the Dènè had never witnessed such a terrible crime, an unspeakable fear seized them. They were rendered speechless, and their minds were so deeply disturbed that they lost the use of speech and could no longer understand one another, so stunned were they.
So they split up and fled in terror, some to one side and some to the other. And so the tongues multiplied.
(Narrated by the same author).
N. B. – I must point out here a very curious fact which seems to me to be more than characteristic. The place where Noah left the ark and where his sons built the first city, according to the Bible, is called in Armenian: Nachi-dhenan (place of the Descent). Now, in Dindjié, one of the Dènè dialects, Nachi-dhenan means: Foolish, mad (Nachi), and people of public women (Zhœnan, which the missionaries write Dhœnan); which corresponds perfectly to the name of Babel or Babilous: Confusion.
Long after Etsiè and Eltchélékwié, there was a great famine on earth; for all the reindeer deserted our country, and people were dying of hunger. So the Dènè left their country and went down by the sea to go and live in the treeless desert, in the foreign land, in order to take their lives.
One day when the Dènè were on the move, an old woman, who could only follow them from a distance, heard a child’s cry resounding at the water’s edge. She searched carefully and found a little child no longer than her finger in the musk-ox dung, who said to her:
– Grandma, take me in. I’ve come to earth to do good to men, my brothers.
The old woman picked up the little child. She brought him up carefully, and that’s why he was called Bé-tsuné-Yénelchian: Brought up by his grandmother.
When Bé-tsuné-Yênelchian grew a little older, he would go away every evening and only return the next morning. At first, the old woman was very worried about these absences, but eventually she got used to them. No one knew where he went, but by the virtue of his magic, he would transform himself into a reindeer; then, going among the animals, he would draw them to himself, touch their snouts with his wand (for it was by means of a rod that he performed these wonders), and immediately the reindeer would fall to the ground.
Then he would return to the camp, his belt full of reindeer tongues that he had hung there like a trophy from his magical hunt. As a result, the old woman and her other adopted relatives lived in abundance, and the child gained great renown for his hunting exploits.
One day, however, Bè-tsuné-Yénelchian said to his grandmother:
– Mother, say this to my brothers: If you will give me as tribute the tips of all the reindeer tongues (Ethula) that you kill, I promise never to let you lack meat. I will provide you with reindeer in abundance, and I will stay with you for a long time.
The old woman told the Dènè the words of the Child-Powerful, and the men agreed to this treaty. Immediately the reindeer began to abound, and the meat to become very fat.
For a long time, the Dènè were faithful in paying their tribute of tongue-tips to the child; but there came a time when they grew weary and forgot him, and the tongue-tips were no longer brought to him[87].
– It’s all over”, said the child who had become a man, “I won’t stay with these ingrates any longer. They forget me because I was too good. If the tribute is not paid, I will leave.
The old woman wept and begged, but it was in vain.
– My brothers have forgotten me,” replied the Child-Powerful. Well, I’m going. But I will not abandon them entirely. When they are in need and call on me for help, I will come back to them. As for you, try to follow me wherever I go.
He said, and disappeared in the middle of a large herd of musk oxen. The old woman followed his footsteps among the oxen for a while, but it was very hard for her, at her age, to make a path with her snowshoes. She never got to the end.
From then on, when reindeer ran out and we were threatened with famine, we went to the desert by the Glacial Sea and called Bé-tsuné-Yénelchian and his oxen. They heard our voice, they came running, we killed some of the oxen and thus escaped the death that threatened us.
(Told in 1863, at Grand-Lac des Esclaves,
by the old blind man Ekunélyel).
(Version of the Yellow Knives.)
One day, in the barren desert bordering the icy sea, there was a shortage of meat (tan) among the Dènè. So they went in search of reindeer, but to no avail. It was very painful.
Then, on the banks of the Copper River, we heard what sounded like the wailing of a child. There were a lot of girls there, and they all started looking for the voice. But to no avail. An old woman came along and searched in her turn, and soon found a tiny child, as long as her thumb, but marvellously beautiful, lying in a reindeer’s hoof print. She took him in and raised him with love, which is why he is called Bé-tsuné-Yènelchian: Raised by his mother-great. Although he was very small, it soon became apparent that he was very powerful by virtue of his Shadow.
One day Bé-tsuné-Yénelchian said to his grandmother:
– Men, my brothers, are very unhappy. I want to go and find them. They are hungry. I want to get them some meat.
The old woman wept and tried to stop him, but he pressed her all the harder. Finally she let him go, and he left alone during the night, without the Dènè knowing where he had gone.
When day broke, the Magical Child returned to the Dènè and went back to his adoptive mother. The old woman was lying on the ground, inert, without fire, her head frozen. He roused her from her lethargy, relit the fire and, undoing his belt, said:
– Mother, look!
Immediately bits of reindeer tongue fell from his belt,
– My brothers can live at ease now,” he said, “provided they remember me.
Bé-tsuné-Yénelchian did indeed live among his brothers for a long time, and they never lacked caribou. One day, in the treeless desert, we were hunting with difficulty, because there was no water. We were dying of thirst.
– Wait,” said the Child-Powerful One, who had become a man. He immediately made a magic arrow, stuck it in the ground and made water gush out abundantly from it.
Finally, having become old, he climbed a mountain, saying:
– I will die soon, but I will not abandon you. When you are in distress, call on me and I will come to your aid.
So he had a magic lodge (chuns) set up for him in that place, and when he entered it, he evoked the spirit or Shadow. He worked magic for a long time. When he stopped coming out, they ventured into the pavilion to see what had happened to him. But he was nowhere to be found.
Since then, no one knows what has become of him, and no one has ever seen him again.
(Told at the Great Slave Lake,
by Tsépan-Khé, Yellow Knife, in September 1863).
There was a time when the Mighty Good, displeased with men, took all the reindeer or caribou away from them.
The Dènè were returning sadly from the shores of the icy sea, and were on their way to seek their fortune in a new land, when an old woman, who was following them painfully at a distance, had stirred up some reindeer dung with her foot, and suddenly heard a child’s voice calling from the middle of the dung.
The voice said:
– Grandma, I’ve come to do good for the Dènè (men), but I’m very small. Will you take care of me?
The old woman looked and saw a living foetus as long as her thumb. She took pity on it. She took it and promised to take the greatest care of it. Then, thinking that she herself had nothing to eat, she said to the child:
– I promise you, little one, that I will protect you from the cold.
But how am I going to get you to eat? I’ve got nothing myself!
– I’ll provide for us myself,” replied the child. All I ask is to stay with you.
When evening came, the tents were pitched and the child, who was alone with his grandmother, confided in her:
– I’ve come to do good for the Dènè. I will bring abundance back to them. But I demand that they pay me tribute. They will give me all the tongues of the reindeer they kill. If they are faithful, I will stay with them for a long time, and they will want for nothing. Go and repeat my words to them.
The grandmother immediately went to the Dènè and repeated what the child had said. They all agreed to pay tribute, and the next day the reindeer returned.
The child stayed with his grandmother, and was named Bé-tsun-Yénelchian. Before long, he had grown as tall as an arm.
Every day, the child went out alone into the forest, and every evening, when he returned, he would say to the old woman:
– Where are my tongues?
For some time, the Dènè were faithful in paying tribute; but finally, as abundance weakened gratitude, they brought only a few tongues to the child, who had become as tall as the other men of the tribe. When Be-tsun-Yenelchian saw this, he said to his grandmother:
– You see, grandmother, it’s always the same story from the old days, abundance harms; I’m forgotten because people are too good. I can no longer stay with these people, and if the tribute isn’t paid in full, I’ll leave them.
Several years passed, and at last the tribute, which was always decreasing, was reduced to five or six languages. Bé-tsun-Yénelchian then said to his grandmother:
– That’s it, I’m leaving. I won’t abandon the Dènè completely, but I’ll make them feel their ingratitude.
His grandmother tried to stop him leaving. She even begged him not to abandon his nation.
– It’s done,” he repeated. Follow me, if you can. I’m off.
And so he left. His grandmother, who loved him very much, tried to follow him, but being very old, she stumbled at every step, and finally had to stop.
– Don’t worry, Grandma,” the child told her one last time. I won’t abandon the Dènè brothers entirely.
He left her. Soon he disappeared towards the icy sea and went to live among the musk oxen, whom he made docile to his voice. When he grew tired of living, he became incarnate in these peaceful animals and, as a reward for their docility, gave them the intelligence of human speech.
When the Chippewayans are in great need (etchiéri), they head for the inhospitable shores of the icy sea, where they call the musk oxen (ètchiéré). The animals hear their voices and obediently respond to their calls. So the Dènè simply kill a few to satisfy their hunger, and let the others go in peace.
– Is it not the Son of God who has gone to live among them and who gives them this intelligence? This is the end.
(Told to Father Faraud in Athabasca in 1859,
by Dènèdègouzyé).
A young girl found a little child in the land of the Caribou (Yuthen). It was lying in a bit of moss on the banks of a river (Nilin).
The girl, herself abandoned by her barbaric parents, picked up the child, wrapped him in a reindeer skin and resolved to save his life.
The two of them lived a miserable life, feeding only on roots and fruit, the juice of which she squeezed out of the poor child’s mouth. The child never grew up, and the girl said:
– If only he could grow up quickly, he’d look after me when I’m old.
Little did she know that this little child was a powerful magician.
One day, when she was crying bitterly and had nothing to eat, the child, who had never done more than stammer, said to her:
– Don’t complain. I know where there are fish. You were good to me; I’ll be good to you too.
Surprised to hear her infant speak, the young girl looked at him and thought she saw the reindeer skin covering him glow like a flame, while another flame surrounded his head.
– Listen,” continued the child, “soon the Dènè will be happier than ever; the reindeer, obeying their voice, will come of their own accord to be killed and will no longer try to flee.
A few seasons passed in this way, and the child remained small in stature, but the young girl was no longer miserable. He would find the fish even when it was hidden under the ice.
One day, the child wanted to go and play in the forest. She put on his little snowshoes, and he set off without saying where he was going.
When evening came, he did not return. The poor girl, seeing that night had come, began to weep and lament her unfortunate fate, believing that her adopted son had frozen to death or had gone astray, when all of a sudden the one she thought lost was at her side and laid a large quantity of reindeer tongues at her feet.
At the same moment, the forest was all lit up, for people came running to meet Bé-tsuné-Yénelchian with torches in their hands, made from split fir branches, to congratulate him on the success of his hunt and to pay him homage.
Then the Child-Powerful, having climbed to the top of a rocky knoll, said to the Dènè around him:
– I shall not live much longer. Then, turning to his benefactress, he said:
– From now on,” he told her, “the Dènè will turn to me in their needs. It is you I charge with making my wishes known to them. Whoever turns to me for help will receive it, and I will send him reindeer so that he may live in abundance.
No sooner had Bé-tsuné-Yénelchian finished speaking than a loud noise was heard in the forest.
– Come on,” he said, “the time has come. A great people is waiting for me at the bend of the Great Lake. They are coming to take me to places you do not know. Let us set off.
The weeping girl followed her little companion. As they rounded the bend in Lake Athabasca, she saw a multitude of bears (Sas), of all colours, black, grey, white and fawn, rushing to pay homage to the Almighty Child.
Then, casting a last affectionate glance at his beloved companion to bid her farewell, Bé-tsuné-Yémlchian boldly advanced into the midst of the bears and became one of them. He was never seen again.
But in our younger days, we never went hunting without invoking this Child of Blessings.
Now he can be seen in the moonlight where we call him Ya-tρèth-nanttay: He who came crossing the sky.
(Told by the same Dènèdégouzyé).
Yellow Knife Legend
Oltsin-tρédh: He who operates by the rod, was a powerful magician. He performed prodigies using a stick, and this is where his name comes from.
One day, the Great Enemy took his two sisters away from him.
– You are not a man,” he was told, “because you let your parents be taken away from you.
So he got angry with the man who was taunting him, hit him and, without meaning to, killed him.
After this unfortunate blow, he got up and said:
– I must, however, free my two sisters.
Immediately he set off, accompanied by his brother, to look for them.
As they were each searching on their own, they agreed on a signal to find each other; for they were living among their enemies, the Eyunnè (ghosts, madmen, public women). So Oltsin-tρèdh hung a rattle from the top of a tree, so that when the wind blew it would be heard by the two brothers as they returned to camp there.
In their search for their sisters, the two brothers came upon a land whose inhabitants ate nothing but white gum. They could not stay there because the food disgusted them.
Having left there, they came to a country whose people ate thrushes. Oltsin-tρèdh set out his bird nets for these people, and in one go he caught a prodigious number of thrushes. But as he did not find his two sisters there, he passed on.
He arrived in a land whose inhabitants were like hares. They lived in deep darkness, sleeping all the time. He gave them light by throwing hare’s eyes[88] into the fire; then he transformed them into men.
Finally, he came to a vast tent, that of the Great Enemy, chief of the Eyunnè, and captor of his sisters, who were desolate in that place, in harsh captivity.
That day, the Great Enemy was absent; he had gone hunting. So Oltsin-tρèdh said to the two women:
– Behold, I come to deliver you. Follow me.
They got up and followed him; but they made some difficulty, saying:
– Ah, my brother, your brother-in-law, our captor, is terrible and powerful. It may be that something bad will happen to us if we escape.
However, at his urging, they followed him. When the Great Enemy returned and no longer saw his two female slaves, he flew into a terrible rage and immediately set off in pursuit, ambushing them one by one with the power of his medicine; for he himself was a great magician. But Oltsin-tρèdh foiled them with his even greater power.
So the next morning, when they woke up, they found themselves at the bottom of a precipice, in a very deep rocky crevice.
– Don’t be frightened,” said Oltsin-tρèdh to his sisters, “confide in me. Go back to bed and sleep, for I only work when I cannot be seen.
They went back to sleep and he immediately drew them out of the abyss with his wand, raising the bottom of the precipice to the level of the surrounding ground.
When the second night came, they camped in the treeless desert. But when they awoke, they found themselves in the middle of the water, on a small desert island. The two sisters were distraught:
– It’s nothing,” Oltsin-tρèdh said to them, “lie down and sleep.
As he said this, he created a causeway between the island and the mainland, so that when they woke up, the four of them crossed the lake on dry feet.
At the end of the third night’s bivouac, they found themselves buried in a large muddy marsh. The two sisters couldn’t take it any more. The Great Enemy was so bad! What could they do?
– Go back to bed and sleep,” their brother told them again with confidence.
Immediately, by his power, he formed a causeway of hard, dry sand across the marsh, on which they crossed the muddy waters.
Finally, seeing that he could not overcome Oltsin-tpèdh, the Great Enemy let him and his sisters go in peace. Then he himself said to his younger brother:
– Come with me, I’m going to kill all these enemy men; then I’ll resurrect them and make them good.
So he went to a great mountain and they both climbed it. It thundered terribly. In the midst of the thunder, Oltsin-tpèdh picked up two flat, smooth thunder stones and, throwing them among his enemies, struck them dead on the spot.
Then he went down the mountain. But when he got to the foot of the mountain, he found the old woman who had brought him up panicking and dancing. The old woman sang and danced, saying:
– My songs are many. I know a great many hymns.
And as she said this, she danced like a madwoman. Now this old woman was a fox disguised and transformed into a woman. Oltsin-tρèdh struck her on the head with his stick and knocked her lifeless. After this action, he lived for a very long time. It is said that only old age could overcome him.
(Told by Tsépan-khé, Yellow Knife,
at Grand-Lac des Esclaves, in 1864).
A man was living with his parents when the Flancs-de-Chien, having fought and destroyed them completely, left him alone and fled. On a high, rocky, sheer mountain he climbed and stayed.
The Dog Flankers surrounded the mountain so that he could not escape.
They shot all their arrows at him, but could not reach him. But in the end, as the man remained alone on the summit of the high mountain for a long time, they decided that their arrows had hit him, that he had been wounded, that he was dead, and that they could raise the siege of the rock. So they went away from that place.
However, this man, named Ottsin-tρesh, still remained on the mountain and was perfectly alive. So he came down from his fort and went to find his sister, who had also escaped the slaughter of her people, and he lived with her.
Then, in the meantime, Ottsin-tρesh, with the intention of taking revenge on his enemies, began to make a great spear. His sister was afraid of him, but he did not kill his sister.
– My sister,” he told her, “do not be afraid. This weapon is not for you. It’s these Dog Flankers, murderers of our families, that I want to kill.
So his sister got in on the act and set off in search of the Dog Flankers to lure them into a trap.
– Among the Flancs-de-chien,” she said, “I will spread the news at the Lac des Petits-Poissons, on the shore at the foot of the Grande Montagne [89]. And they will go there.
So the next day, early in the morning, she slipped into the vicinity of the enemies’ camp and, imitating the song of the little bird called Ttsé-yazé, she said in song:
– Tomorrow morning, on the shores of the Lake of the Little Fishes, the Dènè will be greatly satisfied and happy with some good news.
Then an old man who heard her said to the Dog-Flankers:
– This little bird is certainly telling the truth, I think; for he speaks absolutely like a real man.
Ottsin-tρesh said to his sister:
– Sister, we must spare this old man.
Having said this, the next morning he slaughtered all his enemies, but spared the old man and his family. That’s why there are still so many Dog Flankers.
Then, when the old man’s descendants had multiplied too much, Ottsin-tρesh wanted to destroy them again, but he couldn’t, because the Dog-whites were stronger than he was. They caught him, made him suffer and finally cut off his head.
But that head, to their horror, lived on and continued to pursue them. They threw it into the fire. The fire could not consume it. So, thinking they had done with it, they pulverised it with a large stone. But the dust from Ottsin-tρesh’s skull turned into a swarm of gnats and cousins that swooped down on the men and put them to flight. They have been chasing them ever since.
This is why, when there is a great abundance of gnats and cousins, the Dènè say in proverb:
– The brains at Ottsin-tρesh are still swarming; behold! This man is evil[90].
That’s the end of the story.
(Told by Alexis Enna-azé, Sambos Franco-Dènè-Cris,
at the Lac des Hameçons, in 1880).
Once there was a woman who lived with her husband, the two of them alone, it is said.
While the husband was hunting, the wife pretended to go out and gather firewood, but that was not all she did.
She would go under a large tree, the hollow trunk of which was full of snakes, and there she would have relations with these reptiles. Or so they say.
The husband, being very vexed and angry at his wife’s mysterious ways, went to the place where she used to go to chop wood, and saw a large fruit tree[91] whose base was buried in tall grass.
Then, at the spot, Dènè said, imitating his wife’s voice:
– My husband, I am coming back for you.
Make haste, then, and come crawling to me!
So he said, and immediately big snakes came out of the tree and he killed them all. Then he cooked the blood of these reptiles to give to his wife to eat when she arrived. But she said:
– Wait a little, my husband,” she said. Before I eat, I need to go and chop some wood.
Then he said:
– No,” he replied, “there’s still enough wood cut. Eat first, then go to the wood.
She obeyed him. Finally, she set off for the wood, arrived at the tree, and when she saw the snakes killed, she became very angry, and Dènè heard her shouting:
– Alas! this snake-husband whom I loved so much, now he has been killed.
And she added to her true husband:
– Well, I don’t want you to live any more either.
When he came back to her, he thought he had no better choice than to strike her neck with his stone axe, and with that blow he separated her head from the trunk. And so she died.
However, it was still blowing at Dènè with a grimace, so they say.
So he fled with all his legs, and when he came to the bank of a river, he saw an old woman called Grasshopper (Eρoathen).
– Grasshopper,” said Dènè to the old woman, “come to my aid and carry me to the other side of the river.
Immediately the old woman stretched out her legs and with one leap she crossed the torrent, as they say.
The skull, while pursuing the man, also reached the river bank and said to the old woman:
– Grasshopper, cross me.
And she crossed it, it is said.
But Dènè had gone to bed, exhausted from his mad dash, and was sleeping peacefully on the other bank.
– Here, at least, my wicked wife won’t come looking for me, he thought.
But all of a sudden, having woken up at midnight, he saw the horrible jellyfish at his side, glaring at him.
Then, no longer able to contain himself in his terror, Dènè grabbed his axe and rushed at the dead woman’s head, hitting it, shattering its skull and, it is said, pulverising it.
And yet, out of that woman’s head came such swarms of cousins and mosquitoes that the man was beset and pursued by them for the rest of his life, and this calamity continues to this day.
And this is how the woman, after having been the torment of the man during his life, continued to be so after his death.
Such is the story of the woman known as the woman with the Nâh-rampant (Ttsékwii-náhdudhi).
But not all the Dènè tell it in the same way. Some relate that the skull was indeed carried by the Grasshopper, as had been the man, but that the old good woman, having reached the middle of the stream in her leap, suddenly spread her legs and let the head fall into the current, where it was carried away and never seen again; and that the snake-woman has not been seen since. But we think that these storytellers are women, more concerned with rehabilitating their sex than paying homage to the cruel truth[92].
(Told by the same man in 1880).
A long time ago, a brother and sister lived alone. They provided for themselves as we do today, by hunting and fishing.
Every day, the sister stretched her shoelaces over the trees in the forest to catch pheasants, white partridges, white hares and even the lynxes themselves.
But both she and her brother noticed with terror that the days and nights followed one another at ever-closer intervals; that the days were getting shorter all the time; that the sun (Sa) was barely visible, only to disappear beneath the earth’s disc in the south-south-west, where the mouth of the earth is (nni-odhaé).
They then realised with horror that the earth was going to freeze, and that all life would be extinguished on its surface.
So they both resolved to put things right. One day, when the sister had set her lynx snares, as usual, on the fir trees in the forest, she saw in one of them the round, purplish face of the sun, which had become entangled in it and was strangling itself.
She warned her brother; they ran to seize the restive star and strangle it completely. But he, imploring them for his life :
– If you let me live,” he told them, “from now on I will lengthen my course, I will make the days grow longer, and I will once again spread life and warmth over the earth.
On this condition, they let him go again, and it is said that since that time the sun has shone for so long in the heavens[93].
(Told by Alexis Enna-azé,
tchippewayan of Athabasca, in November 1880).
Tradition of the Dènè-Cuivres
An Otρelnah (Enemy of the Flatlands, Eskimo) kidnapped a Dènè woman and took her away
the other side of the sea of ice. He married her
and had a son, it is said. But although he treated her well, the unfortunate woman resented her slavery. All she could think about was escaping. After waiting for a long time, a favourable opportunity finally presented itself and she seized it: on the occasion of a festival, there was an orgy, people danced and got very tired. She immediately took advantage of the deep sleep into which the people were plunged to throw herself and her child into an Umiak and entrust themselves to the sea.
But she was all the more unaware of which way she should turn to return to her homeland, as her captor had covered her head with his own blanket when she left. So she didn’t know which route she would have to take to get back to Dènè territory. Nevertheless, she headed east and sailed all night on the sea. The following day, she rowed again.
In the area she was following, the sea is said to be shallow and islets abound. So the poor woman went from island to island, looking for food. When the crossing between two islands was too long for her to cross in a single day, in the evening she would plant a long pole in the mud above which her skin boat floated, tie her boat to it and, lying down bravely, bivouac on the sea.
The traveller repeated this manoeuvre for several days, until she reached an eastern continent where she saw the estuary of a very wide river coming from the sun. She didn’t know where she was, or by whom she would be received, or even whether the land she was about to land on was inhabited or habitable.
However, she wasn’t sure where to land when she saw a white wolf (Yés) fording the water and heading for the same shore as her. From time to time, the animal turned towards the woman and seemed to invite her to follow.
The traveller decided to follow the wolf, whom she understood to be her protector and Inkρanzé (shadow or talisman, fetish, Nahuatl, good genie), and she followed him.
The wolf disappeared as soon as it reached the shore. The woman landed at the same spot, leaving her umiak behind, and, as she knew that wolves detect the presence of herbivorous wild animals, she set off in search of prey, and soon spotted a large herd of reindeer. She then attached an iron awl she owned to a long pole, and with this improvised spear, she was able to lie in wait for the reindeer, pierce one of the animals and kill it.
The traveller, very happy, then butchered her prey, lit a fire, roasted the caribou’s flanks and satisfied herself and her little Eskimo son. Then she cut up the rest of the meat, built a fire pit, smoked the venison in it so as to have provisions for the journey, and set off again, full of courage, in search of a new prey.
But as the little Eskimo, in his gluttony, stole all the meat and devoured it in secret while his mother was away, the Dènè woman abandoned the child without pity and set off on her own to find her homeland.
As she continued on her way, she saw a bright light at the top of a high mountain along the river at the mouth of which she had landed. It shone like fire.
The traveller wanted to know where this light and fire came from, so she climbed the mountain. There she found a red metal that looked like the droppings of a fruit-eating bear or beaver, which she named Tsa-intsanné (beaver droppings). She understood that it was this metal that produced the fire and light on the mountain [94].
The traveller picked up some of this native copper and, continuing on her way, eventually arrived at the home of some men (Dènè) whom she recognised, from their language, to be of the same blood as her family. So she stayed with these people and said to them:
– See the metal I found on my way.
– Where, they asked her?
– By the western sea, on the flaming mountain”, she replied.
So the men went there; they too found this precious metal, they gathered it, they took some home, they made knives, awls and other implements from it, and then lived well off the metal that the traveller had given them.
But one day, these ungrateful men insulted their benefactress. They wanted to do her violence and abuse her graces. So she fled, crushed to the core. But they pursued her. So she went as far as the mountain she had seen on fire, where she sank and disappeared underground with all the metal she had given them. She was never seen again.
That is the end of the story of the Metal Woman[95].
(Told by Ekunélyel,
at the Great Slave Lake, in 1863.)
A long time ago, some Eskimos kidnapped a woman and, after covering her head
so that she could not recognise her way, and took her
with her to the other side of the sea.
There she was given an Eskimo for a husband, who gave her a son; but as she managed to escape her captors, she wandered, it is said, for a long time by the sea, looking for a passage to cross and return to her country[96]. Finding none, she sat down to weep.
In the meantime, a wolf approached her and headed for the sea, into which it plunged, with water only up to its belly. She realised that there was a ford there, and that the white wolf was her guardian genie. So she got up with renewed courage, followed in the footsteps of the white wolf, and eventually forded the strait and landed on dry land on this side[97].
The traveller then turned to look behind her and saw something on the sea that looked like an island of rocks. This sight frightened her greatly, because for a moment she thought she was being pursued by a party of Eskimos. So she hid to watch the black object. But as it got closer and closer, she finally recognised that it was a herd of reindeer fording the strait.
So she hurriedly fitted her iron awl to the end of a gaff, and went to spy on the reindeer as they passed. She shot one through the heart and managed to kill it. She immediately cooked some meat, using the animal’s belly as a cooking pot. Then, having placed the rest of the meal in front of her child, she left him on the shore, because she saw that he would be too much of a burden for her to continue her journey.
When she had left, she went along a river which, at this point, flows into the sea. Suddenly she saw flames at the top of a mountain, which led her to believe that there was a people camped on the summit.
So she climbed the burning mountain, but then she realised that it was a volcano, and that the light was coming from molten red metal.
Having set off again from this place, the traveller raised large stones all along her path, as signs by means of which she could recognise the route she was about to take, and retrace her steps if necessary.
It was in this way that the woman arrived at the home of people who recognised her as one of their compatriots. She told them that she had discovered a red metal on the shores of the sea, and she immediately returned three times to fetch it, followed by these men, who considered her to be a woman from heaven [98].
But the last time she set out on this journey with her companions, they abused her shamefully, so she sat down on the ground beside her metal to weep for her shame, and no longer wished to follow them.
In vain did these unworthy men beg her to get up and go with them, as she had done until then, but she was deeply offended and would have nothing to do with it. They ended up leaving her there and returning without her.
However, some time later, these men (Dènè) returned to the flaming mountain to look for metal again. They found that the woman traveller had sunk into the earth up to her waist.
She still refused to follow them, no longer trusting their words, preferring to bury herself there. But as she was particularly fond of some of the men, she gave them, but only those, a little more of her red metal (Sa-tsan: bear dung).
At the same time, she said these words to them, which were her last:
– If you bring me good meat as tribute, I will give these people good metal. If they bring me moose or reindeer lung, or heart, liver or kidneys, I will give them metal with the colour and appearance of these viscera. As for those who bring me nothing but bad meat, they will find nothing here but brittle, waste metal.
So she spoke to them. They went away, but later returned to the shore to look for metal, and this time they saw that the woman had buried herself up to her neck. Only her head was still showing, and it was in this state that the Dènè fed her some good reindeer meat; in return, they found some more good metal.
But the last time they returned, the woman was said to have disappeared into the mountains. In vain did the Dènè bring her their best venison, in vain did they call her to them, she had sunk so deep into the earth that she could neither answer them nor give them any more metal, so they say.
Nevertheless, we can still see today the great standing stones that the foreign traveller had placed wherever she went. It was by means of these signs or markers that the Metal Woman managed to return to the sea.
This is the end of the story of the Copper People (Tρatsan-ottiné), and the reason for the name they bear.
(Told by Alexis Enna-azé, in 1881).
In the time of the giants, one of them, named Yakké-elt’ini (He who grazes the firmament with his head, or else: He who lies in heaven), was walking on the shores of the icy sea.
There he met another giant whom he fought fiercely, and would have been defeated, had not Dènè (the man), whom he was protecting, rescued his master by cutting the sinew of the bad giant’s hock with a gigantic beaver’s tooth.
The evil giant fell backwards across the sea, so that his head rested on the ground we inhabit (America). It reached as far as the shores of Lake Froid, and this is why the Dènè of these parts call themselves Thi-lan-ottinè: the people of the tip of the head.
The giant’s body thus formed a natural bridge or causeway over which the reindeer periodically passed and repassed. Its backbone is the Cordillera of the Rocky Mountains [99].
Later, a foreign woman made the same journey on the giant’s body, arriving from the West after many days’ travel. She was very well received by the Dènè, because she brought them red and black metals. She even made several trips to the West.
But having been outraged by those whose benefactress she was, she went underground with her treasure. From then on, voyages to the west coast ceased[100].
(Told in 1851, on Île à la Crosse,
to Monseigneur Taché, and confirmed in 1879,
at Lac Froid, by Chief Unldayé).
A Dènè woman, called La Martre-qui-saute, was kidnapped by a party of Enna (the Savanois), and taken captive to the east of our country, right by the sea (Hudson Bay).
She was astonished to see that her captors had metal utensils, toiletries, weapons and other objects that she had never seen before. At first she thought these riches were the product of Algonquin industry, and she admired the intellectual superiority of her masters.
The masters were careful not to mislead their slave, both to make sure of her and for fear that she might discover the people from whom they had obtained these marvels.
But when the slave became accustomed to their pace and their periodic peregrinations, she realised that her captors, the Savanois, were going to get these objects, so curious to her, in the Orient, where they received them in exchange for their furs and provisions.
These strange activities intrigued the captive, but as she thought that the people who enriched the Savanois in this way must be brothers and allies of the Savanois, she was careful not to flee to them.
Several years passed in this way. But the Tchippewayanne woman eventually learned the language of the Savanois and came to realise that the providers of her enemies were a foreign race from across the seas, a race friendly to the Redskins and combining humanity with generosity. Her mind was immediately made up, and she resolved to flee to this people.
Having made indirect enquiries as to the place where she could meet them, she set off alone, unbeknownst to her masters, towards the large house where these people lived. It was a stone house (thé-yé), the first we had ever seen in the country, which led us to give this people the name Thé-yé-ottiné: People of the Stone House [101].
She knew enough Savanese to be able to express herself in that language, and she knew that there were interpreters of that language among the English at Fort Churchill.
She therefore told these Europeans that she belonged to the great Dènè or Tchippewayanne nation; that her people lived far inland, to the west ; that, having been kidnapped by the Savanois when she was a young girl, she had resolved not to die far from her homeland, and that, to this end, she entrusted herself to the generosity of the English, begging them to provide her with the means of returning to her people, and assuring them that she would easily persuade her compatriots to make contact with such good neighbours, and to capture fur-bearing animals to give them as gifts.
Delighted, for their part, to have such a wonderful opportunity to expand their trade by making contact with a new redskin nation, a nation that the Savanois said was so bellicose and powerful, the Hudson’s Company traders gave the poor slave Dènè a dog sledge, a cauldron, cloth clothes, linen, trinkets, a knife, an axe, a flint and a fire-box. They taught her how to use these riches and sent her back to her compatriots, overjoyed.
But they took care to provide her with a safe-conduct ordering all the Savanois to respect her and her compatriots and to allow them to pass through their territory.
This famous woman was called Sha-nareltthœr: The Jumping Marten.
After many long days, she finally reached the Dènè, who, dazzled and enticed by so much wealth, immediately set off on the long journey from the banks of the Rivière aux Castors (Rivière la Paix), where they were living at the time, to Hudson Bay.
Since then, the Dènè have continued to maintain good relations and have gradually become gentler. But a few years later (in 1778), the Canadians came to settle on the shores of Lake Île à la Crosse; the following year, they moved up to Lake Athabasca, and finally, ten years later (1789), to the great Slave Lake. The Tchippewayans then remained in the vicinity of these large lakes and completely abandoned the Rocky Mountains, which had earned them the nickname Montagnais from the Canadians.
However, a large number of them, seeing that in the barren lands around Hudson Bay they could easily make a living from the immense herds of reindeer that come and go in these parts twice a year, settled in the vicinity of Churchill, where they are called Englishmen (Thé-yé-ottiné) and Caribou Eaters[102].
(Told by Alexis Enna-azé
at Lake Athabasca, in 1879).
First of all, when the first French arrived on this side of the Dividing Lands, I, who am speaking to you, saw them. These things happened before my very eyes, I tell you (in 1789).
Then, one fine day, people heard them say:
– A lot of Banlay (French) have just arrived. There’s a big chief with them, plus a junior chief. Apart from these two, there are a lot of French people.
So, as I was still a teenager, I stayed with my parents. However, as you know, I’m the son of a Frenchman. But my mother is a Dènè woman who only speaks Cris, and my grandmother is a Crise woman. So there are three types of blood in my veins.
So when the French had barely arrived, they headed for my uncle Jacques Beaulieu’s cabin.
– Is there anyone in your house who can hear French?
– Without a doubt! We’re all French here, or the sons of Frenchmen[104].
– Well then, since you’re French, you’ll be our interpreter,” said the great chief of the Whites to my uncle Jacques.
Now there was an Englishman with these people who understood a little Chippewayan, I think, but not very well. His name was James.
– So sus,” continued the great chief of the Whites, “get everyone together.
My uncle summoned all the savages, and a great crowd came from all sides of Slave Lake. There also came many Dog-whites, although until then we had always been at war, because my family had espoused the interests of the Dènè themselves.
– So who is your leader?” asked the Flancs-de-chien.
– This one, L’inya-betρa, the son of the Dog,” replied these savages.
– Well,” continued the White chief, “you who call yourself Son of the Dog, I make you chief over your nation; but you will have to speak up for us with your warriors.
We are very good, peaceful people; we don’t kill people, we like savages. If you provide us with pelts and meat, in return you will earn enough to live comfortably. So recommend to your followers that they work in the fur trade. Tell them this: If you prepare furs, you will get many good and beautiful things that will help you live comfortably.
Admire these clothes, this cauldron, this axe, this knife! We’ll give you similar items for your furs.
– What do you cook your meat in, Son-of-a-Dog?” asked the dog-faced chief.
Fils-du-Chien handed the Frenchman a pot made of braided fir roots.
– Oh, that’s worthless,” said the French chief. This is better. Just look at it. It’s a real pot.
The Son-of-a-Dog took the utensil, looked at it, ran his hand over its shiny metal and exclaimed: “It’s good!
– Well, pour some water in there and put the vase on the fire. The water boils, you see. Now put some meat in there to cook.
Seeing how quickly the water boiled and the meat was cooked in no time, the Indians began to dance for joy.
– And yet it’s still nothing,” said the French chief. If you provide us with a lot of furs and good meat, and if you do not mistreat the French, you will be given a large number of similar cauldrons, as well as many other objects that will make your life pleasant.
Having said this, the big chief gave the Dog’s Son a red suit with skirts and facings, a hat with claps and feathers, a knife, a cauldron, a handkerchief, a drinking cup, an axe, needles and tobacco – all for nothing, purely as a gift.
– Ah! ah! you still don’t know this,” said the bourgeois. It’s called tobacco.
So he gave a pipe and tobacco to all the Indians and taught them how to use these objects, which were new to them.
But as soon as they started smoking :
– How bad it is!” they cried.
They grimaced, they spat and some vomited. But everyone was satisfied, so they sang and danced all night long.
At that time, as I have already told you, I was not yet a man. However, I remember it as if it were yesterday, because I was a young boy of fifteen[105].
My uncle followed the French as a titled interpreter and left us.
What I have just recounted happened at the north-west end of Grand-Lac des Esclaves, on Grosse-Île, in my presence.
(Told by Métis patriarch
François Beaulieu, in 1863).
In the past, when a doctor set out to heal a sick person by the virtue of his Shadow, he prepared himself for this by an absolute fast of three or four days, which he spent without eating or drinking.
First, he had a Chouns or Medicine Lodge prepared. While other people were working there, the doctor sat in his tent without taking any notice of what was going on outside; and yet he knew everything that was being done. He knows where in the forest the poles used to erect the Chouns are being cut, which trees have supplied them, and so on.
The medicine box having been set up far from the camp, and the poles that make it up having been tied at the top with three bindings, the doctor, even though he had not been informed of this, says: “Everything is ready,” and he gets up and goes towards the Chouns, which he shakes three times. Three times he goes round it, repeating magic formulas; then he enters it and lies down, still observing his fast.
After having slept the Shadow Sleep for a sufficiently long time, the magician asks for the sick man who asks for his help to be brought to him.
So the man who, because of his sins, has fallen ill, goes to the Chouns accompanied by another old sinner in good health, and sits down in the lodge where he confesses to the doctor.
The Juggler questions him several times, taunts him and lectures him, trying to get him to confess all his faults.
– Perhaps you’re not telling me everything! he tells him.
Finally, when he is sure that the patient has told him everything, the doctor calls down the Distant Spirit (Yu-hanzin) and sings to the sound of the tambourine. From time to time, he blows on the patient, then commands the evil to leave him.
When the doctor realises that the Yuhanzin Spirit has come upon the patient, he approaches the patient at the same time as the Spirit, and they both pass over the patient (Yettsen-yénirenni), putting him to sleep.
Then the Spirit, who is far from us, enters the body of the sick person who is asleep, pulls out of it the sin that is the cause of the evil that is making him suffer, throws it away, and immediately the illness leaves the sick person.
After this, the Spirit takes hold of the soul of the dying person who has escaped and places it back on earth. This soul, which had gone to the higher earth, is seized by the Spirit and placed back into the body of the dying man, so that it may continue to live there by animating him.
But as he put it back in, he let out a loud cry that woke the patient from his magical sleep, and left him perfectly cured. The illness has completely left him. This is how our ancestors cured the sick.
They often made cuts in the diseased area and, sucking hard, drew out blood, worms, fish bones, stones and other objects that were causing the patient harm.
At other times, by virtue of the doctor’s incantations, a snake would emerge from the patient’s body. But today’s doctors no longer have the same power, and since the priests and ministers arrived among us, we no longer have faith in their power.
This is the end.
(Told by the old man Khaziou,
at the Great Slave Lake, in 1863).
Ttathè dènè ullè. Ekhu dènè unli, sni. Eilaρén dènè sheltsi odilyan illé la, nuni. Ekhu enattiun, sheltsi, hay lésan. Etla how ékkèodélyan illè, dé- kρulu déρithel bétta hay ziré sheltsi. Kρanbi hay yé elya. Inl’aρè-dziné hay χodélyon sheltsi ; kρulu : Etla wasttè How shall I usρay oρa? yénidhen tta, ttsékwii béρan-ullé itta, duyé sin. Ekρa onttè ttu bé kρunhè yé hay shéllaw, tρèdhè anadjaw shétpi la. Kρanpi- dédanè nni-éρayu, ékutta hay-kkèdh tpannidhéttsen epay laku. Etlaρen sé-tchanρè mes hayé elρay sunnu ? dènè-édéléti ; kρulu shun dènè kkaneltpa sin. Inl’aρè tsétρez ttè ékhu kρanpi d, hay tthil’a yazé éρay χonnashéttsen. Etlaρen atti sunni? yénidhen tta, vu que, yé-ola ttsen onelhiun, ti hanttaρ, sni la. Ah! ti atti ikkèla! uni- dhen. Inl’aρè tρèdhè anl’aon dènè shétρiun ékhu’ yelkρan, hay kkatchiné odélyon éρay ékhu tthi ti anl’aon natρettaρ nadli sin. Tta awasnè ékkéodesyan, adéléti dènè. χilttsen anattiun, nibali-layé otanil- tchushu, nétρi nadli tthi. Shani shétρi la, duyé sin. Kρanpi ttsénidhéru ttal’aon, hay sédéthiyé éρay dènègρa shella. Ti tthi “natρusttal'” yénidhen ; kuρlu yéola taniltchush itta, naëttap illé. Ti ttsékwiii édeltsini, ttsékwii nezun, sni la, bé thi-ρa the year. Tathe ti ρilé, ékhu duon ttsékwiii enli sin[106]. Ekhu unldun elρanshekρé lakhu. Ekhu eyer ottsen daél’étρilyan inttu, dènè the anadja ; ekhu, éyéné dènè, nuni ρadé aïtti lakhu. Ekhu nuni we dènè idli lakhu. Eyi bélanρè.
First of all of man point. Then suddenly man there was, they say. Who then the man did we know it not, we. So winter coming, something he did, rackets he did perhaps. – how will I do? he did not know not, but however of the birch he cut by which the rackets their frame he made. The next day the bars the snowshoes in he placed. The following day having arrived, the snowshoes all were made ; but : – How shall I for the natter? he thought given that, a woman not having not, it was painful. That being however his house in the snowshoes lying, the night arriving he went to bed. The next day early in the morning to get up, it’s over one of the rackets half is laced certainly. Who then during my sleep is snowshoes lace I think ? says the man ; but impossibly he sees someone. once he sleeps again and then tomorrow being, the snowshoes still a little are laced more. Who therefore has done this I think? he thought vu que, the top of his tent towards looking, a partridge flew away, they say. Ah! this partridge did this for sure! on think. Another night again he slept and at dawn, snowshoes almost all are laced, and still the partridge again flew away from new. What I will do I know it, he said to himself. In the evening came, the tent its peak he obtained with a skin, he lay down again et. Alone he slept, it was painful. The next day waking up as soon as, the snowshoes entirely laced at his side lie. The partridge and “I am going to fly away”, she thought; but the ridge was closed since, she did not leave. The partridge woman was made, a woman beautiful, they say, her hair abundant. First partridge she was, then now woman she is become. So then they got married certainly. And since at they multiplied vu que, many of men there were. Or, these men, are ourselves who are certainly ; because we men are certainly. This is the end.
Bé-tsunè-Yénélchian (the child brought up by his grandmother).
Béttsinuli (the creator).
Etsié (the grandfather).
Eltchélékwiè (the two brothers).
Dènè (the man).
Dènè-chesh-yaρé (the inhabited mountain).
Dlunè-tta-naltay (Sein-full of mice).
Delkρaylé-tta-naltay (Sein-full-of-belettes).
Djizé (the jay).
Edzil’ (Death).
Eρoathen (the grasshopper).
Ennèdhékwi (the old man).
Nu-hanzin (the distant spirit).
Nâhdudhi (the serpent).
Nni-odha (the earthly mouth).
Otchòρè (the giant).
Olbalé or Orelpalé (the immense white).
Oltsintρesh (the operating rod).
Rankρanli (the creative duck).
Sha-nareltther (the leaping marten).
Tchizé (the lynx).
Thè-naïnltther (the rock that shakes).
Thi-eltchiudhi (the owl).
Tρulkudhi (the hydra).
Ttatsan (the raven).
Ttsèkwii-nâhdudhi (the serpent woman).
Yakkè-eltρini (He who grazes the sky with his head).
Ya-tρedh-nanttay (He who flew across the sky).
Yédariyé (The Mighty One).
Yu-hanzin (the Distant Spirit).
The Cree or Ayis-Iyiniwok (sing. Ayis-Iyiniw), “ancient men”, owe their French name to the epithet Kristowa, by which their neighbours, the Blackfoot, refer to them. The English write this name Crees. They should not be confused with the Criks of Florida, who are the Têtes-Plates.
The Cree are a fraction of the vast confederation that Schoolcraft has, for some reason, called Algique, but whose real name is Hillini, Hilléni, Hèlléni, Hléni, Hlèna, Hléna-bè, Hlèni-Hléna-bè, all names meaning Men.
The Cree were known successively as Cristinaux, Kristinaux and Killistinos.
They are divided into Woodland Cree and Meadow Cree. From time immemorial, they have been friends of the whites, whether English or French, and they have a large number of half-bloods in their ranks.
Braver and more warlike than the Dènè, their northern neighbours, they are also more hospitable and generous. However, they have already dipped their hands in the blood of Europeans, notably in 1884, during the last troubles that took place in the Saskatchewan.
The Woodland Cree inhabit the wooded region between Beaver Lake and Lake Athabasca, in the Peace River district; they hunt as far as the foot of the Rocky Mountains.
The Prairie Cree hunt between the Athabasca River and the large Biche River, a tributary of the South Saskatchewan.
Up to now, they have been great horse thieves and caravan raiders, but since the treaties signed with them by the Domaine Canadien, they have tried their hand at farming, with varying degrees of success.
The crisis language is soft, sonorous, musical and very chanted. It is the Italian of the Northwest.
The Cree are devoted to the practices of fetishism or otheism, of which the Maskikiy-Iyiniwok, or magicians, are the priests. They also call themselves Godmakers (Manito-Kasu). Every year they celebrate a great festival called Mitèwi or Work. It consists of the conferring of virtues on their powakans or medicines, the initiation of followers and a final meal, which is made with dog meat. They also have a Sun Festival and dances adapted to a multitude of circumstances. They worship the Little Man of the Moon, whom they call Umitchimo awasis or the Dung Child.
Their traditions are similar to those of the Dènè. They believe in metempsychosis and the migration of souls, and attribute a reasonable spirit to all beings in creation.
I don’t know if they are circumcised.
(Legend of the national moon-god of the Cree or Ayis-Iyiniwok).
When the Iyiniwok (men) or Ayis Iyiniwok (ancient men) still lived on the island, an old woman, who was chopping wood, heard a little child crying; but she could not find him. But when she went back to chopping wood, she heard the child crying again and set out to find him. In the end, she found him in the middle of a pile of buffalo dung. She took him in and brought him up.
It is to this particularity that this child owes the name Umitchimo awasis (the Dung Child, or the Dung Child), given to him by the Cree.
As soon as Bouse began to speak, he said to his adoptive parents:
– You will give me all the marrow bones (the tibias of the front legs) of the reindeer[107] you kill. For this price, I will be your protector and I will provide you with everything.
The Cree agreed, and for a long time they paid the Child this tribute. But in the end, some of them said to themselves:
– This child is not fit for anything. It is useless for us to give him what he asks of us.
As soon as Bouse knew their decision, he said to the old grandmother who had adopted him:
– Mother, let’s leave right away. I assure you that my uncles (this is how he referred to his adopted parents) will be starving, and that they will learn to value me.
Grandmother was dreading the trip.
– What are you afraid of, Grandma?” said the Plough Child.
Seeing how confident he was, the old woman put her faith in him and set off with him.
They went down to a large lake, where the child asked her to camp and fish with a hook. She obeyed him, and caught a huge salmon trout[108] and a man-fish (pike) in the lake.
– Come on, Grandma, build a fire and let’s camp! said Bouse.
She obeyed again. But during the night, the magic child disappeared, to the great despair of the old woman, who was saddened by his absence.
After much weeping, she finally fell asleep. While she was sleeping, Bouse returned with his mitts full of reindeer tongues.
– Grandma”, he said, showing her the head of a reindeer fawn that he had also brought with him, “here’s a little caribou that’s been making fun of me a lot. You’re going to make me roast its head, aren’t you?
So he used his magic to kill a lot of reindeer, and lived very comfortably with the old woman.
When Bouse grew up, he said to the old woman:
– I’m going to visit my uncles, Mother, to find out how they live without me.
He disappeared again during the night, and immediately found himself at the home of his former adoptive parents.
– My uncles, what! are you still alive[109]? he said to them when he saw them again after such a long absence.
All the Cree came running to see him. They celebrated and honoured him. They served him a feast and received him so well that he stayed with them.
He even married two female sisters, after going to fetch his old grandmother.
However, Bouse never went near his two wives; he left them virgins and treated them as if they were his sisters. They resented this, despised him and ended up abandoning him one after the other, to give themselves another, less continental husband[110].
Outraged by this infidelity, and wounded to the depths of his soul at the betrayal of his beloved wives, Bouse told his grandmother: “I’m going to tell you something. Bouse said to his grandmother in a bad mood:
– Get out of here, Grandma. You get out of here too. As for me, I’m leaving you, and you won’t see me again until I’m in the moonlight.
He said this and disappeared, leaving the poor old woman in tears.
He was never seen again on this earth. But he shows up in the moon, where you can see him like we do.
And that is the end of the story of the Dung Child of the Cree.
(Told by Nahapémew-Okosisa,
at Lac des Hameçons, in 1881).
A man had two wives, but no children. Only one of his two wives had a son from a first marriage, and the other woman didn’t like this child, whom she was jealous of. But the child was unaware of his aunt’s hatred.
One autumn day, he went into the woods with her to gather wild fruit. They gathered a lot together all day, and returned to their mikiwap (lodge) in the evening.
But the old woman, unbeknownst to the young man, had snared a pheasant and, before it died and while it was struggling, she placed the bird under her dress so that it could tear and bloody her thighs.
When she returned to her husband, the wicked woman lied against the young man, her nephew, telling her husband:
– The son of my rival wanted to do this and that to me. But I did not consent. Luckily he didn’t touch me, but he did blood me all over my lower body when he attacked me shamelessly. See for yourself what he did to me.
Then the man became very angry with the other woman’s son, and the next day, overcome with jealousy, he said to him:
– We will go to the island in a canoe, my son.
And they went to the island[112].
They landed on the island, but the old man did not want to go ashore. He only said to his son-in-law:
– You go and collect all the waterfowl eggs you find there.
So the unsuspecting young man picked up the eggs and carried them to the dugout.
When he had finished, the old man said to him again:
– Now you’re going to go all the way to the tip of the island, because that’s the only place where you can find blue eggs, and there are lots of them. Go on; as for me, I’ll wait for you here.
So the little man set off in good faith to collect the blue eggs at the far end of the island.
For a moment he turned round to see where his father was, so as not to make a mistake; but the old devil was no longer on the shore, he had already hurried out to sea. He was sailing all the way over there on the water.
So the little man called out to the man who was like his father. He shouted after him; but the other did not even deign to turn his head. Finally, he and his canoe disappeared over the horizon.
Now, the boy that the wicked man had just abandoned is called Ayatç (the Stranger). This is where his story begins. From now on, the story is all about him.
So Ayatç stayed on the island and fed on waterfowl eggs, which he ate raw. This was all he lived on.
After living on the island for a long time, one day he had a dream. He dreamt that a gigantic seagull (Kiyassa) was saying this to him:
– Ayatç, kill me. When you have killed me, skin me and put on my skin. But be careful not to break the bones in my wings. If you do so, and get into my skin, you will try to fly. If you manage to fly, you’ll be able to cross the sea. This is the only chance you have of getting off this island.
She said, the seagull, and Ayatç woke up. Then things happened just as he had dreamed. He saw a gigantic mallow, killed it, skinned it, put on its skin and tried to fly. He managed a little and thought he could cross the Great Water. So he flew out of the island and across the ocean; but his strength failed him, his bird weakened, and he fell into the sea, where he perished on a rock [113].
As Ayatç lay sleeping on the barren reef, a sea monster (Piciskiw) appeared to him in a dream. Emerging from the depths of the sea, it seemed that the Piciskiw was saying to him:
– Pick up a lot of small stones from the rock, get on my back and stand between my horns (for it was a horned fish), and I’ll take you away from here. However, you should know that I never sail when the weather is stormy or just overcast. Then I stay on the shore or stay still; but when the weather is fine, I wander and travel on the water. So if you see that, despite the fine weather, I’m slowing down, warn me by throwing a few of your pebbles after my horns, and I’ll immediately make more speed.
So spoke the huge fish, and having said this, he left, skimming the surface of the water.
Ayatç awoke once more, and saw that everything had happened to him just as he had dreamt. He saw the gigantic horned fish, which spoke to him as it had spoken to him in his dream; he stocked up on pebbles, placed himself between the horns of his Grandfather, who said to him as he left, like the fish in the dream:
– Hit my horns if you see me slowing down, and warn me.
And so Ayatç sailed on the back of the Piciskiw, whose horns he struck when he wanted to make it move faster. This is how he managed to cross the sea from the west and land in this land.
Before leaving him, his Grandfather the big horned fish[114] said to Ayatç:
– My son, you have reached this land which is your homeland. But before you reach your parents, you will have to pass through the mouth of the earth[115]. That mouth is always open and swallows up the inhabitants. So this is what you will do. Take these things and as soon as you are in the presence of the mouth of the earth, throw them into it as a tribute; it will swallow them, close up, and you will pass through it without danger.
Now this also happened to Ayatç.
As soon as he had disembarked on this land and taken leave of his charitable grandfather, he began to walk towards the East, when suddenly, to his great horror, the earth opened up and devoured him. There, beneath his feet, was his horrible gaping maw. A terrible death threatened Ayatç, when he remembered the words of the hornfish.
He threw the things his grandfather had given him into the abyss, and immediately the earth closed its mouth and let him pass.
After travelling a long way, he finally reached his homeland and saw his mother’s lodge again. Then he became a little bird and fluttered away to his mother. But she, believing her son to be dead, did not recognise him. As for him, he realised that his old mother did not recognise him, and simply said to her in his song:
– Woman, your son Ayatç has arrived: “Kikusis Ayatç takussin!”[116].
Then the old woman said, hearing the little bird:
– Ayatç, my son, died a long time ago. Why deceive me, bird, by announcing his return?
Suddenly he becomes a man again and, embracing his old mother, cries out:
– In truth, my mother, it is I who am your son Ayatç!
Then he entered the mikiwap.
– Come in, my son, come in quickly,” cried the homicidal godfather as soon as he saw the man he had sacrificed in a fit of jealousy; “come in, there’s plenty of room here. I’m going to prepare a feast for you. I’m going to serve you myself, my son. Ah, you’ve been dead for a long time. But now you are living again, my son!
But he said:
– Truly, you see this arrow, old man, if I shoot it into the air, the place where it falls will immediately catch fire, I tell you.
– Wiyohow! my son, I have never seen a man do such a marvellous thing,” replied the old murderer.
– Well, since you doubt it, I’m going to convince you; you’re going to see it with your own eyes.
He immediately fired his arrow vertically. It fell back, and the spot where it had sunk caught fire, and the fire spread everywhere. So much so that the whole world burned.
– Ah, my son, my son, how will I escape the fire that devours everything?
– Well, take this lard and rub it all over your body. This way, the fire won’t reach you,” replied Ayatç.
The old man did so, and immediately the fire took hold of him and consumed him even faster. He perished like all his fellows, and everything was burnt.
– My mother, which of these men took pity on you and helped you?” said Ayatç to the old woman. Tell me, how many are there?
So she listed those who had loved her, who had taken pity on her. And they were not burnt. As for the other men, they all perished.
Ayatç, however, continued to live with her mother for a long time. And that is the end of her very real story, because we are Ayatç’s descendants.
(Told in 1881, at Lac des Hameçons, by the same person,
by the same man).
(Tradition of the Crees of the Peace River)
A certain old man lost his daughter in the forest; in other words, the daughter wandered off on her own in the old man’s absence.
As she was wandering alone in the woods, she met a grizzly bear who came up to her and said:
– If you agree to stay with me, little girl, I will give you your life, but only on this condition.
The girl was very frightened, but as there was no choice between death and marriage with the horrible beast, she consented to the union the beast was proposing and gave her consent.
So the woman stayed with the bear, who gave her two children, two little bears just like their father.
When the cubs had grown to adulthood, the big bear said to his wife:
– Your father is hungry. I’m going to give him something to eat. If you stay with him, my children must not play with the other children.
So the bear said, and when he had finished, he went down to the bank of the River Peace and stayed there, looking for fruit along the stream.
Meanwhile, the bear’s father-in-law, i.e. the father of the lost woman, came to hunt along the River Peace. He saw the bear eating heather berries, attacked it and killed it.
The old man then took his daughter back, but he couldn’t stay with her for long, because the little bears had grown bigger and bigger and were killing all the children.
That’s why the Cree wanted to kill these two nasty beasts, but they couldn’t get rid of them, and it was they who destroyed the whole tribe, with the exception of their mother.
The poor woman didn’t know what to do.
So she gathered together the bones of all her dead compatriots, lit a great pyre, placed their ashes on it and said to them:
– Get up, for you are being burnt.
She transformed her two cubs into men, and from then on they all lived in harmony.
Since then, the Cree say that grizzly bears are very wicked.
(Told by the same author in 1881).
(A Cree tale from Waterhen Lake.)
Once upon a time, in one of the great flying villages of the Ayis-Iyiniwok, a small child would go missing every night. No matter how small they were, one by one they would stealthily disappear. This was worrying.
On the other hand, another little child was putting his mother to the test, crying and screaming incessantly. Pushed to the limit, one fine day she grabbed her little one and shook him so hard that he left his shirt and, like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, flew into the air in the form of a great white owl.
However, that night again, a small child disappeared from the camp, in the same way as before and without anyone knowing who had taken him.
But the child’s mother, who had been watching for the little sorcerer’s return, had seen him enter her neighbour’s lodge, seize the child in his talons and climb to the top of a tree, where he tore him to pieces and devoured him, as he would have done a mouse.
The same thing happened the following night; and after each escapade, the child owl returned to take his place, in his swimming costume and on his board, with the most innocent air in the world. A child by day, he became an owl by night.
So the child’s mother hurried to warn the Cree.
– It’s my son,” she told them, “the son of a white man, who is responsible for the disappearance of our children. He’s a vampire. He eats them every night in the form of a great white owl.
So the Cree held a council to decide what should be done with the youngster. Some said: “We must kill him”. But others added: “It’s better to leave him alone, because he’s a Manito. The more humane thought it would be better to swap him for a child from some enemy tribe.
Eventually, however, it was concluded that the child vampire was dead.
But then he, frozen with fear, began to speak for the first time. He begged for his life, promising the Cree that if they gave it to him, they would witness a great marvel that would benefit them.
– So what should we do with you?” asked the warriors.
– Well,” replied the child, “build me a little sarcophagus out of tree trunks and put me in it. Then come back to the same place, in three years’ time, to look for me.
This seemed wise to the Cree, who carried out the order to the letter. They built the child a little hiding place, put some provisions in it, locked him up alive and left.
Three years later, the Cree remembered the Inhuman child and said to themselves: “Let’s visit his tomb”.
But instead of a small chest mounted on four posts, they found a large wooden house surrounded by a host of smaller ones. All these houses were inhabited by a white population, whose language they did not understand.
It was a trading post.
But among these pale-faced strangers, they soon recognised the Owl Boy, and asked him about this people who were so new to them.
To which the sorcerer replied that they were the crowd of Cree children he had once abducted and devoured while living among the Ayis-iyiniwok.
But he, having become a great white chief, gave the Cree weapons, clothing and utensils. And from then on, the two peoples lived in great harmony.
(Told by Wiyasuwémaw :
Cree of Lac Poule-d’Eau, 1880).
Once the Cree lived alone on the side of Big Water where the sun sets, and the Whites lived alone on the side of Big Water where the sun rises. Neither knew the other; neither had ever seen the other; neither had ever spoken or heard of such neighbours.
One night, the Cree dreamt that a large pirogue was coming towards them, on the Grande Eau, on the side where the sun rises. They believed their dream, got up and set off towards the east.
That same night, the Whites thought that there must be a people on the other side of the Great Water where the sun sets who needed them. They believed this inspiration, got into their big pirogue and headed west.
In the past, Kitchi Manito (the Good Spirit) had given the Cree a book that was supposed to tell them everything they had to do to be happy on this earth and in the land above. But this book had never spoken to them. No matter how many times they turned it over, it was a dead letter to them. Nevertheless, the Cree kept it preciously, because it had come to them from the Great Spirit, and they carried it with them when they headed east.
God had given the white men nothing to guide them other than an intelligence superior to that of the red men; and this was all they brought with them when they went west.
The meeting took place to the east of the Great Land and on the banks of the Great Water. Just as the Cree arrived there driven by their dreams, the Whites arrived there driven by their reason. But the Whites were pale, dishevelled, ragged and dying of hunger. The Cree, on the other hand, were strong, vigorous, rich in provisions and precious furs.
Like human beings, the Cree took pity on the Whites. They gave them food and clothing. Then they said to them:
– Here is a Massinaïgan (writing, book) that we have from the Great Spirit. He gave it to us from the beginning so that we could lead ourselves and be happy on this earth as well as in the higher land. But the Great Spirit, in giving us the book, did not give us the intelligence to decipher or understand it. It is good for nothing. So take it, and may it be of use to you!
The Whites received the Book of the Good Spirit from the Cree with respect, and left with it and some travel provisions that the Cree gave them for nothing.
Many years later, the Crees said to each other:
– Let’s go to the East again. Who knows if we won’t see those white men we rescued again! Who knows if, by chance, they might have managed to understand our book of the good Manito!
Having gone to the shores of the eastern sea, the Cree did indeed find their white friends. But the Whites had settled there. They lived in many fine houses. They were rich in every way; they were overflowing with clothes, furniture and provisions. And all these things had come to them through an understanding of the Scriptures they had received from the Killistinos[117].
The Cree were sorry to part with this treasure. Nevertheless, considering that the good Manito, in giving them the book, had not given them a mind to understand it or to use it, they consoled themselves for its loss in the hope that the Whites would share with them the riches they owed to the Cree.
In fact, exchanges took place between the two peoples, and the Cree returned satisfied, having given the Whites smoked and dried meat and furs.
Many years passed before the Cree again returned to the East Sea, and when they did, alas, they no longer found their white friends. They were all dead, except for one man, who lived in absolute destitution and misery.
The Cree took pity on this unfortunate white man. They took him in, looked after him, gave him skin clothing, served him food and from then on considered him as one of their own.
But this white man ate ten times as much as a Cree. He was insatiable, and soon became a burden to the Cree because of his gluttony. So one day they said to him:
– Brother-in-law, you have weapons, so try to support yourself while staying with us.
The white man took their advice. He set off to hunt, tired himself out enormously, killed nothing, was long in the tooth and came back hungry as a wolf.
The Cree took pity on him and fed him. One day, however, the white man met a Cree who was hunting alone and whom he didn’t know,
– Brother-in-law,” said this strange hunter, “let’s make an alliance. We’ll live together off the produce of our hunt and share it as brothers.
– Oh no,” said the white man. I’d rather eat the produce of my hunt alone. Let each of us have his own piece.
– The Good Spirit did not institute selfishness. He wants everything to be common to all. So let us live and share as brothers.
The white man defended himself for a long time against this proposal. However, thinking that he was a bad hunter and that he would have more to lose than to gain by remaining alone, he finally agreed. But he did not know that the stranger he had just met was Kitchi-Manito himself.
– Brother,” said the hunter, “you light a fire here while I go hunting for the two of us.
He took his weapons and set off for the Grande-Prairie, where he killed a whooping crane.
Back at the bivouac fire, the Cree said to the White:
– My brother, here, prepare this bird that I have just killed. While you cook it, I’ll go hunting again.
The white man was quite happy to have only the easiest part of the job. He let his companion go and did the cooking. When the Manito returned from hunting, he found that the White had already eaten the crane’s liver.
– What have you done with this bird’s liver?” he said to the white man.
– Cranes don’t have livers,” replied the white man.
– Don’t lie to me,” said Manito. What have you done with it? because I know that cranes have livers like other animals.
– That’s where you’re wrong,” replied the white man confidently. As long as the world has existed, cranes have never had a liver.
– Well, you should know, friend,” replied the hunter, “that it was I who did everything; for I am the Great Spirit. I made the cranes like other birds, and I know very well that I gave them a liver.
The white man persisted in his lie.
– He is lying, he thought, when he claims to be the Great Spirit.
That’s why he added:
– You may be what you say you are, but it’s no less true that you forgot to give the cranes a liver.
Then Kitchi-Manito, to tempt his companion and prove his omnipotence, put his hand in his breast and, taking it out full of soniaw (money), said to the white man:
– Alas! I thought I had given a liver to the cranes as to the other birds, and I learn with sorrow that I was mistaken. Oh, how gladly I would give this handful of soniaw to anyone who could teach me that this is not so, and that cranes really do have livers!
Tempted by his greed, the white man immediately cried out:
– Give, give me this money quickly, for it is true that cranes have livers, and it was I who ate the liver of the crane you have just killed[118]!
That’s the end of it.
(Told by Wiyasuwémaw,
at Cold Lake, in 1880).
In the beginning there was Wissakétchak, the old magician, who worked wonders with his power.
But a monstrous fish had taken a dislike to Wisaketchak, and as soon as he appeared on the sea in his dugout, the sea monster swooped down on him and tried to destroy him.
He did more, and by dint of his wagging, leaping and striking the sea with his tail, he produced such terrible waves that the water rose over the land and caused a general flood.
But Wissaketchak built a great raft on which he gathered a couple of all the animals and birds, and by this means he preserved his life and that of the inhabitants of the land.
However, as the fish continued to move, the water covered not only the land, but even the highest mountains, so that there was no more land.
So Wissaketchak sent the diving duck called Pitwan down to the bottom of the water to lift up the earth. But the earth was so deeply buried that Pitwan couldn’t reach it and drowned.
So Wissakétchak sent Muskwach, the muskrat, who, after staying underwater for a long time, finally reappeared with his mouth full of mud.
Wissakétchak took this earth, shaped it into a small disc, kneaded it, firmed it up and placed the disc on the water, where it floated. It looked like the little round nests that muskrats build on frozen waters. The disc swelled and took the shape of a small mound of mud.
Wissaketchak blew on it, and as he blew, the mound swelled and grew visibly. After that, the sun having hardened it, the earth formed a solid whole, on which the magician placed the animals as and when there was room for them. Finally, he disembarked himself and took possession of it. This is the land we now inhabit.
(Narrated by Xotsebes, Sambos Cris-Dènè,
from the Lac Froid, in 1880).
“A gigantic fish tried to destroy Wésakétchan, with whom it had quarrelled, by causing, by its leaps and jolts, a flood which covered the whole earth and even the highest mountains.
“But Wesaketchan built a large raft on which he put his whole family, as well as a couple of all the birds and animals. This is how he preserved his life.
“However, Wésakétchan repeatedly sent the spoon duck (Pitwan) to clear the submerged land. But it was so far away, so deep under the water, that the Pitwanes died on this excursion. Wésakétchan sent the Ondatra or Muskrat, which returned to the surface half-dead, but with its mouth full of mud.
“The shaman took this silt, kneaded it, firmed it up and, having made a disc of it the consistency of a small wafer, placed it on the water in the way that muskrats build their nests; then he blew on it to make it swell. First a small mound of earth appeared on the water. Wésakétchan blew again, and it grew little by little. The more he blew, the more the earth grew, until the sun hardened it and it formed a solid mass on which Wesaketchan placed the animals from his raft, and finally disembarked himself. ”
(According to Francis Houle,
sang-mêlé franco-cris-castors, 1869).
“In the vicinity of the great Lake Winnipeg there was an old witch named Wisakutchask, full of mischief, hunchbacked and counterfeit. The Métis-French call her la vieille Gibotte.
“This old woman had a very strong medicine that she used for evil purposes.
“But one day a shaman managed to seize Wisakutchask, despite her cunning and her power, and, to punish her for her wickedness, he covered her with so much mud and rubbish that the old woman had to use all the waters of the great lake to wash herself off.
“Since that time, the waters of Lake Winnipeg (dirty water) have remained as they are today.
(According to Baptiste Boucher,
Franco-Tchippeway Métis, 1862).
(Biennial Cree Medicine Festival)
As the spring and autumn equinoxes approach, the Sokaskew, the oldest and most medically skilled of the Jongleurs, summons all the Cree in the neighbourhood to the Mitéwi ceremony by sending them, through his deputies, small gifts of tobacco.
If a Cree accepts the tobacco, he is bound by this act, which is tantamount to a promise to go to the Mitéwi. But anyone can refuse tobacco. However, very few people refuse it, for fear of the magicians whose wrath they fear:
– He could turn us into a bear or a horse, they think. Far from us and at a distance, they can give us death or send us any disease.
This is why few Crees brave them by refusing.
When all the Cree are summoned to a site designated by the delegates, an oblong, conical hut or lodge is built, with an opening at each end. This is the tent of the Mitéwi.
The Cree, naked, painted and decked out as if for war, enter the Mitéwi lodge and stand in two lines along the walls, which are raised on poles at support height. The middle of the box is left empty for the jugglers.
Then enter all the doctors or magicians, Maskikiy-Iyiniwok (man-magicians), preceded by the high priest or Sokashew. They carry in their hands the skin or some part of the animal that is their otem (fetish, nagwal or manito), because it has revealed itself to them in a dream and declared itself their protector and good genie.
These skins belong to all kinds of animals: snakes, badgers, wolves, mink, coyotes, bison, foxes, lynxes, mice, etc. Each skin is enriched with gold and silver. Each skin is embellished with Indian-style ornaments and placed on the ground in front of its lucky owner.
Once this is done, all the roots and medicinal herbs that have been dug up or gathered by the doctors during the summer are brought to the council lodge. They are arranged in a single line, so that each Juggler can infuse them with the curative or maleficent virtues possessed by his otem.
Strictly speaking, this is where the Mitéwi or Root Judgement begins. This judgement consists of: 1o the collation of the medicinal virtues, and 2o their attribution to this or that root, as the Jugglers see fit.
For the first instance, each magician, holding in his hand his otem or manito whose genie haunts him, goes round the roots singing and pointing the animal’s head at them, accompanied by contortions and grimaces.
Each of them having gone round the roots three times, it is up to the high priest to declare that such and such a root has received such and such a curative virtue, and such and such another root such and such another virtue. Some are declared to be good for cramps, others for migraines; one is for the feet only, and another for the head or any other part of the body. One root should be used alone, and another in the company of one or two others. The time, manner and method of use are also determined by the physicians, by virtue of the power communicated to them by their otem or animal-god.
Once the Judgement of the Medicines has been completed, the Initiation of the adepts takes place. Not every Cree, even those not yet baptised, is admitted to the mysteries of the Mitéwi. This initiation is given for a fee, and includes the obligation of fidelity to the laws of magic.
Once the novices have been introduced into the lodge, they are examined by all the Jugglers, accompanied by singing, grimaces, insufflations and passes using powerful otems. Each doctor points the head of his genie at them and cries out “Wi! wi!”. Suddenly, with one accord, they all point them together at the same novice, whom they have designated in advance, crying out “Wew! In doing so, they are supposed to point the invisible arrows of the powerful Manitous at the initiate’s chest.
Immediately the initiate falls to the ground without moving, and they exclaim: “He’s dead! Sometimes the novice does not realise that he has been designated by the unanimous consent of the magicians. Then his companions warn him, saying: “You’ve been fingered! And immediately he drops as if dead[119].
The initiate is dead. He had to be resuscitated. This is the great miracle of magic, the science of initiation. The Juggler approaches the candidate, touches him and makes magnetic passes with his hand and with his otem and the sacred roots. Then comes the singing. Begun in a trembling, emotional and insecure voice, they end in howls. Breaths are taken into the heart of the dead to bring life back to them.
Little by little, life appears and reappears in the body of the initiate. The invocations are redoubled, and the doctors stick their mouths on the patient’s body, cupping it and extracting blood, worms, pebbles, nails and other ingredients.
In short, life has returned. The dead man yawns, stretches, and opens his eyes, which he wanders haggardly over the crowd, as if astonished and stunned to have come back to life.
Suddenly he cries out:
– Why have you called me back to this world? Why have you torn me away from the sweetness of the land of spirits and the celestial hunts?
– What did you see, our brother? What did you see?” cried everyone around him.
Everyone rushed to hear his vision.
– Ah, my brothers,” said one of the initiates in my presence, “how can this mortal mouth tell you what I have seen? I saw, yes, I saw the Great Spirit himself. I entered his tent, a superb house, full of servants and overflowing with excellent things. As soon as he saw me, he said:
– Go away,” he shouted. I don’t want you here, you ragged beggar”.
– No,” I replied, “I’m not going.
– Go away, I tell you,” added the great Manito; “go back to the land you left before your time and without my command.
– No,” I replied again. It’s good to stay here, and I’m staying here.
– Ah, you don’t want to go,” he shouted, “well, you’ll see…”.
– As he said this, he unleashed his dogs after me, his terrible dogs. My friends, what dogs! Animals as big as fir trees, armed with long, sharp teeth like the big knives of the Southern Yankees. So when I saw Kitchi-Manito’s powerful dogs, I began to flee, and that’s how I came back to life.
The initiate says this, and immediately joins the ranks of the elders, who congratulate him and crowd around him.
After the Judgement of the Roots and the Initiation, the Sacrifice takes place.
White dogs are prepared, bled, skinned and butchered. Their blood is stained on the four poles that support the Mitéwi’s great lodge, and the rest is spread on the ground around the tent.
The white dog or dogs are then roasted and cut into quarters, but not a single bone is broken, which is taken very seriously. The whole assembly feasts on it in honour of the Great Spirit.
This is followed by dancing, singing and an orgy until the morning of the next day.
This ceremony is repeated twice, as I said, at the spring and autumn equinoxes.
(Told by the Métis Franco-Cris Forgeron,
in Belle-Prairie (Lower Saskatchewan), in 1875).
(Origin of the Cree)
Kayas, hesa, kisiyiniw kiwanihiw. éka-ihapit, mékwats maskwa Yaki, itwew maskwa : kiwiwitciwin, kika-pimatisin, kispin namawiya kiwiwitciwin, kika-nipahitin, hitwew maskwa. Ekwa iskwew ésikisit ; “Hen! hen!” itwew. Ewéko-otci éoko maskwa Piyisk kihotawasimisiw maskusisak. Piyisk misikitiyiwa misi maskwa itwew yakki, maskwa. Ekwa iskwew kiwitciwiw. Piyisk niso kihotawasimisiw maskusisak. Piyisk misikitiyiwa kètatawè, misi maskwa itwew yaki : kotawi mistahè notépatéw. Nika samaw, kispin kawikiwitciwak ékawiya-wigats n’tasimisak kitamitawiwak awasisak asitci, kihitwew misi maskwa. Maka sipik ékuta kahayatcik. Ekusi itwet, kiponi pekiskwet, kètatawè nasi piw. Matcika tapwè osisa mékwats penatahak ékusi osisa kinipahik. Ekuta ékwéyak otanisa miskawiw ; maka namawiya kinowès atawiya kiwitciwiw. Mayaw maskusisak atimésikitiyit cémak, kakiyaw awasisak kimitcihiw. Ewéko-otci cémak kakiyaw nihiyawak winipahi- wak. Maka namawiya kakiyiwak. Piyisk kakiyaw nipahiwak, osam çacey maskusisak mitcikitiwak. Okawiya piko pimatisiw. Ewéko-otci kakiyaw Ayis-iyiniwok kakinipitcik, oskanak mamawi – hastaw. Ekwa mitcet maskusiya mamawi-hihastat, pasisam.
Ekwa, waniskak! kikisisônawaw! éhitwet. Cémak kakiyaw waniskapàtawak. Okosisak mina kawi-Ayis-iyiniwiwak. Ekuta eskwéyats. Ewéko-otci kistàtiwan kamatçayiwitcik, itwéwak mana nihiyawak.
In the past they say, a old man his daughter lost. The old man being absent, suddenly while she was all alone a bear found her. so, thus he spoke to her so the bear: If you want stay with me, then only you will live, that if not you want stay with me, you will die, he said to her so, the bear. this woman greatly was frightened ; however: “Yes!” she said. Since this woman long the bear she stayed with. Finally two she had children cubs. Finally they grew up as soon as, the big bear thus therefore (to the woman) : Your father greatly is hungry. I will give him something to eat, if you live with your father, not once my children will play the children with, told him the big bear. But on the river there he stayed. So he said, when he had spoken, immediately he went away towards the water. There really her father-in-law while up the river thus his father-in-law killed him. There then his daughter he found ; but not long however he stayed with her. Shortly afterwards the cubs having grown right away, all the children they killed. That is why just now all adult men wanted to kill the (cubs). But not they came to an end. Finally everyone they killed, too already the bears have become big. Their mother alone survived. This is why all the Cree being dead, their bones together she placed. So many of hay she heaped up, (and) she set fire to it. let’s go, get up! you are burnt! she told them. Immediately all stood up. His two sons also she turned them into Cree. There is the end. Since the grey bears are mean, say always men made.
Ayalç (the Stranger).
Kitci-Manito (the Good Spirit).
Maskwa (the bear).
Matci-Manito (the Evil Spirit).
Misi-Kiyasa (the giant seagull).
Umitcimo-Awasis (the Dung Child).
Piciskiw (the sea monster).
Pitwan (the spoon duck).
Wissakétchak (the old magician).
The Blackfoot or Ninnax (men) form a small nation of seven thousand souls, who once extended their hunting grounds to the banks of the Castor River, but who, since driven back by their neighbours, the Cree, and by the encroachments of civilization, have been confined to the southern part of the district of Alberta, on the banks of the rivers of the Arches, Bonhomme, Badger and other small tributaries of the Upper Missouri and South Saskatchewan.
The Ninnax nation is divided into three sister fractions, who claim to be descended from the three sons of the same father, once their hero and lawgiver, who later became their solar god.
This man was called Napi or Napé, the Perfect or the Old Man. He now lives in the sun or Natôs.
From Napi came: Kaïna, the Man of Blood, who was the father of the Kaïnax or Blood People; Piéganiw, the Plunderer, ancestor of the Piéganix or Piéganes, and finally, Sixikaké, the Man with Black Feet, the Magician, father of the Sixikakex or Blackfoot proper.
These three fractions are joined by the Sarcix or Bad World, also called Prairie Beavers, who are a small nucleus of 400 Dènè separated from their brothers of the River Peace by misunderstandings; and the Arrapahos, Minnetaries, Atsina or Absorokè, also called Big Stomachs. But these have emigrated to the United States, on the banks of the North Plata.
The Pied-Noir type is white, but it is closer to the Hindu of Dravidian or Kuchite race, of which these savages have the Sabaeite cult, and the barbaric custom of mutilations and penances in honour of the solar god, following the example of the worshippers of Mariatala and Supramania.
Like the Tibetans and Buddhist Hindus, they expose their dead to the teeth of wild beasts.
Female adultery is punished by the loss of the nose, as did the Chippewayans and the ancient Egyptians.
Naked from the top down, they wear a huge loincloth that falls to their heels in the form of a Javanese skirt. Under this loincloth, they also wear leggings. But they go to bed completely naked, rolled up in their loincloth and the blanket that serves as their cloak.
On this latter garment, the Blackfoot have their wives embroider circular badges in glass or porcupine, which are their respective coats of arms, in the manner of the Japanese.
They paint their faces in the most eccentric ways. But painting a woman’s or a girl’s face is an invitation to joy that young people understand very well.
Their language is similar to Eskimo and Cree, but they use gutturals like the Dènè.
Napé had three sons, to whom he gave names that were to be the harbingers of their future greatness and destiny.
He called the eldest Kaïna (the Man of Blood), to characterise by this epithet this young man’s love of battle and his zeal for victory.
The younger son was given the name Piéganiw (He who gathers booty) or the Plunderer, because, being more positive and cunning than his brother, his main aim was to enrich himself through depredation and plunder. He liked stealing better than killing.
As for the youngest, as he received no name, he began to weep, saying to his father:
– And I, my father, will you not also give me a name, a name that bears in it the omen of great deeds?
Then Napé answered with a sigh:
– I have given everything to your brothers. What can I give you? You will stay by my side to be the staff of my old age.
Then, yielding suddenly to a sudden inspiration, he grabbed some coal from the hearth of his dressing room, completely blackened the feet of the saddened young man, and said to him:
– You will be the Sixikaké (the man with black feet) and, by virtue of the magical action I have just performed on you, you will become fearsome to your brothers and their children. Let them wage war, kill and plunder; you, act wisely and prudently. Be a man of advice, medicine and magic. Black-footed man, you will be respected, feared and feared, and you will dominate your brothers!
The young man thanked his father and withdrew satisfied.
Hence the three sister fractions of the Ninnax or Men family: the Kainax or Men of Blood, the Peiganix or Plunderers, and finally the Sixikakex or Blackfoot. The latter became the strongest, the most numerous and the first. It is they who give their name to the entire nation.
To these three tribes can be added the Sarcix, who are a fraction of the Dènè family adopted by the Blackfoot.
(Told by Aρkayé, Piéganiw
from the Porcupine Mountains, in 1882).
(Another version of the same legend, according to the Cree)
A long time ago, there lived a venerable old man called Napi or Napé, meaning the Wise One, who had three sons.
The two eldest were called Piéganiw (Plunderer) and Kaïna (Man of Blood). But the third, who had never distinguished himself in hunting, war or marauding like his elders, had not yet been given a name.
This discrepancy meant that the young son was an object of contempt for his elders. It’s only a short step from contempt to hatred, and so the unfortunate young man, with no name and no merit, saw the horizon of his future opening up blackly before his eyes.
He could not help complaining of his sad fate to his father, who, moved by pity, resolved to rescue his young son from the opprobrium in which his worthlessness placed him in the eyes of his elders.
As the old man was a very skilful and much feared doctor, he rubbed coal into his young son’s feet and, by this strong medicine, made him invulnerable as well as capable of the greatest feats. He then gave him the name Blackfoot or Sixikake, which his descendants have borne to this day. This name and this magic made them the terror of their enemies as well as the glory of their nation. They have also dominated their elders. The Cree call them Ayatç-iyiniwok: the Foreign Men.
(Told by Mr. Billy Mackay, a Métis-cree from the upper
Saskatchewan, in 1873, at Fort Pitt).
Three young Blackfoot, who had made an alliance with each other, came one day to an old man of the Ninnax nation who had three daughters, all three charming, all three good to marry, and asked him for them in marriage.
– Ah, my sons-in-law,” replied the old man, “I will gladly give you my daughters in marriage, but you know that you must pay for them. Now, my daughters are worth twenty horses apiece; for I am a great chief, and I have resolved to marry my daughters only to warriors who will bring me this tribute in exchange. Come back with sixty horses and you will have my three daughters.
So spoke the old man.
The three young warriors gave their word, which the three daughters gladly accepted. They made the girls promise not to give themselves to other men until they returned; they painted their bodies red, placed red-dyed feathers in their war tufts, and set off together on their expedition to their southern neighbours, the Ravens and the Snakes or Chochones.
The three warriors were not heard from again for a year.
When the time they had set for their probable return had passed, and the three beauties had given up all hope of seeing their lovers return, they dressed themselves in the colours and finery of mourning, painted their faces white, and for nine days mourned on the mountain for those they loved.
When this time was up, and none of the young warriors appeared, the three girls decided that they had perished fighting for them. They therefore resolved not to lag behind in generosity, and decreed their joint demise.
They informed their tribe of this plan, and asked their father for permission, who judged their resolution to be very commendable. So they put on their wedding clothes, climbed a rock whose vertical face forms a precipice, and there, holding hands and singing their death song, they plunged bravely into the abyss, where they met their deaths.
But on the very next day of that fatal day, a swirl of dust was seen coming from afar over the green back of the immense prairie, announcing to the Blackfoot the arrival of a squadron of warriors.
The camp was in an uproar and was preparing for a stubborn resistance, when, from the vines of this powdery cloud, a herd of sixty beautiful horses emerged, foaming and quivering before three young warriors who were chasing them.
These warriors were painted and decked out as if for a wedding, and they sang the hymn of victory as they entered the camp, where they thought they would find their sweethearts.
They were the three lovers, true to their word right up to the end, and who came running to remind the great chief of the Blackfoot of his promise of the previous year.
But when they arrived at the chief’s Napiwoyés, their songs of joy were greeted by songs of mourning; their enquiry was received with tears and bitter regret; their joy was met only with sombre despair.
They understood everything. But when they learned that their lovers had committed suicide for love of them, that they had remained faithful to them even unto death, the three young men swore to follow them in their destiny, not to lag behind in their generosity.
Without saying a word about their plan, they silently clasped the old man’s hands, drove the herd of sixty horses they had captured from their enemies before them, led him to the top of the steep rock where their grieving lovers had killed themselves, and forced him to throw himself down. Then the three of them sang their death song, and holding hands, as the girls had done, they plunged into the abyss as they had done.
Thus ends the true story of the three Blackfoot lovers[120].
(Told, in 1879, at Fort Pitt,
by the same man).
Napé, the Perfect One, descended from heaven in ancient times, spent several years on earth and instituted a religion and sacred ceremonies. He showed himself to be the benefactor and father of the Blackfoot; then finally, he returned to the Empyrean, where he went to dwell in the sun under the name of Natôs. He is also called Mana-Kopa[121].
It is from heaven that Napé continues to protect the Blackfoot and sends them buffalo. His wife is Kokoyé-natôs or the Moon, who is also called the Old Woman, as he is called the Old Man.
According to the orders that Napé left them when he left, the Blackfoot observe a great annual solar festival at the time of the renewal of the moon in August-September.
In preparation for this festival, they spend the whole month of August gathering food supplies of all kinds, such as meat, buffalo tongues, wild berries, esculent roots, etc.
Four days before the new moon, the tribe stops its march. A suitable place to camp is chosen, and they prepare for the festival by fasting and steam baths.
The High Priest of the Sun, accompanied by the seven hierarchical orders, takes charge of the camp, and the Virgin of the Sun is chosen to represent the Moon during the festival. She is chosen from among the girls who are still virgins or among the young women who have only had one husband. She prepares for her duties by practising absolute continence.
On the third day of the preliminaries, after the final purification, the temple of the Sun is built, while the high priest composes the Eketsto-kisim or sacred bundle. This faggot is covered with a buffalo hide and hoisted to the top of the temple, where it is tied.
The Temple of the Sun is a circular structure made of clay and shaped like a tent. It has a wall made of slatted planks, at the height of the support, from which the poles extend, resting on a central post at the top of the building.
This pavilion is oriented so that its entrance is exposed to the rays of the rising sun.
On the opposite side, i.e. at sunset, is a small area or section known as the Holy Land (Tcharkum-kisim), in which there is a one-foot square mound surrounded by fragrant bromeliads. A buffalo head, painted red and black, is placed on this altar. Next to it is the bed of the Virgin of the Sun.
When the festivities begin, the high priest, the Virgin of the Sun and the people process to the pavilion or temple, to the sound of Basque drums, fifes and tchitchikwets or rattles.
In front of the temple, the sacred pole is planted and the sacred fire is lit. Then everyone hurries to light their pipe to present the smoke to the Sun, as soon as its disc appears on the horizon of the immense, bare prairie.
As soon as the star rises, the high priest prays to it, lays his hands on the food to be served at the sacred feast and places the portion reserved for Natôs himself on the altar.
For her part, the Vestal, leaving the pavilion, distributes to each her share of the feast; then she returns, takes off her shoes and throws herself on her bed, where she sleeps the sleep of War or Okan.
Outside the temple, singing, cheering, dancing, speeches and harangues begin. The great chief of the tribe, currently Chapow-Mexico or the Great Crow, rides up to the sacred pole, strikes it three times with his spear and circles the temple four times, singing a song of triumph.
For four days, the same ceremonies are repeated, and the high priest receives all the offerings from the devotees to present them to Napé, who resides in the Sun.
The most enthusiastic devotees perform cruel macerations and impose public penances on themselves. They cut off one or more of their phalanges, mutilate themselves, draw blood, make incisions, pass fangs under the skin of their backs and, in this state, hang themselves from the sacred pole or drag themselves through the camp. The blood that flows from these wounds is offered to the Sun, and the mutilated limbs are shown to him in his honour.
When your Sun Maiden has awoken from her war sleep, she tells the priest about the dream she has had, and he divulges it to the crowd of worshippers, commenting on it as best he can.
While the Sixikakex make their offerings, this Vestal is busy tending the sacred fire by throwing fragrant herbs into it, especially fragrant brome. From time to time, she lights the pipe and offers it to the Sun, who is her husband, since she represents the Moon.
Finally, the festival ends on the eighth day with sunset, with a final public prayer to Napé in Natôs, whom the wishes of the multitude accompany on her descent below the horizon.
(Recounted in 1874 by the
R. Lacombe, in Canada).
2. Pinokakitchimatchis Ispumitapi otchi-ne nikasim
Don’t blaspheme; God name in vain.
3.Natoyé-Kristikusé pinat apawtakit, *natoyé-kristikumit.
The sun its day on not works, *nor festivals.
4. Kinna ké kikrista kimissaw; *karkisamitapiworsé.
Your father and your mother ménage-les; long you live so that.
5. Pininikit matapi; *pinistat karksanikisè.
Don’t kill someone; *kill does not wish.
6. Pinokapitchittat.
Don’t be immodest.
7. Pinikamosit.
Don’t fly.
8. Pinisayépitchit.
Don’t lie.
9. Kit-opoximaw, omanist orpoximis; *mina kechitchittat.
Your wife, she alone let her be your wife; also treat her as a bond.
10. Minatchestotakit.
Do not desire the good of others.
(According to Father Lacombe, missionary to the Blackfoot,
missionary to the Blackfoot.)
Kaïna (the man of blood).
Kokoyè-natôs (the night sun, the moon).
Mana-kopa (the Great Spirit).
Napè or Napi (the Perfect, the Old Man).
Natôs (the Sun).
Piéganiw (the Plunderer).
Sixihaké (the man with black feet).
We owe it to Corneille de Lapierre, a sixteenth-century Belgian Jesuit. Leafing through this king of commentators on Scripture, I was quite astonished to see him expound the same idea (Comm. in Genes., xxv.) But what is even stronger is that he does not give this similarity as his own, but as an opinion received and accepted by several scholars of his time: “Putant aliqui…, etc.”.
So I will not be accused of innovation.
I would add to this that Par-Abrahma can just as easily be derived from Pater-Abraham as from Habar-Abraham: the Stranger or Traveller Abraham. History presents stronger examples of transformism than this.
These verses are rhymed and sung. They contain an erotic equivocation.
Reschith, the divine father,
Jah or Mem-Ra, the divine son or verb, the shaper of the world,
Rouch, the divine spirit, who incubates the primordial waters and the universal egg. He is said to be of the female sex, at least as far as his attributions are concerned, since a spirit has no sex.
(According to P. Nommès, Mélanges sur la Kabbale, p. 77).
It is this third person of Jahowah that undoubtedly inspired the Roch or gigantic eagle of the Arabs, which we find in the Dene legends. Similarly, Jah, the divine creator, is found in the Jao of the Greeks, the Jahyah of the Syrians, the Yao of the Chinese, the Jhoïho of the Taïtians, the Janus of the Etruscans, the Jol of the Phoenicians, the Jehl of the Kolloches, and so on.
The Punic trinity was :
Baal Hammon, the Burning One, Jol, the creator son god, and Thanith, the mother goddess.
The woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness.” (Ch. xii, v. 13 and 17.)
This last image recalls the high done at Etρœtchokρen (p. 41) and Enna-Guhini (p. 138).
The Egyptians, who also believed in it, called the earthly mouth Ro Pegart (G. Maspéro, Contes Égypt., introd., p. lxii).