And holding the man in scorn,
and disdaining to use a nobler weapon, he tapped the sorcerer lightly
with the end of his bow, like a small dog, and he fell dead.
_How the Story of Glooskap and Pook-jin-skwess, the Evil Pitcher, is
told by the Passamaquoddy Indians_. [Footnote: In this story
Glooskap is called Pogumk, the Black Cat or Fisher, that is, a species
of wild cat, while Martin is a N'mockswess, sable. There seems to be no
settled idea as to what was the _totem_ or innate animal nature of
the lord of men and beasts. I have a series of pictures scraped on
birch-bark illustrating these myths, executed by a Passamaquoddy, in
which Glooskap and the adopted grandmother in the stone canoe are
represented as wood-chucks, or ground-hogs. (Mon-in-kwess, P.)]
(Passamaquoddy.)
There was a village of Indians who were all Black Cats, or Po'gum'k.
One of them, the cleverest and bravest, went forth every day with bow
and arrow, tomahawk and knife, and killed moose and bear, and sent meat
to the poor, and so he fed them all. When he returned they came to him
to know where his game lay, and when he had told them they went forth
with toboggins [Footnote: Toboggin, a sled made very simply by turning
up the ends of one or more pieces of wood to prevent them from catching
in the snow.] and returned with them loaded with meat. And the chief of
the Black Cats was by his mother the son of a bear.
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