[Illustration: THE INDIAN BOY AND THE MUSK-RAT. SEEPS, THE DUCK.]
This confused and strange story is manifestly pieced together out of
several others, each of which have incidents in common. A part of it
is very ancient. Firstly, the inveigling the ducks into the wigwam is
found in the Eskimo tale of Avurungnak (Rink, p. 177). The Eskimo is
told by a sorcerer to let the sea-birds into the tent, and not to
begin to kill them till the tent is full. He disobeys, and a part of
them escape. In Schoolcraft's Hiawatha Legends, Manobozho gets the
mysterious oil which ends the foregoing story from a fish. He fattens
all the animals in the world with it, and the amount which they consume
is the present measure of their fatness. When this ceremony is over, he
inveigles all the birds into his power by telling them to shut their
eyes. At last a small duck, the diver, suspecting something, opens one
eye, and gives the alarm.
The sorcerer's passing himself off for a woman and the trick of the
moose abortion occurs in three tales, but it is most completely given
in this. To this point the narrative follows the Micmac, Passamaquoddy,
and Chippewa versions. After the tale of the chief is at an end it is
entirely Passamaquoddy; but of the latter I have two versions, one from
Tomah Josephs and one from Mrs. W. Wallace Brown.
I can see no sense in the account of the bear's oil hardened by ice,
but that oil is an essential part of the duck story appears from the
Chippewa legend (Hiawatha L.
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