]
As there is actually a tribe of Indians in the Northwest called Chenoo,
there can be little doubt as to the derivation of the name. Such a
character could have originated, as I have said, only in the icy north;
it could never have grown in the milder regions of the west and south.
But the Chenoo, the monstrous, ferocious cannibal giant, with an icy
heart, is the central figure of the evil supernatural beings of the
north. The Schoolcraft traditions and Hiawatha have little to say of
Titans whose heads top the clouds, who tear up forests and rend rocks,
and change the whole face of Nature in their hideous battles or
horrible revels. But such scenes are continually described by the
Passamaquoddy and Micmac story-tellers, and they would be natural
enough to Greenlanders, familiar with whales, icebergs, frozen wastes,
long winter nights, and all the frozen desolation of the north.
There is a mystery connected with the _eating of the liver_, which
is to be explained, like many other Indian mysteries, by having
recourse to the Eskimo Shamanism. "In Greenland a man who has been
murdered can revenge himself by _rushing into_ him," that is,
entering his soul, "which can only be prevented by eating a piece of
his liver." (Rink, T. and T. of the Eskimo, page 45.) The Chenoo is in
all essentials identical with the _Kivigtok_ of Greenland, "a man
who has fled mankind, and acquired extraordinary mental and physical
powers.
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