He could not give up his own,
however. It is much more according to common sense that the woman
should have given the cannibal the magic medicine which made him yield
his heart than that he should voluntarily have purged himself. In the
Micmac tale he merely relieves his stomach; in the Passamaquoddy
version he, by woman's influence, loses his icy _heart_. It is
interesting to observe that the use of the Christian cross is in the
additional anecdote described as _magic_.
It is the main point in the Chenoo stories that this horrible being,
this most devilish of devils, is at first human; perhaps an unusually
good girl, or youth. From having the heart once chilled, she or he goes
on in cruelty, until at last the sufferer eats the heart of another
Chenoo, especially a female's. Then utter wickedness ensues. It is more
than probable that this leads us back to some dark and terrible Shaman
superstition, older than we can now fathom. There is a passage in the
Edda which its translator, Thorpe, thinks can never be explained. "I
believe," he writes, "the difficulty is beyond help." The lines are as
follows:--
"Loki scorched up [Footnote: The _Edda_, p. 112.]
In his heart's affections,
Had found a half-burnt
Woman's heart.
Loki became guileful
from that wicked woman:
thence in the world
are all giantesses come."
Of which Thorpe writes, "The sense of this and the following line is
not apparent.
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