It is the growth in the hero, when he knows the worst to come,
of that will, or stoicism, or complete indifference to fate, which the
Indians regard as equivalent to attaining _m'teoulin_, or magic
power. When a man has in him such courage that nothing earthly can do
more than increase it, he has attained to what is in one sense at least
_Nirvana_. From an Algonquin point of view the plot is perfect.
I have given this story accurately as it was told to me by Tomah
Josephs, a Passamaquoddy Indian.
_How one of the Partridge's Wives became a Sheldrake Duck, and why
her Feet and Feathers are Red._
_N'karnayoo_, of the old time, there was a hunter who lived in the
woods. He had a brother, [Footnote: The word brother is so generally
applied in adoption or friendship that it cannot here be taken in a
literal sense. The brother in this case seems to have been a goblin or
spirit.] who was so small that he kept him in a box, and when he went
forth he closed this very carefully, for fear lest an evil spirit
(Mitche-hant) should get him.
One day this hunter, returning, saw a very beautiful girl sitting on a
rock by a river, making a moccasin. And being in a canoe he paddled up
softly and silently to capture her; but she, seeing him coming, jumped
into the water and disappeared. On returning to her mother, who lived
at the bottom of the river, she was told to go back to the hunter and
be his wife; "for now," said the mother, "you belong to that man.
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