She began as a young girl; when at the end of the
room she was fifty years of age; and when she got back to the door
whence she started she fell dead on the floor, at the feet of him who
gave her the drink, a little, wrinkled, wizened-up old squaw of a
hundred years.
_Aha, yes? wood enit atokhahyen, muggoh mah't adem_. This is the
story of the Dance of Old Age. But you may call it _Sektegah_, the
Dance of Death, if you like it better. [Footnote: This extraordinary
story was related to me by Noel Joseph, at Campobello, August 26, 1883.
I am indebted to Mrs. W. Wallace Brown for the incantation song. The
Weewillmekq' has, as it appears in several tales, an extraordinary
resemblance to the Norse dragon. It cures mental diseases. It seems to
be the same with the _Chepitchcalm_.]
_III. Another Version of the Dance of Old Age._
(Passamaquoddy.)
It was in the autumn, the time when Indians go up the rivers to their
hunting-grounds, that two young men left home. They ascended the
stream; they came to a branch, where they parted: one going alone,
another with his married brother. This latter, with the brother, had
left in the village a female friend, a witch, who had forbidden him to
go hunting, but he had not obeyed her.
And she had cause to keep him at home, for, when he was afar in the
woods, and alone, he met one day with a very beautiful girl, who
fascinated him, and gave herself to him.
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