The following
remarkable reminiscences of this very clever old sagamore were given to
me by Marie Sakis, a Penobscot:
"The old governor was a great _m'teoulin_. He had got it among the
Chippewas. He said that it would come to pass that he would die before
the next snow-storm. No, he did not care himself, but my husband's
mother did, when she heard this, and she cried. Then he said, 'Well, I
will try to live, or else die in a month; but it will be a hard fight.'
So he made him a bow, and strung it with his wife's hair; [Footnote: In
a Chippewa legend a boy confers magic power on a bow by stringing it
with his sister's hair.] and having done this, he shot an arrow through
the smoke-hole of his wigwam. [Footnote: This is also mentioned in a
legend where it is said that every arrow killed a supernatural enemy.]
All this was at Nessaik, near Eastport. Then he said to his wife, 'Take
one of your leggins and put it on my head.' She did so. Then he took
medicine. A rainbow appeared in the sky, and a great horse-fly came out
of his mouth, and then a large grasshopper. He cried to his wife, 'Do
not kill it!' And then came a stone spear-head. [Footnote: This is all
in detail perfectly Shamanic. The smell of the fresh fish after such a
fight is the same in an Eskimo legend. The horse-fly (_gan_) is
Lapp.]
'Now,' said the governor, 'this is all right so far, but the great
struggle is yet to come.
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