"Let us go and catch the Bootup!" said the elder brother. "How
will you take him?" asked the younger. "I will entice him with the
_peepoogwokan_," said the elder, "with my pipe." So he sat by the
sea; he played on the pipe; he played, but no whale came. So they went
back to their small fishery.
This is manifestly the beginning and end of a very ancient Indian mythical
tale. The Micmacs have tacked on to it a ridiculous fragment of an
indifferent French nursery tale, without an end and without any connection
with the Indian beginning. The tradition is probably entirely Eskimo.
Among the Greenlanders there is a caste of whale-fishers, separate and
apart, and this story, in its second stage, was applied to teach, _Ne
sutor ultra crepidam_,--that all should stick to their trades, and that
though a sorcerer might rule the winds it did not follow that he could win
the whales.
I have spoken before of the curious identity of the Indian storm-king,
or Wind-Bird, with that of the Norse Hrosvelgar. When among the
Chippewas, west of Lake Superior, I met with a white man who had
received the name of Thunder-Bird from the Indians still further west.
The magicians of all countries, be they of Africa, Asia, or North
America, are invariably represented by travelers as holding their flock
in subjection, and never being doubted as to power or skill.
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