🧚 Myths and Folk-lore of the Timagami Ojibwa., part 4 · page 2

All the people yelled when they saw Ciŋgibis, for he was a great man, although he was the ugliest one among them.124 They cried, “Ee Ciŋgibis!125 He has two wives.”126 So they all laughed and the sister of Ciŋgibis came to shake hands with his two wives.127 Then Ciŋgibis pitched his wigwam.128 Soon a man who was a second chief came to Ciŋgibis and said, “Chief Maŋg wants to see you.129 He is going to have a dance tonight.”130 Ciŋgibis said to his wives, “Stay here and don’t go to the dance.131 There are too many nice-looking men there.”132 On account of this the two wives became angry with him.133 Ciŋgibis put on his best clothes and went to the dance.134

By and by the wives heard drumming and fine voices singing.135 So they decided to go and peep in at the dancers if Ciŋgibis should not see them.136 They did this and peeped in through the bark, and there they saw Loon singing.137 He was a fine-looking man with a fine voice and fine clothes.138 Ciŋgibis was beside Loon, looking exceedingly ugly in contrast to him.139 The wives said, “It is a shame that Loon is so good-looking.”140 They then went back to camp and put two stumps in the place where they were to sleep, covered them with blankets and ran off.141

Ciŋgibis came back from the dance and, thinking that he was sleeping with his two wives, he lay down between the two stumps and fell asleep.142 But his two wives went to sleep with Chief Loon.143 By and by ants began to bite Ciŋgibis and he scolded his wives, saying, “Don’t do that.”144 At last he discovered the stumps and threw them out.145 At daybreak he went to the chief’s wigwam and there, sleeping with the Chief, he saw his two wives.146 “You are a dead man for this!” said Ciŋgibis.147

He then went to his grandmother.148 “What do you want?” asked she.149 “I want a chisel and a flint.”150 “What do you want with them, grandchild?151 Are you going to be in mischief again?” said the grandmother.152 However, she gave them to him, and Ciŋgibis tied two flints to his feet and placed the chisel in the fire to make it red hot.153 Then he asked for some eagle feathers (but this was a wiske·djak (Canadian Jay) feather).154 He got them and placed them on his head.155 When the ice chisel became red hot, the old grandmother said, “Say, Ciŋgibis, don’t do any mischief again,” but Ciŋgibis picked up the chisel and ran away with it to the wigwam of Loon.156

Loon always slept with his mouth open.157 When Ciŋgibis reached the wigwam, he found every one in it asleep.158 He shoved the chisel into Loon’s open mouth, killing him, ran off to his canoe, jumped into it, and paddled away to his snares.159 He did this so that no one would suspect that he had killed their chief.160 This is the reason why the Loon always has a black mouth—from where he was burned.161 Ciŋgibis found a rabbit in his snare.162 He placed the blood of the rabbit in some hay and tied the hay to his stomach.163

When he returned to the camp, the people were mourning for Loon.164 Ciŋgibis came in slowly.165 The second chief said, “Ciŋgibis will be very sorry when he hears that Chief Loon is dead.166 He was his great friend.167 We must tell him before he arrives.”168 Then the people called to Ciŋgibis, “Ee Ciŋgibis, the chief is dead.”169 “What!” said Ciŋgibis, “the chief is dead!”170 Then he drew out his knife and pierced the hay full of rabbit blood.171 The blood ran out and all the people thought that he had killed himself.172 Ciŋgibis then dived into the water and the people came out in their canoes to look for him.173 They saw the rabbit blood upon the water and gave up looking for him.174 After a few days, they made another chief, Goose (nixka′), since both Loon and Ciŋgibis were dead.175

Ten days after this had happened, early in the morning the people heard somebody singing near the shore three times, “Who killed our chief?176 I am the one.”177 They awoke Chief Goose and he exclaimed, “I was thinking that that Ciŋgibis was in all kinds of mischief.178 So we must try to kill him.”179 Accordingly he sent all the men after him in canoes.180 When Ciŋgibis dived, they could only see his feathers which his grandmother had given him, but they could not catch him.181 Ciŋgibis said to them, “You are all spirits.182 Drink all this water and you will get me.”183 Then the Ducks and Geese drank all the lake dry and chased Ciŋgibis among the rocks, and thought that they would catch him.184 “No, no,” laughed Ciŋgibis, “I know some more tricks yet.”185 So he ran about and kicked the rocks with the flints his grandmother had given him, which were fastened to his feet, and water began flowing out and finally covered everything.186 The people who were pursuing him had to swim for their lives.187 They all became ducks.188 This is the origin of all the ducks.189 When the people left their canoes, they were obliged to swim and so they are swimming yet.190

(6) Beaver Gives a Feast.191

All the animals, once upon a time, were camped together—the Beaver, the Otter, the Muskrat, and the others.192 Their chief was Beaver.193 Every once in a while he would give a big feast, build a big wigwam, and invite all the men and women to come in and eat with him.194 He would tell them, “Well, I want to give a feast.”195 Then they would come in, sit around the inside of his big wigwam and pass the food around from one to the other.196 He would provide lots of grease in birch-bark dishes.197 Now, one time, when he gave one of his feasts, Beaver cut his grease supply into cakes which he served around to his guests.198 Every time he passed a cake to a guest, pepedit.199 Indeed, every time he moved, pepedit, or when he would go and cut a new block of grease.200 [34] Now every time the Beaver broke wind, the Otter laughed.201 He did not seem to know that this would offend the Beaver, because he was a little foolish.202 The other guests told the Otter, “You mustn’t laugh when Beaver does that; he is our chief.”203 Despite this, every time they went to a feast, castore pedente, the Otter laughed at him.204