🧚 Myths and Folk-lore of the Timagami Ojibwa., part 5 · page 2

(9) The Man Who Transformed a Doll into a Woman and Followed Her into the World Above.106

There was once a man.107 He was hunting.108 He had his own wigwam, where he lived with an old man and an old woman who called him grandchild.109 He did not even know his father and mother.110 He had never seen young people, so when he became about twenty years old, he began to think that he ought to get himself a wife.111 So he started out and travelled all over, but could not find one.112 At last, one day, he took a piece of wood and tried to carve for himself a big doll.113 He worked hard and after a while he made it so nearly perfect that it could speak a little.114 It was a female, but it did not seem to be complete quite yet.115

Said the doll to him, “Put me in your wigwam, cover me up, and do not look at me for three days.116 Be sure not to look, because if you do, I won’t be here.”117

“All right,” said he; and placed his doll in his wigwam.118 To remove himself from the temptation of breaking her rule he went away by himself and stayed the first night.119 The next afternoon he came back and began wondering to himself.120 “If I sleep here,” thought he, “I might, indeed, be tempted to look.”121 The more he pondered, the more he weakened.122 At last, he decided to take a little look.123 He peeped inside the wigwam and saw a very nice-looking young girl seated there.124 Then, gaining control of himself, he hurried away and camped again that night alone.125 The third day he came back again to look at his wife.126 When he came near the camp, he went to the water-hole.127 [37] There he saw a woman’s track going away from the water-hole.128 Thought he to himself, “Alas! my wife has gone.”129 He walked up to the wigwam, looked in, and found that the woman had actually gone.130 [38]131

He now decided to follow her.132 He went to the woods, cut a piece of cedar, and made himself a bow and a lot of arrows.133 The next day he started—this was two days after the woman had left.134 Then he walked very fast, starting early in the morning.135 Soon he came to a small lake lying still and frozen.136 When he reached the edge of the ice, he shot an arrow across, then he sped so fast that he reached the other side of the lake before the arrow got there.137 Before noon-time he came to where a camp was located, and going up to it, beheld an old woman cooking there.138 “Oh, my grandchild,” said she, “don’t stand there looking in the door.139 Come in and eat.”140 So he went in.141 Then he asked her whether she had seen a woman pass there.142 She answered, “Yesterday, about noon.”143 And the old woman gave him a mess of corn and said, “My dear grandchild, it is very hard where you are going.144 Many people have tried to go where your road leads; but they have never gotten there, for many creatures are seeking their lives.145 But I will help you.”146 Then she gave him a leg-bone of a lynx.147 “When you are in trouble, you may need this,” she told him.148 Then he started on, following the tracks of his woman.149 Every time he came to a lake, he shot an arrow across and sped before it as he had done at first.150 He was fast indeed.151

Soon he came to another wigwam and peeped into this as he had done into the first.152 An old woman who was cooking inside spoke to him, as had the first, and invited him to come in and eat.153 Then he asked her when she had seen the woman pass by.154 “A little after noon time,” she replied.155 Now, by this, he knew that he had not gained very much.156 As before, he ate a little snack of corn and the old woman said to him, “Where you are going will be a very hard trip for you.157 Many people try it, but never succeed.158 They die.”159 And she, too, gave him a lynx bone and told him, as the other had done, that it would help him in time of need on his journey; and he started on again, doing the same at every lake, until it began to grow late in the day.160 He had been going so fast that he felt very tired.161

By and by he came to another camp and peeped in, as before, asked the same question, and was received in the same way.162 After he had eaten here, the old woman gave him a squirrel’s tail to help him overcome the dangers which she warned him against.163 Said she, “From now on you won’t see any more camps.164 Walk very fast now.165 Soon you will see a big tree with a square trunk, which will reach very far up into the sky.166 Now you won’t see any trail, but look carefully around.167 That is where your wife climbed up.168 There are, indeed, steps cut into the trunk, but you will not be able to see them.169 To you it will look smooth.”170

So he proceeded on his way and soon came to the place she had spoken about.171 There was the big tree, but no tracks were in sight.172 Around the base he saw lots of bones, bones of people who had tried to climb but had fallen down and died.173 He was bewildered.174 Then suddenly he recollected the bones the old women had given him.175 Taking one in each hand, like a pick, he began climbing up the great tree.176 At last he ascended so high that the bones began to wear away.177 When they were so short that he could hardly use them, he looked down.178 He had gone so high that he could neither see the world beneath nor the end of the tree in the sky above.179 Now his bones were too short to help him, but he had his bow on his back.180 He could hardly hold on any longer, so he cried and yelled for help, but nobody could hear him.181 Soon he heard a spirit nearby which murmured to him, “Close your eyes and look through the tree.182 You will see steps to climb on.”183 Then he did as the voice said and perceived steps.184 He placed his feet in them and started running up.185 But now he made another mistake, he did not keep his eyes closed.186 When he looked, lo! he found himself back to where he had begun to climb the steps, holding on with his worn-out bones.187 Then he bethought himself of the squirrel’s tail, and at the same moment found himself transformed into a squirrel.188 He found that he could run up the great tree by tapping his tail on the trunk at each step.189 At last he came to a hole in the sky, in the middle of which the great tree protruded.190 A wide space, however, surrounded the tree, separating it from the edge of the sky.191 It would be necessary for him to jump across from the trunk to this edge.192 He made a great effort and sprang for the edge, but he just managed to catch on at the line of his waist; his upper parts, which reached above the edge, at once became human; his lower parts, extending below the edge, remained in the form of the squirrel.193