Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/268

 256 Jotirnal of A merican Folk-Lore.

intended to present anything approaching completeness, but merely to record some instances that have come to my knowledge.

Parallel to the horned snake, which seems to be known to all or most Indian tribes, the Wabenaki of the northeast have a horned snail or wiwilmiku, which occurs frequently in their mythic and legendary tales. Within the memory of the Passamaquoddy Indians of southeastern Maine, a renowned medicine-man and travellers' guide, Medshelemet of the Penobscots, had a difficulty with a Mic- mac chief, and they agreed to settle it in the waters of Boyden's Lake, Washington County, Maine. Medshelemet transformed him- self into a horned snail, and the Micmac chief into a huge serpent of forty feet length or more {KtcJii at Wiusis, " large snake)." Dur- ing the combat they whirled around in the lake, so that its waters have remained disturbed up to the present day, and the name, Nes- seyik, even now recalls this fact. Medshelemet came out victorious, and killed his antagonist, then tied him to a tree standing at the west end of the lake on a promontory called Kwissawi-dgemek. This man is a historic person who died but forty years ago ; he is still remembered by the hunters of his tribe, and reputed for his singular ability of procuring tobacco for the hunting parties he accompanied, although there were no stores there from which this commodity could be obtained. These two form a curious instance of modern euhemerism, which is not at all unfrequent with medicine- men or "shamanic jugglers."

Next in order among superhuman beings come the dragons and the huge serpents, horned or not, a class which fully demonstrates that the Indians have no lack of snake stories and are probably better supplied with them than ourselves.

Rev. S. T. Rand mentions a fabulously large snake believed in by the Micmac Indians of Nova Scotia, whose name is Ktchi pitcli- kayam ; no description is given of it, but the name implies similar- ity with the Kinepiktva or Ktclii-Kincpikwa, "the great snake" of the Algonkin tribes farther west. The Shawnee Indians have a story of a one-horned snake, zvewiwilemitd mancttt, of which they give the following particulars : A young maiden who was " eating alone " 1 saw a fawn who had one horn red and the other blue ; it was lying in the waters of a lake, immersed up to the neck. The next time she saw it it had become much larger, and was moving out of the watery element. The next time it appeared to her in the form of a snake. A fourth time the snake had disappeared from the lake, but the lake had increased in size, and its waters were hot and boiling. Having informed her father of the occurrence, he held

1 This means that she was menstruating, and therefore had to eat and stay alone in the woods or away from the settlements.

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