Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/270

 258 Journal of A merican Folk-L ore.

tiger." Wapi-pizhi or "white tiger " is another denizen of the deep, whom the Peorias still recollect, but now use mainly as a personal name.

Aquatic and terrestrial prodigies of a pacific nature and diminu- tive in size are beings akin to fairies, who are of both sexes. The water-fairies come nearest to the sirens and naiades of old ; they sit on river banks and lake shores, and by gesture and song allure the passing people to approach. Indian pictographs are said to be their work, since these tracings seem to appear and disappear according to the state of the weather. The pictographic scratchings on Fairy Lake, western Nova Scotia, and in Maine near Machiasport, are all ascribed to the agency of these mysterious dwarfs, who thereby intend to foretell events. In Passamaquoddy they are called und- gemes, plural unagemeswuk, "spirits dwelling in the rocks," from undk, rock, the ending es being of diminutive import.

Among the Miami Indians, a lake or river fairy or other prodigy is called mansanzhi ; its female companion, mansanzhi kwd, is a genius of the lakes or " fresh water mermaid," the term being at present used only as a girl's name.

Creek Indians consider the fairies chiefly as wood-spirits, and what I have learned about them is published in Journal of Ameri- can Folk-Lore, 1888, No. 3 (Notes). They are called little people or isti luputski ; some of their number are the cause of a crazed con- dition of the Indians' minds.

The numerous tribes of the Siouan family, whose principal mem- ber is the Dakota nation, undoubtedly had as many water-monsters as the Algonkians, considering the large number of lakes, brooks, and rivers in their extensive domain.

It will, however, suffice to mention UnktcJii, or Uukte'xi, their Nep- tune or divine ruler of the waters, whose name also designated a fabled monster of the deep and the whale of the salt-water. In fact, UnkteJii means any large animal, for it is used also to designate some large extinct animal, whose bones are at times found by the Indians. The Winnebago or Hotchank Indians of Nebraska and Wisconsin know of the WaktcJiexi, a miraculous beast of the watery element, which had the power of imparting wonderful qualities to people who had been fasting for ascetic purposes.

The eastern and western Cherokees have an inexhaustible wealth of folk-lore, of which but little has been made public until now. In his " Mythology of the Cherokees," 1 James Mooney describes some miraculous animals that people the upper streams of the Tennessee River. Among these figures the Dakwa, a huge fish, formerly seen in Little Tennessee River, above the junction of Tellico, at the 1 Soon to be published by the Bureau of American Ethnology.

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