The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought by Alexander F. Chamberlain (read full novel txt) 📖

to manhood, and are endowed with superhuman powers; they become the avengers of the guilty and the protectors of the good. They drive up the moose and the caribou to their camps, and slaughter them at their leisure. The elements are under their control; they can raise the wind, conjure up storms or disperse them, make it hot or cold, wet or dry, as they please. They can multiply the smallest amount of food indefinitely, evade the subtlety and rage of their enemies, kill them miraculously, and raise their slaughtered friends to life.”

A characteristic legend of this nature is the story of Noojekêsîgünodâsît and the “magic dancing-doll.” Noojekêsîgûnodâsît,—“the sock wringer and dryer,” so-called because, being the youngest of the seven sons of an Indian couple, he had to wring and dry the moccasin-rags of his elders,—was so persecuted by the eldest of his brothers, that he determined to run away, and “requests his mother to make him a small bow and arrow and thirty pairs of moccasins.” He starts out and “shoots the arrow ahead, and runs after it. In a short time he is able to outrun the arrow and reach the spot where it is to fall before it strikes the ground. He then takes it up and shoots again, and flies on swifter than the arrow. Thus he travels straight ahead, and by night he has gone a long distance from home.” His brother starts in pursuit, but, after a hundred days, returns home discouraged. Meanwhile, the boy travels on and meets a very old man, who tells him that the place from whence he came is a long way off, for “I was a small boy when I started, and since that day I have never halted, and you see that now I am very old.” The boy says, however, that he will try to reach the place, and, after receiving from the old man a little box in return for a pair of moccasins,—for those of the traveller were quite worn out,—he goes his way. By and by the boy’s curiosity leads him to open the box, and

“As soon as he has removed the cover, he starts with an exclamation of surprise, for he sees a small image, in the form of a man, dancing away with all his might, and reeking with perspiration from the long-continued exertion. As soon as the light is let in upon him, he stops dancing, looks up suddenly, and exclaims, ‘Well, what is it? What is wanted?’ The truth now flashes over the boy. This is a supernatural agent, a manitoo, a god, from the spirit world, which can do anything that he is requested to do.” The boy wished “to be transported to the place from whence the old man came,” and, closing the box, “suddenly his head swims, the darkness comes over him, and he faints. When he recovers he finds himself near a large Indian village.” By the aid of his doll—_weedapcheejul_, “little comrade,” he calls it—he works wonders, and obtains one of the daughters of the chief as his wife, and ultimately slays his fatherin-law, who is a great “medicine-man.” This story, Mr. Rand says he “wrote down from the mouth of a Micmac Indian in his own language”; it will bear comparison with some European folktales (521. 7-13).

Another story of boy wonder-working, with some European trappings, however, is that of “The Boy who was transformed into a Horse.” Of this wonderful infant it is related that “at the age of eighteen months the child was able to talk, and immediately made inquiries about his elder brother [whom his father had ‘sold to the devil’].” The child then declares his intention of finding his lost brother, and, aided by an “angel,”—this tale is strangely hybrid,—discovers him in the form of a horse, restores him to his natural shape, and brings him safely home; but changes the wicked father into a horse, upon whose back an evil spirit leaps and runs off with him (521. 31).

Other tales of boy adventure in Dr. Rand’s collection are: “The History of Kïtpooseâgûnow” [i.e. “taken from the side of his mother,” as a calf of a moose or a caribou is after the mother has fallen] (521. 62-80); “The Infant Magician”; “The Invisible Boy,” who could change himself into a moose, and also become invisible (521. 101-109); “The Badger and his Little Brother” (521. 263-269), in which the latter helps the former decoy the water-fowl to destruction, but, repenting at the wanton slaughter, gives the alarm, and many birds escape; “The Little Boy who caught a Whale” (521. 280-281). The story of “The Small Baby and the Big Bird” contains many naïve touches of Indian life. The hero of the tale is a foundling, discovered in the forest by an old woman, “so small that she easily hides it in her mitten.” Having no milk for the babe, which she undertakes to care for, the woman “makes a sort of gruel from the scrapings of the inside of raw-hide, and thus supports and nourishes it, so that it thrives and does well.” By and by he becomes a mighty hunter, and finally kills the old culloo (giant bird) chief, tames the young culloo, and discovers his parents (521. 81-93).

In the mythologic tales of the Iroquois, the child appears frequently as a hero and an adventurer. Mrs. Erminnie A. Smith, in treating of The Myths of the Iroquois (534), relates the stories of the infant nursed by bears; the boy whom his grandmother told never to go west, but who at last started off in that direction, and finally killed the great frog (into which form the man who had been tormenting them turned himself); the boy who, after interfering with his uncle’s magic wand and kettle, and thereby depriving the people of corn, set out and managed to return home with plenty of corn, which he had pilfered from the witches who guarded it,—all interesting child exploits.

Among the myths of the Cherokees,—a people related in speech to the Iroquois,—as reported by Mr. James Mooney, we find a story somewhat similar to the last mentioned,—“Kânátî and Sélu: the Origin of Corn and Game” (506. 98-105), the heroes of which are Inage Utasuhi, “He who grew up Wild,” a wonderful child, born of the blood of the game washed in the river; and the little son of Kanati (“the lucky hunter”) and Selu (“Corn,” his wife), his playmate, who captures him. The “Wild Boy” is endowed with magic powers, and leads his “brother” into all sorts of mischief. They set out to discover where the father gets all the game he brings home, and, finding that he lifted a rock on the side of a mountain, allowing the animal he wished to come forth, they imitated him some days afterwards, and the result was that the deer escaped from the cave, and “then followed droves of raccoons, rabbits, and all the other four-footed animals. Last came great flocks of turkeys, pigeons, and partridges.” From their childish glee and tricksiness the animals appear to have suffered somewhat, for we are told (506. 100): “In those days all the deer had their tails hanging down like other animals, but, as a buck was running past, the ‘wild boy’ struck its tail with his arrow, so that it stood straight out behind. This pleased the boys, and when the next one ran by, the other brother struck his tail so that it pointed upward. The boys thought this was good sport, and when the next one ran past, the ‘wild boy’ struck his tail so that it stood straight up, and his brother struck the next one so hard with his arrow that the deer’s tail was curled over his back. The boys thought this was very pretty, and ever since the deer has carried his tail over his back.” When Kanati discovered what had occurred (506. 100), was furious, but, without saying a word, he went down into the cave and kicked the covers off four jars in one corner, when out swarmed bedbugs, fleas, lice, and gnats, and got all over the boys. “After they had been tortured enough, Kanati sent them home, telling them that, through their folly,” whenever they wanted a deer to eat they would have to hunt all over the woods for it, and then may be not find one. “When the boys got home, discovering that Selu was a witch, they killed her and dragged her body about a large piece of ground in front of the house, and wherever the blood fell Indian corn sprang up. Kanati then tried to get the wolves to kill the two boys, but they trapped them in a huge pound, and burned almost all of them to death. Their father not returning from his visit to the wolves, the boys set out in search of him, and, after some days, found him. After killing a fierce panther in a swamp, and exterminating a tribe of cannibals, who sought to boil the “wild boy” in a pot, they kept on and soon lost sight of their father.” At “the end of the world, where the sun comes out,” they waited “until the sky went up again” [in Cherokee cosmogony “the earth is a flat surface, and the sky is an arch of solid rock suspended above it. This arch rises and falls continually, so that the space at the point of juncture is constantly opening and closing, like a pair of scissors”], and then “they went through and climbed up on the other side.” Here they met Kanati and Selu, but, after staying with them seven days, had to “go toward the sunset land, where they are still living.”

Dr. G. M. Dawson records, from the Shushwap Indians of British Columbia, the story of an old woman,—husbandless, childless, companionless,—who, “for the sake of companionship, procured some pitch and shaped from it the figure of a girl, which became her daughter,” whom many adventures befell (425. 33).

There is a very interesting Tahitian myth telling of the descent of little Tavai to the invisible world. Tavai was his mother’s pet, and one day, for some slight fault, was beaten by the relatives of his father. This made Ouri, his mother, so angry, that Oema, her husband, out of shame, went down to Hawaii, the underworld, whither Tavai, accompanied by his elder brother, journeyed, and, after many adventures, succeeded in bringing to their mother the bones of Oema, who had long been dead when they found him (458. 250).

Legion in number and world-wide in their affiliations are the stories of the visits of children and youths, boys and girls, to heaven, to the netherworld, to the country of the fairies, and to other strange and far-off lands, inhabited by elves, dwarfs, pigmies, giants, “black spirits and white.” Countless are the variants of the familiar tale of “Jack and the Bean Stalk,” “Jack, the Giant-Killer,” and many another favourite of the nursery and the schoolroom. Tylor, Lang, Clouston, and Hartland have collated and interpreted many of these, and the books of fairy-tales and kindred lore are now numbered by the hundred, as may be seen from the list given by Mr. Hartland in the appendix to his work on fairy-tales. Grimm, Andersen, and the Arabian Nights have become household names.

For children to speak before they are born is a phenomenon of frequent occurrence in the lives of saints and the myths of savage peoples, especially when the child about to come into the world is an incarnation of some deity. Of Gluskap, the Micmac culture-hero, and Malumsis, the Wolf, his bad brother, we read (488. 15,16):—

“Before they were born, the babes consulted to consider how they had best enter the world. And Glooskap said: ‘I will be born as others are.’ But the evil Malumsis thought himself too great to be brought