American Indian Trickster Tales (Myths and Legends) (33 page)

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Great Lakes Tribes
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Nokomis was Nanabozho’s grandmother. “Grandson,” she said, “my hair is falling out because I have no oil to preserve it. The oil that your dead grandfather had given me has run out. I want you to get me some oil for my hair.”

“Grandmother,” said Nanabozho, “where can I get this oil?”

“You must go to the Great Lake in the North. This lake is the home of Meshena-Magwai, the Chief of All Fish. Go and kill him. Bring him to me. Then we will boil enough oil from his body to last to the end of time.”

“Grandmother,” said Nanabozho, “you make the fish line and the fishhook. I shall make the canoe.”

Nanabozho went to a lonely place on top of a hill. There he stayed for four days and nights, fasting and praying to Gitchee Manitou, the Everywhere Spirit, to bless his enterprise with success. Then he made his canoe out of birch bark. He made the paddle from oak. It took a whole big oak tree to make it. Then his Nokomis gave him the fish line and the fishhook. Then Nanabozho set out on the river that led to the Great Lake.

Nanabozho paddled out into the middle of the Great Lake. He threw out the line and the baited hook. In a loud voice he called out: “Meshena-Magwai, Chief of All Fish, take my bait!”

Way down at the bottom of the lake, the Chief of All Fish heard him. He told Trout: “Swim up and see who it is who dares to call me in this manner.”

Up on the surface, Nanabozho felt someone immensely strong tugging at his line. “It must be Meshena-Magwai,” he thought, “the Chief of All Fish. No one else could do such tugging.” Trout had taken the bait. He pulled at the line with such force that Nanabozho’s canoe was pulled halfway down, standing upright. Nanabozho was stronger than Trout. He managed to drag him into his canoe. He looked at Trout. He said: “You ugly, puny thing, you are not the Chief of All Fish. I think Meshena-Magwai is afraid to come up and fight me.”

Trout was angry to be called “puny” and “ugly.” He dove down to the bottom of the Great Lake and told the Chief of All Fish: “It is Nanabozho who is up there. He has no manners. He called me bad names. He says you are afraid to come up and face him.”

The Great Chief of All Fish said: “Is that so?” He called the Giant Pike. “Nephew, go up there and teach Nanabozho some manners.”

Giant Pike swam to the surface. He heard Nanabozho shouting: “Meshena-Magwai, Chief of All Fish, take my bait.”

In his canoe Nanabozho felt a tugging at his line. The pull was so strong that it made the canoe swirl around in circles, again and again. It made the whole Great Lake foam and swirl. The waters rushed about Nanabozho’s canoe in dizzying circles, making it spin wildly around its own axis. The waves formed an eddy that almost sucked Nanabozho and his canoe down to the lake bottom. But Nanabozho was mighty above all others. He succeeded in pulling Giant Pike into his canoe, though it took all his enormous strength.

When Nanabozho saw what he had caught, he was disgusted. “You insignificant, slimy thing,” he shouted. “You are not the great Chief of All Fish. Is Meshena-Magwai trembling in fear of me? Is that the reason he does not come up to face me?” With a mighty heave, Nanabozho flung Giant Pike back into the water.

Giant Pike at once dove straight down to the bottom of the lake, telling the Chief of All Fish: “Nanabozho says that you, O Great Chief, are afraid of him. He insulted me, calling me ‘slimy’ and ’insignificant.‘ Will you let him get away with this?”

“I guess I must take care of this matter myself,” said the Great Chief of All Fish, and he began slowly to rise to the surface.

Way above, Nanabozho was shouting: “Great Chief of All Fish, take my bait.”

Meshena-Magwai broke the surface, making a huge wave that made the lake overflow in all directions, covering the whole country around about with man-high water. He made the waters boil. The Great Chief of All Fish was so big that there was no word that could describe this bigness. With one mighty gulp, Meshena-Magwai swallowed up Nanabozho, canoe, paddle, and all.

Inside Meshena-Magwai’s body it was dark. Nanabozho heard a loud, reverberating
thump, thump, thump.
It echoed from the walls, which were the lining of Meshena-Magwai’s stomach. Every thump shook his body like an earthquake. Nanabozho discovered that this great thumping came from the heart of the Great Chief of All Fish. Nanabozho had a war club dangling from his belt. He never went anywhere without it. He took the club and used it to beat the giant heart. After he had done this for a while, the heartbeat got weaker and weaker. At last it stopped altogether. Meshena-Magwai, the Great Chief of All Fish, was dead. Nanabozho had killed him by hitting his heart with the war club. The waves carried Meshena-Magwai’s body to the shore. It was lying on the sand.

Nanabozho had won his battle, but Meshena-Magwai’s mouth was clamped shut. Nanabozho found himself trapped in the Great Chief of All Fish’s body. What was he to do? “Maybe I shall die in here,” said Nanabozho. “Maybe I shall die of starvation.” Then he heard a faint gnawing sound. It was made by a Squirrel that tried to make a hole through the Chief of All Fish’s side. Nanabozho did not know how Squirrel had gotten inside the Fish Chief’s body. It turned out that Squirrel was not strong enough to bore its way through to the outside. Then Nanabozho shouted loudly—so loud that it made the earth tremble: “This is Nanabozho, calling from within Fish Chief’s body. If there is a friend of mine about on the outside, let him help me to get out!”

There was a scratching outside, on Meshena-Magwai’s skin. It grew louder and louder. The squirrel continued to gnaw from the inside of the Great Chief of All Fish. From the outside, someone tried to scratch his way in. Finally the squirrel’s teeth met the claws of a Seagull. They had made a hole in the Great Chief of All Fish’s side. Squirrel and Seagull widened the hole until it was big enough to let Nanabozho squeeze through with his canoe. For their help, Nanabozho gave his two rescuers honoring names. He named Squirrel “Little Mighty Gnawer.” He named Seagull “Winged Mighty Scratcher.”

Nanabozho took leave of his two helpers. He tied the body of the Great Chief of All Fish to his canoe and paddled upriver to the home of Nokomis, his grandmother. He and Nokomis cut up Meshena-Magwai’s body and boiled it down to oil. They got so much oil that it formed a whole lake of oil, enough to treat the hair of every woman to the end of time.

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Menomini
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When Manabush came home empty-handed from a hunting trip, his grandmother, Nokomis, told him: “Go into the woods and collect birch bark for me. I am going to make sugar.”

Manabush did not know what she meant. He did not know what sugar was. Nobody did. He collected birch bark, which Nokomis stitched together into cups. Nokomis then went from maple tree to maple tree, cutting a small hole into the trunk of each and putting into every hole a small stick over which the sap ran down into the birch-bark cups fastened below.

Manabush went from tree to tree, looked into the cups, and saw that they were full of maple syrup. He stuck his finger into the syrup and licked it. The syrup was sweet. Manabush said: “I never knew that anything so good existed.” There were many maples and many birch-bark cups and all were full of thick, sweet syrup. In this way maple sugar came about.

Manabush told Nokomis: “Grandmother, this maple sugar is wonderful, but the making of it is too easy. The syrup makes itself. No effort is needed to produce it. People will become too lazy to do any work. They will just sit on their haunches and eat maple syrup. This won’t do.”

Manabush climbed to the top of one of the trees and sprinkled water over it. This made the syrup into thin sap, which dribbled down into the cups drop by drop. Thus Manabush made sugaring hard work. Wood must be cut, birch bark must be collected and stitched into cups, the sap must be collected, and it must be boiled down into maple sugar for a long time. This way nobody would be idle. Would it have been better to make sugaring easy, the way Nokomis did at first? Who knows?

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Menomini
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Nanabozho was walking along. On the way he met Buzzard. They stopped to chat. “Brother, I envy you,” said Nanabozho. “You can fly, while I have to remain always down here on the ground. How I wish to be able to soar up into the sky, as you do. How I wish to be able to view the earth from high up among the clouds.”

“Yes, it is wonderful to be able to fly,” said Buzzard. “I pity you because you cannot do it.”

“Brother, why don’t you let me climb on your back?” begged Nanabozho. “Then you could take me with you up into the sky. Then I, too, could view the world from above.”

“What a good idea!” Buzzard agreed. “I will take you up there with me so that you can enjoy flying as I do, looking down at forests and mountains, valleys and hills, with all the animals moving about, everything spread out before you, to feast your eyes at the wonders below.”