No More Learning

Three brothers were hunting on a
wager to see who would bring home the first game.

"They were to shoot no other animal," so the legend says, "but such
as each was in the habit of killing. They set out different ways:
Odjibwa, the youngest, had not gone far before he saw a bear, an
animal he was not to kill, by the agreement. He followed him close,
and drove an arrow through him, which brought him to the ground.
Although contrary to the bet, he immediately commenced skinning him,
when suddenly something red tinged all the air around him. He
rubbed his eyes, thinking he was perhaps deceived; but without
effect, for the red hue continued. At length he heard a strange
noise at a distance. It first appeared like a human voice, but
after following the sound for some distance, he reached the shores
of a lake, and soon saw the object he was looking for. At a
distance out in the lake sat a most beautiful Red Swan, whose
plumage glittered in the sun, and who would now and then make the
same noise he had heard. He was within long bow-shot, and, pulling
the arrow from the bowstring up to his ear, took deliberate aim and
shot. The arrow took no effect; and he shot and shot again till his
quiver was empty. Still the swan remained, moving round and round,
stretching its long neck and dipping its bill into the water, as if
heedless of the arrows shot at it. Odjibwa ran home, and got all
his own and his brother's arrows and shot them all away. He then
stood and gazed at the beautiful bird. While standing, he
remembered his brother's saying that in their deceased father's
medicine-sack were three magic arrows.
Off he started, his anxiety
to kill the swan overcoming all scruples. At any other time, he
would have deemed it sacrilege to open his father's medicine-sack;
but now he hastily seized the three arrows and ran back, leaving the
other contents of the sack scattered over the lodge. The swan was
still there. He shot the first arrow with great precision, and came
very near to it. The second came still closer; as he took the last
arrow, he felt his arm firmer, and, drawing it up with vigor, saw it
pass through the neck of the swan a little above the breast. Still
it did not prevent the bird from flying off, which it did, however,
at first slowly, flapping its wings and rising gradually into the
airs and teen flying off toward the sinking of the sun. "
-- pp. 10-12.


When I think of my beloved.

The original of this song may be found in Oneota, p. 15.


Sing the mysteries of Mondamin.
The Indians hold the maize, or Indian corn, in great veneration.

"They esteem it so important and divine a grain," says Schoolcraft,
"that their story-tellers invented various tales, in which this idea
is symbolized under the form of a special gift from the Great
Spirit. The Odjibwa-Algonquins, who call it Mon-da-min, that is,
the Spirit's grain or berry, have a pretty story of this kind, in
which the stalk in full tassel is represented as descending from the
sky, under the guise of a handsome youth, in answer to the prayers
of a young man at his fast of virility, or coming to manhood.

"It is well known that corn-planting and corn-gathering, at least
among all the still uncolonized tribes, are left entirely to the
females and children, and a few superannuated old men.