Myths and Legends of Our Own Land — CompleteSkinner, Charles M. (Charles Montgomery)
General
Myths and Legends of Our Own Land — Complete
Skinner, Charles M. (Charles Montgomery)
Folklore -- United States
The priest left the place forthwith, and the morals of the village fell
lower and lower. Everything was against it, too. Blight and storm and
insect pest ravaged the fields and orchards, as if nature had engaged to
make an expression of the iniquity of the place. Suddenly death came upon
Lizon. A pit was dug near his tavern and he was placed in a coffin, but
as the box was lowered it was felt to grow lighter, while there poured
from it a swarm of fat and filthy snakes. The fog that overspread the
earth that morning seemed to blow by in human forms, the grave rolled
like a wave after it had been covered, and after darkness fell a blue
will-o'-the-wisp danced over it. A storm set in, heaping the billows on
shore until the church was undermined, and with a crash it fell into the
seething flood. But the curse had passed, and when a new chapel was built
the old evils had deserted L'Anse Crease.
MACKINACK
Not only was Mackinack the birthplace of Hiawatha: it was the home of God
himself--Gitchi Manitou, or Mitchi Manitou--who placed there an Indian
Adam and Eve to watch and cultivate his gardens. He also made the beaver,
that his children might eat, and they acknowledged his goodness in
oblations. Bounteous sacrifices insured entrance after death to the happy
hunting-grounds beyond the Rocky Mountains. Those who had failed in these
offerings were compelled to wander about the Great Lakes, shelterless,
and watched by unsleeping giants who were ten times the stature of
mortals.
These giants still exist, but in the form of conical rocks, one of
which-called Sugar-Loaf, or Manitou's Wigwam--is ninety feet high. A cave
in this obelisk is pointed out as Manitou's abiding-place, and it was
believed that every other spire in the group had its wraith, whence has
come the name of the island--Michillimackinack (place of great dancing
spirits). Arch Rock is the place that Manitou built to reach his home
from Sunrise Land the better. There were many such monuments of
divinities in the north. They are met with all about the lakes and in the
wooded wilderness, the most striking one being the magnificent spire of
basalt in the Black Hills region of Wyoming. It is known as Devil's
Tower, or Mateo's Tepee, and by the red men is held to be the wigwam of a
were-animal that can become man at pleasure. This singular rock towers
above the Belle Fourche River to a height of eight hundred feet.
Deep beneath Mackinack was a stately and beautiful cavern hall where
spirits had their revels. An Indian who got leave to quit his body saw it
in company with one of the spirits, and spread glowing reports of its
beauties when he had clothed himself in flesh again. When Adam and Eve
died they, too, became spirits and continued to watch the home of
Manitou.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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