Algernon Blackwood

“ Before the coming of the white men these Wabanaki Indians waged incessant warfare with the Iroquois nation of whom the Mohawks were the principal representatives. They were bitter foes of one another, and on the slightest provocation they would send out marauding bands to destroy the crops, burn the villages, and carry off as many women as they could seize. ”

“ The story of how the Master showed himself a great smoker also had to do with a wizard who came to try and take his life. Kuloskap guessed his intention at once, because he had the power of reading all men’s thoughts. The evil wizard first tried to frighten the Master by the size of his pipe. Its bowl was bigger than the head of a man, and it had a ten-foot stem. But Kuloskap’s pipe began to grow, too, and soon reached the size of a pumpkin, and then of a ten-foot boulder, while the smoke of his puffing was like a forest fire. ”

“ But the wizard could do nothing to equal that great trick, and went away in shame and anger to the evil ones who had sent him.
Finally, having made everything pleasant and happy in the world, the great Indian retired to his huge wigwam in the skies, where he lives alone, making arrows for the last great fight when the world will be destroyed, when “the world will pass away,” as the words of the legend have it, “in roaring fire and flame; while all the sea will rise hot boiling into mist. ”

“ Kuloskap the Master The Wabanaki legends were handed down from one generation to another by means of speech, and furnish a complete history of the Indian ideas of the creation of men and animals, and the origin of everything they found in the woods and lakes round them⁠—their world. The keepers of the history of each tribe always made a point of instructing some of the younger members of the clan, so that they could pass it on to others after they were dead, and thus keep alive forever their songs, stories, and legends. ”

“ The great bullfrog, Aklibimo by name, caused Kuloskap a lot of trouble, and the legend of how he conquered him in the end is worth telling. Far away in the lonely mountains there was a little Indian village where the squaws and braves lived very peaceably and happily, except for one thing⁠—they had very little water. Now, these Indians liked good fresh water, and plenty of it too, and the only supply they had was furnished by a small mountain stream which had a habit of running very low in summertime, just when they most needed water. ”

“ The boy, plucky like all Indian lads, recognised at once the cannibal wizard, the demon who eats human flesh, and sprang up at him and shouted in his face that his uncle should never be devoured by any wizard, but that he would always be here to protect him. Mutt’ntoe, the wizard, warned him that when he returns another night, unless the uncle is ready for him to carry off and devour, the boy shall dearly rue it. ”

“ But when the game began, Kuloskap discovered that the ball with which they played was a hideous human skull, a living thing which snapped at his heels. Had the Master been as other men, the monster would have bitten a foot away. ”

“ III Kuloskap, according to these Wabanaki stories, was always trying to do things to make his redskinned people happy in the world. He had great trouble, especially, to get rid of all the wizards and sorcerers that infested the forests, and many of the legends describe his terrible fights with these monsters.
Once there was a father who had three sons and a daughter, all of whom were wizards of the worst kind, for they ate men, women, and children, and the whole land was tired of their abominations. ”

“ The squirrel, then about the size of a wolf, also said it would scratch the trees down on them, so it was taken up by the master’s hands and smoothed down to its present size. The great white bear said quite honestly that he would eat men, and he was consequently banished to the far North, where he would never see any Indians; and in this way Kuloskap questioned all the other animals and changed their size and strength according to their answers. ”

“ The main body of Indians who still dwell in this eastern part of the American continent are the Wabanaki branch of the once great Algonquin stock, and they consist of tribes known as the Passamaquoddies (meaning “Spearers of Pollock fish”) , Penobscots, Abenaki (Land of the Dawn) , Micmacs, and Delawares. They are disappearing so quickly now before the white men that, as Professor Prince of New York says, they are a race “which fifty years from now will have hardly a single living representative.” ”

“ This proposition was made to the Passamaquoddy chief, who, wearied by the perpetual state of unrest, gladly acceded to the request. A general council was accordingly called, by which it was decided that “as long as the sun rises and sets, as long as the Great Lakes send their waters to the sea, so long should peace reign between the two tribes.”
The usual ceremonies for making peace were then observed as follows: A marriage was contracted between a brave of the challenging people and a maiden of the challenged people. ”

“ At the last moment, however, he changed them to the form of serpents, so that the rattlesnakes who crawl all over the North American continent were once Indians⁠—and they still sound their angry rattles when a man approaches too near. ”

“ It was the custom of the Mohawks to make night attacks, and at one time, when the Passamaquoddies were lying at the head of Passamaquoddy Bay, the Mohawks approached the camp, which was called Quenasquamcook, with the purpose of utterly destroying it. On this occasion, however, they were seen by a Passamaquoddy brave, whose people lay in ambush for them. ”

“ I The Red Indians of the northeastern portion of Canada and the United States are so fast disappearing before the march of modern life that before very long they will be nothing more than a name and a memory. ”

“ Some of their lesser tribes number now but a mere handful of twenty or thirty men, and when the last of these are dead there will have passed away an entire race of men whose memory will always live on to stir the thoughts and imaginations of readers and thinkers for long centuries after. ”

“ This was more than Kuloskap the Master could tolerate. He threw his great spear and made a huge hole in the Sagamore’s side, and at once there gushed forth a mighty stream, for it was all the water which should have run in the brook that the creature had taken into himself. Next, the Master stood up, as high as a giant pine-tree, and caught the monster by his back, crumpling him like paper in his mighty grip⁠—and lo! ”