ALGONQUIN INDIAN TALES
COLLECTED BY
EGERTON R. YOUNG
AUTHOR OF "BY CANOE AND DOG-TRAIN," "THE APOSTLE OF THE NORTH,"
"THREE BOYS IN THE WILD NORTH LAND," ETC.
Copyright
1903
CHIEF BIG CANOE'S LETTER
GEORGINA ISLAND, LAKE SIMCOE.
REV. EGERTON R. YOUNG.
DEAR FRIEND: Your book of stories gathered from among my tribe has verymuch pleased me. The reading of them brings up the days of long time agowhen I was a boy and heard our old people tell these tales in the wigwamsand at the camp fire.
I am very glad that you are in this way saving them from being forgotten,and I am sure that many people will be glad to read them.
With best wishes,
KECHE CHEMON (Charles Big Canoe),
Chief of the Ojibways.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
In all ages, from the remotest antiquity, the story-teller has flourished.Evidences of his existence are to be found among the most ancient monumentsand writings in the Orient. In Egypt, Nineveh, Babylon, and other ancientlands he flourished, and in the homes of the noblest he was ever an honoredguest.
The oldest collection of folklore stories or myths now in existence is ofEast Indian origin and is preserved in the Sanskrit. The collection iscalled Hitopadesa, and the author was Veshnoo Sarma. Of this collection,Sir William Jones, the great Orientalist, wrote, "The fables of Veshnoo arethe most beautiful, if not the most ancient, collection of apologues in theworld." As far back as the sixth century translations were made from them.
The same love for myths and legends obtains to-day in those Oriental lands.There, where the ancient and historic so stubbornly resist any change—inPersia, India, China, and indeed all over that venerable East—the man whocan recite the ancient apologues or legends of the past can always securean audience and command the closest attention.
While the general impression is that the recital of these old myths andlegends among Oriental nations was for the mere pastime of the crowds, itis well to bear in mind that many of them were used as a means to conveygreat truths or to reprove error. Hence the recital of them was notconfined to a merely inquisitive audience that desired to be amused. Wehave a good example of this in the case of the recital by Jotham, asrecorded in the book of Judges, of the legend of the gathering of the treesfor the purpose of having one of them anointed king over the rest. Of thislegend Dr. Adam Clarke, the commentator, says, "This is the oldest and,without exception, the best fable or apologue in the world."
The despotic nature of the governments of those Oriental nations caused thepeople often to use the fable or myth as an indirect way to reprove orcensure when it would not have been safe to have used a direct form ofspeech. The result was that it attained a higher degree of perfection therethan among any other people. An excellent example is Nathan's reproof ofDavid by the recital of the fable of the poor man's ewe lamb.
The red Indians of America have justly been famous for their myths andlegends. We have never heard of a tribe that did not have a store of them.Even the hardy Eskimo in his igloo of ice is surprisingly rich in folklorestories. A present of a knife or some other trifle that he desires willcause him to talk by the hour to his guest, whether he be the daring traderor adventurous explorer, on the traditions that have