Contribution to Passamaquoddy Folk-Lore by J. Walter Fewkes
page 16 of 43 (37%)
page 16 of 43 (37%)
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"M' TOULIN." Passamaquoddy Indians are believers in a power by which a song, sung in one place, can be heard in another many miles away. This power is thought to be due to _m' toulin_, or magic, which plays an important part in their belief. Several instances were told me, and others have published similar observations. Leland, in his "Algonquin Legends of New England," pp. 517, 518, gives a weird account of an Indian who was so affected by _m' toulin_ that he left his home and travelled north to find a cold place. Although lightly clad and bare-footed, he complained that it was too hot for him, and hastened away to find a climate more congenial to his tastes. In this account one is led to believe that the man was insane, and that to the Indian insanity is simply the result of _m' toulin_. THE ORIGIN OF THE THUNDER-BIRD. In a very interesting paper of A.F. Chamberlain, on "The Thunder-Bird among the Algonquins," in the "American Anthropologist," January, 1890, reference is made to the belief in this being among the Passamaquoddy Indians. On my recent visit to Calais I obtained from Peter Selmore a story of the origin of the Thunder-Bird, which is different from any mentioned by Leland. This story, I regret to say, I was unable to get on the phonograph. A story of the old times.[7] Two men desired to find the origin of thunder. They set out and travelled north, and came to high mountains. These mountains drew back and forth, and then closed together very |
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