Indian once suggested that this was a figurative representation of the
revolution of the seasons.]

Once upon a time a young man who wished the love of women went to him
and asked for a love potion. The old man said, "Turn me over." The
young man turned the conjurer over and found under him an herb. The
old man told him he must not give this away or throw it away. The
young man went home to his wigwam. On his return home all the women of
the place followed him, everywhere and at all times. He longed to be
alone, and did not like to have the women so much about him. At last
he was so much troubled by them that he went back to the conjurer and
gave back the medicine to the medicine man, who took the herb, and the
young man went away without it. Another man went to the conjurer for
medicine. The old man said, "What do you want?" He said, "I want to
live as long as the world stands." The old man said the request was
hard to grant, but he would try to answer it. The conjurer, as was his
wont, said, "Turn me over," and underneath his body was the herb. Then
the conjurer told the man who wished to live forever to go to a place
which was bare of everything, so bare indeed that it was destitute of
all vegetation, and to stand there. He pointed out the place to him.
This the man did, and, looking back at the conjurer, branches grew out
all over him, and he was changed into a cedar tree. He is useless to
every one, and there he will stand forever.

The first part of this story strongly reminds one of the story of
Moses, and may have been due to contact with Europeans. It is to be
remarked that the mother of the child became pregnant by eating an
herb. The child is therefore parthenogenetic. According to Leland, the
medicine man who turned the man into a cedar tree is Glooscap.
Glooscap performed many such miracles, as in the case of the story of