giving an account of
a water lily, a single leaf of which, he averred, was sufficient to
make a petticoat and upper garments for his wife and daughter. One
evening he was sitting in his lodge, on the banks of a river, and
hearing the quacking of ducks on the stream, he fired through the lodge
door at a venture. He killed a swan that happened to be flying by, and
twenty brace of ducks in the stream. But this did not check the force
of his shot; they passed on, and struck the heads of two loons, at the
moment they were coming up from beneath the water, and even went beyond
and killed a most extraordinary large fish called Moshkeenozha.[44] On
another occasion he had killed a deer, and after skinning it, was
carrying the carcass on his shoulders, when he spied some stately elks
on the plain before him. He immediately gave them chase, and had run,
over hill and dale, a distance of half a day's travel, before he
recollected that he had the deer's carcass on his shoulders.

One day, as he was passing over a tract of _mushkeeg_ or bog-land, he
saw musquitoes of such enormous size, that he staked his reputation on
the fact that a single wing of one of the insects was sufficient for a
sail to his canoe, and the proboscis as big as his wife's shovel. But
he was favored with a still more extraordinary sight, in a gigantic
ant, which passed him, as he was watching a beaver's lodge, dragging
the entire carcass of a hare.

At another time, for he was ever seeing or doing something wonderful,
he got out of smoking weed, and in going into the woods in search of
some, he discovered a bunch of the red willow, or maple bush, of such a
luxuriant growth, that he was industriously occupied half a day walking
round it.

[44] The muscalunge.

SHAWONDASEE.

FROM THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE ODJIBWAS.

Mudjekewis and nine brothers conquered the Mammoth Bear, and obtained
the Sacred Belt of Wampum, the great object of previous warlike
enterprise, and the great means of happiness to men. The chief honor of
this achievement was awarded to Mudjekewis, the youngest of the ten, who
received the government of the West Winds. He is therefore called
Kabeyun, the father of the winds. To his son, Wabun, he gave the East;
to Shawondasee, the south, and to Kabibonokka, the north. Manabozho
being an illegitimate son, was left unprovided. When he grew up, and
obtained the secret of his birth, he went to war against his father,
Kabeyun, and having