Some Aspects of the Folk-Lore of the Central Algonkin

Abstract

THE material here presented is the fruit of six summers' field-trips for the American Museum among the Eastern and Plains Cree, the Northern and Plains Ojibwa, and the Menominee, supplemented by the continuous field-work of Mr. John V. Satterlee (himself a Menominee) among his own people and the Potawatomi, Ojibwa, and Ottawa, once of Manitowoc, Wis., now dwelling in the hardwood forests in the northern part of the State. Additional data on the region and groups near by have been gathered from the classic sources, Riggs, Dorsey, Lowie, Schoolcraft, Blackbird, Copway, Peter Jones, Dr. William Jones, Lasley, and a host of others. So far as I am aware, nearly all folk-lore the world over is comprised more or less of certain stereotyped concepts and set in different fashions on separate stages. In European folk-lore we find the fairy godmother, the imprisoned or enchanted princess, and so on. With them are frequently associated certain objects or properties, so that one never thinks of the witch without her broomstick or her black cat, and the like. Without these concepts and their concomitant properties, a fairy-tale could not be told. This is also true of North America; and, selecting the Lake Algonkin tribes and their neighbors of the same stock, I shall endeavor to give a list of these phenomena. That these and concepts are peculiar to the group I do not claim. I know, however, that they are found not only among the Ojibwa, Cree, Ottawa, Potawatomi, Sauk and Fox, and Menominee, but certainly also among some of their Siouan neighbors. A study of the stereotyped utilized in Algonkin folk-lore of the Lakes region is interesting, aind may perhaps prove of value in comparison with similar concepts found elsewhere in North America. By properties I mean objects found in the possession of, or associated with, the hero, and which are always suggested to the auditors of a story by reference to him, just as the average school-child immediately thinks of the hatchet when George Washington is named. Some of the most famous of these, exclusive of those found only in the culturehero cycle (which I will not enumerate), are:I. THE MAGIC CANOE. Among Menominee, Cree, and Ojibwa, we find frequent references to this property, generally, but not always, VOL. XXVII.---NO. 103. -7.