Fairy and Wonder Tales 1917

Manabozho, The Mischief-Maker

Adapted from H. R. Schoolcraft

THERE was never in the whole world a more mischievous busybody than

that notorious giant Manabozho.  He was everywhere, in season and out

of season, running about, and putting his hand in whatever was going

forward.

To carry on his game he could take almost any shape he pleased.  He

could be very foolish or very wise, very weak or very strong, very rich

or very poor-just as happened to suit his humor best.  Whatever anyone

else could do, he would attempt without a moment's reflection.  He was

a match for any man he met, and there were few manitoes*  (*good

spirits or evil spirits) that could get the better of him.  By turns he

would be very kind or very cruel, an animal or a bird, a man or a

spirit, and yet, in spite of all these gifts, Manabozho was always

getting himself involved in all sorts of troubles.  More than once, in

the course of his adventures, was this great maker of mischief driven

to his wits' ends to come off with his life.

To begin at the beginning, Manabozho, while yet a youngster, was living

with his grandmother near the edge of a great prairie.  It was on this

prairie that he first saw animals and birds of every kind; he also

there made first acquaintance with thunder and lightning.  He would sit

by the hour watching the clouds as they rolled by, musing on the shades

of light and darkness as the day rose and fell.

For a stripling, Manabozho was uncommonly wide-awake.  Every sight he

beheld in the heavens was a subject of remark, every new animal or bird

an object of deep interest, and every sound was like a new lesson which

he was expected to learn.  He often trembled at what he heard and saw.

The first sound he heard was that of the owl, at which he was greatly

terrified, and, quickly descending the tree he had climbed, he ran with

alarm to the lodge.  "Noko! noko! grandmother!" he cried.  "I have

heard a monedo."

She laughed at his fears, and asked him what kind of a noise it made.

He answered.  "It makes a noise like this: ko-ko-ko-ho!"

His grandmother told him he was young and foolish; that what he heard

was only a bird which derived its name from the peculiar noise it made.

He returned to the prairie and continued his watch.  As he stood there

looking at the clouds he thought to himself, "It is singular that I am

so simple and my grandmother so wise; and that I have neither father

nor mother.  I have never heard a word about them.  I must ask and find

out."

He went home and sat down, silent and dejected.  Finding that this did

not attract the notice of his grandmother, he began a loud lamentation,

which he kept increasing, louder and louder, till it shook the lodge

and nearly deafened the old grandmother.

"Manabozho, what is the matter with you?" she said, "you are making a

great deal of noise."

Manabozho started off again with his doleful hubbub, but succeeded in

jerking out between his big sobs, "I haven't got any father nor mother,

I haven't."

Knowing that he was of a wicked and revengeful nature, his grandmother

dreaded to tell him the story of his parentage, as she knew he would

make trouble of it.

Manabozho renewed his cries and managed to throw out for a third or

fourth time, his sorrowful lament that he was a poor unfortunate who

had no parents or relatives.

At last she said to him, to quiet him, "Yes, you have a father and

three brothers living.  Your mother is dead.  She was taken for a wife

by your father, the West, without the consent of her parents.  Your

brothers are the North, East, and South; and being older than you your

father has given them great power with the winds, according to their

names.  You are the youngest of his children.  I have nursed you from

your infancy, for your mother died when you were born."

"I am glad my father is living," said Manabozho, "I shall set out in

the morning to visit him."

His grandmother would have discouraged him, saying it was a long

distance to the place where his father, Ningabinn, or the West, lived.

This information seemed rather to please than to discourage Manabozho,

for by this time he had grown to such a size and strength that he had

been compelled to leave the narrow shelter of his grandmother's lodge

and live out of doors.  He was so tall that, if he had been so

disposed, he could have snapped off the heads of the birds roosting on

the topmost branches of the highest trees, as he stood up, without

being at the trouble to climb.  And if he had at any time taken a fancy

to one of the same trees for a walking stick, he would have had no more

to do than to pluck it up with his thumb and finger and strip down the

leaves and twigs with the palm of his hand.

Bidding good-by to his old grandmother, who pulled a very long face

over his departure, Manabozho set out at a great pace, for he was able

to stride from one side of a prairie to the other at a single step.

He found his father on a high mountain far in the west.  His father

espied his approach at a great distance, and bounded down the

mountainside several miles to give him welcome.  Apparently delighted

with each other, they reached in two or three of their giant paces the

lodge of the West which stood high up near the clouds.

They spent some days in talking with each other-for these two great

persons did nothing on a small scale, and a whole day to deliver a

single sentence, such was the immensity of their discourse, was quite

an ordinary affair.

One evening Manabozho asked his father what he was most afraid of on

earth.

He replied-"Nothing."

"But is there nothing you dread here-nothing that would hurt you if you

took too much of it?  Come, tell me."

Manabozho was very urgent, so at last his father said: "Yes, there is a

black stone to be found a couple of hundred miles from here, over that

way," pointing as he spoke.  "It is the only thing on earth I am afraid

of, for if it should happen to hit me on any part of my body it would

hurt me very much."  The West made this important circumstance known to

Manabozho in the strictest confidence.

"Now you will not tell anyone, Manabozho, that the black stone is bad

medicine for your father, will you?"  he added.  "You are a good son,

and I know you will keep it to yourself.  Now tell me, my darling boy,

is there not something that you don't like?"

Manabozho answered promptly-"Nothing."

His father, who was of a steady and persevering nature, put the same

question to him seventeen times, and each time Manabozho made the same

answer-' 'Nothing."

But the West insisted-"There must be something you are afraid of."

"Well, I will tell you," said Manabozho, "what it is."

He made an effort to speak, but it seemed to be too much for him.

"Out with it," said the West, fetching Manabozho such a blow on the

back as shook the mountain with its echo.

"Je-ee, je-ee-it is," said Manabozho, apparently in great pain.  "Yes,

yes!  I cannot name it, I tremble so."

The West told him to banish his fears, and to speak up; no one would

hurt him.  Manabozho began again, and he would have gone over the same

make-believe of pain, had not his father, whose strength he knew was

more than a match for his own, threatened to pitch him into a river

about five miles off.  At last he cried out:

"Father, since you will know, it is the root of the bulrush."  He who

could with perfect ease spin a sentence a whole day long, seemed to be

exhausted by the effort of pronouncing that one word, "bulrush."

Some time after Manabozho observed: "I will get some of the black rock,

merely to see how it looks."

"Well," said the father, "I will also get a little of the bulrush root,

to learn how it tastes."

They were both double-dealing with each other, and in their hearts

getting ready for some desperate work.  They had no sooner separated

for the evening than Manabozho was striding off the couple of hundred

miles necessary to bring him to the place where the black rock was to

be procured, while down the other side of the mountain hurried

Ningabinn, the West.

At the break of day they each appeared at the great level on the

mountain-top, Manabozho with twenty loads, at least, of the black

stone, on one side, and on the other the West, with a whole meadow of

bulrush in his arms.

Manabozho was the first to strike-hurling a great piece of the black

rock, which struck the West directly between the eyes, and he returned

the favor with a blow of bulrush that rung over the shoulders of

Manabozho, far and wide, like the long lash of the lightning among the

clouds.

First one and then the other, Manabozho poured in a tempest of black

rock, while the West discharged a shower of bulrush.  Blow upon blow,

thwack upon thwack-they fought hand to hand until black rock and

bulrush were all gone.  Then they betook themselves to hurling crags at

each other, cudgeling with huge oak trees, and defying each other from

one mountain top to another; while at times they shot enormous boulders

of granite across at each other's heads, as though they had been mere

jackstones.  The battle, which had commenced on the mountains, had

extended far west.  The West was forced to give ground.  Manabozho

pressing on, drove him across rivers and mountains, ridges and lakes,

till at last he got him to the very brink of the world.

"Hold!" cried the West.  "My son, you know my power, and although I

allow I am now fairly out of breath, it is impossible to kill me.  Stop

where you are, and I will also portion you out with as much power as

your brothers.  The four quarters of the globe are already occupied,

but you can go and do a great deal of good to the people of the earth,

which is beset with serpents, beasts and monsters, who make great havoc

of human life.  Go and do good, and if you put forth half the strength

you have to-day, you will acquire a name that will last forever.  When

you have finished your work I will have a place provided for you.  You

will then go and sit with your brother, Kabinocca, in the north."

Manabozho gave his father his hand upon this agreement.  And parting

from.  him, he returned to his own grounds, where he lay for some time

sore of his wounds.