The Lost City of Norumbega: David Ingram's Journey

"Everything about Norumbega is in dispute." 

Kirsten Seaver, "Norumbega and 'Harmonia Mundi" in Sixteenth-Century Cartography,"
Imago Mundi, Vol. 50, 1998

*****

In 1568, a young Englishman named David Ingram joined Captain John Hawkins as a crew member on one of his ships. Ingram was from the small town of Barking in Essex, and apparently he was looking for adventure - and was willing to overlook the nasty fact that Hawkins was a slave trader whose coat of arm was emblazoned with the image of an African child in chains.

Ingram set sail with Hawkins for the Caribbean with six vessels, but when they reached the coast of Mexico the fleet was attacked by Spanish pirates. Four of Hawkins's ships were captured by the Spaniards, and more than two hundred of his men (including Ingram) were forced onto the remaining two ships. There was not enough food or water for so many men and survival seemed grim. Captain Hawkins was not a compassionate man, so he put ninety-six men ashore near the Tampico River in Mexico. He gave them money and bolts of cloth, keeping the food and weapons for himself, and then sailed off.

The money was useless - there was nowhere to spend it and nothing to buy - but I suppose they could have traded the cloth with the local Native Americans. They didn't get a chance, though, because shortly after being put ashore a band of Native Americans captured the sailors, robbing them and killing those who resisted. They then told the survivors to head west to a nearby Spanish settlement.

Many of the crew headed west, but David Ingram had other ideas. Maybe he was afraid of the Spaniards, maybe he didn't trust the Native Americans, but he and several others decided to go north. They were aiming for the North Atlantic Coast, where Ingram knew English fishing boats visited the region's teeming fisheries. It was more than a thousand miles away.

For months Ingram trekked across North America, getting food, shelter and directions from various tribes along the way. By 1569 he made it to the coast of Maine with at least two other English companions.

Ingram's story sounds pretty incredible, doesn't it? Was it really possible for someone to walk from Mexico to Maine in one year in the 1500s? His journey seems almost unbelievable, but once he reached Maine things got really bizarre. Ingram claimed that he discovered a vast Native American kingdom filled with gold and silver in Maine. It was called Norumbega.

An early map showing Norumbega's location in Maine

According to Ingram, the people of Norumbega dressed in the softest animal pelts and decorated their bodies with gold and pearls.

"All the people generally wear bracelets as big as a man's finger upon each of their arms, and the like on each of their ankles, whereof one commonly is gold and two silver and many of the women also do wear great plates of gold covering their bodies and many bracelets and chains of great pearls." (Emmie Bailey Whitney, Maine, My State, 1919)

Gold and pearls were outrageously plentiful in the kingdom. The rivers were filled with pieces of gold as large as a man's hand, while pearls could be gathered by the fistful. Ingram himself collected large amounts of pearls upon first arriving but threw them away because he got tired of carrying them. It didn't really matter because he could always just pick up more.

The Norumbegans were friendly and led Ingram to their leader, a king named the Bathshaba who lived in the city of Arembec. Ingram claimed that Arambec was about half a mile across, and its buildings were roofed with precious metals. The Bathsheba received Ingram in a hall whose roof was supported by twelve pillars of polished crystal, whose walls were lined with gold, and whose ceiling was made of silver. In other words, it was really nice. 

The Bathshaba took pity on Ingram and gave him furs to wear, a house to live in, and a wife to cook for him. It sounds like a good deal, but Ingram was still eager to return home to England. He eventually found a French ship bound for Europe and returned made his way to London.

Francis Walsingham

Back in England Ingram became something of a celebrity. He told his story to eager audiences in pubs, and discussed Norumbega with leading intellectuals like Dr. John Dee, who was Queen Elizabeth's astrologer and Shakespeare's inspiration for Prospero in The Tempest. Ingram also told his story to Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth's secretary and spymaster, who in turn told it to Richard Hakluyt, a clergyman and author who was promoting English exploration. Hakluyt published an account of Ingram's journey called The Relations of David Ingram in 1582, and also included it in his influential 1589 book The Principall Navigations Voyages and Discoveries of the English Nation.

Several expeditions tried to reach Norumbega, but none were successful. In fact, no one ever found the city, even when Maine was successfully colonized by the English.

I suppose this is not surprising to you. We all know, from our vantage point in the 21st century, that there was no city of precious metals in Maine. It never existed. Even Hakluyt grew suspicious of Ingram's story, and removed it from later editions of The Prinicipall Navigations. It's not even entirely clear if Ingram was ever even in North America (which he claimed was full of elephants).

Why did people believe him? Well, the Spanish had actually discovered large cities in Mexico, and they were indeed filled with gold, so it seemed plausible these cities might exist elsewhere. A place named Norumbega, or something similar, had appeared on a Portuguese map of North America in 1548. The French explorer Jean Alfonce de Saintonge claimed he visited Norumbega in the 1540s, and found a city "with clever inhabitants and peltries of all kinds of beasts." Saintonge doesn't mention gold, but animal pelts were very valuable, so wouldn't gold be found there as well?

In short, Ingram didn't make up Norumbega out of thin air. Europeans already believed it was an actual place. He was building on some preexisting stories and some of his details do seem plausible. For example, he claims the Norumbegans ate a lot of quahogs and piled up their shells on the shore. It is true that Maine's coastal tribes ate a lot of shellfish, and those piles of shells (called middens) can still be seen today.

Ironically, the name Norumbega may come from a misunderstanding of an archaic Italian phrase "non oro bega," which means "no quarrel about gold." The historian Kirsten Seaver claims that early Italian explorers noted this on a map as a way of telling others there was no gold in the region (and therefore no reason for colonizing countries to quarrel). "Non oro bega" was then written by later mapmakers as "aranbega," and finally as Norumbega. A note indicating a lack of gold finally became a mythical city full of it.

As I mentioned above, many of Ingram's contemporaries came to doubt his story, and English colonists in the region found no trace of Norumbega. The Native American groups in Maine also have no traditions or history regarding a city of gold. You would think that it would recede forever into the realm of myth, but that isn't the case. As I'll discuss in my next post, Norumbega rose again in the 19th century.

Fairies, Lost Children, and Cannibalism in 1830s Maine

Last year I did a lot of research into New England fairy folklore for an upcoming project. I found a some strange and wonderful things, including an article called "The Water-Fairies" by Harley Stamp in the July - September 1915 issue of The Journal of American Folklore.

The article is an allegedly true account of an encounter four Penobscot hunters had with some supernatural creatures in Maine in 1835. I say "allegedly true" only because the narrative doesn't match the current normative culture's standards for reality, but standards (and perhaps reality itself) may have been different two hundred years ago.

The story starts off with the Penosbscot hunters traveling into the wilderness to find game. They canoe up the Kenduskeag (an offshoot of the Penobscot River) and make camp near what is now the town of Kenduskeag. As they eat their evening meal they are besieged by strange noises:

Suddenly, while we were eating, we heard a noise or rumbling, like water rushing down from the mountains which surrounded us. We all stopped eating to listen. The noises continued, and then at intervals of about two minutes we heard what seemed to be millers driving their dogs into the logs and throwing their bars across them, then the filing of saws. We heard the sails of vessels flapping, the blowing of horns and drums... then from the south we came a rolling noise like thunder, and also one like a whistle heard through a tunnel; besides these, many strange sounds (forty-two every two minutes); and it seemed as if each one was louder and more distinct than the others. 

One of the hunters thinks the noises are coming from witches on the mountains, while another thinks they are being produced by devils. They consult the oldest and wisest member of their party, a man named Neptune. He thinks the sounds are coming from a nearby lake, which he has been told is inhabited - but he doesn't say by what. (Suspense!)

The next morning the hunters hike up into the nearby mountains, where they find a large wigwam made of whale bones. No one is inside, but a big pot is boiling on the cooking fire. When they open it they find the arm, foot, and head of a child. Yikes! They also notice large forks and spoons (each about six feet long) resting against the wigwam's walls. They run back to their camp in terror, and that night they again hear the same sounds.

If I can interject here, I will just say that this is a very creepy set-up. Hunters alone in the wilderness, strange nocturnal noises, and a pot full of child body parts. At this point I would turn around and head home, but the hunters don't do this. They need to catch some game to feed their families, so the next morning they canoe further up the river.

The banks of the river are wide and sandy, and they see what at first look like multiple otter tracks in the sand. But on closer inspection they discover the tracks are actually tiny human footprints. Weird, but things get even weirder as they go further up the river. They come upon a miniature village made entirely of clay. It contains houses, stables, horses, and even people, but all child-sized, inanimate and sculpted of river clay. As they look through the village, Neptune tells them that it was made by water-fairies, or warnungmeksooark in Penobscot. He had heard they lived nearby and had always hoped to see them because they can foretell the future. They are known to create sculptures from clay.

The Kenduskeag, from Wikipedia.

They return to their canoe and plan to continue up the river, but when they turn a bend they come across a huge crowd of water fairies running in many directions along the bank. The hunters don't really get a good idea of what they look like though, because the fairies see the hunters and dive into the water.

Again, I would probably turn around and head home at this point, but one of the hunters, Sauk Ketch, decides to capture a warnungmeksooark. His friends bury him in the sand and then hide in the bushes. When the water-fairies finally emerge from the river and he rises up from the sand and grabs two of them. The rest disappear into the river.

The hunters are shocked when they see what a water fairy looks like:

... he had the most beautiful fine long hair; but his face was narrow, with so long a chin that it rested on his breast. His nose was so big and broad that you could see it on each side of his head when his back was toward you. His eyes were very narrow up and down; and his mouth was the shape of a sharp A, the point running up under his nose. He wore no clothing...

The hunters are even more shocked when the water fairies eventually lead them to see the king of their tribe, who is sleeping nearby.

... we saw before us, on the rock, a huge man. His gray hair was long and in ringlets. His neck was as large as a barrel. His feet were large, and he had on a strange sort of dress. On his feet were black shining moccasins with silver clasps. He had close-fitting leggings. His coat was olive-green outside, and bright blue and red inside... As his mouth was open, I saw he had two large teeth only, on his upper jaw, one of which was broken off. 

The water fairies explain that their race is divided into twelve tribes, each ruled over by a king. The kings are able to travel through the air, and can live in water or on land. The kings catch children who fall into lakes or rivers and bring them to someplace safe.

That sounds nice, but what finally happens to the children that they save? Well, once a year the twelve kings gather together, kill the children, and eat them. Apparently the pot the hunters found contained the remains (or the beginnings) of their feast.

At this point I would definitely leave. And you know what? The hunters leave and head back home. That's the end of the story.

There are a lot of interesting things about this article. Water-dwelling fairies are found in the folklore of many northern New England Algonquin tribes, and they are generally benevolent. Even in this story the warnungmeksooark themselves seem pretty nice, but their kings are another matter entirely. Algonquin folklore also often describes malevolent beings who lure children to their doom, and the water-fairy kings seem to be a variant of this.

The sleeping king, particularly with his shiny buckled shoes, curly hair, and his brightly colored coat, seems to resemble someone of European descent. Maybe it could be a little bit of political commentary?

I really like the narrative arc of this story. The hunters slowly learn more as they travel further into the wilderness, and the strange noises and gruesome wigwam set a creepy mood. Neptune has always wanted to meet the water-fairies because they can tell the future. They do tell him they can do this, but he never gets to ask them any questions. My expectations for the story were foiled!

People do still see fairies in New England, but not quite like the warnungmeksooark. However, the frantic running of the water fairies does remind me of the these tiny high-speed cavemen seen on the Connecticut River. Perhaps they are the same entities? If so, let's just hope their kings aren't anywhere nearby.

Swamp Woman and Other Dangerous Spirits

If you are out alone in the woods please be cautious if you hear someone crying and moaning. It could be Swamp Woman trying to to trick you, particularly if you are a man.

Swamp Woman is a spirit found in Penobscot folklore from Maine. In Algonquian her names are  Swaktemus and Pskegdemus, but most people think both names simply refer to the same being. She should be avoided at all costs whatever name you give her.

Swamp Woman lives alone in the forest, and wears only moss. Moss also grows in her hair, which is so long that it covers most of her body. I think that's a pretty distinctive look, so you'll probably know if you encounter her.

Poor Swamp Woman is lonely, and cries out in the woods for men and children to come live with her. She is particularly fond of hunters, but perhaps they are just the men she sees is the most familiar with. Maybe she would like high-tech nerds or Uber drivers just as much if she encountered them more often. Regardless of their profession, anyone who responds to her call is never seen again. Do they die? Do they live with her forever in her swampy forest home? It's not clear, but it's probably not good either way.

Swamp Woman sounds easy to avoid. Just stay out of the woods, right? Unfortunately it's not that simple. If a man sincerely wishes to see Swamp Woman she will come to him wherever he is, and any man who even pities her will never marry a mortal woman. In other words, not only do you have to avoid Swamp Woman, you have to avoid thinking about her. Ugh. I bet you're thinking about her right now, aren't you? She will also snatch children, and they are often warned to behave lest Swamp Woman come and steal them away.

The Penobscot also tell of another, similar creature called Maskiksu, a.k.a. Toad Creature, who appears as a small dwarfish woman clad in moss. She also seduces men and cries out in loneliness for children. Toad Creature likes to nurse human babies, but any child she nurses will fall into an endless sleep. Again, best to be avoided.

Other beings in New England folklore lure men and children to their dooms too. For example, a while ago I wrote about the Abenaki swamp spirit of Vermont, while further south the Wampanoag of Cape Cod tell tales of Granny Squannit. Granny Squannit's long hair covers her face (which is rumored to be strangely ugly), and she sometimes kidnaps men and young boys. Granny Squannit also has a benevolent side, teaching people about healing plants and feeding people who are shipwrecked. Granny Squannit is probably a modern version of the ancient Algonquian women's goddess Squauanit who was mentioned by Roger Williams in 1643.


Are all these beings distinct entities, or are they just different versions of each other? They sound similar in some ways to those seductive fairies who enchant questing knights in Medieval romances, or even to folkloric fairies like the Skogsnuva, or Wood Women, of Sweden. Fairies are not a laughing matter. Some death certificates from 17th century Sweden have been found where the cause of death is listed as "involvement with a Skogsnuva." My mind also drifts to the succubi of Christian demonology, the demoness Lilith from Jewish folklore, and even the seductive ghostly witch who haunts the Freetown State Forest here in Massachusetts. .

There is definitely a pattern here. Maybe there actually is a supernatural force (or forces) behind these different legends, or maybe the stories just reflect a male fear of female sexuality.The forests and swamps are dark and unknowable, making them a perfect blank slate to project one's fears onto. But still, if you see a long-haired woman covered in moss it's probably safest to run in the other direction.

The Man Who Sold His Genitals to the Devil

Here's another story about someone making a deal with the Devil. It's a little raunchy, and was recorded among the Penobscot Indians of Maine in the 1930s by anthropologist Frank Speck.

*****

Many years ago a poor old man lived alone with his equally poor old wife.

They had a hard life working their meager farm out in the woods. The soil was rocky and the growing season short. They were so poor they didn't even have any horses to pull their plough. The old man had to do it himself.

One day while the old man was out dragging his plough across the field the Devil showed up.

"Hey there old fella," the Devil said. "That looks like awfully hard work. Wouldn't you rather have two strong horses to do that for you?"

The old man said, "Of course I would! But I don't have any money."

The Devil said, "Well, then I have a deal for you. I'll give you a team of horses, and you just have to give me one small thing..."

The old man knew he was talking to Satan. He said, "I'm not giving you my soul!"

The Devil paused thoughtfully, and then he said, "OK, but how about this? I give you a team of horses now, and then in one year I'll come back and cut off your genitals."

The old man considered the offer for a moment. He was quite old, as was his wife, and he didn't use his genitals as much as he used to. He probably wouldn't even miss them...

"It's a deal," he said. He and the Devil shook hands. The Devil vanished, and two strong horses appeared. The man hitched them up to his plough and went back to work.

Many months went by. At first the old man thought he had gotten a good deal, but he started to reconsider as the anniversary of his bargain approached. Maybe it hadn't been such a good idea after all...

The night before the Devil was supposed to claim his payment the old man just lay in bed and cried. His wife asked him what was wrong.

When she found out what he had done she was furious. "You idiot! I'll fix this. You just stay in bed and cry like a baby."

The next morning the old woman put on her husband's pants, coat and hat. Looking just like her husband, she went out into the field to meet the Devil.

The Devil was waiting there with a big knife in his hand. He smiled and said, "Hello old man! I've come to collect my payment."

The old woman smiled right back. She dropped her trousers and said, "I was afraid you would cut too deep, so I cut them off myself. See?"

The Devil stared down at the woman's exposed body. He said, "Well old man, you fooled me, but you paid the price anyway." And with that he disappeared.

*****

Really, what can be said about this story? I'll just add two little comments. 

First, this is another story where someone cheats the Devil. It's a common theme in folk stories, and the joy of these stories is seeing how the hero does (or doesn't) get out of his bargain. Happily the old man's wife knows how to trick the Devil.

Second, French Catholic missionaries converted the Penosbscots in the early 1600s. Still, it's interesting to see how Christianity has been incorporated into the Penobscot worldview. I think this story might be a good example of how the two belief systems interact. It's certainly not something you'd find in the Bible! Another good example is this violent story about a rabbit impersonating a priest. Christianity isn't a uniform monolithic religion across the world. Different cultures do different things with it.

Ominous Lore About the Whippoorwill

Hear that lonesome whippoorwill
He sounds too blue to fly
The midnight train is whining low
I'm so lonesome I could cry

Hank Williams Sr., "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" (1949)

I've never heard a lonesome whipporwill, or any whippoorwills at all. I've been a city person all my life and whippoorwills don't like the city. These nocturnal bird prefer to live in the woods, where they nest on the ground during the day. They are quite hard to see due to the camouflaging effect of their feathers.

Whippoorwills are active at dawn and dusk, and on nights when the moon is full. They fly around catching insects (yum!) and making their distinctive cry. If you listen closely it might sound like "Whip poor Will," which is how the bird got its English name.

Whippoorwills are mentioned in quite a few songs, but for people who read this blog they might be most familiar from H.P. Lovecraft's story "The Dunwich Horror", which is set in rural central Massachusetts. According to Dunwich folklore, when a person nears death the birds come to steal their soul:

Then, too, the natives are mortally afraid of the numerous whippoorwills which grow vocal on warm nights. It is vowed that the birds are psychopomps lying in wait for the souls of the dying, and that they time their eerie cries in unison with the sufferer's struggling breath. If they can catch the fleeing soul when it leaves the body, they instantly flutter away chittering in daemoniac laughter; but if they fail, they subside gradually into a disappointed silence.

These tales, of course, are obsolete and ridiculous; because they come down from very old times...

Dunwich's resident evil wizard Old Whateley sees the whippoorwills as an omen of his own approaching doom:

Old Whateley noticed the growing number of whippoorwills that would come out of Cold Spring Glen to chirp under his window at night. He seemed to regard the circumstance as one of great significance, and told the loungers at Osborn's that he thought his time had almost come.

When Old Whateley is finally on his deathbed, the local doctor witnesses some folklore in action:

He found Old Whateley in a very grave state, with a cardiac action and stertorous breathing that told of an end not far off... The doctor, though, was chiefly disturbed by the chattering night birds outside; a seemingly limitless legion of whippoorwills that cried their endless message in repetitions timed diabolically to the wheezing gasps of the dying man. It was uncanny and unnatural—too much, thought Dr Houghton, like the whole of the region he had entered so reluctantly in response to the urgent call.

Lovecraft often incorporated authentic folklore into his stories, and it seems that he first learned that whippoorwills are omens of death from his friend Edith Miniter, who lived in Wilbraham, Massachusets. Miniter told Lovecraft that people in her town said the birds appeared when someone was close to death and would try to steal the person's soul as it fled their body. She didn't say exactly what they do it they catch it. Whippoorwills do eat moths and other small things that fly, so maybe a human soul is just another snack to them?

Miniter didn't make up this piece of lore. For example, Clifton Johnson heard it from his informants in western Massachusetts when he was writing his book What They Say in New England (1896), decades before Lovecraft and Miniter ever met.

Gertrude Decrow related similar beliefs in her 1892 article "Folk-Lore from Maine" (The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 5, no. 19). Decrow was told that if a whippoorwill sings under a window or near a door for several nights it is sign someone in the house will die. For example, once a whippoorwill sang repeatedly at the back door of a family's house. The family's son died soon after, and his corpse was carried in through the same back door where the bird sang. According to Decrow seeing a partridge on the doorstep in the morning is also an omen of death, so the whippoorwill is not the only spooky bird around.

Going even further back, the Reverend Samuel Peters wrote in his General History of Connecticut (1781) that the whippoorwill is also called the pope:

It is also called the pope, by reason of its darting with great swiftness, from the clouds almost to the ground and bawling out Pope! which alarms young people and the fanatics very much, especially as they know it to be an ominous bird.

Peters claims people were wrong to fear the bird, since it could also predict storms, which was helpful.

All this whippoorwill folklore might be older than even the first English settlers. According to a video on their website, the Mohegan tribe believed that the makiawisug, the magical little people of the forest, could transform into whippoorwills to travel through the woods. Not particularly ominous, but still you don't want to mess with the makiawisug.

Anthropologist William Simmons notes that the Mohegan word for whippoorwill also meant small boy, and suggests that perhaps both whippoorwills and small boys were associated with the liminal realm between life and death. Why would children be associated with death? The death rate for young children was quite high in traditional Mohegan culture. In one Mohegan burying ground that Simmons excavated 35% of the skeletons were of children under nine years of age. (Cautantowwit's House. An Indian Burial Ground on the Island of Conanicut in Narragansett Bay, 1970)

That's a lot of mystery, gloom and doom for one small bird. To end this post on a lighter note, I will mention that the Penobscot of northern New England attributed a different meaning to the whippoorwill. They heard its cry not as "Whip poor Will" but instead as "li puli", which means to ejaculate semen. I suppose your fear or joy at hearing a whippoorwill depends on what mood you're in.

Wishes from the Water Dwarf: A Creature from Penobscot Legend

It seems like Bigfoot is the monster most frequently sighted out in the woods these days. He's been seen in every New England state, even Rhode Island. However, in the past a much greater variety of strange creatures could be seen lurking around New England, and many of them are documented in the region's Native American lore.

One of the more interesting creatures was the water dwarf of Penobscot legend. I write in the past tense, implying that the water dwarfs are gone, but that may not be the case. Maybe they are just lying low and keeping out of sight. That might be OK, because seeing a water dwarf often brought trouble.

The Penobscot name for the dwarfs was alambegwinosis, which literally translates to "underwater dwarf man." (That would be an awesome name for a superhero!) Sometimes singly and sometimes in villages, these creatures dwell in deep pools in rivers, or at the bottom of lakes. An alambegwinosis is quite distinctive looking. If you encounter a three-foot tall naked man with long straight hair down to his waist near an isolated deep body of fresh water you've probably stumbled on a water dwarf.

If you do see one you should probably get away as fast as you can. The water dwarfs don't look menacing, but they generally bring bad luck. The anthropologist Frank Speck tells the story of a Penobscot man who was hunting by the shore of frozen lake. When darkness fell the hunter made camp and fell asleep, but was awakened by the sound of someone walking nearby. He stuck his head out of his tent and by the firelight saw an alambegwinosis run away from the camp and jump into a hole in the frozen lake. Several days later the hunter was crossing another frozen lake on his way home when he fell into a hole in the ice and died. The water dwarf had foretold his death.

TRIGGER WARNING (as the kids say these days): Folklore can sometimes be bawdy and crude. If dirty jokes or sexual situations offend you stop reading now and come back next week!

If you help a water dwarf he will grant you three wishes, but they might not work out the way you hope. Speck tells another story of a father, mother and son who were camping by a lake. Shortly after they set up camp a huge storm struck. Thunder shook the sky, and heavy winds churned the lake's waters into foamy waves. When the storm passed the family emerged from their tent and found a small naked man with long hair lying unconscious on the shore. It was an alambegwinosis who had been injured in the storm.

The family took him back to their camp and nursed him back to health. He recovered fully and as he walked back into the lake he granted the family three wishes in gratitude.

A few days later the family broke camp and made their way to a local trading post. They had trapped many animals and hoped to trade their furs for household goods.

When they arrived at the trading post a well-made manufactured broom caught the mother's eye. "Wow!" she said without thinking, "I wish I had that broom." Instantly the broom appeared in her hand. One wish had been used.

Her husband was enraged. "Arrrgh! You wasted one wish on that stupid broom! I wish it was stuck up your arse!" Uttered in anger, his wish unfortunately came true. Two wishes had been used.

Their young son kept a cool head, and wished that the broom was back where it belonged. Instantly it was once again hanging on the wall. The water dwarf's wishes had all been used. 

A few random thoughts on these stories, which are from Frank Speck's 1935 article "Penobscot Tales and Religious Beliefs" in Volume 48 of The Journal of American Folklore.

1. The three wishes gone bad is an old folk motif found in places as diverse as India, Estonia, France and England. A very raunchy version appears in the unexpurgated version of 1001 Arabian Nights. The classic horror story "The Monkey's Paw" is a literary example of the same motif, but the folk versions are usually humorous and serve as warnings against greed and stupidity. Was the motif brought to Maine by English settlers or did it arise independently? There's a good question for someone looking for a thesis topic.

2. It's interesting that the Penobscot family wastes their wishes in a trading post over goods manufactured by whites. Maybe it's a precautionary tale?

3. Finally, circling back to how I started this story: does anyone see water dwarfs these days? I haven't read about any alambegwinosis sightings recently. When it comes to the paranormal I believe you often find only what you're looking for. If you go out looking for Bigfoot, you'll only see Bigfoot. Then again, Bigfoot seems safer than the water dwarfs. He might be scary-looking but at least he doesn't grant wishes...

Cabin Fever, Wendigo Psychosis, and a Chenoo Story from Maine

This winter drags on and continues to be cold and snowy. Some of us might be suffering from a little cabin fever by now, but I hope no one is suffering from wendigo psychosis.

Before you can diagnose someone with that particular mental illness, you need to know what a wendigo is. The wendigo is a mythical monster found in the folklore of some Indian groups from the Northeast and Midwest. Generally pictured as huge, emaciated giants with an insatiable desire for human flesh, wendigos are humans who have been transformed into ravenous cannibals. The mechanism for this transformation varies. Some tribes claim it is done through magic (whether purposefully or as an attack by an enemy), while others claim just one taste of human flesh will transform anyone into a wendigo.

Which leads us to wendigo psychosis. Psychologists and anthropologists coined this term in the early 20th century as they studied native societies with wendigo myths and found that some individuals had a fear of becoming a wendigo. This psychosis was particularly prevalent during the long cold winter months when food was scarce, and family and friends started to look very tasty...

Wendigo psychosis could be cured through rituals, but in extreme cases people claiming to be nascent wendigos were killed. That seems quite harsh, but I suppose you might do the same if someone you knew was threatening to eat you.

The Indians in northern New England believed in similar creatures, although they didn't call them wendigos. Instead they were called chenoos, giwakwa, or kiwakwa, but I'm just going to use chenoo for simplicity. Like wendigos chenoos are gigantic and emaciated, but they are also lipless because they hungrily chew them off. Their screams will kill anyone who hears them, and chenoos get their power from a human-shaped lump of ice that has replaced their heart.

There are lots of gruesome chenoo stories, but because winter is almost over (I hope), here's one that is not too nasty from the Passamaquoddy of Maine.

*******

Many years ago a young newlywed couple set off to spend the winter in the woods. They were following the traditional pattern of their people, where the tribe would come together in the summer and fall when food was plentiful, then split into smaller units during the winter when food was scarcer.

The couple set up camp by a river deep in the forest. One day while her husband was out hunting the wife heard something large stomping around outside her tent. It was a chenoo. He stuck his head into the tent and glowered at her hungrily.

Thinking quickly, the woman said, "Welcome father!" The chenoo had been planning to eat her, but was surprised at being addressed so politely. She invited the monster to come sit by the fire.

When she heard her husband approaching she went outside and explained that a chenoo was inside their home. He too addressed it as father. The chenoo was so pleased that it declared it would not eat them (at least not immediately) and moved in with them.

The chenoo lived with them for many weeks. In some ways it was quite helpful. For example, since it was so tall the husband would ride upon its back while hunting game. It also offered protection against the other chenoos that roamed through the woods. The young couple once watched in amazement as their chenoo killed a rival chenoo that wanted to eat them. Then they watched in horror as their "father" ate the corpse. Despite the benefits, they realized that at some point they too would anger the chenoo and it would eat them. 

The next day the woman made a mixture of water and salt and offered it to the chenoo as a beverage. The chenoo greedily drank it down and almost immediately vomited up a human-shaped lump of ice. This was the heart of the dead rival it had recently eaten, and the woman threw it on the fire. The chenoo shrank in size, and vomited up another human-shaped ice lump. Clearly her "father" had been busy eating other chenoos, and the woman tossed this on the fire as well.

Finally, the chenoo vomited up a third icy lump and transformed into a little old man. As the woman went to toss the ice onto the fire, the former chenoo grabbed her hand. "Daughter wait!" he cried. "That is my heart! I will die if it melts." He took it from her and swallowed it down.

Due to the efforts of the woman, the chenoo was cured. Well, at least mostly.

********

I found this story in Charles Godfrey Leland's 1884 book The Algonquin Legends of New England.  There are other legends where the chenoo is cured completely or destroyed, but I like the ambivalent ending of this one. Even if you get rid of one monster you know another one will just show up next winter.

Glooskap Encounters Winter, and Why Foxes Are Shy

Although astronomically winter always starts on the solstice, according to meteorologists winter starts here on December 1. In other words, December 21 may be the time when our hemisphere is tilted farthest away from the sun but the wintry weather actually kicks in three weeks earlier. We've already had a little bit of snow in Boston this year, so despite our current warm spell I concur with the weathermen on this one.

In honor of the wintry weather here is a Penobscot folktale about Glooskap, who I've written about a few times in the past. He's the culture hero and trickster god of the Indian tribes of Northern New England and the Maritime Provinces. A being of gigantic size, strength and magical power, Glooskap is the protector of mankind but also sometimes gets involved in comical adventures. Sometimes things don't turn out quite the way Glooskap plans.

A Glooskap (or Glooscap) statue from Parrsboro, Nova Scotia.

The story, which I found in Frank Speck's 1935 collection "Penobscot Tales and Religious Beliefs" in The Journal of American Folklore, goes something like this.

 ****

A long, long time ago Glooskap was living with his grandmother, the Woodchuck. Winter had come and brought with it heavy snow and very cold weather. All around Glooskap the Penobscot were starving and freezing to death.

Glooskap said, "Grandmother this is terrible! I must put a stop to this thing called winter. Where does it come from?"

Grandmother Woodchuck said, "Winter comes from the far, far north. It is so cold that no one can live there. If you went there you would die!"

"I must try," Glooskap said. "Make me six pairs of snowshoes - two made from caribou hide, two from deer hide, and two from moose skin."

Grandmother Woodchuck did as he asked, and Glooskap set out to put an end to winter. He walked north through the snow and ice for many days. He walked for so long that he wore out first the moose snowshoes, then the deerskin ones, and finally even the caribou snowshoes. He walked on for many days even after the final snowshoes had fallen apart, until he finally came upon a house made of ice.

Glooskap entered the house, and the door closed shut tightly behind him. Inside the house was an old man.

Glooskap addressed him using the polite term for an elder. "Grandfather, could you open the door? It is very cold in here."

The old man mimicked Glooskap, saying back to him "Grandfather, could you open the door? It is very cold in here."

Glooskap could feel himself freezing solid. Through chattering teeth he said, "Grandfather, I am nearly frozen to death."

The old man laughed and again repeated Glooskap's words to him. "Grandfather, I am nearly frozen to death."

And then Glooskap froze solid and died. The old man dragged Glooskap's giant body outside of the house and threw it in the snow, but in the spring Glooskap thawed out and came back alive. The ice house had melted away and he started the long walk back home.

****

That's a pretty stark ending. The moral seems to be winter is coming, and there's not much you can do about it. Now of course there is another tale where Glooskap steals summer from some magicians and finally teaches the wintry old man a lesson, but isn't it really more appropriate for the spring? Right now we just need to make peace with winter. I don't want to end this post on a really depressing note though, so here's a raunchy story about what happened to Grandmother Woodchuck while Glooskap was away. It also incidentally explains why foxes are shy.

****

While Glooskap was away up in the north Grandmother Woodchuck sat up in her wigwam every night, waiting for him to come home.

Some mischievous foxes who lived nearby learned of this and decided to play a trick on her. One night they came to her door, and one fox imitated Glooskap, saying, "Grandmother, I am home." When Grandmother Woodchuck opened the door the foxes urinated in her face and then ran off into the dark, laughing.

The foxes thought this was so funny that they did it again the next night. And the next. This went on for several months, until Grandmother Woodchuck was nearly blind from being sprayed with fox urine. You would think she would learn a lesson after the first few times, but she was so concerned about Glooskap that she still opened the door every night.

That spring Glooskap finally made his way back home after thawing out. He stood outside her wigwam and said, "Grandmother, I am home."

Grandmother Woodchuck said, "You damn foxes fooled me all winter, but I won't be fooled again. I've had enough. Go away! I'm not opening the door."

Glooskap said, "No grandmother, it is me!" He stuck his hand in the door, and when Grandmother Woodchuck felt his hand she knew Glooskap was really home.

Glooskap healed his grandmother's eyes, and she explained what had happened. Glooskap was furious. He took his bow and arrows and went hunting, and killed every fox he could find. Then he trapped one fox alive and brought it to his grandmother.

Grandmother Woodchuck tied the fox to a pole whipped it with switches until it apologized. When she set the fox free it ran off into the woods and was never seen again. And because of this, foxes are now shy and avoid people's houses.

**** 

I don't recommend shooting foxes (they're too darn cute!), but I don't recommend pranking elderly grandmas either. Happy meteorological winter!

Pamola, the Wandering Spirit of Mt. Katahdin

I've never climbed Mt. Katahdin, which is in Maine's Baxter State Park. It's the tallest mountain in the state, and the endpoint of the Appalachian Trail. Not surprisingly, there's a lot of folklore attached to this big mountain.

One of the most interesting stories is about a creature named Pamola. I don't know if any recent hikers or climbers have encountered him, but I'm sure they'd remember if they did.

According to the Penobscot Indians, Pamola was a wandering spirit, and Mt. Katahdin was one of his favorite hangouts.

Katahdin photo from here.

According to Frank Speck's 1935 article Penobscot Tales and Religious Beliefs, Pamola has no body, but is just a large head with arms and legs. (He sounds strangely like one of those animated M&Ms who show up in the commercials.) He has no settled home, but roams around from place to place wearing a backpack, which is very appropriate given Katahdin's location on the Appalachian Trail.

Other informants told Speck they had seen Pamola flying overhead, and that he was just a giant head with wings. See what I mean about him being memorable?

Despite his unusual appearance, Pamola was considered a beneficial spirit and would sometimes give aid to humans. However, if you needed his help you'd have to time it just right.

Once a year Pamola traveled across the entire sky. Beginning at the eastern horizon he'd let out a big shout, give another one at the sky's zenith directly overhead, and then one final one when he reached the western horizon. To gain his aid, the Penobscots would burn grease when they heard his first cry. If Pamola saw the smoke as he traveled overhead he would descend and listen to the Penobscot's request for help.

Unfortunately, Speck's article doesn't say what time of year Pamola made his journey. And please note, although I am writing about Pamola in the past tense he could still be hanging around Mt. Katahdin or flying across the sky. I don't want to offend a spirit by implying it's no longer active.

Pamola is still known in parts of Maine, and is the mascot of the Pamola Lodge of the Boy Scouts of America. Or maybe he adopted the Lodge as his mascots, I'm not quite sure. These scouts portray Pamola as a man with a the head of a moose and the wings and feet of an eagle. I guess the giant flying head was probably too terrifying!

Rabbits, wine and murderous mayhem

The cutest rabbit photo ever. But keep him away from the sacramental wine!

Wikipedia tells me the Easter Bunny probably originated in Germany, and was introduced to the US by German settlers who came to Pennsylvania. This doesn't really explain why people thought an egg-carrying rabbit should be associated with Christ's resurrection in the first place, but I suppose his true origin lies in a murky undocumented zone of pagan practices and folklore survivals.

I don't think the English who settled around here paid much attention to rabbits or hares, but the local Algonquians sure did. Roger Williams noticed his 17th century Narragansett neighbors treated rabbits very well, and wrote: "They have a reverend esteem of this creature, and conceive there is some deitie in it." The Ojibwa, who lived west beyond New England counted Nanabozho, the Great Rabbit, as one of their chief gods.

The Algonquians who lived in northern New England had mixed feelings about hares. Last year I wrote about the Great White Hare, who presides over the souls of the dead on a frozen mountain. He's like the Easter Bunny's evil twin! But even the typical, non-supernatural white hare was associated with blizzards. The Penobscot said hares sat in their holes and counted snowflakes, excreting a pellet each time a flake fell. That's a lot of poop!

But there are multiple species of rabbits and hares in Maine, and the rabbit (as opposed to the northern hare) was a humorous trickster character in many Penobscot stories. He's a little bit Bugs Bunny, a little bit Charles Manson. One tale that's strangely relevant for Easter begins when Rabbit pointlessly kills the children of the Fisher while he's away. When the Fisher finds out what Rabbit has done, he pursues him through the forest and swamps, intent on revenge.

The chase goes on for days. Finally, exhausted from running, Rabbit finds himself on the steps of a small church with the Fisher closing in. He knows he can't win a fair fight against the Fisher, so he uses trickery. He transforms himself into a Catholic priest. (Note: this story was collected in the 1930s, long after the Penobscot had converted to Catholicism.)

"Come on into the church, my son", he says to the Fisher, "and tell me your problems." The Fisher comes in, and tells the priest how his children were savagely murdered, and how he wants to rip Rabbit into pieces and eat him alive. "Oh, that's terrible", Rabbit the priest says. "Have some of this red wine - it will make you feel better. Have some of this bread, too."

The Fisher drinks the wine and eats the bread, and then eats some more. Rabbit the priest gives him even more, and more, until the Fisher falls asleep drunk. Rabbit takes this chance to turn back into animal form, and runs off. When the Fisher wakes up he realizes he's been tricked, and starts pursuing Rabbit again. And according to the story, they're chasing each other still.

There you go. Rabbits, wine and the eucharist all in one New England folk tale. Happy Easter!

(The story about Rabbit and Fisher is from Frank Speck's 1935 article on Penobscot religious beliefs.)

Snake Mania for Spring

A garter snake on top of our hedge this past September. The garter snake is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' official reptile, and serves an important function in the eco-system.

On the night of March 17 I had a very vivid dream. I was walking up the path to our house, and noticed three big garter snakes emerging from the dirt in our yard. This dream made me very happy.

The next day I realized I had dreamed about the snakes on St. Patrick's Day. According to legend, Patrick drove all the serpents out of Ireland. I guess he sent them some to New England, because in addition to the dream snakes I saw my first physical garter snake today in the park. He was very cute! It's been unseasonably warm, so I think he woke up early this year.

I've posted about snake lore a few times in the past, but there's just so much of it. Our cultural ancestor in New England were fascinated by snakes, and obviously feared them and also respected their natural (and supernatural?) power. Here are a few serpentine tidbits to start your spring right:

• New England used to be home to many, many rattlesnakes. I was going to say "infested with rattlesnakes", but that sounds too harsh. In the Boston area, Charlestown was notorious for having a lot of rattlers. For example, in 1630 Governor Winthrop decided to move the colony's capitol from Charlestown to the Shawmut peninsula (now Boston) because it was free from "the three great annoyances of wolves, rattlesnakes and mosquitoes." (We lived in Charlestown in the 1990s in a house with old window screens - the mosquitoes were still there.) John Josselyn reported seeing a rattle snake as thick as a man's leg eat a live chicken outside a tavern in 1674, but this may be an exaggeration.
• By the 1820s, the rattlesnakes had moved to Malden, where a man named John Elisha claimed he could tame them through magical means.
• Some African slaves believed rattlesnake buttons, or pieces of the rattle, could ward off tuberculosis. A slave in Suffield, Connecticut named Titus Kent wore four rattlesnake buttons over his lungs for this purpose. "These he considered a sovereign remedy for consumption, and of course valued them highly, as more of his best friends had died of that dreaded disease." Titus lived a long life, and didn't die of consumption.
  
• There is a reputed connection between snakes and the weather. Nineteenth century Yankee farmers said if you hang up a dead snake, it will rain. If you bury it, the weather will be fair. The Penobscot of northern New England thought that the thunder spirits, who were seen as either giant birds or superhuman warriors, waged a perpetual battle against turtles and snakes, their ancient enemies.
• The Penobscot also advised against telling legends in the summer. The reason? If a snake overheard and was offended by the story, it would bite the story-teller.

On that note, I'll stop telling stories about snakes. Snakes deserve our love and respect, so please don't kill them!

My sources for all this snake mania were Thomas Palmer's fantastic Landscape with Reptile, the Dublin Seminar's Wonders of the Invisible World, 1600- 1900, Johnson's What They Say in New England, and Frank Speck's article "Penobscot Tales and Religious Beliefs."

Awaken Chipmunks!

I was perusing the Old Farmer's Almanac recently, and read some interesting facts about the month of March. For example, the first game of basketball was played in Springfield, Massachusetts on March 11, 1892, and Massasoit signed a peace treaty with the Pilgrims on March 22, 1621.

The most exciting fact to me, though, was that chipmunks are supposed to emerge from their winter hibernation on March 19! Mark the date on your calendar. When I walk through the woods and parks, I always enjoy watching the chipmunks running around the fallen logs. I've learned that if I stand very still, the chipmunks won't hide, but will instead sit and watch me. A couple years ago a chipmunk and I hung out for ten minutes, just sitting and watching each other.

According to Frank Speck's 1935 Journal of American Folklore article "Penobscot Tales and Religious Beliefs," the Penobscot of Maine and New Hampshire believed that chipmunks ended their hibernation at the same time as the bear. When you see chipmunks, they said, spring has arrived. I'm assuming this was a cause for celebration, unless you were a bear, because the Penobscot also said the chipmunk's emergence indicated the start of bear hunting season. There's some similarity here with our current belief that the groundhog predicts the start of spring.

It seems like the word chipmunk is derived from an Ojibway word for the same animal, atchitamo, meaning "head first mouth." The Ojibway, a tribe found in the upper mid-West and southern Canada, probably coined this phrase because the chipmunk descends tree trunks head first. The Native Americans in New England would have spoken an Algonquian language similar to the Ojibway, but I haven't been able to find a local Algonquian term for chipmunk. If you know it, please get in touch!

A Story for Bear Hibernation Day

A black bear - photo from this site.

According to The Old Farmer's Almanac, today (November 8) is the day when black bears return to their dens for the winter. Hmmm. I wouldn't go walking in the woods covered in cheese just yet, though. I'm sure bears really decide when to hibernate based on things like temperature and food supply, not the calendar.

I wouldn't really be surprised if bears did have calendars, though, since they're the most human-like animals in New England. They can walk on two feet like us and they're omnivorous like us. That's one reason bears appear in so many fairy tales and folk stories.

The Wabanaki tribes of Northern New England have plenty of stories about bears. Many of them are variations on this story, "The Bear Abductor", which I found in Frank Speck's 1935 article "Penobscot Tales and Religious Beliefs." (FYI, the Penboscot are one of the five tribes that make up the Wabanaki; the others are the Abenaki, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet and Micmac).

The story goes something like this: once upon a time, a little boy and his parents were out looking for berries in the woods. They searched for quite a while, but didn't have much luck. Finally, when they found a rich berry patch, they put the boy down so they could pick the berries. After all, what harm could befall him in the woods? But when they were done, they were horrified to see their son had disappeared. They had only turned their back for a few moments, and now he was gone.

They searched for days but couldn't find him. Eventually they gave up and assumed he was dead. But he wasn't dead. Instead, a bear had taken him while his parents weren't looking. It carried the little boy off to his den, and raised him like his own child, teaching him how to hunt, how to forage for food, and how to run on all fours. For seven years the boy lived happily as a bear.

One day the bear father told him they were being tracked by hunters, and that they would catch and kill the bear. Before this happened, he returned the boy to his human parents. Before letting him go, he made the boy promise to never kill a mother bear. The boy solemnly swore this and ran into his old house on all fours. The hunters caught up with the bear and killed him.

The boy's human parents were overjoyed to see him, having thought he was long dead. They were a little puzzled that he walked on four legs and couldn't speak like a person, but in time he re-learned to be human. However, from his time as a bear he still remembered two things: how to hunt, and the promise he made.

Eventually the boy became a man and got married. Because of his hunting skills, he provided well for his wife, who feasted on every type of game the forest provided. But there was one thing she craved she never got to eat: bear meat.

"Why won't you kill a bear for me? They're so tasty, particularly mother bears! If you love me, you'll kill a bear", she said. She pleaded and taunted, until he promised to kill a bear for her.

He searched through forest for quite a while, but didn't have much luck. Finally, he sighted a bear. A mother bear. He thought briefly of the promise he made to his bear father, but let the thought go. He had made the promise as a child, and was now a man. He pulled back the string of his bow. He released the arrow, which found its mark in the bear's heart. She died quickly. And when she died, the boy disappeared, never to be seen again.

The Great White Hare

Symbol of spring, or ruler of the Underworld?

Easter is on the way, so my mind has drifted to bunnies and colored eggs. I couldn't think of any good lore about colored eggs, but I read a good story about a bunny (actually a hare) in Frank Speck's article 1935 article "Penobscot Tales and Religious Beliefs" in The Journal of American Folklore.

According to some of Speck's Penobscot informants, a long time ago there was a giant White Hare who lived on a far northern mountain which was inhabited by lots and lot of little white hares. Sounds cute, right? Not so. The White Hare ruled cruelly over his smaller subjects, who were originally men but whose brains had been removed and eaten by malevolent witches. Brainless, they drifted north to the White Hare's wintry abode where they were transformed into hares. (Speck points out that in many Algonquian cultures the White Hare is rules the land of the dead, so in this story the mountain could represent the afterlife, and those brainless men the souls of the dead.)

For quite some time the witches keep eating brains and sending men to the White Hare, whose mountain became covered with thousands and thousands of hares. Meanwhile, the poor Penobscot are starving to death. Winter has struck, and there's no game to be found. Plus, I guess, a lot of their hunters have been de-brained, so things are bad for the people left behind.

Eventually Glooskap saves the day. He braves the wall of perpetual blizzards that surrounds the northern mountain and, after an epic battle, slays the White Hare. He frees all the little white hares, who scamper away into the woods. The Penobscot are saved from starvation, because they capture and eat the white hares. Basically, the souls of the dead cycle back into the natural world, and sustain their living descendants. Oh, and Glooskap also slays the witches by sticking them head first into the ground like sticks.

This story does fit the Easter season pretty well. In addition to bunnies, it has death, resurrection, and feasting (although in a non-Christian context). You probably won't hear during Sunday services.

There is another version of the White Hare story, though, which doesn't feature Glooskap at all, but another hero named Snowy Owl. Snowy Owl defeats the witches, but doesn't go after the White Hare at all. At the end of the story the White Hare is still up there in the north, collecting hare-shaped human souls in his icy mountain abode.