Tales of The Land  

CINGIBIS The girls continued through the woods until they came to a big marsh, late in the afternoon. There they saw a big birch bark house. Everything around the house was very clean, the poles were scraped clean of their bark and were perfectly white , while there was neither smoke nor ashes to be seen anywhere. The girls looked at this and said, "The person who lives here must be very clean; we have never seen such a clean house." There was no dry or green wood lying around, but inside the house they saw a fire-place and plenty of hay. One girl said to the other, "We'd better cut a little wood." So they cut wood and made a fire in case the man came home late. By this time the ice was beginning to break.Late in the evening they heard someone crying out. "Who spoiled my wigwam? Who made smoke and ashes?" The owner of the wigwam did not know who had done this, so he came in and looked at the two girls. He then cut all the wood. This man was Woodpecker (Meme "pileated woodpecker"). Woodpecker made a fire of the hay, which was beaver hay. It gave no smoke to stain the wigwam and burned as well as wood. He brought in two nice beavers ,which belonged to him, and gave one to the girls, saying, "You can have this". He then cooked the other one for himself. He showed the girls where to sleep and since the place where they were to sleep was not near him,they knew that he would not marry either of them. Next morning, after breakfast,he said to them, "Go! Don't stay here . You go that way and you will find a big river. There you'll find lots of people and may be you'll get married." So the girls went on.They left Woodpecker and he is there yet. They came to a big river and behld canoes and all kinds of people passing. First they saw White Duck (wa'baci`p). He was a good looking man, and as he passed them in his canoe , the girls said to him, "Put us in your canoe,you are going to get married sometime." White Duck answered, "My canoe is too small. Other people are coming ; they will mary you." And he passed on. Next came Fish Duck (az'ik), a good looking man. They cried out, ""Put us in your canoe,you are going to get married anyway." "No, my canoe is too small", replied Fish Duck. A great many people passed , but all of them said that their canoes were too small, so the girls had to stay where they were. The people were passing to the mouth of the creek where the village of the chief was. At last came Black Duck (ni'nicip). He was also nice looking. "Come over and get us; you will get married sometime," cried the girls. "No, my canoe is too small. Cingibis is coming soon and he will marry you." He was going to be the last person to pass. At last Cingibis came along... Tell me more