Tales from Temagami - Land of Deep Water
Nenebuc Starts Travelling, Punishes his Butt for Deceiving Him, Changes the Colour of the Partridge Family, and Originates Rock Tripe from his Scabs for the Benefit of the People Now Nenebuc grew up and was alone. He was a man and began to travel. He knew all kinds of things concerning the trees, the world, and everything which his grandfather had taught him. He set out on his first journey and went towards the mountains. In one day's walk he climbed over three gerat mountains, something that no man could do. When he reached the top of the first mountain he found a goose and killed it. In like manner he killed a goose on the the tops of the second and third mountains. Then he went down to the lake below. He was very, very tired from his first day's journey. He made a fire with his bow-drill and put his geese in the sand, which he has heated to bake them in. He buried them with their legs sticking out . He lay down by the fire and told his ^ss to watch the geese while he slept , so that no one would steal them. Just as he was dozing off to sleep, ^ss says , "Somebody's coming for your geese!" and Nenebuc jumped up. ^ss farted soundly. It did this three or four times . At last Nenebuc grew angry. He took a club and banged against his ^ss and told it not to do that again. Then he went to sleep. Some people came along and stole the geese, but left the legs sticking in the same place. When Nenebuc awoke, he asked his ^ss, "Did any one come?" "I don't know", ^ss responded. " As soon asyou fell asleep, I slept. I don't know". Nenebuc then pulled up the legs of the geese and found nothing else. "It's well cooked", said he. He made a big fire. "Now I'll punish you," told to his ^ss and held it over the fire. "Tej'jj!", screamed the ^ss. "You can cry all you want to. I 'll punish you," said Nenebuc, and pissed on his ^ss. He didn't feel the burns then. The he started walking. Next day he felt a little sick and some of scabs fell off his ^ss. In walking he got turned around and saw his own tracks. "Somebody's passed here," he said to himself, when he saw them. Then he saw some kind of meat lying on the ground, and he tasted it. "Somebody had some meat here," he said. Then the little bird Gitci'gi'tci'gane'cjc (Tom-tit) cried out, "Nenebuc ate his own scabs!" "Oh no, those are not my scabs. Some old woman passed by and left some dry meat," said he. But at last he discovered he ate scabs but even then he didn't care. He kept on walking and felt very sick. By and by he came upon a brood of young partridges and said, "Where is your mother?" "Our mother is away," said they. "What's your names?" They answered "Kackunge's'i" ("Jump out and frighten"). Nenebuc turned around upon hearing this and sh*itted profoundly. Up to this time the Partridges had been white, but after this they have always been brown. Then Nenebuc went to a high bluff near by. He was tired, sick and hungry, and he lay upon the bluff sleeping. Partridge came home and said to his young when he saw what Nenebuc had done to them, "Who did this?" "A man came along and asked us our name, and , when we told him Kackunge's'i, he sh*tted all over. He said he wasn't frightened by us." And so the young Partridges told their father where Nenebuc had gone. The old Partridge followed his tracks until he came to where Nenebuc lay on the cliff. He saw him lying right on the edge, so he walked up slowly to him and then suddenly buzzed his wings, and Nenebuc jumped up and fell over the cliff.
As he slid down , his ^ss was rubbing against the rock and all the scabs rubbed off. As he lay on the ground he saw the scabs and said, "These Indians will call this wa'kwani (rock-tripe) and when they go hungry they can make soup for themselves, these Ojibwa, forever." Then he was cured.
 |
