Wabanaki "Little People" and Passamaquoddy Social Control

WILLARD WALKER Wesleyan University

John Reade, writing in 1887, said of the Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, Micmac, and Penobscot (i.e., the four Wabanaki tribes) that "All these groups have the same legends, and honour the same mythical personages, Glooscap, Mikwum-wess, etc., though under different names" (Reade 1887:3). Some support for this statement can be found in the fact that Clara Neptune, a Penobscot, told Fannie Eckstorm in about 1920 that the malevolent creature that inhabits the sea and fresh water lakes and has the lower body of a fishbu t a human head with long red hair was called no- dum-kan-wet in Penobscot, but apota'mkin in Passamaquoddy (Eckstorm 1945:86-87). The four Wabanaki ethnic groups are known to have been in continual contact as constituent tribes of the Wabanaki Confederacy through much of the 18th and 19th centuries (Walker, Conkling and Buesing 1980). That being the case, it may be that many of the names of beings that figured in myths and narratives were recognized across linguistic boundaries. As we have seen, Clara Neptune knew the Passamaquoddy term as well as her own for the red-headed merman. In March, 1890, Jesse Walter Fewkes recorded, for the "Edison phonograph", a list of names of "mythological characters which play a part in many of the stories of the Passamaquoddies" (Fewkes 1890:278; Gray and Lee 1985:221, 223). The recording was made by Noel Josephs at "The Camps", a Passamaquoddy settlement that existed at that time on the outskirts of Calais, Maine. Fewkes (1890:278) transcribed one of these terms as "Ooargamess" and glossed it as "small beings who live about rocks and chatter in [an] unknown tongue". This term, if not its meaning, was confirmed by Charles Leland in 1898. Leland (1898:81) wrote that terrestrial beings which he described as elves or fairies, "wondrous dwellers in the lonely woods", were called by the Micmac Mikumwessos, but by the Passamaquoddy Oonahgemessos. 354 WILLARD WALKER

After transcribing and glossing "Ooargamess" Fewkes (1890:279) mentioned that he had "also heard the Ouargamiss called Mickeminn", which he identified with "Mickemnise, The good fellow". From this we can infer that the late 19th-century Passamaquoddy had two quite different terms, one resembling a Micmac form; but both were evidently used to designate types of "little people" sometimes called in English "elves" or "fairies". Tomah Joseph, an Indian Township Passamaquoddy, scraped the likeness of one of these little people on birchbark in the 1880s. Under this figure, which is seated and holding a calumet, he scratched the letters MIKAMWES. This was reproduced as an illustration in Leland's 1884 and 1898 publications. If, indeed, the Passamaquoddy had distinct terms for two types of "elves or fairies" in the 19th century, these terms may well have been identifiable with two terms used by modern Passamaquoddy — winokomehs and mihkomwehs, or, with what LeSourd (1995) has called a double diminutive, mihkomwehsis. Both terms may be inflected for number and obviation, which produces such forms as winokomehsuwok and mihkomwehsisok. The first of these terms, which Fewkes transcribed as "Ooargamess" and "Ouargamiss", resembles a Penobscot term which was transcribed in its proximate plural form as "Oonahgemessuk" and glossed as "Water Fairies" by Charles Leland (1898:123). This same Penobscot form was transcribed as "Wana'gameswcck" and glossed as "water nymphs" by Frank Speck (1935:85). In the myth recorded by Speck the "Wana'gam- eswock" appear as "two creatures paddling a canoe" on the Penobscot who warn of a Mohawk war party camped up river. The "Wana'gameswcck" are described as men with "very narrow faces and very large noses which they covered with their hands" (Speck 1935:85). The similarity between this Penobscot term and the Passamaquoddy term may well be due to lexical borrowing. Lewey Mitchell, the Passamaquoddy representative to the Maine Legislature who gave John Dyneley Prince the "Wampum Records" (Prince 1921:6-19; Leavitt and Francis 1990), gave Prince another manuscript, perhaps in 1887, which Prince published in English under the title "Wabanaki history previous to the establishment of the wampum laws" (1898:370-4). Mitchell's manuscript describes an incident in a war WABANAKI "LITTLE PEOPLE" 355 between the Penobscot and the Mohawk in which two Penobscot hunters were given a

miraculous revelation... by Wenagameswook or fairies of the approach of a large body of Mohawks. Two Penobscots were coming down the Penobscot river from their winter hunting, when they spied a newly made canoe paddled by what seemed to be two small boys who, pursue as they would, always kept at an even distance ahead of them. Finally, the supposed children stopped and called out to the wondering Indians "Nowut Kemaganek Meguyik," "At Nowut Kemaganek there are Mohawks." As the hunters had noticed some chips floating down the stream, they believed the report at once. The Mohawks had been making rafts with which to float down the river in order to destroy the Penobscot tribe. As soon as the hunters reached Oldtown they told their curious tale, which was immediately credited by the old men, who straightaway prepared for war. The fairies, according to their belief, always either appeared in person or carved a warning on rocks before a danger which threatened the tribe. [Prince 1898:373—4] The second term which Fewkes noted for the Passamaquoddy in 1890, modem mihkomwehs, resembles a Micmac term. Leland (1898:374) recorded a 19th-century Micmac tale in which a "Megumoowessoo" is associated with "magical power". Another Micmac tale recorded by Leland makes repeated references to "Mikumwess", which has "all the power of the elfin-world" (Leland 1898:83), and "Megumawessos" who, when they are pleased with a mortal, "make him a fairy, even like themselves" (Leland 1898:82). For an account of the supernatural powers attributed to an early 20th-century Micmac said to be "meegoomweesu eeget", see Gloade (1989:31). The 19th-century term is alive and well in modem Micmac. DeBlois and Metallic, in their Micmac Lexicon (1984:75), give migmuessu, glossed as "person who has supernatural powers, Trickster". According to Adney (n.d.: 139), Maliseet tales credit Gluskap with creating the "Mi-kum-wes-uk, the Little friendly People, the Fairies". "Mi-kum-wes, ancestor of the present Mi-kum-wes-uk of the woods and rocky shores of lakes, was a close companion of Gluskap." Given their long history of political and social contacts, it may be that a term for a supernatural in one Wabanaki language was not only understood by speakers of another Wabanaki language, but may have come into use in that language and may even have displaced the original term in the host language. It would seem that, in the late 19th century, 356 WILLARD WALKER

the Passamaquoddy and Maliseet, who were midway between the Micmac and Penobscot geographically, politically, and, in some respects, cultur ally, used mihkomwehs, which seems to have been borrowed from Micmac, and winokomehs, which seems to have been borrowed from Penobscot, as terms for "little people" which had overlapping semantic values and may even have been used, in some contexts, as synonyms. The testimony of Mali Sipsis is relevant here. Mali Sipsis was "a very old Passamaquoddy woman... who could not speak a word of English", but told Mrs. W. W. Brown through an interpreter in the 1880s that, when Gluskap came to the Wabanaki area, there were no Indians there. "First born", she said, "were the Mikumwess, the Oonahgemessuk, the small Elves, little men, dwellers in rocks" (Leland 1898:18, 21). In the interpreter's translation, if not in Mali Sipsis's original statement, mihkomwehs and winokomehs appear to be synonyms. In the late 19th century, Passamaquoddy applied the term mihkom wehs, evidently borrowed from Micmac, to beings described in English as elves or fairies with small stature who had supernatural powers which could be transmitted to ordinary mortals. With the aid of a mihkomwehs a man could become a powerful motewolon or shaman. Newell Francis, a Pleasant Point Passamaquoddy, told John Dyneley Prince in 1899 that when he was 15, he saw a man who was a wizard and "was called a Mi'kumwess (a wood-devil)." This man told Francis that he had sunk into hard ground up to his ankles and showed him the tracks (Prince 1899:184-5, 188). In a footnote Prince added, "The Mi'kumwess is a wood-spirit which may become the familiar of a wizard; the Passama- quoddies say of a certain [motewolon] ...he is a partner with a mi'kum wess." In the 1960s, Passamaquoddy on both reservations were familiar with this term and used it for little men who can make themselves invisible. They were said also to be friendly and to talk so fast and at such a high pitch that they could not be understood. A Pleasant Point woman of about 30 said that if you meet a mihkomwehs, he will not let you pass, but will block your way because he is friendly and always wants to talk. A teenaged girl said the mihkomwehsisok are little hairy men who try to buy people's souls. When one sells one's soul to a mihkomwehs, one has to agree to "work WABANAKI "LITTLE PEOPLE" 357 with them". She said she had a cousin who had made a deal with one and talked to the mihkomwehs right in front of her; but she couldn't see the mihkomwehs because only witches can see them in daylight. When her cousin talked to him, money would appear miraculously in his hand. But before he died, she said, reassuringly, her cousin "returned to the church." Other accounts describe mihkomwehsisok as having faces covered with hair and horns on their heads. This may account for the photograph reproduced in Erickson (1978:129) of a Passamaquoddy with long hair and homs making ash splints with a drawknife at Pleasant Point in 1937. The winokomehsuwok, which seem to have been likened to, if not equated with, mihkomwehsisok by Passamaquoddy a century ago, were described in the 1960s as little green men similar to leprechauns, who live along the shores. One man in his 30s said they did not exist, but that unruly children, seen at a distance or at night, were sometimes mistaken for them. A woman of about 30 who heard this remark was quick to contradict him. "They do exist", she said. "Too many people have seen them." One Pleasant Point girl stated emphatically that there are no little green men, but insisted that there are little people who look like thin- faced Indians.

They live in the rocks along the shore on the other side of the highway. My grandmother saw them once when she was in a canoe... They used to come to weddings and play the drums. Sometimes they would marry Indian girls. They were not particularly dangerous, but sometimes kidnapped girls. If they didn't like some girl, they might kill her. In 1969 I had the opportunity to ask a group of five very knowledge able and trustworthy elders at Peter Dana Point to distinguish between mihkomwehsisok and winokomehsuwok. The former, they said, can make themselves invisible — confirmation of a sort for the Pleasant Point teenager's statement that only witches can see them in daylight. And they are found most anywhere, the elders said, whereas the winokomehs uwok are found only near big boulders and always in the vicinity of water. They foretell future events. When they are heard singing funeral dirges, a death will occur. When they sing wedding songs, there will soon be a marriage. The winokomehsuwok also make petroglyphs, they said, some representing people in canoes. 358 WILLARD WALKER

Dean Snow's "Rock art and the power of shamans" is a description of petroglyphs found at a site on the Kennebec River in central Maine which Snow attributed to shamans. He wrote that "At least thirteen petroglyphs represent canoes, each usually containing two stick figures of humans. Occasionally, one or both are provided with long paddles" (Snow 1977:48). Such pictographs have also been reported for the Passamaquoddy. Fewkes wrote in a footnote that Pictographic writing, which is so well known among the Micmacs, was also practiced by the Passamaquoddies. The sign of the Passamaquod- dies is a canoe with two Indians in it and a porpoise. This sign appears on rocks in certain places. [Fewkes 1890:277] Garrick Mallery published reproductions of the pictographs used by each of the four Wabanaki tribes to identify themselves (1893, Fig. 483). The "signature" used by the Passamaquoddy was a drawing of two figures with paddles in a canoe pursuing, not a porpoise, but a pollock. That of the Maliseet shows two figures with poles in a canoe pursuing a muskrat. The Micmac signature shows two figures with paddles in a bean-shaped canoe pursuing a deer with antlers; and that of the Penobscot shows a figure in the stem of a canoe with a paddle and a bowman with a pole in pursuit of an otter. The five oldtimers soon lost interest in the problem of distinguishing between mihkomwehsisok and winokomehsuwok and turned to a lively discussion of a recent sighting of winokomehsuwok. They said that Louise Sockabasin, shortly before her death, had seen several of them at about three o'clock one morning. They were wearing hats and suits that were black with white trim. One did a somersault on the fence at the "Quakers' playground", a playground constructed at Peter Dana Point in the mid-1960s by American Friends Service Committee volunteers. The winokomehsuwok vanished completely when Louise Sockabasin turned and went back in her house. This last detail is an interesting feature of the story, because the five elders had all agreed that it is the mihkomwehsisok, not the winokomehsu wok, who can make themselves invisible. The story violates their earlier consensus in other ways as well: the Quakers' playground was at a considerable distance from any big boulders and from water; and a WABANAKI "LITTLE PEOPLE' 359 winokomehs is expected to prophesy and warn of impending danger, not do somersaults like some frivolous adolescent. The various statements of the Indian Township elders and the Pleasant Point people in the 1960s and the published reports of the late 19th and early 20th centuries all seem to suggest that mihkomwehsisok make contractual agreements with individuals and represent a centrifugal social force, helping individual shamans, often at the expense of their rival competitors. The winokomehsuwok, however, prophesy deaths, marriages, and imminent dangers of general interest to whole communi ties, even whole bands or tribes, conceivably even the whole Wabanaki Confederacy. In this sense they represent a centripetal social force and are in sharp contrast to the mihkomwehsisok. By the 1960s, the two terms and many of the qualities ascribed to their referents were still known to Passamaquoddy children; but their referents had acquired important new social functions. Small children may have been forbidden to cross the highway or go near the water or the big boulders across that highway, but they were also constrained by more reliable, more oblique, and less confrontational means. They were told about the winokomehsuwok, which were traditionally associated with boulder-strewn lakeshores, the shoreline of Passamaquoddy Bay, and the area across the highway, all of which, including the highway itself, were dangers to young children. In these locales, children learned that they might be kidnapped, tied down, and "tickled to death". So the concept of winokomehsuwok, which once assured the Wabanaki that they would have timely warnings of enemy raids and other events of general concern, came to serve the function of keeping small children out of harm's way; and the stories that grew up around this concept involved older children quite naturally in the process of keeping their younger siblings from straying into danger. Meanwhile, everyone, of all generations, was entertained. The old term, winokomehs, continued to represent a centripetal social force and still brought people together to defend the community against external dangers. What had changed was that the winokomehsuwok, who formerly warned the community of external danger, were now perceived as the danger itself. 360 WILLARD WALKER

The mihkomwehsisok, which in former times had given self-confi dence, guidance, and supernatural power to shamans and to ordinary hunters, also came to serve a different function. They became hairy or furry, had horns, and bargained for souls. They could transform people into witches. They peered into windows at night and threw stones. They exemplified unruly, negatively sanctioned behavior. But, if one's property were damaged or missing, and one suspected a band of roving teenagers, there was no need to confront them and their relatives and precipitate a conflict. Instead, one could write off the injury as the work of mihkomwehsisok, destructive little outsiders in league with the devil. No one would be accused; but inappropriate behavior would be noted and discussed. Guarded innuendos might circulate and might even mobilize public opinion in such a way that the little people's incursions would subside. The mihkomwehsisok continue to represent a divisive social force that fragments the community among individuated competitors who violate the norms of the community by assuming the role of little people with extraordinary supernatural powers. And, as in the past, they are invisible in daylight to everyone but witches.

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