FOLKLORE in Minnesota Literature

MAIDEN Rock on thc ca.st shore of Lake Pepin FOLKLORE in Minnesota Literature JOHN T. FLANAGAN MINNESOTA folklore enthusiasts will find ton stone which has provoked as much no Davy Crockett or Johnny Appleseed discussion. The raid on the Northfield bank about whom a vast legendry has accreted. by the brothers James and Younger links Minnesota has no Mrs. O'Leary's cow, no the commonwealth with the traditions of Salt Lake sea gulls, no indigenous spiritu the western bad men. The art of taxi als or blues, no half-horse, half-alligator dermy has preserved in the lobby of the bravoes, and only rare Yankee peddlers Duluth Hotel an ursine interloper which is distributing notions and gossip. Variants locally as famous as thc wolf which suckled of such old ballads as "Barbara Allen" are Romulus. Instead of the lore of the Negro seldom recorded by field workers, and no and the backwoodsman, there is the Indian Gopher bard has so far arisen to give im tradition with a mass of Chippewa and perishable form to the tall tales of rivers Sioux legends lingering around places and or woods. Nevertheless, the North Star peoples. Minnesotans did not invent Paul State is not deficient in folk traditions and Bunyan, but the state at least provided folk culture. many a scene and deed for his saga, and If Minnesota has no Blarney stone hal Gopher lumberjack lore is now inextricably lowed by romantic lovers, it has a Kensing- linked with the most synthetic of American folk heroes. Exotic place names dot the MR. FLANAGAN, who hos published numerous map of the state, some genuine, some con books and articles relating to Minnesota and trived, and one of the most famous, Itasca, Northwest literature, is professor of American is actually a Latin hybrid. Local tradition literature in the University of Illinois at Ur still preserves the famous agreement where bana. He recently collaborated in editing the collection of American folklore which is re by the penitentiary, the capitol, and the viewed elsewhere in this issue. university were distributed among the September 1958 73 state's principal cities, and the historian quently that in a short paper one can only is familiar with many rivalries between hope to point out examples and trends. But viflages aspiring to become county seats.^ the brevity of the treatment should not be Minnesota is less homogeneous popula- allowed to detract from the significance of tionwise than, for example. North Caro the theme. lina or Indiana, and the North Star State's widely divergent racial groups account for WITH A CENTURY of statehood behind a fascinating variety of beliefs and cus him, the contemporary writer will probably toms. The Finnish sauna and knifeman bal seek more sophisticated subjects than those lads, Norwegian immigrant songs, Swedish which Indian primitivism can supply, but lutefisk and the smbrgdsbord, German the early storytellers did not neglect this Weihnachtslieder, Mexican folk dancing, rich lode of folk material. The myths and and Irish wakes suggest the diversity of legends of the Chippewa or Ojibway and folk traditions still current. As Glanville the Sioux or Dakota found their way into Smith wrote some twenty years ago: "In many a volume. Probably the richest of all remoter German parishes the male dancers in this respect is Mrs. Eastman's Dahcotah show their strength, in robust Old Country (1849), based on the author's seven-year style, by whirling with a girl seated on residence at Fort Snelling and her success each bent forearm; the tune will probably in getting detafls from various Indian in be 'Immer noch ein Tropfchen' squeezed formants. Mrs. Eastman disliked the Sioux out of a panting accordion. The Scandi and branded them as liars, thieves, and navians meanwhile drink Christmas glbgg boasters; she also had the zeal of the evan and sing 'Gubben Noah' (Father Noah)."' gelist in trying to supplant their paganism With such a rich and attractive heritage with a literal Christianity. She was, how avaflable, it would be strange indeed if the ever, eager to learn about their behefs and literature about Minnesota failed to in superstitions, for which she often provided clude some of the area's folk material. an interesting narrative framework. Actually, of course, authors have not neg There is the story, for example, of the lected these riches. Folklore has informed water god Unktahe and the Thunder Bird, fiction, biography, poetry, and history. and the effect of these deities on the life of Legends have been recorded by travelers the Indian maiden Harpstenah. Her father like Giacomo C. Beltrami, Henry R. School had told an old medicine man that he could craft, Jonathan Carver, Frederick Marryat, have the girl for,his wife, despite a great and Fredrika Bremer. J. G. Kohl observed discrepancy in age and the unsavory nature the customs of the Lake Superior Indians of the suitor. Harpstenah, overcome with and attempted to interpret their symbols grief and frustration, was visited by a spirit and picture writing. Pioneer figures like of the waters who told her to kfll the medi Judge Charles E. Flandrau collected and cine man, since he had leagued in the past preserved anecdotes and tales.^ Temporary with the Thunder Bird against Unktahe. residents like William Joseph Snelling and Mrs. Seth Eastman provided narrative em *An example is the rivalry between Lake City and bellishment for local themes. And native- Wabasha in Wabasha County. Edward Eggleston used a. similar feud, the rivalry between Perritaut and Me born writers like Sinclair Lewis and F. Scott tropolisville, in his novel ot Minnesota in 1857, The Fitzgerald have not been unaware of folk Mystery of Metropolisville (New York, 1873). traditions, although they have used such ^Glanville Smith, "Minnesota, Mother o! Lakes and Rivers," in National Geographic Magazine, materials more sparingly than might have 67:299 (March, 1935). been expected. ' See Kohl, Kitchl-GamA: Wanderings Round Lake Superior (London, 1860), and Flandrau, The History Indeed, Minnesota folklore appears in of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier (St. Paul, novels and poems and chronicles so fre 1900). 74 MINNESOTA History Emboldened by the apparition, Harpste nah murdered her aged suitor and vanished with a young lover. But eventually the evfl forces of the Thunder Bird demanded ex piation, and Harpstenah was left old, hus- bandless, and chfldless. Here, certainly, is an example of folk superstition motivating domestic tragedy. In another story, "Oeche-Monesah; The Wanderer," Mrs. Eastman skiflfufly nar rated the adventures of the hunter Chaske, who journeyed into another world and took to wife successively a beaver woman and a bear woman. But as he found the society of beasts uncomfortable and dangerous, he eventually returned to his Dakota vfllage crestfallen and aged, an Indian Rip Van Winkle. Chaske's experiences conform clear ly to ancient Indian traditions about men who found animal mates and hunters who departed from the familiar earth world for long periods, but returned to tell of their adventures. In such myths, the realistic and the supernatural are adeptly fused. INDIANS quarrying pipestone Similar events are given memorable lit drowned and dragged to the deepest abyss erary form in Longfellow's Song of Hia by that sinister water spirit Unktahe. Nor watha (1855), substantially derived from can one forget that the poem opens with a the Ojibway legends collected and tran scene at the red pipestone quarry, in what scribed by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft. Not is now southwestern Minnesota, where the afl the contents of the poem relate even greatest of the manitos, the "Master of vaguely to Minnesota, but no reader of the Life," smoked the calumet with the assem Nokomis-Minnehaha section can deny the bled tribes. importance of Minnesota geography to Minor Indian folk themes have been the framework of the plot. When Hiawatha touched upon by various writers.* Mark returned from his epic struggle in the moun Twain introduced a legendary account of tains with Mudjekeewis, he stopped to the naming of White Bear Lake into the visit the arrow maker's daughter, who bore final chapter of Life on the Mississippi the same name as the falls. Subsequently (1883), mostly to ridicule the story of an he killed the king of the sturgeons in Lake Indian brave rescuing his beloved from the Superior, and as an Indian Prometheus he grasp of a polar bear. But the author also wrestled with Mondamin in order to take devoted a twelve-page appendix to one the life-sustaining corn plant to his people, of the exploits of Mudjekeewis. Walter the Ojibway. It was in Lake Superior, too, O'Meara makes some use of the secret that Hiawatha's friend Chibiabos was medicine charms of the Ojibway in Minne * Dietrich Lange wrote a number of books for sota Gothic (1956), his novel of a northern younger readers into which he introduced Indian lore. lumbering town cafled Mokoman (probably A typical example is The Silver Island of the Chip Cloquet). His introduction of the midewi pewa (Boston, 1913), which deals with the Indian win theme is, however, late and relatively tradition of an island in Lake Superior containing a rich lode of silver. minor. September 1958 75 There are passing references to Indian as Weenokhencha Wandeeteekah or the mythology in Sinclair Lewis' The God- Brave Woman." Seeker (1949). Allusions are made to the The second story of a romantic death can god of thunder, to the deity of the waters hardly be considered peculiar to the Min (there spelled "Unkteri"), to the giant He- nesota area. Probably every one of the yoka, who symbolizes contrariety, and to forty-eight states preserves a version of the spirit who loves the pleasures of the the Winona story, and visitors to all parts of table, lya.

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