Wolverine the Trickster, Labrador Innu Tales

by Lawrence Millman

  In his wanderings, Wolverine once came upon a shit-pile that seemed to reach almost to the sky. Uh-oh, he said to himself, there's a really big atcen around here, and if I'm not careful, I might end up being his dinner.

  So he started running as fast as his legs would carry him.

  "Brother, come back," the shit yelled at him.

  Wolverine turned around. "I'm not your brother!" he declared.

  "Yes, you are," the shit said. "Don't you remember the other day, when you ate so much at a mukoshan that you thought your stomach was going to burst? Well, I am what you ate that day..."

  Wolverine looked more closely at the shit, and he now saw that it was indeed his.

  "Brother!" he exclaimed. "Let me apologize for not recognizing you."

  That evening Wolverine camped not far from the shit-pile. Toward the middle of the night, an atcen came to his camp. When he saw the shit, he figured that there was someone here bigger than he was. This someone was very likely to eat him, so he ran away from the camp as fast as his legs would carry him.

  How useful shit is!

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  THE MAGIC POWDER

  An atcen was so hungry that he ate his wife, all but her bones. He soon regretted it, so he took her bones, ground them into a fine powder, and put this powder into a small bag.

  Now whenever he needed a wife, he would sprinkle some of the powder on his penis, and it would immediately rise up.

  One day Wolverine saw the atcen sprinkling some of the powder on his penis, and he figured his own penis might like some of it, too. So he waited until the atcen had gone off hunting, and he stole the bag with the magic powder in it.

  I can't wait to try some of this stuff, he told himself as he ran quickly back to his camp. But when he opened the bag, he found that it was -- empty! For he'd been grasping the bag so eagerly that his claws had made holes in it, and all the powder had fallen out.

  Wolverine tried sprinkling other powders on his penis -- from a caribou's bones, a goose's, a bear's -- but his penis did not respond to any of them.

  "I guess I'll just have to wait until the atcen eats his next wife," he sighed.

  Meanwhile, a snowshoe rabbit had come across the track of the powder that'd trickled out of the bag. I bet this is good to eat, he said to himself. So he nibbled on some of the powder, and his penis suddenly rose up. He felt an urgent need to mate, and as soon as he saw a female rabbit, he mated with her.

  And that's why rabbits always want to mate: long ago one of their ancestors ate the powdered bones of an atcen's wife.

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  WOLVERINE FLIES

  It was late fall, and Wolverine saw a flock of geese flying across the sky. If geese can fly south for the winter, I should be able to fly south for the winter too, he told himself. He flapped his front paws, but nothing seemed to happen. He flapped them again, but nothing happened again.

  So he visited a flock of geese.

  "This isn't a trick to get us into your stewpot?" the chief of the geese asked.

  "Not at all," Wolverine replied. "Right now all I want to do is fly. Because if I could fly, I could get away from the winter."

  The geese dressed him with feathers, then gave him an extra large pair of wings that no one was using. Soon Wolverine was flying just like a goose. He was even honking like a goose.

  It's really cold up here in the sky, Wolverine thought. I think I'll fly closer to the ground.

  "If you wish to fly so low, you should be very careful," the geese warned him. "For if human beings see you, they'll kill you and eat you."

  "I've never been afraid of human beings before, and I'm not going to be afraid of them now," Wolverine told the geese.

  So Wolverine flew as he pleased, and at last he happened to fly over a camp. There he saw an old woman, and he dive-bombed her. "Why haven't your people gotten rid of you, grandmother?" he shouted. "You're too old to do anything except scratch your ass."

  The old woman took her bow and shot an arrow through one of Wolverine's wings. While he was trying to shake loose this arrow, she shot an arrow through his other wing.

  He plummeted right down to where the old woman was standing. Right away she dropped her leggings and squatted over him.

  "I've always wanted to shit on a wolverine," she declared.

  "Don't shit on me, grandmother!" Wolverine shouted. I'll find you a partridge for dinner, a hare, a lynx, anything, only please don't shit on me!"

  The old woman shat all over him.

  That's when Wolverine decided to give up flying. "From now on," he told himself, "I'll walk."

  So it was told long ago.

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  WOLVERINE AND THE BIRCH TREE

  One morning Wolverine woke up next to a big river, and he decided to paddle along it, to what place he neither knew or cared. Since he didn't have a canoe, he looked around for a birch tree that he could make into one. At last he found what seemed like the perfect tree for a canoe. He gave this tree a good whack with his axe and...it fell it right on top of him.

  Kanatshishit! he exclaimed. That bugger nearly killed me!

  After he got up, he hit the tree again and again with his axe, each time as hard as he could. Then he commanded these wounds to stay on the tree forever, never to grow over.

  And thus they remain on birch trees to this very day. They're the tree's eyes, or lenticels. Every birch tree has them so that it can see a person standing nearby and not fall on top of him.

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  THE ORIGIN OF MOSQUITOES

  One evening Wolverine was roasting a caribou flank when an atcen came out of the woods and asked him what he was cooking that smelled so good.

  Canny as ever, Wolverine replied: "As you can tell, it's a human being. I just killed it earlier today."

  "Mind if I join you?" the atcen asked, licking his lips.

  "Not at all, friend," said Wolverine. He patted the ground next to him, by the fire.

  "But I have one problem," the atcen admitted. "I'm very old, and I don't have any teeth left. So I can't eat human be-ings the way I used to. Now all I can do is suck the blood out of them."

  "Well," observed Wolverine, "I happen to have a nice fresh human being cached behind my tent. I'll go get it for you, but while I'm gone, please make sure that the meat I'm roast-ing doesn't burn."

  Wolverine got up and began walking toward his tent, then he quickly turned around and pushed the atcen into the fire. As the atcen was burning up, his jaws snapped open and shut, and he uttered the following threat to Wolverine:

  "You haven't heard the last of this. Not by a long shot. I'm going to come back and cause all sorts of suffering."

  At last there was nothing left of the atcen but ashes. Suddenly a great gust of wind picked up these ashes and scattered them into the air. Immediately, they turned into mosquitoes, which continue to suck the blood from human beings to this very day.

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  WHY MUSKRATS DON'T EAT ROCKS

  When Wolverine saw Char swimming in the water, he bent down and said to him, "Salmon has been telling me some really nasty things about you, brother."

  "What sort of nasty things?" Char asked.

  "Well, he said you swam into Muskrat's ass not so long ago, and you liked it so much that you went back and did it again."

  "Salmon should talk," Char said. "He can't even make love to his wife without dying."

  Wolverine went to Salmon and told him what Char had said about him. Salmon said, "Every time Char farts, it drives me up a river. Tell him that."

  Now Wolverine went back and forth, getting the two of them increasingly angry with each other. At last they decided to fight it out, with Wolverine as the referee.

  "In order to win this fight, one of you must kill the other," announced Wolverine.

  Char and Salmon killed each other. Which was exactly what Wolverine had been hoping for. He cut both of them open, took out the meat, boiled and dried it. Then he put this dried meat in his gamebag and went to slee
p.

  Now Muskrat came along and saw Wolverine fast asleep. "So I entertain guests in my ass, eh?" he said to himself. "Well, I think I'll play a little trick on the one responsible for that story."

  Muskrat took the dried meat from Wolverine's gamebag and replaced it with some rocks.

  After a long sleep, Wolverine woke up. He reached into his gamebag, took out what he thought was meat, thrust it into his mouth, chewed and swallowed it. "Toughest meat I've ever eaten," he said.

  Then he emptied the gamebag into his mouth, adding: "It does have a rather interesting flavor, though."

  Muskrat had been watching him from behind a tree. He figured that anything a smart guy like Wolverine would eat must be pretty good, so he gathered a bunch of rocks and started chewing them. Most of his teeth splintered and fell out, and the rocks he swallowed gave him the worst stomach ache of his life.

  Ever since then, Muskrats have never eaten rocks.

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  HOW WOLVERINE MADE THE HEAVENLY BODIES

  Wolverine created the world, but once he tried to get rid of it. I'll tell you about that:

  It was winter, and very cold. Wolverine didn't have any wood, so he was burning bones for their fat. After a while, he ran out of bones, too. No matter where he looked, there didn't seem to be any.

  Well, he thought, maybe I'll meet some sort of female who'll keep me warm.

  As luck would have it, a pretty young woman showed up at his camp a short while later.

  I'll get into her leggings tonight, Wolverine said to himself. And so he invited her to share some caribou hearts with him.

  "Only if you cook them," the woman said.

  "I don't have any wood," he told her. "No bones, either."

  "Well, I'm not going to eat any part of an atik raw," she said. And then she walked right out of his camp.

  Wolverine was so angry he started tearing up the earth, grabbing pieces of it and throwing them into the sky. Some of these pieces just came back down again...they're mountains, hills, or islands. But some of them stayed up in the sky, and they're the planets and the stars.

  Isn't it wonderful how things came about?

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  GLOSSARY

  atcen -- a cannibal of monstrous shape; similar to a Windigo

  atik -- caribou

  Inueimun -- the language of the Innu; an eastern Cree dialect

  kanatshishit! -- what the hell!

  Kue! -- Hey!

  Kwakwadjec -- Wolverine; a wolverine

  mistapeo -- shaman

  mukoshan -- a feast of fat and bone marrow

  shimagin -- a lance or spear

  Tciwetinowinu -- Man of the north; the embodiment of winter

  tshispeu! -- alas!

  uapashku -- white or polar bear

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  NOTES ON THE TALES

  Wolverine Creates the World. Told by Apinam Ashini, Sheshashui. This creation tale exists in many different versions among Algonquin-speaking peoples. More polite versions depict the trickster/creator taking the ground from Muskrat's armpit or from between his paws.

  Tciwetinowinu. From Uinapapeu Rich, Utshimassits. Known as the Man of the North, Tciwetinowinu is the figure associated with winter weather by the Innu. Out of deference to him, they always pitch their tents so the opening faces due south, lest he get angry and blast them with even worse weather than they usually get. Global warming may render the Man of the North obsolete, however.

  Why Shrews Are Shrews. From Sheshashui. The shrew in question is presumably the pygmy shrew (Microsorex hoyi), the only shrew in Labrador. As North America's smallest mammal, the pygmy shrew weighs so little that you can stick one in an envelope and mail it for the minimum postal rate.

  Wolverine the Mistapeo. From Utshimassits and Sheshashui. By 1988, when I collected this tale, the last Innu shaman had al-ready given up the ghost to Christianity.

  Wolverine Eats His Own Ass. From Apinam Ashini, Sheshashui. Wolverine mistakes his scabs for niwegana -- dried caribou meat mixed with fat. Wolverine's ass talks in another story, of which I collected only a fragment: it complains about not getting enough exercise, so Wolverine obliges it with an orgy of eating.

  The First Woman. Collected from Thomas Pastitshi, Utshimassits. Compare with the Gros Ventre trickster figure Nixant, whose penis is a non-stop talker. Making human beings out of shit is not uncommon among tricksters; Raven, the figure equivalent to Wolverine in the Pacific Northwest, possesses this talent as well.

  How Rocks Were Born. Told by Matthew Rich, Sheshashui.

  Wolverine Tries to Get a Wife. Heard in Sheshashui. "Punk" is a dried bracket fungus (usually Phellinus igniarius, Fomes fomentarius, or Piptoporus betulinus) that's pounded to a pulp and used as a fire-starter.

  Owls' Eyes. From Sheshashui. In a Haida story, Raven steals the moon as revenge against the people who don't appreciate his less blatant acts of thievery. Fortunately, he returns it to its rightful place in the sky. We never learn whether Wolver-ine himself ever returned the moon to the sky.

  Wolverine and the Bears. Collected from John Poker, Utshimassits. The last sentence of this story may be a recent addition, perhaps borrowed from a dirty joke.

  Why Seawater Is Undrinkable. Skunks are not native to Labrador, but neither was the teller of this tale, Philip Michel. Half a century ago, he snowshoed overland to Sheshashui from Sept-Iles, Quebec, which has plenty of skunks.

  Why Martens Live in the Deep Woods. Collected from Uinapapeu Rich, Utshimassits. The atcen is the Innu equivalent of the Cree/Ojibway/Salteaux Windigo. Atcens possess an idiosyncratic form of eyesight: they see animals as people (inedible), and people as animals (edible). They're described as being very large, smelling very bad, and having something akin to a beard around their hearts. This last feature seems to suggest Euro-Canadians, especially the early voyageurs, who were not always genteel in their dealings with Native people.

  Why Certain Creatures Live in the Ground. Collected from Gilbert Rich, Utshimassits, shortly before his death in 1989. Here and elsewhere Wolverine's carnal antics are similar to those of another trickster, Coyote, who's called by the Hopi lowson'isaw ("cunt-craving Coyote"). The aerial position of Wolverine's blanket also recalls Episode 13 of the Wenebojo trickster cycle, where Trickster locates the whereabouts of his blanket only by coaxing his penis into limpness.

  Wolverine and the Pile of Shit. Told by Apinam Ashini, She-shashui. I know of no trickster other than Wolverine whose shit can speak, although it does so only once, in this story.

  The Magic Powder. Collected from Gilbert Rich, Utshimassits. Compare with the Lipan Apache tale where Coyote keeps his dead wife's powdered genitals for future use.

  Wolverine Flies. Told by John Poker, Utshimassits. The Cree trickster Whiskey Jack, or Wesaykachuk, gets some geese to teach him to fly, too. In one version of the story, he crashes into a large heap of bear shit; in another, he flies too close to the sea and is swallowed by a giant clam.

  Wolverine and the Birch Tree. Told by Matthew Rich, She-shashui. Around Sheshashui, the primary birch tree is the white or paper birch (Betula papyrifera), doubtless the tree that toppled onto Wolverine. In northern Labrador, the dwarf birch species don't have horizontally expanded lenticels.

  The Origin of Mosquitoes. Collected from Uinapapeu Rich, Utshimassits. Atcens are quite vulnerable to fire. In one Innu story I heard, an atcen refuses to eat a woman after sticking a finger into her vagina, licking it, and then observing that he won't eat anything that's so rotten. The woman is so angry that she pushes the atcen into her campfire, and he burns up.

  Why Muskrats Don't Eat Rocks. Philip Rich, Utshimassits.

  How Wolverine Made the Heavenly Bodies. From a conversation with Apinam Ashini, Sheshashui. The Innu always cook their meat, while their neighbors to the north, the Inuit, do not. Indeed, the word "Eskimo" may derive from an archaic, somewhat pejorative Innu word, wuaskimowok, which means "eater of raw meat."

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  BIBLIOGRAPHY

&
nbsp; De Laguna, Frederica. Tales From the Dena. University of Washington Press, 1995

  Hyde, Lewis. Trickster Makes the World. Farrar, Strauss & Giroux. 1998

  Millman, Lawrence. Wolverine Creates the World. Capra Press, 1993

  Nelson, Richard. Make Prayers to the Raven. University of Chicago Press, 1983

  Radin, Paul. The Trickster. Philosophical Library, 1956

  Speck, Frank. Naskapi. University of Oklahoma Press, 1935

  Strong, W.D. Unpublished manuscript from the MacMillan-Field Expedition 1927-1928

  Turner, Lucien. Ethnology of the Ungava District. Smithsonian Institution, 1889-1890

  Wadden, Marie. Nitassin: The Innu Struggle to Reclaim Their Homeland. Douglas & MacIntyre, 1998

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Lawrence Millman's other books include such titles as Last Places, Our Like Not Be There Again, Northern Latitudes, A Kayak Full of Ghosts, and Lost in the Arctic. An ethnographer as well as an explorer and a mycologist, he visited the Innu in the bush a number of times during the 1980s. When not in the bush himself, he lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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  ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

  Suzy Smith Hunt can't remember not drawing or painting. She studied graphic art at Pratt Institute and has created comic strips, illustrations for children's stories, and whimsical art-work for newsletters, announcements, business cards, hand-bills, and earrings, not to mention refrigerator magnets. She says Wolverine made her do it.