In the time that followed, whenever she combed her hair with the magic comb, she heard a voice that warned her of her curiosity for the stranger and cautioned her to dismiss him from her memory. Maman Dlo’s voice came to her like a mother’s plea to remain pure and not fall victim to curiosity. But she longed to meet the stranger and would dream him with her in the river.
One day, Maman Dlo rose up from the water to tell her “no.” She saw her terrible beauty, her feminine form conjoint with that of a massive anaconda that swirled about and slapped the water with its tail, making a sound like the cracking of huge branches. “No,” Maman Dlo breathed, “don’t go.” But go she did and as time went by, her comb no longer sang its silent song. Mr. Borde and herself would build a house at Cachepa Point and live a happy life.
Close upon a century later, as a very old woman, she sat to the back of a pirogue which was plunging through a turbulent sea towards Yara Bay in the hope of beaching at the river’s mouth. The outboard engine whined and coughed, and the huge waves threatened to swamp the overcrowded boat. She sensed the terror in the group and took an old, broken comb with an unusual shape out of her pocket. Standing up in the plunging boat and steadying herself, she called to the tillerman to point the bow at the river’s mouth and asked the passengers to pray. In a voice at first old and frail, then strong and commanding, she began to sing:
“Maman Dlo, oh Maman Dlo, save us from this terror sea. Be calm, be calm,” she told the waves, “Be slow, lie low.”
The swirling waters seemed to pause and flatten into an insulent roll that fell away at her call.
“Ma Dolly calmed the sea,” they would later say. “She calmed the sea at Yara Bay.”
WATER BEINGS OF INDIGENOUS NORTH AMERICA
There are more than a thousand different groups of Indigenous peoples in North America—573 federally recognized tribes in the United States to date and 617 First Nation communities in Canada.1 These numbers do not include the many tribes that are not, as yet, federally recognized. While each group has a name for itself, they are often referred to collectively in the United States as Native Americans and in Canada as Aboriginal peoples. In Canada, the term “Aboriginal peoples” comprises three distinct groups: First Nations peoples, Inuit, and Métis. Water beings abound in the traditions of many of these peoples; some are known only to specific tribes or areas while others are, to a certain extent, cross-cultural. In the case of water spirits common to two or more groups, it is important to note that views toward these entities may differ in terms of whether a group considers them helpful or harmful to humans. This holds true for the water spirits—water snakes and mermaids—who appear in the stories in this section. The horned serpent is an example of such a cross-cultural water entity. In some instances, the horned serpent may choose to appear as a man. Like water-snake beings, mermaids may also be perceived as benign or malevolent, and their lower bodies may be fish or snakelike.
The Horned Serpent Runs Away with a Girl Who Is Rescued by the Thunderer1
In this tale from the Seneca of western New York State, the horned serpent is a dangerous male who preys on naïve women, setting out to make a young woman his wife. When he is in his human form, certain aspects of his person and dress are reminiscent of a snake and thus hint at his real identity, but the girl is oblivious to them. Unbeknownst to the girl, a Thunderer, a sky being who considers horned serpents his enemies, also wants her for his wife. This cautionary tale also explains why Seneca men keep black snakeskin in their medicine bundles.2
There was a Thunderer named Hi῎non who often hovered about a village where he sought to attract the attention of a certain young woman. He was a very friendly man and would have nothing to do with witches. He hated all kinds of sorcery and his great chief up in the sky whom we call Grandfather Thunder hated all wizardry and sorcery too. All the Thunderers killed witches when they could find them at their evil work.
Now, this Hi῎non was very sure that he would win the girl he wanted and he visited her lodge at night and took a fire brand from the fire and sat down and talked with her, but she kept saying, “Not yet, perhaps by and by.”
Hi῎non was puzzled and resolved to watch for the coming of a rival. He told the girl’s father that he suspected some witch had cast a spell on her or that some wizard was secretly visiting her. So they both watched.
That same night a strange man came. He had a very fine suit of clothing, and the skin had a peculiar tan. It was very clean, as if washed so that it shone with a glitter. Over his back and down the center there was a broad stripe of black porcupine quills with a small diamond-shaped pattern. He had a long neck and small beady eyes, but he was graceful and moved without noise. He went directly to the lodge and taking a light sat at the girl’s bedside.
“Are you willing?” he asked her. “Come now, let us depart. I want you for my wife. I will take you to my house.”
The girl replied, “Not yet, I think someone is watching, but in three days I will be ready.”
The next day the girl worked very hard making a new dress and spent much time putting black porcupine quills upon it as an ornamentation. It was her plan to have a dress that would match her lover’s suit. Upon the third day she finished her work and went to bed early. Her apartment was at the right side of the door and it was covered by a curtain of buffalo skin that hung all the way down.
Hi῎non again called upon her, taking a light and seating himself back of the curtain. “I am willing to marry you,” he said. “When will you become my wife?”
“Not yet,” she replied. “I am not ready now to marry.”
“I think you are deceiving me,” answered Hi῎non, “for you have on your new dress and have not removed your moccasins.”
“You may go,” the girl told him, and he went away.
Soon there came the stranger and he too took a little torch and went behind the curtain. Soon the two came out together and ran down the path to the river.
“I shall take you now to my own tribe,” said the lover. “We live only a short way from here. We must go over the hill.”
So onward they went to their home, at length arriving at the high rocky shores of a lake. They stood on the edge of the cliff and looked down at the water.
“I see no village and no house,” complained the girl. “Where shall we go now? I am sure that we are pursued by the Thunderer.”
As she said this the Thunderer and the girl’s father appeared running toward them.
“It is dark down there,” said the lover. “We will now descend and find our house.”
So saying he took the girl by the waist and crawled down the cliff, suddenly diving with a splash into the lake. Down they went until they reached the foot of the cliff, when an opening appeared into which he swam with her. Quickly he swam upward and soon they were in a dimly lighted lodge. It was a strange place and filled with numerous fine things. All along the wall there were different suits of clothing.
“Look at all the suits,” said the lover, “when you have found one put it on.”
That night the couple were married and the next day the husband went away. “I shall return in three days,” he announced. “Examine the fine things here, and when you find a dress that you like put it on.”
For a long time the girl looked at the things in the lodge, but she was afraid to put on anything for everything had such a fishy smell. There was one dress, however, that attracted the girl and she was tempted to put it on. It was very long and had a train. It was covered all over with decorations that looked like small porcupine quills flattened out. There was a hood fastened to it and to the hood was fastened long branching antlers. She looked at this dress longingly but hung it up again with a sigh, for it smelled like fish and she was afraid.
In due time her husband returned and asked her if she had selected a suit. “I have found one that I admire greatly,” said she. “But I am afraid that I will not like it after I p
ut it on. It has a peculiar fishy smell and I am afraid that it may bring evil upon me if I wear it.”
“Oh no!” exclaimed her husband, “If you wear that suit I will be greatly pleased. It is the very suit that I hoped you would select. Put it on, my wife, put it on, for then I shall be greatly pleased. When I return from my next trip I hope you will wear it for me.”
The next day the husband went away, again promising soon to return. Again the girl busied herself with looking at the trophies hanging in the lodge. She noticed that there were many suits like the one she had admired. Carefully she examined each and then it dawned upon her that these garments were the clothing of great serpents. She was horrified at the discovery and resolved to escape. As she went to the door she was swept back by a wave. She tried the back door but was forced into the lodge again by the water. Finally mustering all her courage she ran out of the door and jumped upward. She knew that she had been in a house under water. Soon she came to the surface but it was dark and there were thunder clouds in the sky. A great storm was coming up. Then she heard a great splashing and through the water she saw a monster serpent plowing his way toward her. Its eyes were fiercely blazing and there were horns upon its head. As it came toward her she scrambled in dismay up the dark slippery rocks to escape it. As the lightning flashed she looked sharply at the creature and saw that its eyes were those of her husband. She noticed in particular a certain mark on his eyes that had before strangely fascinated her. Then she realized that this was her husband and that he was a great horned serpent.
She screamed and sought to scale the cliff with redoubled vigor, but the monster was upon her with a great hiss. His huge bulk coiled to embrace her, when there was a terrific peal of thunder, a blinding flash, and the serpent fell dead, stricken by one of Hi῎non’s arrows.
The girl was about to fall when a strong arm grasped her and bore her away in the darkness. Soon she was back at her father’s lodge. The Thunderer had rescued her.
“I wanted to save you,” he said, “but the great horned serpent kept me away by his magic. He stole you and took you to his home. It is important that you answer me one question: did you ever put on any dress that he gave you? If you did you are no longer a woman but a serpent.”
“I resisted the desire to put on the garment,” she told him.
“Then,” said he, “you must go to a sweat lodge and be purified.”
The girl went to the women’s sweat lodge and they prepared her for the purification. When she had sweat and been purged with herbs, she gave a scream and all the women screamed for she had expelled two young serpents, and they ran down and slipped off her feet. The Thunderer outside killed them with a loud noise.
After a while the young woman recovered and told all about her adventure, and after a time the Thunderer came to her lodge and said, “I would like to take you now.”
“I will give you some bread,” she answered, meaning that she wished to marry him. So she gave him some bread which he ate and then they were married.
The people of the village were now all afraid that the lake would be visited by horned serpents seeking revenge but the Thunderer showed them a medicine bag filled with black scales, and he gave every warrior who would learn his song one scale, and it was a scale from the back of the horned serpent. He told them that if they wore this scale, the serpent could not harm them. So, there are those scales in medicine bundles to this day.
Of the Woman Who Loved a Serpent Who Lived in a Lake1
The Passamaquoddy’s traditional territory is along the coasts of Maine (United States) and New Brunswick (Canada). As they are a coastal people, tales about water spirits are plentiful in their culture. Men who marry beautiful women only to discover that something about them is amiss is a common motif in folktales and legends. In this account, a village beauty marries five men within a single year, each man dying shortly after the wedding. Her sixth husband suspects that she has a secret and is determined to uncover it. Not only does he learn that his wife has taken an enormous water-serpent spirit as her lover, but he discovers that fangs are not the only way to transmit venom.2
Of old times. There was a very beautiful woman. She turned the heads of all the men. She married, and her husband died very soon after, but she immediately took another. Within a single year she had five husbands, and these were the cleverest and handsomest and bravest in the tribe. And then she married again.
This, the sixth, was such a silent man that he passed for a fool. But he was wiser than people thought. He came to believe, by thinking it over, that this woman had some strange secret. He resolved to find it out. So he watched her all the time. He kept his eye on her by night and by day.
It was summer, and she proposed to go into the woods to pick berries, and to camp there. By and by, when they were in the forest, she suggested that he should go on to the spot where they intended to remain and build a wigwam. He said that he would do so. But he went a little way into the woods and watched her.
As soon as she believed that he was gone, she rose and walked rapidly onwards. He followed her, unseen. She went on, till, in a deep, wild place among the rocks, she came to a pond. She sat down and sang a song. A great foam, or froth, rose to the surface of the water. Then in the foam appeared the tail of a serpent. The creature was of immense size. The woman, who had laid aside all her garments, embraced the serpent, which twined around her, enveloping all her limbs and body in his folds. The husband watched it all. He now understood that, the venom of the serpent having entered the woman, she had saved her life by transferring it to others, who died.
He went on to the camping ground and built a wigwam. He made up two beds; he built a fire. His wife came. She was earnest that there should be only a single bed. He sternly bade her lie by herself. She was afraid of him. She lay down, and went to sleep. He arose three times during the night to replenish the fire. Every time he called her, and there was no answer. In the morning he shook her. She was dead. She had died by the poison of the serpent. They sunk her in the pond where the snake lived.
How Two Girls Were Changed to Water-Snakes1
This Passamaquoddy story concerns two girls who become water snakes. Certain details suggest that it is colored by Christian values. While the reason for the young women’s transformation is left unexplained, the storyteller’s criticism of their improper behavior—disappearing every Sunday to go swim naked in a lake, where they engage in other inappropriate activities—suggests that their metamorphosis into water snakes comes about because they, too, are evil, like snakes. For many Christian denominations, Sundays are reserved expressively for the worship of God. The idea of snakes as evil derives from the Old Testament story that Satan, in the form of a serpent in the Garden of Eden, tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and she in turn, convinced Adam to also partake of it. Despite the Christian-inflected moral overtones, the description of the girls changing into snakes speaks to traditional understandings of water spirits: their human bodies slowly elongate until they become serpents with a human head, their long black hair intact. Once these girls are seen in their serpent form, they are forevermore obliged to remain that way.
Pocumkwess, or Thoroughfare, is sixty-five miles from Campobello. There was an Indian village there in the old times. Two young Indian girls had a strange habit of absenting themselves all day every Sunday. No one knew for a long time where they went or what they did. But this was how they passed their time. They would take a canoe and go six miles down the Grand Lake, where, at the north end, is a great ledge of rock and sixty feet of water. There they stayed. All day long they ran about naked or swam; they were wanton, witch-like girls, liking eccentric and forbidden ways.
They kept this up for a long time. Once, while they were in the water, an Indian who was hunting spied them. He came nearer and nearer, unseen. He saw them come out of the water and sit on the shore, and then go in again; but as he looked th
ey grew longer and longer, until they became snakes.
He went home and told this. (But now they had been seen by a man they must keep the serpent form.) Men of the village, in four or five canoes, went to find them. They found the canoe and clothes of the girls; nothing more. A few days after, two men on Grand Lake saw the snake-girls on shore, showing their heads over the bushes. One began to sing,
“N’ktieh iében iut,
Qu’spen ma ké owse.”
We are going to stay in this lake
A few days, and then go down the river.
Bid adieu to our friends for us;
We are going to the great salt water.
After singing this they sank into the water. They had very long hair.
* * *
* * * * *
A picture of the man looking at the snake-girls was scraped for me by the Indian who told me this story. The pair were represented as snakes with female heads. When I first heard this tale, I promptly set it down as nothing else but the Melusina story derived from a Canadian French source. But I have since found that it is so widely spread, and is told in so many different forms, and is so deeply connected with tribal traditions and totems, that there is now no doubt in my mind that it is at least pre-Columbian.
Ne Hwas, the Mermaid1
In the Passamaquoddy language, niwesq, here transliterated into ne hwas, denotes spirit. The niwesq of this story is a human from the waist up and a water snake from the hips down. This account is a variant of the previous story, but lacks its Christian overtones. Unlike in the previous tale, the girls are not depicted as evil. Instead, a mother tells her two daughters never to go into the lake lest they encounter misfortune, but what she means by that is not specified. The girls ignore her, and as a result, bear the consequences of not heeding their mother’s warning. In the end, however, they prove to be dutiful daughters.2
The Penguin Book of Mermaids Page 27