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passamaquoddy Two Animal Stories Introduction by Robert M. Leavitt and Jennifer Andrews ‘‘Cihkonaqc: Turtle’’ and ‘‘Espons: Raccoon’’ both explore the power of transformation and the danger of deception through stories about animals.1 The narratives not only teach about the origins of specific physical traits that characterize the turtle and the raccoon, respectively, but also show how destiny and fate play an important role in the lives of these animals. Told and written down in Passamaquoddy by the Honorable Lewis Mitchell of Pleasant Point in the late 1800s and published by John Dyneley Prince in his Passamaquoddy Texts, the two stories are traditional Wabanaki legends, translated here from Passamaquoddy into English.2 The English translation follows the Passamaquoddy sentence by sentence in order to reproduce the original narrative as accurately as possible. The English version may seem slightly stilted or awkward in places because our primary concern is to replicate the stories precisely rather than to create an idiomatic English narrative. Most of the animal names in these stories were in Mi’kmaq in Mitchell’s texts and in Prince’s published versions; we have changed them to Passamaquoddy here. Both stories appear in previous collections of Mi’kmaq narratives. For instance , ‘‘The Origin of theTurtle’’ appears in Spicer’s Glooscap Legends, which brings together a selection of the most significant stories about Koluskap (GLOOskahb ).3 Spicer’s version, written in the past tense, is an abbreviated account of how Koluskap, while out hunting in Nova Scotia, visits and transforms his poor and homely uncle, Mikjikj (MEEK-cheekch: ‘‘turtle’’ in Mi’kmaq), into a handsome young man so that his uncle may win the love of one of the chief’s daughters .Turtle, however, eventually removes the belt Koluskap has given him to complete this physical transformation and resolves to roam the world; in response Koluskap promises him that he will live on land and in water, surviving no matter how many times others attempt to destroy him. The translation for this volume offers a more detailed and complex description of Turtle’s transformation and the challenges he faces after successfully marrying the chief’s youngest daughter, a beautiful woman, who is frustrated by her husband ’s laziness. Spicer presents Turtle as a virtuous and selfless older man who is unwilling to deceive a potential bride and be revealed for what he really is—an two animal stories 73 old, ugly man. The Mitchell/Prince version is less explicit in its moral message. Koluskap comes a much longer distance, traveling by canoe from Newfoundland to Pictou, Nova Scotia, to visit his uncle, who is known by the locals as a lazy and slow man. Some members of the community actually speculate that these qualities are inherited from Koluskap, which can be read perhaps ironically as exposing the shortcomings of this prominent culture hero as well as those of his uncle. Koluskap has been traditionally regarded as a prophet and protector of the Wabanaki people. He is responsible for creating the land and its inhabitants, bringing innovations to the population, distributing key survival elements (fish, hares, tobacco) around the world, mediating the weather, and generally transforming those who occupy the earth into their present forms. In this story he provides Turtle with the means to win a bride by giving his uncle not only the right material goods to attract a wife but also the promise that he will change his personality —from sweet and lazy to hardy and resourceful. As the legend describes it, the transformation of Turtle requires several steps. As in the Spicer version, initially Koluskap gives his uncle a belt to help the older man attract a spouse at a local gathering. The belt makes him wonderfully handsome and gives him the status to ask the youngest daughter of the chief at Pictou to marry him, a union that makes the other men in the village jealous. Yet despite this outer change in appearance, Cihkonaqc’s character remains the same: he is a lazy man whose behavior angers his wife. Ironically, Koluskap and Turtle’s mother-in-law are the only characters who hold out hope that he will eventually become a man worthy of his beautiful wife. The much more dramatic physical transformation of Turtle comes when he faces a series of attacks by the jealous men of the village. Koluskap arranges it so that in the process of these attacks, his uncle becomes the chief of the turtles: his skin is...

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