💾 Archived View for tilde.pink › ~bencollver › books › fae-fables › oochigeaskw.gmi captured on 2022-03-01 at 15:42:29. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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There was once a large village of the MicMac Indians of the Eastern
Algonquins, built beside a lake. At the far end of the settlement
stood a lodge, and in it lived a being who was always invisible. He
had a sister who looked after him, and everyone knew that any girl
who could see him might marry him. For that reason there were very
few girls who did not try, but it was very long before anyone
succeeded.
This is the way in which the test of sight was carried out: at
evening-time, when the Invisible One was due to be returning home,
his sister would walk with any girl who might come down to the
lakeshore. She, of course, could see her brother, since he was
always visible to her. As soon as she saw him, she would say to the
girls:
"Do you see my brother?"
"Yes," they would generally reply--though some of them did say "No."
To those who said that they could indeed see him, the sister would
say: "Of what is his shoulder strap made?"
Some people say that she would enquire: "What is his moose-runner's
haul?" or "With what does he draw his sled?"
And they would answer: "A strip of rawhide" or "a green flexible
branch", or something of that kind.
Then she, knowing that they had not told the truth, would say:
"Very well, let us return to the wigwam!"
When they had gone in, she would tell them not to sit in a certain
place, because it belonged to the Invisible One. Then, after they
had helped to cook the supper, they would wait with great curiosity,
to see him eat. They could be sure that he was a real person, for
when he took off his moccasins they became visible, and his sister
hung them up. But beyond this they saw nothing of him, not even when
they stayed in the place all the night, as many of them did.
Now there lived in the village an old man who was a widower, and his
three daughters. The youngest girl was very small, weak and often
ill: and yet her sisters, especially the elder, treated her cruelly.
The second daughter was kinder, and sometimes took her side: but the
wicked sister would burn her hands and feet with hot cinders, and she
was covered with scars from this treatment. She was so marked that
people called her Oochigeaskw, the Rough-Faced-Girl.
When her father came home and asked why she had such burns, the bad
sister would at once say that it was her own fault, for she had
disobeyed orders and gone near the fire and fallen into it.
These two elder sisters decided one day to try their luck at seeing
the Invisible One. So they dressed themselves in their finest
clothes, and tried to look their prettiest. They found the Invisible
One's sister and took the usual walk by the water.
When he came, and when they were asked if they could see him, they
answered: "Of course." And when asked about the shoulder strap or
sled cord, they answered: "A piece of rawhide."
But of course they were lying like the others, and they got nothing
for their pains.
The next afternoon, when the father returned home, he brought with
him many of the pretty little shells from which wampum was made, and
they set to work to string them.
That day, poor little Oochigeaskw, who had always gone barefoot, got
a pair of her father's moccasins, old ones, and put them into water
to soften them so that she could wear them. Then she begged her
sisters for a few wampum shells. The elder called her a "little
pest", but the younger one gave her some. Now, with no other clothes
than her usual rags, the poor little thing went into the woods and
got herself some sheets of birch bark, from which she made a dress,
and put marks on it for decoration, in the style of long ago. She
made a petticoat and a loose gown, a cap, leggings and a
handkerchief. She put on her father's large old moccasins, which
were far too big for her, and went forth to try her luck. She would
try, she thought, to discover whether she could see the Invisible
One.
She did not begin very well. As she set off, her sisters shouted and
hooted, hissed and yelled, and tried to make her stay. And the
loafers around the village, seeing the strange little creature,
called out "Shame!"
The poor little girl in her strange clothes, with her face all
scarred, was an awful sight, but she was kindly received by the
sister of the Invisible One. And this was, of course, because this
noble lady understood far more about things than simply the mere
outside which all the rest of the world knows. As the brown of the
evening sky turned to black, the lady took her down to the lake.
"Do you see him?" the Invisible One's sister asked.
"I do, indeed--and he is wonderful!" said Oochigeaskw.
The sister asked: "And what is his sled-string?"
The little girl said: "It is the Rainbow."
"And, my sister, what is his bow-string?"
"It is The Spirit's Road--the Milky Way."
"So you have seen him," said his sister. She took the girl home with
her and bathed her. As she did so, all the scars disappeared from
her body. Her hair grew again, as it was combed, long, like a
blackbird's wing. Her eyes were now like stars: in all the world
there was no other such beauty. Then, from her treasures, the lady
gave her a wedding garment, and adorned her.
Then she told Oochigeaskw to take the wife's seat in the wigwam: the
one next to where the Invisible One sat, beside the entrance. And
when he came in, terrible and beautiful, he smiled and said:
"So we are found out!"
"Yes," said his sister. And so Oochigeaskw became his wife.
