The Thunder and Lightning Men

The Algonquin Legends of New England, by Charles G. Leland, [1884], at sacred-texts.com

p. 263

The Thunder and Lightning Men.

(Passamaquoddy.)

This is truly an old Indian story of old time. Once an Indian was whirled up by the roaring wind: he was taken up in a thunder-storm, and set down again in the village of the Thunders. ¹ In after-times he described them as very like human beings: they used bows and arrows (tah-bokque), and had wings.

But these wings can be laid aside, and kept for use. And from time to time their chief gives these Thunders orders to put them on, and tells them where to go. He also tells them how long they are to be gone, and warns them not to go too low, for it is sure death for them to be caught in the crotch of a tree.

The great chief of the Thunders, bearing of the stranger's arrival, sent for him, and received him very kindly, and told him that he would do well to become one of them. To which the man being willing, the chief soon after called all his people together to see the ceremony of thunderifying ² the Indian.

Then they bade him go into a square thing, or box, and while in it he lost his senses and became a

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[paragraph continues] Thunder. Then they brought him a pair of wings, and he put them on. So he flew about like the rest of the Thunders; he became quite like them, and followed all their ways. And he said that they always flew towards the sou' n' snook, or, south, and that the roar and crash of the thunder was the sound of their wings. Their great amusement is to play at ball across the sky. ¹ When they return they carefully put away their wings for their next flight. There is a big bird in the south, and this they are always trying to kill, but never succeed in doing so.

They made long journeys, and always took him with them. So it went on for a long time, but it came to pass that the Indian began to tire of his strange friends. Then he told the chief that he wished to see his family on earth, and the sagamore listened to him and was very kind. Then he called all his people together, and said that their brother from the other world was very lonesome, and wished to return. They were all very sorry indeed to lose him, but because they loved him they let him have his own way, and decided to carry him back again. So bidding him close his eyes till he should be on earth, they carried him down.

The Indians saw a great thunder-storm drawing near; they heard such thunder as they never knew before, and then something in the shape of a human being coming down with lightning; then they ran

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to the spot where he sat, and it was their long-lost brother, who had been gone seven years.

He had been in the Thunder-world. He told them how he had been playing ball with the Thunder-boys: yes, how he had been turned into a real Thunder himself.

This is why the Indians to this very day have a firm belief that the thunder and lightning we hear and see are caused by (beings or spirits) (called) in Indian Bed-day yek (or thunder), ¹ because they see them, and have, moreover, actually picked up the bed-dags k'chisousan, or thunder-bullet. ² It is of many different kinds of stone, but always of the same shape. The last was picked up by Peter Sabattis, ³ one of the Passamaquoddy tribe. He has it yet. He found it in a crotch-root of a spruce-tree at Head Harbor, on the island of Campobello. This stone is a sign of good-luck to him who finds it.

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The thunder is the sound of the wings of the men who fly above. The lightning we see is the fire and smoke of their pipes.

Footnotes

263:1 This tale is transcribed, with very little alteration, from a manuscript collection of tales written in Indian-English by an Indian. I retain the word thunders as expressive of the beings in question. It has for title, A Story called "An Indian transformed into a Thunder!"

263:2 This word is one of the Indian author's own, but as I know of no synonym for it I retain it. It is certainly not worse than "Native-Aniericanizing."

264:1 The Eskimo say that the lightning of the Northern Lights is caused by spirits playing at ball with the head of a walrus.

265:1 The manuscript is here difficult to understand, but this is apparently the real meaning of it.

265:2 Thunderbolt.

265:3 I heard of the existence of this legend a long time before I found it in the manuscript collection obtained for me by Louis Mitchell. It is very curious as being unquestionably of Eskimo origin, or common to the Eskimo; also because it speaks of the Thunders as always endeavoring to kill a great bird in the south. This is probably the thunder or storm bird, called by the Passamaquoddy Indians Wochowsen or Wuchowsen, that is, Wind-Blower. Another legend makes Thunder and Lightning the sons of Mount Katahdin.

I may here mention that I am well acquainted with old Peter Sabattis, the possessor of the "thunder-bullet."