Note 30 — Chapter II · MYTHS AND FOLK-LORE OF THE TIMAGAMI OJIBWA.

One afternoon, late, he started off to hunt. Everything that he met seemed strange to him in this new world. Soon he came to a lake with a little ice on it, and when he walked out he beheld tracks of some animal. Soon he came to a place where a big wooden mallet lay on the ice. He thought to himself that somebody had lost this mallet. Then he took it by the handle and hammered on the ice. Immediately the hammer fell through. Up from the hole in the ice a red otter emerged. He killed the red otter. Then he went on with the hammer to another place. There he tried again, and this time got a blue otter. He tried again at another place and got a black otter, which was like the otters of this world. So, taking his load of otters, he went home to display what he thought was a pretty good hunt. He carried his game in a bag of leather. When he got to his wigwam, he shoved his bag in the entrance ahead of him, so that his wife could open it and see what he had brought.30 Thought she to herself, when she saw the game-bag, “I wonder if he will show himself to be a good hunter.” She saw some blood on the bag. Opening it, she beheld the otters, Now the man had made a mistake, for these were tame otters and belonged to the Bears. She went out crying to her people, “This man has killed our otters!” When the old White Bear heard about the news, he said to his family, “We should have told this man about our otters, because he didn’t know. On this account it is all right.” He said no more, because he was afraid of the magic possessed by his new son-in-law.