Tales the Elders Told: Ojibway Legends

by Basil Johnston, Shirley Cheechoo

Nine charming tales illustrated with drawings by Cree artist Shirley Cheechoo. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

64 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1981

About the author

Basil H. Johnston (13 July 1929 to 8 September 2015) was a Canadian writer, storyteller, language teacher and scholar.

For his work in preserving Ojibwa language and culture, he received the Order of Ontario and Honorary Doctorates from the University of Toronto and Laurentian University. Basil also received the Aboriginal Achievement Award for Heritage and Spirituality.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Karl · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has been my Basil Johnston reading day. This is my teenage son’s book and I liberated it, along with 3 others, from his bookshelf.

Winter is the time of storytelling. I hope one day to learn these stories and share them with my family and friends in my Anishnaabe community.

The book is small and the stories are short but this does not detract from the value of this historical and cultural document. Published by the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and collected by the eminent Anishnaabe scholar Basil Johnston these stories are essential to understanding the worldview of the Anishnaabe people.the first butterflies; why birds go south in the winter; how bats cane to be; how spiders came to be; how dogs came to be; thunderbirds and fireflies;wolf and fox.

Beautifully illustrated by Shirley Cheechoo (Cree).

[Leslie Wexler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Legends:
1. Mother we will never leave you: spirit woman births birds, animals and fishes. And three from each species stay near her: the ruffed grouse, the rabbit and the whitefish.
2. The first butterflies: the twins of spirit woman are raised by the animals but don’t walk as the animals serve the, too well. Nana bush journeys to the west to kitchie manitou who tells him to gather colours rocks. He throws some in the air and they become butterflies, follow him home and incite the children to crawl then walk chasing the
3. Why birds go south in the winter: that crazy loon (Mong) he just wanted to play his fav gam, lacrosse. Teams are set (the raven changes teams after one set) but to no avail, the loon’s team loses twice; twice losing the net that his team would win. The penalties were first wind and storms from the west then Winter from the north forcing all birds to fly south.
4. How bats came to be: a squirrel has to help father sun who is caught in the branches of a tree. He gets scorched, saggy skinned and blind in the process, but accomplishes the task of freeing the sun, for his labours he’s turned into a bat, but seems to like it since he’s always wanted to fly and can still hear pretty good.
5. How spiders came to be: they really didn’t understand the power of their web, and so we’re really quite useless at hunting flies. At the same time the ppl were also having a tough time figuring out preserving meat as it always went bad (read: flies and maggots were a big issue). The spiders (manitooshug) decide to seek guidance from kitchie manitou who explains they have the power they need. Rather than feel despair over the riddle they figure out the strings they make and Nanabush teaches them to make nets. The story ends with this enigmatic association: all this happened before people learned to preserve meat.
6. How dogs came to be: A giant discovers some fishermen and takes them home and hides them in a quill box and windigo wants to find the people and do some uncertain thing to them. Instead giant sics his magic shape shifting dog on the windigo. By breathing in or out the dog gets larger or smaller, the people are taken back across the “great sea” on the puffed up big dogs back, then he breathes out a lot to a normal size, takes off after a fox and then returns to the men - they’re glad he returned.
7. Thunderbirds and fireflies: thunderbirds are storms, and have seasons like other birds. The migrate back north in the spring and mate and make storms, get jealous of eagles whirlwind making and rustle up a good tornado. The female thunderbirds hatching the eggs are disgruntled about missing out on all the good action. Hatchlings come early and they are behaviourally more intense and make a lot of trouble in the sky including thunderheads (cumulonimbus clouds). They also love lacrosse (a real favourite amongst the avian crew) and tossed the ice ball around a lot until they dropped it and it crashes with a roar and made Hudson Bay, busted into ice pieces and made all the surrounding little lakes. Several stars slipped from the sky in the clamour and fell to the earth below, and were changed to fireFlies or lightening bugs as they were created by thunder and lightening shaking the stars from the skies.
8. Close your eyes dance: when you’re hungry do as nanabush and grab eight ducks drawn into dancing with their eyes closed.
9. Waugoosh and myeengun: in a time of famine a fox and wold live and hunt together until the wolf stealing consistently from a hunter and not getting caught reveals his method to the fox who gets a good whooping and decides they shouldn’t be roommates anymore based on the crappy hunting advice.