Ojibwe and Algonquian Tales — Part 1 (Peboan and Seegwun · La Poudre, or The Storm-Fool · The Broken Wing · Shawondasee)
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Part one — the premiere of a new shelf. Four tales from Algic Researches (New York, 1839), Henry Rowe Schoolcraft's landmark collection of Ojibwe and other Algonquian oral tradition — a record made with his wife, Jane Johnston Schoolcraft (1800–1842), whose own Ojibwe family's stories stand behind many of its pages — read here in the English of the 1839 edition, as printed. In Peboan and Seegwun, Winter keeps his icy lodge while the birds fly south, until young Seegwun comes breathing spring, and the two spirits divide the year between them in peace. In La Poudre, or The Storm-Fool, Pauppukeewiss dances his strange petition before the ice castles of Gitchiguma, wins sacks of snow that turn to fish — and learns how quickly a gift can be read as an offence. In The Broken Wing, two brothers shoot at a falling mark until mercy stays the next arrow; the vulture they nurse back to strength repays them with a warning that saves their village. And in Shawondasee, the spirit of the south wind sighs for the golden-haired maiden of the northern prairie, and learns too late that he has loved the dandelion. The episode opens and closes with its theme, January Lament, heard also briefly between the stories.
Chapters
0:39 Peboan and Seegwun
4:57 La Poudre, or The Storm-Fool
12:01 The Broken Wing
19:23 Shawondasee
Five narratives of the collection are held for a ruling — the sacred and ceremonial tales Iadilla and Mon-Daw-Min, Leelinau, Git-Chee-Gau-Zinee and Paradise Opened to the Indians — and three more (Iosco, Wassamo and The Grave Light) were not cleared for this build; twenty-four further tales are not read on this shelf, each excluded by name after a full reading. Eight tales passed the screen and stand on the bench for later parts of this shelf. The shelf is billed as what it is — Ojibwe and Algonquian tales in Schoolcraft's literary retellings of 1839, crediting Henry Rowe Schoolcraft and Jane Johnston Schoolcraft — and no claim of completeness for the collection is made.
From Algic Researches by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft (Harper & Brothers, New York, 1839), public domain — Peboan and Seegwun and The Broken Wing from the first volume, La Poudre and Shawondasee from the second, complete and in the order read here, in the English of the original edition, not a new translation. Narrated by Morgana. Theme: January Lament.
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