of it was
a potent spell.

HOW A MEDICINE MAN WAS BORN, AND HOW HE TURNED MAN INTO A TREE.

A story of old times. There was once a woman who travelled constantly
through the woods. Every bush she saw she bit off, and from one of
these she came to be with child. She grew bigger and bigger until at
last she could travel no longer, but built a wigwam near the mouth of
a stream. The woman gave birth to a child in the night. She thought it
best to kill the child, but did not wish to murder her offspring.[27]

[Footnote 27: By combining this story with some given by Leland it
would seem that the child was Glooscap. If that is so, this is the
only account in Passamaquoddy lore in which his parthenogenetic origin
is traced. Mrs. Brown insists, however, that the medicine man was not
Glooscap.]

At last she decided to make a canoe of bark, and in it she put her
child and let it float down the river. The water of the river was
rough, but the child was not harmed, or even wet.[28] It floated down
to an Indian village, and was stranded on the shore near a group of
wigwams. A woman of the village found the baby on the shore and
brought it to her home. Every morning, after the baby had been brought
to the place, a baby of the village died. The Indians did not know
what the matter was until they noticed that the waif which the woman
had found in the bark on the river bank went to the river every night
and returned shortly after. A woman watched to see what this had to do
with the death of the babes, and she saw the child, when it returned
to the wigwam, bring a tongue of a little child, roast and eat it.
Then it laid down to sleep. The next morning another child died, and
then the Indian knew that its tongue had been cut out. It was
therefore believed that the strange child had killed the baby. They
deliberated as to what they should do with the murderer. Some said,
cut him in pieces and cast the fragments into the river. Others said,
cut him up and burn the fragments. This, after much consultation, they
did. They burnt the fragments of the child until nothing but the ashes
remained. Everybody thought it dead, but the next morning it came back
to camp again, with a little tongue as before, roasted and ate the
morsel. The next morning another child was found to have died the
night before. After the weird child had roasted and eaten the tongue
of its victim he laid down to sleep in the same place he had laid
before he had been cut