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Updated: June 16, 2025
The summer following the visit of Oowikapun, Kistayimoowin had taken his wife and his niece and gone out to an island in one of the large lakes to hunt and fish. Theirs was the only wigwam on that island that summer.
Knowing the habits of these animals, he supposed this one, from its rapid, persistent, forward movements, and the absence of that alert watchfulness which they generally possess, was on the track of a deer. Oowikapun dropped to the ground and carefully looked for the tracks of the game that this fierce catamount was pursuing, but to his surprise he could not discover the footprints of any animal.
When Astumastao returned to the village after her conversation with Oowikapun she found the people excited by his story of the fire burning in his wigwam and the meal prepared and ready for him. How these things could have been done without anyone finding it out, when they were all so alert and quick-witted, amazed them. Then it was to them such a breach of the rules or usages of such occasions.
As the ceremonies were only held in the far West, where the devotees gathered from various tribes, Oowikapun and those with him had to travel for many days ere they reached the place. Far beyond the limits of the hunting grounds of his people did he and his deluded comrades journey. They had to work up the swift current and make many portages around the rapids of the Nelson River.
One day, while Oowikapun was pondering over the words of Astumastao, and thinking of the risks she and her companions were about to run, and the dangers they would have to encounter in their great undertaking, and contrasting it with the listless, aimless life he had lately been leading, suddenly there came to him, as a revelation, a noble resolve which took such possession of him and so inspired him that he appeared and acted like another man.
Then they would sing in a manner so different from the wild, droning, monotonous songs of the conjurers, that Oowikapun was filled with a strange feeling of awe, which was much increased when they all knelt down reverently on the ground and Memotas seemed to talk with the Great Spirit and call him his Father.
Reaching out her hand, while her bright eyes spoke more eloquently than her words, she said, "I am very thankful for your coming and for my speedy rescue; and not less so," she added, "when I see it has been by Oowikapun." "Oowikapun is glad to be of any service to Astumastao," he said, as he took the proffered hand and held it, while he added, "But you are not badly wounded?"
Oowikapun heard of the surmisings and mutterings of the people about him, and at first was very much annoyed.
Great indeed was the disappointment and vexation of Oowikapun, who, while vainly imagining that at length he was about to hear the soothing voice of nature to comfort and bless him, got from her such a crack that he was knocked senseless, and, in addition, had his dwelling place completely wrecked.
This account of the origin of the human race, which differs considerably from Darwin's, very much interested Oowikapun and his companions, and so they urged Mookoomis to tell them from Indian traditions how it was that the races had got into the condition in which they now are.
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