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Glooscap,

The First Acadian Exile.

"Weegejiik! kessegook wigwaink;
Meskeek oodun ulnoo, kes saak,"
[May you be happy! the old people are encamped.
There was once, long ago, a large Indian village.]

Introduction to Ancient Ahtookwokun.[1]

Mighty in friendship was Glooscap, and mighty in magic.
He who loved Truth as his life,—the one true necromancer.
He was a kenap,[2] boooin,[3] a great malbalaawe[4]
Yet he stood true to his friends; he was mighty in friendship!

Over the far-heaving sea came the mighty in friendship,
Came from the East, in his kweedun,[5] a small rocky island,
That sped with the swiftness of light at the beck of its master,
And reached without paddle or sail the wild shores of Megamagee.[6]

He dwelt many lifetimes in fertile Acadian valleys,
Then passed,—alas that he must, to the land of the sunset.
He cannot come back until men shall speak truth with their neighhors.
The Acadie,[7] that he has made now knows him no longer.

"Paalumaklk koobetaku"[8] Cape Split, and he dug through at Digby,
And drained the Annapolis Valley, to make it his garden;

  1. ↑ "Ahtookwokun," legendary folk lore.
  2. ↑ "Kenap," supernatural warrior.
  3. ↑ "Boooin," magican.
  4. ↑ "Malbalaawe," physician and surgeon.
  5. ↑ "Kweedun," canoe.
  6. ↑ "Megamagee," Micmac name for the Maritime Provinces, meaning the home of the true men, the Micmacs.
  7. ↑ "Acadie," the place. See Shubenacadie, [Segubun-acadie] the place of the segubun or ground-nuts, cf., also Baslooacadie, the landing place, Cape Traverse, P. E. I.
  8. ↑ "Paalumakik koobetaku," he cut through the beaver-dam at [Cape Split.]

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