Pau-Puk-Keewis

Also known as: Storm-Fool / Yenadizze · Role: the merry mischief-maker · First appears: XVI · Pau-Puk-Keewis

At Hiawatha’s Wedding-Feast, Pau-Puk-Keewis pleased the guests with his Beggar’s Dance. In XVI · Pau-Puk-Keewis, he taught Iagoo the game of Bowl and Counters; they played through the night, and Pau-Puk-Keewis won the players’ treasures and Face-in-a-Mist as his attendant. He left Iagoo’s lodge followed by Face-in-a-Mist, who carried his winnings.

At Hiawatha’s lodge, Pau-Puk-Keewis strangled Kahgahgee and left the raven’s body hanging as an insult to Hiawatha. He scattered the household belongings to taunt Nokomis and Minnehaha, then killed Hiawatha’s mountain chickens at Gitche Gumee and threw their bodies down the headland. In XVII · The Hunting of Pau-Puk-Keewis, Hiawatha vowed to slay him and pursued him with his hunters. Ahmeek changed him into a beaver, and the beavers made him their ruler; Hiawatha’s hunters broke the dam and beat him to death. His ghost resumed his own form, and Pishnekuh changed him into a brant. Shawondasee, the South-wind, carried him onward with the other brants, but the wind sent him wheeling downward and he fell dead, his soul surviving as Pau-Puk-Keewis.

The Old Man of the Mountain gave him shelter in his caverns. Waywassimo and Annemeekee brought down the crags, killing Pau-Puk-Keewis beneath the ruins. Hiawatha then said, “I will change you to an eagle, To Keneu, the great war-eagle”.