Paup-Puk-Keewiss

Also known as: Paup-puk-keewiss / Pauppukkeewiss · Family: Algonquins · Role: trickster who changes his shape · First appears: Paup-puk-keewiss · Part 1

In “Paup-puk-keewiss · Part 1,” Pauppukkeewiss and his family faced starvation when their food ran out. He sought the spirits’ pity, followed their directions, and found his sack filled with fish in the morning. Manabozho learned the secret from him. The legend also tells how Pauppukkeewiss, alone on a prairie, resolved to find people’s homes; toward dusk he reached a village and jumped over its first large lodge.

In Part 2, Paup-Puk-Keewiss killed the eldest brother (Paup-puk-keewiss legend) and broke the father manito (Paup-puk-keewiss legend)’s back. At the manitoes’ lodge, he brought the people they had killed back to life. When the village chief offered him rule, he declined and named his friend, the young man (Paup-puk-keewiss legend), to take the chieftainship while he travelled on alone. He shot the large otter (Paup-puk-keewiss legend) and the war-eagle (Paup-puk-keewiss legend). In Part 3, he changed into a beaver, was made its chief, and was killed while trapped in the lodge; when his flesh grew cold, his Jee-bi left and he returned to human shape. He was likewise transformed into an elk and a large brant, dying in each shape and returning to human form after his flesh cooled.

In Part 4, after walking the third day, he discovered that the first old man (Paup-puk-keewiss legend) and the second old man (Paup-puk-keewiss legend) had deceived him, killed them, and burned their lodge. He brought his people to live by a lake, defeated the bear-king (Paup-puk-keewiss legend) in a race, killed him, and had the captured bears serve at the lodges. He later played Manabozho a trick, turning his lodge upside down and killing his chickens, then escaped when Manabozho appeared. In Part 5, while Manabozho pursued him, Paup-Puk-Keewiss stripped a tree of its foliage and broke a rock apart. The local manito sheltered him and refused to open the door to Manabozho; falling rocks crushed both their mortal bodies. Schoolcraft’s remarks in “Pauguk, and the Mythological Interpretation of Hiawatha” say that Manabozho killed him with the power of death and changed his dead carcass into a war-eagle.