Moose (Cāsép, "Black Deer")

by Richard L. Dieterle

Laura Seaman
A Moose

Cāsép denotes the Black Deer, from cā, "deer," and sep, "black." This animal (Alces alces), which the Europeans call an "elk," is known in America as the moose (from Massachusett moos, cf. Ojibwe mōs).¹

Moose were hunted not only as food, but for their valuable hides. The prevalence of moose and buffalo hides in a village was an indication of its prosperity.² Concerning hunting in 1842, Dart says, "Elk and moose were found upon Willow River, and occasionally around Green Lake. Shed elk and moose horns were then often found here; some weighed from sixty to seventy pounds."³ Migrating moose were seen around Lake Winnebago, where it was alleged that a giant fish once swallowed a moose whole.⁴

In the times of the beginnings, a black deer and an elk suddenly appeared at the center of the earth. They both headed east where the day begins. The black deer, being heavy of body, declared that he must return whence he came. When he returned to the center he chanced upon a "money necklace," the symbol worn only by the chief. Thus he became known as "Black Deer Chief." Under his command, the deer followed him back to the east. They traveled over the whole of the earth. When they returned, Black Deer Chief collapsed and died. He was the first animal to die, and his brothers were forced by this necessity to institute the Four Nights Wake.⁵ This leadership of the Black Deer suggests that at some time in the past there was a Black Deer Subclan which was the leading subclan. Supporting this is the fact that John Michel StCyr told Gatschet that one of the clans was a Moose Clan called Hų́wesa Hikíkarac,⁶ the latter word meaning "clan," with hų́wesa being analyzed as hų̄wą́-hē-są̄, "white-horned elk," recalling the pairing of the moose with the elk in the clan origin story.

In "Grandfather's Two Families," each of Grandfather Sun's children hunted just one kind of animal, the fourth son always packing back a moose.⁷ The Moose corresponds to an unknown asterism prominent from mid-March to late April. This obscure asterism associated with the zodiac finds a counterpart in the neighboring Ojibwe, where it overlaps with the classical Pegasus constellation. The body of the Moose is formed by the stars Alpheratz, Algenib, Markab, and Scheat.

In a similar story,⁸ "The Quail Hunter," there are ten brothers who each specializes in hunting just one animal. The second oldest brother hunts just moose. When a woman unexpectedly showed up at their encampment, the second brother offered her the best part of the kill, the moose's tongue, but she refused it. Then the woman tried to kill them with an elkhorn club. As she pursued them, they changed in turn into the animals that each brother hunted, so that at one point they fled as a herd of moose. In the end, they saved themselves only by transforming into quails, the animal that the last brother hunted.

Links: Deer Spirits, Elk.

Stories: mentioning moose: Deer Clan Origin Myth, Grandfather's Two Families, The Quail Hunter, Hunting at Green Lake.

Themes: each member of a group of brothers specializes in the hunting of just one kind of game animal: The Quail Hunter, Grandfather's Two Families, The Brown Squirrel; a group of brothers return from the hunt in the order of their birth: Sun and the Big Eater, The Quail Hunter, Grandfather's Two Families, The Old Man and His Four Dogs; death enters the world for the first time: Holy One and His Brother, The Medicine Rite Foundation Myth, The Necessity for Death, The Thunderbird Clan Origin Myth, Death Enters the World, Deer Clan Origin Myth; a medallion necklace is symbolic of chieftainship: Holy One and His Brother, The Medicine Rite Foundation Myth, The Necessity for Death, The Thunderbird Clan Origin Myth, Death Enters the World, Deer Clan Origin Myth.

Notes

¹ Partridge gives this etymology: "Massachusett (Amerind) moos, varr: of Alg stock: 'he strips or eats off' the young bark and twigs of trees.(Matthews.) Sem cf CARIBOU." Eric Partridge, Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1963) s.v., 415a, from Mitford M. Mathews, A Dictionary of Americanisms (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951).
² Mary Henderson Eastman, Chicóra: And Other Regions of the Conquerors and the Conquered (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo and Company, 1854) 20.
³ Richard Dart, The Settlement of Green County," Proceedings of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin at it Annual Meeting, Volume 57 (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society, 1910) 252-272 [260-261].
⁴ Charles E. Brown, Wisconsin Indian Place Legends (Madison: Works Progress Administration, 1936) 10. Dorothy Moulding Brown, Wisconsin Indian Place-Name Legends, Wisconsin Folklore Booklets (Madison: 1947) 9.
⁵ Paul Radin, The Winnebago Tribe (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990 [1923]), 199-201. "Deer Clan Origin Myth," 1-13.
⁶ Albert Samuel Gatschet, Linguistic and Ethnological Material on the Winnebago, Manuscript 1989-a (Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution National Anthropological Archives, 1889, 1890-1891) 1 - 104. ☞
⁷ Paul Radin, "Morning Star (Wiragocge Xetega)," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Notebook 8: 1-93 [19] (see the Commentary).
⁸ Oliver LaMère and Harold B. Shinn, Winnebago Stories (New York, Chicago: Rand, McNally and Co., 1928) 65-74. Informant: Oliver LaMère (Bear Clan).