Wolverine the Trickster, Labrador Innu Tales Read online

  Ah, thought Wolverine, a piece of dried meat. It's just my luck that someone has dropped it.

  He picked up the scab and ate it, saying, Um-m-m, not bad at all.

  Later another scab fell off, and he ate that one, too. And then another. And another.

  Now came a bad winter, with very little game. But Wolverine, as always, was resourceful: he survived the winter by eating his own ass.

  *****

  THE FIRST WOMAN

  Wolverine's penis was quite large, maybe forty or fifty feet long. To keep it from dragging behind him, he would wrap it around his waist or fling it over his shoulder. Sometimes he would coil it up in a basket. Sometimes, too, he would use it as a bridge when he wanted to cross a wide river.

  He called his penis Little Brother. "What do you wish, Little Brother?" he would say to it.

  "I would like a nice cave into which to stick myself," his penis would reply.

  Or it would say: "Today I would like a big hole in the ground."

  Or: "How about a nice hollow tree?"

  Once, when his penis had made this last request, Wolverine saw a big hollow tree, and he immediately thrust his penis into it. Whereupon he heard a voice saying, "Get that silly thing out of here, or you're go-ing to be very sorry."

  Wolverine was having so much fun inside the tree that he didn't listen to this warning.

  Suddenly his penis cried out in pain. "What's wrong, Little Brother?" he asked it.

  "Get me out of this place!" his penis shouted. "Something's trying to eat me!"

  When Wolverine pulled his penis out of the tree, he saw that it was now less than half its original size, and the end was all covered with blood.

  A beaver emerged from the tree. "Well, I warned you," the beaver declared.

  Such was Wolverine's anger at the beaver that he conjured it into a bokageesh, a black fly, and to this day black flies will bite anything they see, even a penis.

  "Since I'd rather not get any smaller than I am now," Wolverine's penis remarked, "maybe you could find a new place for me to enter..."

  "I will create just such a place for you," Wolverine promised.

  He had already made a man out of a mixture of caribou shit and spruce cones, and now he set about making a totally different kind of creature. He cut open a caribou, took out the kidneys and molded them into a pair of breasts. From a caribou liver, he created a vagina. From caribou intestines, he molded arms and legs, and from caribou fur, he created a mass of very long hair.

  When he was finished, he had made the first woman.

  "Go to her, Little Brother," Wolverine said to his penis.

  *****

  HOW ROCKS WERE BORN

  Once upon a time there weren't any rocks in the world, only one very large boulder. Wolverine walked up to this boulder and declared: "I bet I can outrun you, friend."

  "That's probably true, since I can't run at all," the boulder replied. "In fact, I've been sitting in this one place for as long as I can remember."

  "Can't run? Even Lemming can run, friend. You must be the lowest of the low."

  Wolverine gave the boulder a strong kick. The boulder did not like this kick, nor did it like Wolverine's insults, and propelled by the kick, it began rolling toward him.

  "Well, at least you can move," laughed Wolverine, and he took off down the hill, with the boulder rolling after him.

  "Are you pleased now?" the boulder asked him.

  "I am, but I wish you'd slow down. You're hurting my heels."

  "I thought you wanted to see me run..."

  All of a sudden Wolverine fell down, and the boulder rolled right on top of him.

  "Get off! Get off! You're breaking my body!" shouted Wolverine.

  The boulder did not move.

  Now Wolverine called on his brothers to help him.

  "Lynx, get rid of this damn boulder!" he said.

  "Wolf, can you get this boulder off me?"

  Neither Lynx nor Wolf was willing to help him. They said that it was only fair, since he'd insulted the boulder, that he end up stuck under it.

  At last Wolverine asked Thunderstorm for his help.

  Thunderstorm took one look at Wolverine and roared with laughter. "What are you doing under that boulder, my friend?" he said.

  "Trying to prove that I'm the better runner," Wolverine replied. "Apparently, I'm not."

  Thunderstorm now asked for Lightning's assistance, and Lightning zigzagged down from the sky and struck the boulder BAMM! It broke into many little pieces. That's how rocks were born.

  And why, from then on, Wolverine said only nice things to them.

  *****

  WOLVERINE TRIES TO GET A WIFE

  Wolverine was once in the mood for a wife. He came to a camp, a human camp, and there he met a girl named Miss Ptarmigan. Oh, she was so pretty, such good material for a wife. Or so he thought.

  They were having a big mukoshan at this camp when he arrived. Wolverine hadn't brought any food, so what did he do? He stuck his hand up his ass and grabbed his intestines, pulled them out. Then he plugged his ass with some moss.

  "This is for your soup," he said to the chief, handing him his intestines.

  The chief accepted this gift because it's bad luck to re-fuse something that a guest brings you, no matter how disgusting it is.

  After the mukoshan was over, Wolverine took Miss Ptarmigan to his tent. She didn't seem to have any interest in mating, though. Every time he tried to stick his penis into her, she would get up from the sleeping skins and fart in his face. Or she would try to burn his penis with some punk.

  Next day they got into his canoe and began paddling.

  "Where are we going, husband?" Miss Ptarmigan asked Wolverine.

  "Damned if I know," he told her.

  She slapped his face. "Do you know now?" she said.

  "I know even less than I did before you slapped me."

  Now she tried to strike him with her paddle, but she only succeeded in capsizing the canoe.

  The two of them were in the water, and Miss Ptarmigan was splashing around like she couldn't swim. Wolverine saved her from drowning, dragged her to the shore. How did she show her thanks to him? She farted in his face!

  I can tolerate this marriage no longer, Wolverine said to himself.

  So he took his shimagin and thrust it into Miss Ptarmigan's chest. Out jumped an actual ptarmigan, a bird as gentle as its human owner had been cruel.

  And that's how ptarmigans came into the world.

  *****

  OWLS' EYES

  One winter Wolverine decided to put a light in his camp, so he went up to the sky and brought down the moon.

  In a nearby spruce tree, there was an owl watching him perform this feat. The owl thought Wolverine had conjured an imitation moon to light up his camp, and that the real moon was still up in the sky.

  "Okay, brother," Wolverine remarked to the owl. "Watch, and I'll do the same thing again."

  So he kicked the moon back to its original place, then he climbed up to the sky and brought the moon down again. Whereupon he held it up for the owl to see.

  The owl was astonished by this. So astonished that his eyes grew very large.

  And the eyes of owls have remained large to this very day, as if their owners had all watched Wolverine climb up to the sky and capture the moon.

  *****

  WOLVERINE AND THE BEARS

  Having eaten only lemmings and shrews for quite a while, Wolverine craved fat, real fat, with lots of grease. So when he noticed a big she-bear near his camp, he made a plan to get her into his stew-pot.

  "Greetings, sister," he said.

  "Why are you calling me sister?" the bear asked him. "You're not a bear."

  "Your eyesight seems to be failing you, sister. I'm a bear just like you. Indeed, I'm your brother."

  "You look more like a kwakwadjec to me."

  "Admit it, sister. You're losing your eyesight. Why, I bet you can't even see that patch of ripe berries over t
here."

  He pointed to a barren hillside.

  "I see only rocks."

  Now Wolverine conjured berries all over the hillside. When the two of them went over there, the bear exclaimed: "How did your eyes get to be so good?"

  Replied Wolverine: "Our father used to squeeze berry juice into my eyes. And as everybody knows, berry juice improves the eyesight."

  "Think you could squeeze some into my eyes?"

  "I'll be glad to, sister, but first you must lie down."

  The bear did as she was told, and Wolverine began squeezing berries into her eyes. The juice blinded her.

  "You're doing fine, just fine, sister," Wolverine said. Whereupon he took his shimagin and thrust it into her heart, killing her.

  That was almost too easy, he said to himself.

  After he had dressed the bear's carcass, he got an urge to eat the brains. Usually, he left the brains for dessert, but now he wanted them for the first course. But however hard he tried, he couldn't crack the skull. Even when he threw it against a rock, it wouldn't crack.

  Suddenly a large he-bear appeared. "What are you doing with my wife's head?" the he-bear said.

  "I'm trying to bring your wife back to life, of course," re-plied Wolverine.

  "I don't believe you. I think you killed her, and now you want to eat her brains. To punish you, I'm going to suck out your brains."

  Whereupon the bear grabbed Wolverine and began crushing him. Wolverine was desperate, so he reached down, wrapped his hand around the bear's penis, and started pump-ing it. Right away the bear released him.

  Wolverine ran. He ran and ran. When he was a certain distance away, he looked back to see if the bear was chasing him. But the bear was just standing there with a big grin on his face, beckoning him with his paw to come back.

  *****

  WHY SEAWATER IS UNDRINKABLE

  Once upon a time there lived a giant skunk whose farts were lethal. One day this skunk came to a camp and farted on two old women.

  "That's a mighty powerful fart you've got there, sister," one of the women said to the other.

  "I haven't farted, sister. But your fart is a killer..."

  Soon both women were dead from the smell.

  Now the skunk moved over to where a man was frying some bear fat to make oil. The man said to himself: "This fat smells real bad. Kue! I seem to smell real bad myself..."

  Before long, he was dead, too.

  Through the camp went the skunk. Such was the strength of its farts that when the victims were children or adults who weighed very little, they were blown high into the sky.

  At last only the headman and his two sons were left alive. The headman said: "We must get our brother Wolverine to help us. Otherwise, we'll be farted to death, too."

  So they visited Wolverine in his den. "I've killed wolves, bears, and even a few human beings," Wolverine told them, "so I think I'll be able to handle a mere skunk."

  But when Wolverine saw the size of this skunk, he changed his mind. Too late! The skunk was already advancing to-ward him. All of a sudden it turned around and aimed its ass at his face.

  Quick as a wink, Wolverine reached down and grabbed some moss, then stuffed it into the skunk's ass. Now the farts backed up inside the skunk's body. As it continued to fart, the skunk swelled up to an enormous size, then it exploded, blown to bits by its own farts.

  Wolverine was standing next to the skunk, and he got hit by all those pent-up farts. "Help!" he shouted to the head-man. "The smell is killing me!"

  But the headman and his son refused to help him, lest the smell get them, too. So Wolverine began running, and he didn't stop running until he reached the sea. There he washed himself for one whole week, until at last he had gotten rid of the smell.

  And ever since Wolverine bathed in it, seawater has not only smelled bad, but it's also been undrinkable.

  *****

  WHY MARTENS LIVE IN THE DEEP WOODS

  In his wanderings, Wolverine once encountered a very large, very nasty atcen. The atcen looked at him, and saliva dripped from his mouth like a waterfall.

  Unless I somehow distract him, I'm a goner, thought Wolverine. So he said to the atcen, "You can't eat me, my son."

  "Why can't I eat you?" asked the atcen. "And why are you calling me your son? We don't look at all alike."

  "Well, I created the world, so I must have created you," Wolverine said. "That would make you my son, and a good son usually doesn't eat his father."

  This remark so infuriated the atcen that he forced Wolverine to build a fire. There is no greater indignity than to build the fire on which you yourself are going to be cooked.

  As he began cutting wood, he saw his friend Marten.

  "Save me, brother, and I'll give you anything you want," Wolverine said.

  "I want a white coat like Ermine's, only nicer," said Mar-ten.

  "Save me, and you'll get it."

  So Marten jumped down the atcen's throat and began searching for the atcen's heart.

  Meanwhile, the atcen was getting annoyed with Wolverine. "Hurry up with that fire," he said, "I'm starving."

  "I'm going as fast as I can," replied Wolverine, cutting the wood as slowly as he could.

  At last Marten found the heart. Like the hearts of all atcens, it was covered with hair and looked just like a beard.

  Marten sank his teeth into it, then ripped as hard as he could. He let go, then sank his teeth again and ripped again.

  The atcen uttered a loud cry and collapsed to the ground, dead.

  Marten emerged from the atcen's mouth covered with blood. This blood smelled like stale fish -- the usual smell for an atcen's blood.

  "So where's the white coat you promised me?" he asked Wolverine.

  "Oh, you'll have to wait until winter, just like Ermine does, and then I'll give it to you," Wolverine told him.

  But Marten didn't get a white coat that winter. Or any other winter. His coat remained the same dark color all year round. He grew so embarrassed by this color that he went to live in the deep woods, where no one would see him.

  And that's why martens live in the deep woods to this very day: they don't want anyone to see the color of their coats.

  *****

  WHY CERTAIN CREATURES LIVE IN THE GROUND

  Wolverine was searching around for a hunting partner. He came to a place where two women, a mother and a daughter, had put up their camp. The daughter said she would hunt with him.

  "But you're a woman," said Wolverine.

  "Not really," she replied. "It's just that someone has conjured with me, and now I happen to look like this."

  "If you're a man, let's see you piss."

  She squatted down on the ground.

  "Just as I thought," Wolverine told her. And he wandered on. But wherever he went, he couldn't find a man to hunt with him. Either the men were off hunting themselves, or they didn't trust a partner like Wolverine. So he returned to the women's camp.

  "Pack up your gear," he told the mother and daughter. "We're heading north to hunt an uapashku."

  The first night Wolverine offered the women caribou heads for supper. The daughter took her caribou head and tried to pull the jaws apart. She kept pulling and pulling until she pulled so hard that she fell onto her back.

  Wolverine looked up her leggings. "Ehe!" he exclaimed. "I can see that you're not a man." Whereupon he leaped right on top of her.

  "Don't let him do that," the mother said to her daughter. "You'll have a baby, and then you won't be able to hunt."

  But the girl had already stuck Wolverine's penis between her legs. The mother grabbed his penis and stuck it between her own legs, saying, "I'm your mother, so I should go first." When she had finished, the daughter took his penis back again.

  Thought Wolverine: I should go on more hunting expeditions like this one.

  In the morning, Wolverine got up early. As the two women were still sleeping, he decided to go hunting by himself. But he was so tired from the night befo
re that he got only as far as a little clear-ing near his tent, then he lay down in some moss and went to sleep.

  Along came a lemming, a shrew, and a vole. They saw Wolverine's penis sticking up in the air. The vole climbed to the top of it, took a whiff, and said: "There's a woman around here somewhere."

  "A woman!" shouted the others, and off the three of them went to find her.

  A while later, Wolverine woke up. "What's my blanket doing in the sky?" he asked himself. Then he realized that his penis was holding it up there.

  "Little Brother," he said to his penis, "it seems you would like some more work...even after last night." So he went back to the two women in the tent.

  The women were stretched out asleep, as before. Wolverine was getting ready to wake them, but then he noticed the lemming, the shrew, and the vole trying to crawl into their vaginas. "What a sweet taste!" they were saying to each other.

  Wolverine reached down and seized all three of them.

  "Hey!" they cried. "Why did you do that, short-legs?"

  "Because creatures like you aren't supposed to go into women's vaginas, that's why," Wolverine said.

  He now took all three of them to a place quite a distance from his camp. Then he made a hole in the ground, telling them: "This is where you'll be living from now on, my friends."

  And he flung them into the hole.

  So it is that lemmings, shrews, and voles have lived in the ground to this very day, far away from women's vaginas.

  *****

  WOLVERINE AND THE PILE OF SHIT