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Maude Kegg The Big Fish

According to the Preface written by John Nichols, who collected Maude Kegg's stories in the 1970s, at the time of this printing in 1990 she was 87 years old. She lived at Vineland near Onamia on the Mille Lacs Reservation. She told the stories told to her by her grandmother, Margaret Pine.
And again I used to hear the Indians talking. Long ago they used to be along the shore. The Indians lived there. They say that when there is a big thunderstorm, or sometimes when there is a big thunderstorm at night, they would look at the water. The water goes by in a big swell, rising up a great distance, as there's something speeding by there. That's where the lightning always strikes, always straight at the island. There's a big fish there, they keep saying, there's a big fish in Mille Lacs Lake. Now the whitemen are seeing a big fish. There really must be a big fish in Mille Lacs Lake.
from
Maude Kegg, "Nookomis Gaa-Inaajimotawid: What My Grandmother Told Me," Oshkaabewis Native Journal 1:2 (1990, Special Ed.): 79.

The Ojibwe People's Dictionary is developed and maintained by:
Nora Livesay, Editor
John D. Nichols, Founder and Linguistic Editor

with support and collaboration from the University of Minnesota's Department of American Indian Studies and University Libraries.

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