Portage Lake Memegwesiwag knocking rice

We always went to Boy River, we were always doing something there at Boy River. We were ricing there, and were sitting down towards evening; she was saying that they had seen Memegwesiwag. "They too knock rice there on Boy River. The river turns there," she said. "We were knocking rice along there," she said. "Maybe there is someone over there," her old man was saying, so they stopped there and she put down the knocking sticks. Sure enough, the sound of knockers was coming toward them where they were sitting in the water, and then a boat suddenly appeared. They sat there watching those two knocking rice. They wanted to see who they were, but when they blinked their eyes, they disappeared form view. "He said, 'Memegwesiwag'," she said, "that's what he said; those Memegwesiwag have hair on their faces." I wonder what kind of creatures they are.

from

Maude Kegg, Portage Lake: Memories of an Ojibwe Childhood, ed. John D. Nichols (Edmonton, Alberta: University of Alberta Press, 1991), 123.