Beverly: Do you recall if your grandfathers ever told you stories about
merpeople, the omîmîkwîsiwak, whether they existed or if they had ever
seen them?

Keno: Yes. I remember that. Yes, it was one of my grandfathers, my
mother’s father to be precise. There is a so-called Mîmîkwîsi Rock in
a place where people are living now [Granville Lake reserve]. It is
just across the lake, just a short distance away.

My grandfather used to tell me the story of an old man who always
set his net there at the Mîmîkwîsi Rock. A lot of fish were caught in
that spot. This is his story.

One day, an old man set his net there. He checked his net every
morning for three or four days, but there were never any fish in it.
Finally, he lay in wait to see who was stealing his fish. He made his
look-out in the bay behind a point of land near the Mîmîkwîsi Rock. He
hid and waited there in a birch-bark canoe.

Eventually, he heard talking. He could understand them because
they were speaking our language, Cree. (“They talked Cree, like us,”
said my grandfather.) And this is how he told the story: He sneaked up
on them while they were in their canoe, but I don’t know what kind of
canoe they were using.

“So you are the ones who have been robbing me of my fish, eh?”
The one who was steering the canoe turned around. Meanwhile, the other,
the younger one, was lifting the net. Both of them were hanging their
heads down. Now, the one who was steering said to his companion, “You
are better looking. You lift up your head and talk to the old man.”
(Those mîmîkwîsiwak don’t have noses, you know, and their chins are
like a fish’s jaw. They have teeth, too, and their eyes look human. But
from here on, he could not see clearly how they looked. Their clothes
look like a fish’s skin, and their bodies really shine. They seem to
glow or glisten.)

Well, the younger one lifted up his head, looked at the old man
and said, “It’s because we are hungry. Even though we have set our nets
in the big lake, every time we check them there are no fish. And we see
this old man, you, catching so many fish. We tried, over there, to show
you this huge rock, such a beautiful one.”

That rock is still there to this day, you know. I see it all the
time. It was not always there, but suddenly dropped down from
somewhere. It is hollowed out in spots, scooped out as with a big
spoon. They made it, but I don’t know what kind of tools they used.
There, beneath the water is where they lived. No, not in the water
itself, but in a house like this one, the old man said. He told my
grandfather that he was taken down under the water to see the home of
the mîmîkwîsak. It was incredibly beautiful down there, where I assume
they did their cooking because I saw firewood. I don’t know just how
they made their living, though.

And then there was another guy, Peter [Colomb], who told me a
story, too. This one is from Burntwood Lake. There, too, is a place
where the mîmîkwîsiwak used to live, and maybe they are still there
today. Quite unexpectedly, he told me to go and see for myself. (He
told me the story at the time I was working for the government.) “Just
go and take pictures of it,” he told me. “You will see how obvious it
is that they were there, those mîmîkwîsiwak.” And he told the same
story, how the mîmîkwîsiwak have no noses, like fish. And their mouths
and chins look like fish, too. They had teeth, I assume, because they
ate all kinds of things. That’s what the old man said. He told me this
story quite recently, in the 1960s.

Now, back to Granville Lake! My grandfather said that still
today, they are there, at Granville Lake’s Spirit Island. That’s where
the mîmîkwîsiwak took refuge. People will say, “I don’t believe in that
myself.” But if you point to it, even if the water is calm and crystal
clear, not five minutes away there will suddenly be whitecaps and a
strong wind. I believe it, too.

One time when I was out fishing there in the 1950s—I was already
married in the summer of ‘58—I was with my friend Sandy Patterson. We
were not taking anything seriously. The water was perfectly calm when
we came out across Granville Lake to that wide-open area in the middle
of the lake. My friend stood up and pointed a finger at the very Spirit
Island, saying, “Let’s see if it is true, what they say.” “Don’t do it,
my friend, or we will perish.” We got close to the shore just in time,
but we capsized there. Our fish were floating all over the place. Our
nets, too, and we lost them all. They just drifted away, and we had to
swim to shore. Our boat sank there, about twenty feet from shore.
That’s when I came to believe, too.

It’s the same here at Highrock’s Little Spirit Island. When
somebody points a finger at it, the wind comes up right away. I believe
that. I believe it, so nobody should be caught unawares or be misled
into thinking there’s nothing to the story. When you hear it, it is a
lesson for the future.

If you are travelling to this Granville Lake Spirit Island, you
are not to point a finger at it. You are not to play around with it, or
you could drown. The same is true of the island at Highrock. It is
true. Even if you have a fast outboard motor, the wind would still have
time to catch you. That’s the mîmîkwîsiw. The omîmîkwîsiwak still exist
today.

It’s true, and also, you know, long ago these little people, or
dwarfs, as they were called, existed, too. Well, people really used to
see them long ago, just as my grandfather used to tell me about them,
my father’s father, you know. He said, “I believe in them, my grandson,
those little people. We did not see them, but they lived among us.” And
there are also some of them over there at Granville Lake. In fact, my
younger sister, Harriet Baker, has seen them them out there in the
lake, as well as other people who lived there, such as my brother-inlaw
August Merasty, and my younger sister Marie Merasty.

They were there once, going across there in the middle of the
night, to visit somebody. They were in their younger years at the time.
It was the first time over there, when my brother-in-law, Louis Baker,
had just married her.

They probably went over there for a party, and he was perhaps
getting a bit high. He came home alone in the night. As he was walking
in the place where there used to be a fish packing house, he said, “All
of a sudden somebody grabbed me on my back. Boy, did I scream! I was
not drunk, though. I grabbed, in vain, a person that I felt behind me.
I don’t know what he did to me. Then, another one grabbed me by the
legs. I grabbed the one on my back and threw him. Finally, one of them
let go and then both of them fled. I watched them run away.”

They were not big, those little people. Even today, the little
people live among us, but I don’t think anybody ever sees them. My
grandfather said, “The little people still live among us today, but we
don’t know it.” They still exist. It is true, and so we should take it
as a warning for the future. A person should watch out and not make
light of it, in order to have a good life. All kinds of things can
happen if we do not take it seriously.

People used to be blessed with different gifts. We all have
different gifts or talents. The same is true of the animals, if a
person fools around with them. Long ago, my grandfathers told me about
this.

A person who kills an animal should be really careful about
spilling the blood. If a woman steps over it, she will scrub it right
away. That’s what they said, not the way things are today. But maybe it
still happens. I follow this same custom myself. Even if I am given
some meat, I am very careful with it. I watch to see that the blood
does not drop onto the floor. If it does, I mop it up right away. And
in the future, you will see it in this light, you know, you who will be
in your younger years three generations from now. By the time you hear
me, I will be gone.

These are the stories that I heard long ago. They were my
grandfathers’ stories, and they were really old when they left this
world. I was very young when they told me the stories.

Thank you. That’s all!