10-03-02 @ 7:58 am EDT

Well, if somebody wishes to remain a nuisance and a borderline harasser, I suppose the only thing I can say about it is to reiterate that I'm still not reading anything from this person, whether it's intended to be friendly or not; they found ways, in the past, to make even friendly comments hurtful. (A review of a story of mine they claimed to actually like: "This is a whole lot better than that OTHER story of yours.") It's too bad they can't find something more productive to do with their time than e-mail me, but that's their time to waste, not mine.

:) I'm ALMOST done replying to everyone who reviewed me in September. You see? I told you all I would get to you. It wasn't even as hard as I thought it would be. I have a few more pages to go, but I have to log off in a few minutes. I WILL reply to all for a change.

I've been keeping myself too busy lately and at least it distracts me, but it gets annoying sometimes. I'm working on the new D4D_A, deleting parts of my port, typing up the Indian books online, deleting e-mail, replying to e-mail, writing my stories, reviewing others' stories, copying my journal, and who knows what else. I didn't feel like deleting anything today so I didn't get any of that done, but maybe later. My latest typing project is a book on Micmac/Passamaquoddy mythology (hope I spelled that right), which includes Glooskap and such. There seem to be a lot of repeating myths featuring beaver sorceresses seducing men, and the men's grandmothers trying to stave them off. It's like a recurring theme. And there doesn't seem to be any point or moral to the stories, they just happen. Oh well. They teach me more about the mythology so maybe I can make my sequel better.

I've found one matter of contention though, similar to the old "Chibiabos vs. Wabasso" debate, that I'm not sure how to clear up. It concerns the character Marten. He has an Algonquin name, Abistarwhatchamacallit, that I can't spell off the top of my head, but in the story (I've decided he will appear also--he's like Glooskap's right-hand man) he just tells Charmian to call him Marten. (Since that's what it means.) The Algonquin mythology refers to him as one of the race of "Mikumwess" (Megumoowesoos, etc.), who are described as fairies or elves. I KNOW I have seen this term or an alternate spelling somewhere before, but I don't remember where. I thought it was in Johnston's works but I can't find reference to it. The closest I can find in spelling is the Maemaegawaese--the Butterfly Spirits--so are these two the same? I can't be sure, though I know that some Micmac/Passamaquoddy spellings are close to Ojibwa ones--Nokomis and Noogumee/Nochgemiss/etc., for example, meaning grandmother. I thought, naw, these Mikumwess sound too much like dwarfs or something, while the Maemaegawaese are supposed to be butterflies, pretty things; but on the other hand, looking up the Ojibwa interpretation of "dwarf" in the dictionary results in

DWARF

HAIRY-FACED BANK-DWELLING DWARF SPIRIT: memegwesi, -wag

...which as you can see is just another spelling of Maemaegawaese--Butterfly Spirits.

I actually have another race of dwarfs/spirits down as hilly ugly ones, not the Maemaegawaese, but now I'm puzzled. Are the Mikumwess and Maemaegawaese the same or not? G's and K's are often substitutes in these languages, along with some vowels, so the two words are very similar. But I'm not sure.

I'm wondering if there would be a way to contact Basil Johnston through his publisher. It would be really nice to get an opinion from him. He seems to know what he's talking about. Yes, he specializes mainly in Ojibwa mythology and not Micmac, but he might know if there's a difference or not. It was through him that I got that whole Chibiabos/Wabasso thing cleared up!

Not sure on that either though. I know there was an Ojibwa Group at Yahoo! but I don't know how much they would know about the mythology, and I'd feel awkward as the Scary White Girl dropping into their midst with bizarre questions. I'll have to look into this if possible and think it over. At the moment, I'm fiddling with the idea of the two races being the same, only Marten's kind branched off from the rest at an early point, which is why he looks fundamentally different from the Maemaegawaese on Manitou Island. (They appear as tiny butterfly-winged fairies created by Manabozho; Marten appears as a fully grown human, albeit with some fairylike/elfin features, more similar to the Michinimakinong than to the Island's Butterfly Spirits.)

Well, this is too completely arcane for most readers, so I'll bug off now.