would wade into the water of a "plug-hole" or "moose-lake." Here for hours he would imitate the splashings and the drippings of feeding moose, on the theory that moose in the vicinity would in the quiet evening hear the sounds and be attracted by them. This primitive, little-known method lies at the foundation of the poem, "Red-Rock, the Moose-Hunter."
RAIN SONG
This interpretation of an Algonquian-Lenape medicine song for "making rain" is based upon an old Indian superstition. During this medicine dance a buckskin sack containing small mica-like scales is placed on a boulder by a stream near the dancing-ground. These bits of mica,—the "rain-medicine,"—are believed to be scales from the body of the legendary Great Horned Sea Monster. It is believed that if these scales are thus exposed during the ceremony, the Thunderer and his allies, the Thunder-Spirits and the Rain-Spirits, who loathe the Sea Monster, will come with the fury of their storms and clouds and rains to attack their traditional enemy who has the impudence to lift his head out of the stream, and the effrontery to expose a part of his body to the gaze of the Thunder-Beings.
The conversational section at the close of the poem is not a part of the song proper. I have added these typical colloquial "asides" to illustrate the contrast
