This is a Chippewa-Ottawa Native American Story...and its a beautiful story...
It is said that Chief Sleeping Bear had a very beautiful daughter...extraordinarily so. Because of her beauty this chief felt the need to keep his daughter hidden from the eyes of all the men of the tribe and of the eyes of neighboring tribes. At first he did this by keeping his daughter in a canoe covered with a blanket. He would bring her food and drink but never allowed her to be seen. One day he decided this just wasn't enough so he decided to have her leave. So, he untied her and had her hunker down in the canoe and made sure the blanket was covering her completely. He then pushed his daughter up the river. Well, the Wind Gods were angry and jealous of this woman's beauty. And, this made the God Vengeful so they decided to command the winds to push the canoe down river and to uncover the beauty and display her to all men in sight.
This of course made her be seen by a fellow native. He took the princess and tried to hold her captive and essentially have his way with her. The Wind God started to feel remorseful and then even angry - at themselves and at the fellow native. So, the Wind God decided to intervene and help the princess. The Wind God beat the captor to death and returned the beautiful princess to the chief. The chief was happy to get his daughter back unharmed but was still at a loss at what to do.
The next idea and really the final idea for Chief Sleeping Bear was to sequester his daughter to Belle Isle. He then begged and pleaded with the spirits to keep her safe. The spirits took this wish and granted it. They first made the Indian princess immortal. They then allowed her the ability to change into a white tail doe at any given point to flee from any potential captors. The last thing the spirits did was to guard the Isle with all types of snakes to ward of anyone potentially coming to cause harm.
The whole island of Belle Isle has a creepy feel to it. It also has an unnatural amount of snakes inhabiting it. After reading many an article a lot of death has happened on this island. And, it is attributed to the Snake Goddess. She just wants to be left alone.
Another crazy thing to me is that the Snake Goddess legend has morphed into a full blown woman in white story. People have said that they have seen a woman in white; a ghostly woman in white. There is the debate on if they are seeing the Snake Goddess or if they are seeing a scorned woman who also died on this island. I don't know about it being the Snake Goddess if she appears to be ghostly because remember she is immortal so she really shouldn't appear to be a ghost - but what do i know.
Another cool thing I read was Chief Sleeping Bear was a Semi-God. Which would explain his daughters unnatural beauty. So, really he was casting his daughter out because of something that was his own fault.
I thought this story was a really cool story. What do you think?
XOXOXO
Hank
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