Hallowe’en Story: The Grave Robber

Submitted by Laurie Leclair

The third story in our series of Anishinabek tales suitable for a Hallowe’en retelling came from Lottie Marsden. Lottie  along with two other women, Peadewamock Ingersoll and Marjory St. Germain collected stories from community Elders at Rama First Nation.  Working with George Laidlaw, an anthropologist from Toronto, they helped the latter collect dozens of Anishinabek legends and tales, several of which were published between 1915 and 1918 in the Annual Archaeological Reports for Ontario’s Ministry of Education. Lottie was 27-years-old when she supplied this story to Laidlaw. According to the anthropologist, the following has been recorded in the teller’s own words:

Robbing the Grave

“Once there was an Indian and his wife living” Lottie recalled:

They had one daughter which they thought the world of.  One day this daughter took sick, and she was that bad the doctor gave her up  Of course they were quite rich and had a hired man.  The poor girl died. 

 She had diamond rings, which weren’t taken off her fingers and she was buried with them on.

 The hired man made up his mind that he was going to dig up the grave and take the diamond rings off the dead girl’s fingers.

 He went about two nights after she was buried and dug up the grave.  When he tried to take the rings off he could not, so he made up his mind to cut the fingers off.  When he cut them the dead girl jerked her fingers and the hired man ran away, he was afraid he’d be arrested.

 The girl got out of the grave and knocked at her father’s door.

When the poor lonely old man opened the door he saw his daughter standing there.  He said, “I’d give many the thousand of dollars to the one who went to dig up the grave.”

 The hired man told him that it was him…They wanted him to marry the girl, but he didn’t like to marry a person who died for four days.

 Miss Marsden was not without a sense of black humour.