Tshakapesh and the Moon - The Innu Legend of the Man in the Moon

A very long time ago, at a time when animals and humans still lived in a world quite different from our own, Tshakapesh set off alone into the forest.

As he had done so many times before, he had gone out to hunt.

That day, he was following squirrels through the spruce trees.

He moved through the forest, bow in hand, alert to the slightest movement in the branches.

Suddenly, a squirrel scurried up a large white spruce.

Tshakapesh raised his bow.

He fired.

But his arrow did not return.

It remained stuck somewhere in the tree.

Tshakapesh approached the trunk and looked up.

The arrow was up there.

So, he began to climb.

Branch after branch.

Ever higher.

When he reached the spot where his arrow had stopped, Tshakapesh blew on the spruce.

And the tree grew.

He climbed higher still.

Below him, the forest seemed to become smaller and smaller.

The trees disappeared beneath his feet.

The land drifted away.

But something suddenly caught his attention.

Up there, something was struggling.

Tshakapesh looked closely.

He recognized his snare.

But what was caught in the trap was not an animal.

It was the sun.

The sun had found itself trapped in Tshakapesh's snare.

And as it struggled to free itself, light had vanished from the world.

Everything had turned dark.

Tshakapesh immediately understood what had just happened.

He had almost deprived the Earth of its light.

The snare had to be cut.

But how could one approach the sun without burning?

Tshakapesh first sent a small animal to try to break the trap.

It did not succeed.

Another one tried.

It, too, could not withstand the heat.

Then came a little shrew.

It approached the sun.

A little closer.

Closer still.

The heat was terrible.

But the small creature finally reached the snare.

It cut it.

The sun was freed.

And the light returned to the Earth.

Tshakapesh then looked around him.

He had climbed so high that he had discovered another territory.

A world above the world he knew.

He observed this place for a long time.

Then he climbed back down.

When he returned to his kin, he announced to his sister that he had found a new land.

They would go and live there.

The next day, they all returned to the great white spruce.

Tshakapesh’s brother-in-law began to climb.

Then the others followed him.

Tshakapesh remained behind them.

He knew the climb would be difficult.

So he climbed last so he could catch those who might lose their footing.

And that is exactly what happened.

As they climbed, some were overcome by vertigo.

They slipped.

But Tshakapesh caught them.

One after another.

No one fell.

They continued their ascent until they reached the territory that Tshakapesh had discovered.

When they had all arrived, Tshakapesh looked at the immense spruce that still connected the two worlds.

He then thought of the humans who would come after them.

If they found this gigantic tree, they might try to climb it too.

So Tshakapesh blew on the spruce again.

This time, the tree shrank.

It returned to the size of an ordinary spruce.

The passage to the sky had just closed.

Tshakapesh then turned to those who had accompanied him.

Each would now have their place in the sky.

His sister was placed on the morning star.

His brother-in-law and his wife each took their place among the stars.

Then Tshakapesh looked at the moon.

And he chose to remain there.

That is where Tshakapesh stayed.

In the moon.

Where, long after his story began to be told, future generations would still be able to look up at the sky and remember his name.

A legend passed down from generation to generation

The story you have just read is a narrative adaptation of an episode from the great legend of Tshakapesh, one of the most important characters in Innu oral tradition.

The version on which this story is based was told by Charles Api Bellefleur.

But Charles Api Bellefleur did not present this story as a personal creation.

He explained that he had received it from his father, Penashue Bellefleur, who himself had received it from his own father.

And so on.

This simple detail allows us to understand how a story like that of Tshakapesh could survive the test of time.

A person would hear it.

They would remember it.

Then, one day, they would tell it in their turn.

The voice would change.

The generations would change.

But Tshakapesh would continue his journey.

Who is Tshakapesh?

Tshakapesh is one of the great heroes of Innu oral tradition.

His story is not limited to his arrival on the moon.

On the contrary, this episode is found at the end of an immense cycle of adventures in which Tshakapesh confronts dangerous beings, meets animals, outsmarts cannibals, and repeatedly transforms the world around him.

Researchers have described him as a cultural hero or a civilizing hero.

He possesses extraordinary powers and can, notably, change his size.

His very growth does not follow ordinary rules.

But despite his powers, Tshakapesh is not presented as a perfect character.

He is curious.

He takes risks.

He sometimes ignores his sister's warnings.

He finds himself in extremely dangerous situations.

And yet, he continually finds a way out of them.

It is precisely this mix of courage, recklessness, intelligence, and perseverance that makes his adventures so vivid.

Why is Tshakapesh associated with the moon?

In the version told by Charles Api Bellefleur, the answer appears directly at the end of the story.

After climbing to another world thanks to the white spruce, Tshakapesh decides to remain in the sky.

He assigns a place to the people accompanying him, then announces that he will remain on the moon.

This association is significant enough that Tshakapesh is sometimes referred to in studies devoted to Innu mythology as “the man in the moon.”

But there are many versions of the Tshakapesh cycle throughout Nitassinan.

As with many ancient oral traditions, one should not imagine a single official story where every detail is identical everywhere.

The episodes, the characters, and their order can vary depending on the communities, families, and storytellers.

It is precisely this diversity that testifies to the richness and longevity of oral tradition.

The day Tshakapesh almost captured the sun

One of the most fascinating passages of this episode occurs when Tshakapesh discovers the sun caught in his snare.

The detail may seem fantastic today.

But in the universe of ancient Innu tales, the boundaries between humans, animals, celestial bodies, and the spiritual world do not necessarily function as they do in our modern conception of the world.

The story of Tshakapesh takes us back to a mythical era when the different dimensions of the universe could still encounter one another.

When the sun remains trapped, the consequence is immediate: the day disappears.

Light therefore depends on the liberation of the celestial body.

And Tshakapesh himself understands the gravity of what he has just caused.

He realizes that he almost caused an immense misfortune for the world.

The sun must regain its freedom.

However, it is not Tshakapesh who succeeds in delivering it directly.

It is ultimately a very small creature that manages to cut the snare.

A remarkable contrast in the story.

The powerful Tshakapesh can transform a tree and reach the sky, but when it comes to approaching the sun, the help of a small animal becomes essential.

The spruce that connected the earth and the sky

The white spruce also occupies a remarkable place in this episode.

At the beginning, Tshakapesh climbs it only to retrieve his arrow and chase a squirrel.

But the tree gradually becomes much more than a simple tree.

Thanks to Tshakapesh’s power, it rises until it becomes a passage between two worlds.

The earth is below.

Another territory exists above.

And for a moment, the spruce connects the two.

When the whole family has arrived at the top, Tshakapesh thinks of future generations.

He does not want new humans to find this extraordinary tree and put themselves in danger by trying to climb it as well.

So he restores it to its normal size.

The passage disappears.

This detail gives the story a special quality.

The world we know today exists because something changed in mythical time.

The ordinary tree we see now could once have touched the sky.

Tshakapesh’s sister and the morning star

Tshakapesh is not the only character to take his place in the sky.

In this version of the story, he places his sister on the morning star.

His brother-in-law and his wife each occupy a star.

Thus, the end of the legend gradually transforms a family into celestial presences.

When humans look up at the sky, the celestial bodies are no longer just distant lights.

They can also become the landmarks of a story.

The moon recalls Tshakapesh.

The morning star recalls his sister.

And the stars prolong the memory of those who accompanied him.

The sky then also becomes a space where memory can live.

A story among the most important in Innu oral tradition

The stories of Tshakapesh and those of Kuekuatsheu, the wolverine, count among the great cycles of Innu oral tradition.

They have been told over a vast part of Nitassinan and include very numerous episodes.

The stories of Tshakapesh touch on fundamental themes: courage, caution, mutual aid, sharing, the consequences of certain actions, and the relationship between different forms of life.

Some passages are funny.

Others are violent.

Some look almost like fantasy adventures.

But behind these events lies an ancient way of reflecting on the world and the place that humans occupy within it.

The Innu tradition notably designates certain mythical stories with the term atanukan.

Testimonies collected by the anthropologist Rémi Savard describe them as stories that must be passed on so that future generations can know what is important to know.

Telling Tshakapesh was therefore not simply telling an adventure.

It was also passing something on.

A story that has several versions

It is important to speak of the version of a Tshakapesh story rather than pretending there is only one definitive form of the legend.

For generations, these stories have circulated orally.

They have been told in different territories by different people.

Certain episodes may appear in one version and be told differently in another.

Some characters change.

Some details as well.

But the hero remains recognizable.

This diversity takes nothing away from the authenticity of the tradition.

On the contrary, it is one of its characteristics.

The version told here relies mainly on the one passed down by Charles Api Bellefleur and preserved in the cultural project Nametau innu: memory and knowledge of Nitassinan.

To discover other adventures of the character, you can also read our article devoted to the Tshakapesh myth.

When the moon becomes a story

We look at the moon today knowing what it is.

We know its distance.

We can predict its phases.

We can observe its surface with instruments capable of revealing what the human eye cannot see.

But knowing the moon scientifically does not prevent one from recognizing all that it represented for the generations who preceded us.

For a very long time, humans have looked up at the sky and told stories there.

In the Innu tradition, one of these stories bears the name of Tshakapesh.

A character who grew faster than the others.

Who confronted dangerous beings.

Who almost plunged the world into darkness when the sun ended up caught in his snare.

Who made a spruce grow up to the sky.

And who, after all his adventures, chose not to return.

So perhaps the next time the moon appears over the forest...

you will remember that before us, others observed it.

And that by looking at it, they already knew the name of the one who dwelt there.

Tshakapesh.