La légende OoChigeas [English translation]

Oo...chigeas1

In the days of the ancient legends

Before the arrival of the white man

Lived a young orphan.

One day a flame too intense

That the wind had blown from the riverbank

Robbed her of her divine beauty.2

This cry resounded across the plain -

The Earth and the wind remember -

of her courage and her pain;

Her name was Oochigeas.

Oochigeas

In one of the neighbouring villages

Lived a magician prince

Who made the impossible promise

To unite his life and his story

With the one who could see him.

Him, who we knew to be invisible.

All the girls in the village

Saw of him only traces.

And the only one to see his face -

She was called Oochigeas.

Oochigeas

In the days of the ancient legends

Before the arrival of the white man

Lived an Indian orphan.

Oochigeas

Oochigeas

Oochigeas

Oochigeas

In the days of the ancient legends

Before the arrival of the white man

Lived an Indian orphan.

1. Oochigeas is a Mi'kmaq legend about a young girl who lived with a neglectful father and two cruel sisters. There was a man called The Invisible One who every girl wanted to marry, including Oochigeas's two sisters, but none of them could see him. Finally, when Oochigeas tried, she could see him and they married. The full tale can be found at: http://www.kstrom.net/isk/stories/cinder3.html2. The name Oochigeas means 'burnt-skin girl'.