Tbawz Alaskana

According to a local Wabanaki legend, the hills of Solomon Island are cursed by an evil force trapped in the depths below. The story calls it the Tbawz Alaskana - Seven Wolverines.

In the legend, the beast was created by another evil creature, the horned serpent Maxa'xak. When the Creator made the First People to populate the earth, Maxa'xak was jealous of the favour they were shown. He drowned the earth in water and the First People were gone forever, erased from the face of the planet. The Creator was furious and punished the serpent, saying he would be despised and hunted by everyone from that day forward.

The story goes on to say the Creator then made Glooskap, the mythical culture hero of the Wabanaki people. He was given the power to create and made a good world and new humans, and watched them live in harmony with nature and animals. But, in the backdrop of this balance, the serpent Maxa'xak was still spreading evil. Earthquakes and forest fires, floods and tornadoes, jealousy and hatred - these were all his doing.

The horned serpent, still not satisfied, then created the Tbawz Alaskana. So mighty was the malice of this beast, its very presence could destroy surrounding animals and humans; it could even, in the wake of their lifelessness, ravish the world. Fortunately, Glooskap could halt the arrival of such odious ends. He struck Maxa'xak to the ground and turned his attention to the Tbawz Alaskana. He couldn't kill the beast - it was too powerful - and so he banished and imprisoned it in limbo, deep in the hills of Solomon Island. After this was done, light and happiness returned to the world.

Maxa'xak was released and told that a day would come when he would repay his debt to the Creator for drowning the earth and ushering evil into the world. His destiny was to destroy his own creation, the Tbawz Alaskana. Only then would the beast really be gone. Until then, Maxa'xak would be weakened, his influence on humans mitigated. He would no longer know who he was. For a while, everything was good, but the ground the beast was buried in became saturated with its evil, and all living things in the area were corrupted. This is how some Wabanaki traditionalists explain the terrible events in Kingsmouth's past.

Very few among the Wabanaki pay any attention to their tribe's old legends. Luckily there are some - like Elder Joseph Cajiais - who still keep the stories alive as a way to remember their history and cultural heritage.

Anyone willing to listen can learn how the native people were chosen by Glooskap and the Creator as wardens of Blue Ridge, where the Tbawz Alaskana sleeps till the day of its reckoning. Meanwhile, the history of Blue Ridge has been grim, marred by accidents, violent confrontations, and death; it's as if the cursed soil stirs, determined to withhold the happiness it itself has been denied.

The Wabanaki legend is closer to the truth than most people might think. It's the ancient memory of a terrible evil that befell Solomon Island. A malignant force is indeed buried under the island - a black mouth so broad it would devour the world. Mercifully asleep, chained to its dreams by a powerful spell, in the last century humans have been digging deeper, closer, as if determined to disturb the very thing that would destroy them. And so, as the sleeper stirs, shreds of its nightmares are released.

Whether the rest of the legend is true, whether the beast will ever be destroyed, remains to be seen. For now, the arrival of people from the secret world offers hope to the protectors of the hill. It gives them a better chance to stop the dark awakening and, in a very real sense, to save the world.