[150-1]
In contrast to this, so much the more positive was their association of
the THUNDER-STORM as that which brings both warmth and rain with the
renewed vernal life of vegetation. The impressive phenomena which
characterize it, the prodigious noise, the awful flash, the portentous
gloom, the blast, the rain, have left a profound impression on the myths
of every land. Fire from water, warmth and moisture from the destructive
breath of the tempest, this was the riddle of riddles to the untutored
mind. "Out of the eater came forth meat, out of the strong came forth
sweetness." It was the visible synthesis of all the divine
manifestations, the winds, the waters, and the flames.
The Dakotas conceived it as a struggle between the god of waters and the
thunder bird for the command of their nation,[150-2] and as a bird, one
of those which make a whirring sound with their wings, the turkey, the
pheasant, or the nighthawk, it was very generally depicted by their
neighbors, the Athapascas, Iroquois, and Algonkins.
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