What he really was we must seek in the accounts of older travellers, in
the invocations of the jossakeeds or prophets, and in the part assigned
to him in the solemn mysteries of religion. In these we find him
portrayed as the patron and founder of the meda worship,[162-1] the
inventor of picture writing, the father and guardian of their nation,
the ruler of the winds, even the maker and preserver of the world and
creator of the sun and moon. From a grain of sand brought from the
bottom of the primeval ocean, he fashioned the habitable land and set
it floating on the waters, till it grew to such a size that a strong
young wolf, running constantly, died of old age ere he reached its
limits. Under the name Michabo Ovisaketchak, the Great Hare who created
the Earth, he was originally the highest divinity recognized by them,
"powerful and beneficent beyond all others, maker of the heavens and the
world." He was founder of the medicine hunt in which after appropriate
ceremonies and incantations the Indian sleeps, and Michabo appears to
him in a dream, and tells him where he may readily kill game.
Pages:
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276