"[165-1]
Now it appears on attentively examining the Algonkin root _wab_, that it
gives rise to words of very diverse meaning, that like many others in
all languages while presenting but one form it represents ideas of
wholly unlike origin and application, that in fact there are two
distinct roots having this sound. One is the initial syllable of the
word translated hare or rabbit, but the other means _white_, and from it
is derived the words for the east, the dawn, the light, the day and the
morning.[165-2] Beyond a doubt this is the compound in the names
Michabo and Manibozho which therefore mean the Great Light, the Spirit
of Light, of the Dawn, or the East, and in the literal sense of the word
the Great White One, as indeed he has sometimes been called.
In this sense all the ancient and authentic myths concerning him are
plain and full of meaning. They divide themselves into two distinct
cycles. In the one Michabo is the spirit of light who dispels the
darkness; in the other as chief of the cardinal points he is lord of the
winds, prince of the powers of the air, whose voice is the thunder,
whose weapon the lightning, the supreme figure in the encounter of the
air currents, in the unending conflict which the Dakotas described as
waged by the waters and the winds.
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