In the first he is grandson of the moon, his father is the West Wind,
and his mother, a maiden, dies in giving him birth at the moment of
conception. For the moon is the goddess of night, the Dawn is her
daughter, who brings forth the morning and perishes herself in the act,
and the West, the spirit of darkness as the East is of light, precedes
and as it were begets the latter as the evening does the morning.
Straightway, however, continues the legend, the son sought the unnatural
father to revenge the death of his mother, and then commenced a long and
desperate struggle. "It began on the mountains. The West was forced to
give ground. Manabozho drove him across rivers and over mountains and
lakes, and at last he came to the brink of this world. 'Hold,' cried he,
'my son, you know my power and that it is impossible to kill
me.'"[167-1] What is this but the diurnal combat of light and darkness,
carried on from what time "the jocund morn stands tiptoe on the misty
mountain tops," across the wide world to the sunset, the struggle that
knows no end, for both the opponents are immortal?
In the second, and evidently to the native mind more important cycle of
legends, he was represented as one of four brothers, the North, the
South, the East, and the West, all born at a birth, whose mother died in
ushering them into the world;[167-2] for hardly has the kindling orient
served to fix the cardinal points than it is lost and dies in the
advancing day.
Pages:
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281