Page:Myth, Ritual, and Religion (Volume 2).djvu/71

 Rh failure of a raven sent out by Messou. He afterwards married a muskrat, by whom he became the father of a flourishing family. "Le brave reparateur de l'univers est le frère aisné de toutes les bestes," says the mocking missionary. Messou has the usual powers of shape-shifting, which are the common accomplishments of the medicine-man or conjuror, se transformant en mille sortes d'animaux. He is not so much a creator as a demiurge, inferior to a mysterious being called Atahocan. But Atahocan is passé, and his name is nearly equivalent to an old wife's fable, a story of events au temps jadis. "Le mot Nitatohocan signifie, 'Je dis un vieux conte fait à plaisir.' "

These are examples of the legends of Michabo or Manibozho, the great hare. He appears in no way to differ from the other animals of magical renown, who, in so many scores of savage myths, start the world on its way and instruct men in the arts. His fame may be more widely spread, but his deeds are those of eagle, crow, wolf, coyote, spider, grasshopper, and so forth, in remote parts of the world. His legend is the kind of legend whose origin we ascribe to the credulous fancy of early peoples, taking no distinction between themselves and the beasts. If the hare was indeed the totem of a successful and honoured kindred, his elevation is perfectly natural and intelligible.

Dr. Brinton, in his Myths of the New World (New York, 1876), adopts a different line of explanation. Michabo, he says, " was originally the highest divinity