Page:Myth, Ritual, and Religion (Volume 2).djvu/73

 Rh Beyond a doubt (sic) 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." Then the war of Manibozho became the struggle of light and darkness. Finally, Michabo is recognised by Dr. Brinton as "the not unworthy personification of the purest conceptions they possessed concerning the Father of All," though, according to Dr. Brinton in an earlier passage, they can hardly be said to have possessed such conceptions. The degeneracy to the belief in a "mighty great hare," a "chimerical beast," was the result of a misunderstanding of the root wab in their own language by the Algonkins, a misunderstanding that not only affected the dialects in which the root wab occurred in the hare's name, but those in which it did not!

The reader has now the opportunity of judging for himself whether the great hare, like Tsui Goab among the Hottentots, is a corrupt misunderstanding of a verbal root, or whether he is only a totem, as he is, according to Dr. Brinton, a guardian animal, more successful than most, and far on his way towards divine honours.

On the whole, the mythology of the great hunting and warrior tribes of North America is peopled by the figures of ideal culture-heroes, partly regarded as first men, partly as demiurges and creators. They waver in outward aspect between the beautiful youths of the "medicine-dreams" and the bestial guise of totems