Page:Primitive Culture Vol 1.djvu/379

Rh stone against the mouth, and therefore it prevails, yet from time to time he all but overtakes it, and hiding in its cave for shelter it dies away. Such is the fancy in classic poetry of Aeolus holding the prisoned winds in his dungeon cave: —

'Hic vasto rex Aeolus antro Luctantes ventos, tempestatesque sonoras Imperio premit, ac vinclis et carcere fraenat.'

The myth of the Four Winds is developed among the native races of America with a range and vigour and beauty scarcely rivalled elsewhere in the mythology of the world. Episodes belonging to this branch of Red Indian folklore are collected in Schoolcraft's 'Algic Researches,' and thence rendered with admirable taste and sympathy, though unfortunately not with proper truth to the originals, in Longfellow's masterpiece, the 'Song of Hiawatha.' The West Wind Mudjekeewis is Kabeyun, Father of the Winds, Wabun is the East Wind, Shawondasee the South Wind, Kabibonokka the North Wind. But there is another mighty wind not belonging to the mystic quaternion, Manabozho the North-West Wind, therefore described with mythic appropriateness as the unlawful child of Kabeyun. The fierce North Wind, Kabibnokka, in vain strives to force Shingebis, the lingering diver-bird, from his warm and happy winter-lodge; and the lazy South Wind, Shawondasee, sighs for the maiden of the prairie with her sunny hair, till it turns to silvery white, and as he breathes upon her, the prairie dandelion has vanished. Man naturally divides his horizon into four quarters, before and behind, right and left, and thus comes to fancy the world a square, and to refer the winds to its four corners. Dr. Brinton, in his 'Myths of the New World,' has well traced from these ideas the growth of legend after legend among the native

2 Virg. Aeneid, i. 56; Homer, Odyss. x. 1.