|THERE was never in the whole world a more mischievous busy-body than
that notorious giant Manabozho. He was everywhere, in season and out
of season, running about and putting his hand in whatever was going
forward. To carry on his game, he could take almost any shape he
pleased; he could be very foolish or very wise; very weak or very
strong; very poor or very rich--just as happened to suit his humor best.
Whatever any one else could do, he would attempt without a moment's
reflection. He was a match for any man he met, and there were few
mani-toes that could get the better of him. By turns he would be very
kind, or very cruel; an animal or a bird; a man or a spirit. And yet, in
spite of all these gifts, Manabozho was always getting himself involved
in all sorts of troubles; and more than once, in the course of his busy
adventures, was this great maker of mischief driven to his wits' ends to
come off with his life.
To begin at the beginning, Manabozho, while yet a youngster, was living
with his grandmother near the edge of a wide prairie. It was on this
prairie that he first saw animals and birds of every kind; he also there
made first acquaintance with thunder and lightning; he would sit by the
hour watching the clouds as they rolled, and musing on the shades of
light and darkness as the day rose and fell.
For a stripling, Manabozho was uncommonly wideawake. Every new sight he
beheld in the heavens was a subject of remark; every new animal or bird,
an object of deep interest; and every sound that came from the bosom of
nature was like a new lesson which he was expected to learn. He often
trembled at what he heard and saw.
To the scene of the wide open prairie his grandmother sent him at an
early age to watch. The first sound he heard was that of the owl, at
which he was greatly terrified. Quickly descending the tree he had
climbed, he ran with alarm to the lodge.
"Noko! noko! grandmother!" he cried. "I have heard a monedo."
She laughed at his fears and asked him what kind of noise his reverence
made. He answered:
"It makes a noise like this: Ko-ko-ko-ho."
His grandmother told him he was young and foolish; that what he heard
was only a bird which derived its name from the peculiar noise it made.
He returned to the prairie and continued his watch. As he stood there
looking at the clouds, he thought thus to himself:
"It is singular that I am so simple and my grandmother so wise; and that
I have neither father nor mother. I have never heard a word about them.
I must ask and find out."
He went home and sat down, silent and dejected. Finding that this did
not attract the notice of his grandmother, he began a loud lamentation,
which he kept increasing, louder and louder, till it shook the lodge and
nearly deafened the old grandmother. She at length said:
"Manabozho, what is the matter with you? You are making a great deal of
noise."
Manabozho started off again with his doleful hubbub; but succeeded in
jerking out between his big sobs, "I haven't got any father or mother; I
haven't," and he set out again lamenting more boisterously than ever.
Knowing that he was of a wicked and revengeful temper, his grandmother
dreaded to tell him the story of his parentage; as she knew he would
make trouble of it.
Manabozho renewed his cries and managed to throw out, for a third or
fourth time, his sorrowful lament that he was a poor unfortunate, who
had no parents and no relations. Finally his grandmother said:
"Yes, you have a father and three brothers living. Your mother is dead.
She was taken for a wife by your father, the West, without the consent
of her parents. Your brothers are the North, East, and South; and being
older than yourself, your father has given them great power with the
winds, according to their names. You are the youngest of his children.
I have nursed you from your infancy; for your mother, owing to the
ill-treatment of your father, died when you were born. I have no
relations beside you. Your mother was my only child, and you are my only
hope."
"I am glad my father is living," said Manabozho. "I shall set out in the
morning to visit him."
His grandmother would have discouraged him, saying it was a long
distance to the place where his father, Ningabiun, or the West, lived.
This information seemed rather to please than to disconcert Manabozho;
for by this time he had grown to such a size and strength that he had
been compelled to leave the narrow shelter of his grandmother's lodge
and to live out of doors. He was so tall that, as he stood up, he could
have snapped off the heads of the birds roosting in the topmost branches
of the highest trees, without being at the trouble to climb. And if
he had at any time taken a fancy to one of the same trees for a
walking-stick, he would have had no more to do than to pluck it up with
his thumb and finger and strip down the leaves and twigs with the palm
of his hand.
Bidding good-bye to his venerable old grandmother, who pulled a very
long face over his departure, Manabozho set out at great headway, for he
was able to stride from one side of a prairie to the other at a single
step.
He found his father on a high mountain-ground, far in the west. His
father espied his approach at a great distance and bounded down the
mountain-side several miles to give him welcome; and, side-by-side,
apparently delighted with each other, they reached in two or three of
their giant paces the lodge of the West, which stood high up near the
clouds.
They spent some days in talking with each other--for these two great
persons did nothing on a small scale, and a whole day to deliver a
single sentence was quite an ordinary affair, such was the immensity of
their discourse.
One evening Manabozho asked his father what he was most afraid of on
earth.