e changes himself into an old tree, and stands on the beach
till they come out of the water to bask in the sun. Whatever man could
do, in strength or wisdom, he could do. But he never does things above
the comprehension or belief of his people; and whatever else he is, he
is always true to the character of an Indian.

This myth is one of the most general in the Indian country. It is the
prime legend of their mythology. He is talked of in every winter
lodge--for the winter season is the only time devoted to such
narrations. The moment the leaves come out, stories cease in the lodge.
The revival of spring in the botanical world opens, as it were, so many
eyes and ears to listen to the tales of men; and the Indian is far too
shrewd a man, and too firm a believer in the system of invisible
spirits by which he is surrounded, to commit himself by saying a word
which they, with their acute senses on the opening of the spring, can
be offended at.

He leaps over extensive regions of country like an ignis fatuus. He
appears suddenly like an avatar, or saunters over weary wastes a poor
and starving hunter. His voice is at one moment deep and sonorous as a
thunder-clap, and at another clothed with the softness of feminine
supplication. Scarcely any two persons agree in all the minor
circumstances of the story, and scarcely any omit the leading traits.
The several tribes who speak dialects of the mother language from which
the narration is taken, differ, in like manner, from each other in the
particulars of his exploits. His birth and parentage are mysterious.
Story says his grandmother was the daughter of the moon. Having been
married but a short time, her rival attracted her to a grape-vine swing
on the banks of a lake, and by one bold exertion pitched her into its
centre, from which she fell through to the earth. Having a daughter,
the fruit of her lunar marriage, she was very careful in instructing
her, from early infancy, to beware of the west wind, and never, in
stooping, to expose herself to its influence. In some unguarded moment
this precaution was neglected. In an instant, the gale accomplished its
Tarquinic purpose.

Very little is told of his early boyhood. We take him up in the
following legend at a period of advanced youth, when we find him living
with his grandmother. And at this time he possessed, although he had not
yet _exercised_, all the anomalous and contradictory powers of body and
mind, of manship and divin