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granddaughter of the moon, who had a daughter whose name was Wenonah. She
was the mother of twin boys, but at their birth she died and so did one of
the boys. Nokomis wrapped the living child in soft dry grass, laid it on
the ground at one end of her wigwam, and placed over it a great wooden bowl
to protect it from harm. Then in her grief she took up the body of Wenonah,
her daughter, and buried it, with the dead child, at some distance from her
wigwam. When she returned from thus laying away her dead she sat down in
her wigwam, and for four days mourned her loss. At the end of that time she
heard a slight noise in her wigwam, which she soon found came from that
wooden bowl. Then as the bowl moved she suddenly remembered the living
child, which she had forgotten in her great grief at the loss of its
mother. When she removed the bowl from its place, instead of there being
the baby boy she had placed there she beheld a little white rabbit, and on
taking it up she said, 'O my dear little rabbit, my Manabush!' Nokomis took
great care of it and it grew very rapidly.

"One day, when Manabush was quite large, it sat up on its haunches and
hopped slowly across the floor of the wigwam, and caused the earth to
tremble.

"When the bad Windegoos, or evil spirits who dwell underground, felt the
earth to thus tremble they said, 'What is the matter? What has happened? A
great Munedoo (spirit) is born somewhere.' And at once they began to devise
means by which they might kill Manabush, or Nanahboozhoo, as he was now
called, when they should find him.

"But Nanahboozhoo did not long continue to look like a rabbit. As he was
superior to other people he could change himself to any form he liked. He
was most frequently seen as a fine strong young Indian hunter. He called
the people his uncles. When he grew up he said to his grandmother, the old
Nokomis, that the time had come when he should prepare himself to go and
help his uncles, the people, to better their condition. This he was able to
do, seeing he was more than human, for his father was the West Wind and his
mother a great-granddaughter of the moon. Sometimes he was the beautiful
white rabbit; then he would be a wolf or a wolverine; then he would be a
lovely bird. He could even change himself to look like a dry old stump or a
beautiful tree. Sometimes he would be like a little half-frozen rabbit;
then he would be a mighty magician, and often a little snake. He was just
as change