full-bearded heroes, like the mild Quetzalcoatl, who in times long
previous to Columbus came from the far East to impart the rudiments of
civilization and religion to the red men. By those who first heard
these stories they were supposed, with naive Euhemerism, to refer to
pre-Columbian visits of Europeans to this continent, like that of the
Northmen in the tenth century. But a scientific study of the subject has
dissipated such notions. These legends are far too numerous, they are
too similar to each other, they are too manifestly symbolical, to admit
of any such interpretation. By comparing them carefully with each other,
and with correlative myths of the Old World, their true character soon
becomes apparent.

One of the most widely famous of these culture-heroes was Manabozho or
Michabo, the Great Hare. With entire unanimity, says Dr. Brinton, the
various branches of the Algonquin race, "the Powhatans of Virginia, the
Lenni Lenape of the Delaware, the warlike hordes of New England, the
Ottawas of the far North, and the Western tribes, perhaps without
exception, spoke of this chimerical beast,' as one of the old
missionaries calls it, as their common ancestor. The totem, or clan,
which bore his name was looked up to with peculiar respect." Not only
was Michabo the ruler and guardian of these numerous tribes,--he was the
founder of their religious rites, the inventor of picture-writing, the
ruler of the weather, the creator and preserver of earth and heaven.
"From a grain of sand brought from the bottom of the primeval ocean he
fashioned the habitable land, and set it floating on the waters till it
grew to such a size that a strong young wolf, running constantly, died
of old age ere he reached its limits." He was also, like Nimrod, a
mighty hunter. "One of his footsteps measured eight leagues, the Great
Lakes were the beaver-dams he built, and when the cataracts impeded his
progress he tore them away with his hands." "Sometimes he was said
to dwell in the skies with his brother, the Snow, or, like many great
spirits, to have built his wigwam in the far North on some floe of ice
in the Arctic Ocean..... But in the oldest accounts of the missionaries
he was alleged to reside toward the East; and in the holy formulae of
the meda craft, when the winds are invoked to the medicine lodge, the
East is summoned in his name, the door opens in that direction, and
there, at the edge of the earth where the sun rises, on the shore o