f the
infinite ocean that surrounds the land, he has his house, and sends the
luminaries forth on their daily journeys." [134] From such accounts as
this we see that Michabo was no more a wise instructor and legislator
than Minos or Kadmos. Like these heroes, he is a personification of the
solar life-giving power, which daily comes forth from its home in the
east, making the earth to rejoice. The etymology of his name confirms
the otherwise clear indications of the legend itself. It is compounded
of michi, "great," and wabos, which means alike "hare" and "white."
"Dialectic forms in Algonquin for white are wabi, wape, wampi, etc.; for
morning, wapan, wapanch, opah; for east, wapa, wanbun, etc.; for day,
wompan, oppan; for light, oppung." So that Michabo is the Great White
One, the God of the Dawn and the East. And the etymological confusion,
by virtue of which he acquired his soubriquet of the Great Hare, affords
a curious parallel to what has often happened in Aryan and Semitic
mythology, as we saw when discussing the subject of werewolves.

Keeping in mind this solar character of Michabo, let us note how full
of meaning are the myths concerning him. In the first cycle of these
legends, "he is grandson of the Moon, his father is the West Wind,
and his mother, a maiden, dies in giving him birth at the moment of
conception. For the Moon is the goddess of night; the Dawn is her
daughter, who brings forth the Morning, and perishes herself in the act;
and the West, the spirit of darkness, as the East is of light, precedes,
and as it were begets the latter, as the evening does the morning.
Straightway, however, continues the legend, the son sought the unnatural
father to revenge the death of his mother, and then commenced a long and
desperate struggle. It began on the mountains. The West was forced to
give ground. Manabozho drove him across rivers and over mountains and
lakes, and at last he came to the brink of this world. 'Hold,' cried he,
'my son, you know my power, and that it is impossible to kill me.' What
is this but the diurnal combat of light and darkness, carried on from
what time 'the jocund morn stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops,'
across the wide world to the sunset, the struggle that knows no end, for
both the opponents are immortal?" [135]

Even the Veda nowhere affords a more transparent narrative than this.
The Iroquois tradition is very similar. In it appear twin brothers,
[136] born of a virgin moth