Page:Myth, Ritual, and Religion (Volume 2).djvu/72

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MYTH, RITUAL, AND RELIGION.

recognised by them, powerful and beneficent beyond all others, maker of the heavens and the world." But it has already been shown that Michabo is only, at most, the reparateur de l'univers, and that he has a sleeping partner—a deity retired from business. Moreover, Dr. Brinton's account of Michabo, "powerful and beneficent beyond all others, maker of the heavens and the world," clashes with his own statement, that "of monotheism as displayed in the one personal definite God of the Semitic races" (to whom Dr. Brinton's description of Michabo applies), "there is not a single instance on the American continent."[1] The residences and birthplaces of Michabo are as many as those of the gods of Greece. It is true that in some accounts, as in Strachey's, "his bright home is in the rising sun." It does not follow that the hare had any original connection with the dawn. But this connection Dr. Brinton seeks to establish by philological arguments. According to this writer, the names (Manibozho, Nanibozhu, Missibizi, Michabo, Messou) "all seem compounded, according to well-ascertained laws of Algonkin euphony, from the words corresponding to great and hare or rabbit, or the first two perhaps from spirit and hare."[2] But this seeming must not be trusted. We must attentively examine the Algonkin root wab, when it will appear "that in fact there are two roots having this sound. One is the initial syllable of the word translated hare or rabbit, but the other means white, and from it is derived the words for the east, the dawn, the light, the day, and the morning.

  1. Relations, pp. 53, 176.
  2. Op. cit., p. 178.