THE DELUGE. Ixxiii 



the world, submerged by a deluge. He was hunting in 

 company with a certain wolf, who was his brother, or, 

 by other accounts, his grandson, when his quadruped 

 relative fell through the ice of a frozen lake, and was at 

 once devoured by certain serpents lurking in the depths 

 of the waters. Manabozho, intent on revenge, trans- 

 formed himself into the stump of a tree, and by this 

 artifice surprised and slew the king of the serpents, as 

 he basked with his followers in the noontide sun. The 

 serpents, who were all manitous, caused, in their rage, 

 the waters of the lake to deluge the earth. Manabozho 

 climbed a tree, which, in answer to his entreaties, grew 

 as the flood rose around it, and thus saved him from the 

 vengeance of the evil spirits. Submerged to the neck, 

 he looked abroad on the waste of waters, and at length 

 descried the bird known as the loon, to whom he appealed 

 for aid in the task of restoring the world. The loon 

 dived in search of a little mud, as material for recon- 

 struction, but could not reach the bottom. A musk-rat 

 made the same attempt, but soon reappeared floating on 

 his back, and apparently dead. Manabozho, however, 

 on searching his paws, discovered in one of them a par- 

 ticle of the desired mud, and of this, together with the 

 body of the loon, created the world anew.^ 



There -are various forms of this tradition, in some of 

 which Manabozho appears, not as the restorer, but as 

 the creator of the world, forming mankind from the car- 

 casses of beasts, birds, and fishes.^ Other stories repre- 



1 This is a form of the story still current among the remoter Algon- 

 quins. Compare the story of Messou, in Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, 16. 

 It is substantially the same. 



2 In the beginning of all things, Manabozho, in the form of the Great 

 Hare, was on a raft, surrounded by animals who acknowledged him as 

 their chief. No land could be seen. Anxious to create the world, the 

 Great Hare persuaded the beaver to dive for mu ; but the adventurous 



Q 



