ATAENTSIC. Ixxv 



wliom, by yelling, drumming, and stamping, they sought 

 to drive away from the sick. Sometimes, at night, she 

 was seen by some terrified squaw in the forest, in shape 

 like a flame of fire ; and when the vision was announced 

 to the circle crouched around the lodge-fire, they burned 

 a fragment of meat to appease the female fiend. 



The East, the West, the North, and the South wei'e 

 vaguely personified as spirits or manitous. Some of the 

 winds, too, were personal existences. The West-Wind, 

 as we have seen, was father of Manabozho. There was 

 a Summer-Maker and a Winter-Maker ; and the Indians 

 tried to keep the latter at bay by throwing firebrands 

 into the air. 



When we turn from the Algonquin family of tribes to 

 that of the Iroquois, we find another cosmogony, and 

 other conceptions of spiritual existence. While the 

 earth was as yet a waste of waters, there was, according 

 to Iroquois and Huron traditions, a heaven with lakes, 

 streams, plains, and forests, inhabited by animals, by 

 spirits, and, as some affirm, by human beings. Here a 

 certain female spirit, named Ataentsic, was once chas- 

 ing a bear, which, slipping through a hole, fell down to 

 the earth. Ataentsic's dog followed, when she herself, 

 struck with despair, jumped after them. Others declare 

 that she was kicked out of heaven by the spirit, her 

 husband, for an amour with a man ; while others, again, 

 hold the belief that she fell in the attempt to gather for 

 her husband the medicinal leaves of a certain tree. Be 

 this as it may, the animals swimming in the watery waste 

 below saw her falling, and hastily met in council to deter- 

 mine what should be done. The case was referred to 

 the beaver. The beaver commended it to the judgment 

 of the tortoise, who thereupon called on the other animals 

 to dive, bring up mud, and place it on his back. Thus 



