RADiN] THE CLAN WAR-BUNDLE FEASTS 439 



Earthmaker has all the characteristics of a supreme deity- He is 

 conceived of as formless and as never being visible to man. He is 

 a benevolent deity, but apart from the interest he manifested in cre- 

 ating the world and all that exists upon it and in sending the great 

 Transformer heroes, Trickster, Turtle, and Hare, he has taken little 

 active interest in the affairs of humankind. It is only as a tour de 

 force that one can receive blessings from him. An instance of the 

 kind will be found on page 291 , * which is to be taken not as a myth 

 but as, at most, a true fasting experience, which has been cast into 

 a literary form. 



The conception of Earthmaker we have been discussing is found 

 most prominently developed in the rituals and the ritualistic mj'ths. 

 In how far it represents an exoteric point of view it would be diffi- 

 cult to determine now. A study of the nonritualistic myths, how- 

 ever, makes it seem plausible that Earthmaker, among the people in 

 general, was the vague WaxSp'i'ni Xe'tera, Great Spirit, typical of 

 the woodland area; and what appears to strengthen this view is the 

 fact that there exists, side by side with him, that other great spirit 

 common among the woodland peoples, the Great Bad Spirit, known 

 among the Winnebago as Herecgu'ntna, of doubtful et\Tnology. 

 The coexistence of these two spirits and their ecjual rank comes out 

 clearly in the cycle of the Twins. The ritualistic myths have 

 attempted to interpret this old HerecgQ'nina as Earthmaker's first 

 attempt to create man, which ended in failxu-e. He thereupon tlirew 

 him away, but Herecgu'njna imitated the creations of the former 

 and thus brought into existence the many evil spirits that infest the 

 earth. 



Only in the older traditions is this conception of the dual deities 

 still to be found. In practical life the more systematic conception 

 developed in the rituals has entirely displaced it, just as the older 

 conception of the Transformers as heroes working in obedience to no 

 one and changing the world until it assumed its present appearance 

 out of mere whim, has given place to a well-ordered creation in which 

 the Transformers play the role of deities saving the human race at 

 the command of Earthmaker. 



Thunderbirds (Wak'^'ndja). — They are always represented as 

 appearing to men as bald-headed individuals wearing a wreath made 

 of the branches of the arbor vitre. They are in control of almost all 

 the powers that man can imagine, but they generally bless him with 

 success on the warpath and with a long and honorable life. They are 

 represented as having a spirit village in the west and as intermarrying 

 with the Night Spirits who have a village in the east. Powerful 

 shamans and warriors not infrecjuently claim that they are merely 

 reincarnated Thunderbirds. Such is the claim of the man who is 



•Cf. also Jour. Amer. Folklore, vol. 20, pp. 293-318, 1913. 



