Shawondasee From
:
The Myth Of Hiawatha
THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE ODJIBWAS.
Mudjekewis and nine brothers conquered the Mammoth Bear, and obtained
the Sacred Belt of Wampum, the great object of previous warlike
enterprise, and the great means of happiness to men. The chief honor of
this achievement was awarded to Mudjekewis, the youngest of the ten, who
received the government of the West Winds. He is therefore called
Kabeyun, the fathe
of the winds. To his son, Wabun, he gave the East;
to Shawondasee, the south, and to Kabibonokka, the north. Manabozho
being an illegitimate son, was left unprovided. When he grew up, and
obtained the secret of his birth, he went to war against his father,
Kabeyun, and having brought the latter to terms, he received the
government of the Northwest Winds, ruling jointly with his brother
Kabibonokka the tempests from that quarter of the heavens.
Shawondasee is represented as an affluent, plethoric old man, who has
grown unwieldy from repletion, and seldom moves. He keeps his eyes
steadfastly fixed on the north. When he sighs, in autumn, we have those
balmy southern airs, which communicate warmth and delight over the
northern hemisphere, and make the Indian Summer.
One day, while gazing toward the north, he beheld a beautiful young
woman of slender and majestic form, standing on the plains. She
appeared in the same place for several days, but what most attracted
his admiration, was her bright and flowing locks of yellow hair. Ever
dilatory, however, he contented himself with gazing. At length he saw,
or fancied he saw, her head enveloped in a pure white mass like snow.
This excited his jealousy toward his brother Kabibonokka, and he threw
out a succession of short and rapid sighs--when lo! the air was filled
with light filaments of a silvery hue, but the object of his affections
had for ever vanished. In reality, the southern airs had blown off the
fine-winged seed-vessels of the prairie dandelion.
"My son," said the narrator, "it is not wise to differ in our tastes
from other people; nor ought we to put off, through slothfulness, what
is best done at once. Had Shawondasee conformed to the tastes of his
countrymen, he would not have been an admirer of yellow hair; and if
he had evinced a proper activity in his youth, his mind would not have
run flower-gathering in his age."