1894-95. ] THREE CARRIER MYTHS. 21

narratives is that the ystas of the one and the Wise One of the other
are replaced in some Algonquin versions by Michabo, the “ Great Rabbit.”
It has been fashionable in certain quarters to indulge in covert sneers at
the expense of those who see in some native legends an echo of the past
rather than mysterious, enigmatic personifications of natural phenomena,
Therefore I will now give in a condensed form the explanation of that
myth proposed as the only true one by the most prominent among the
allegorical school of folk-lorists, Dr. D. G. Brinton, leaving it to the
reader to decide whether his subtleties of speech are more convincing
than my own interpretation of the same story.

“In the Algonquin tongue the word for Giant Rabbit is M/zssabos,

compounded from JZztchz or Misst, great, large, and wados, a rabbit.
But there is a whole class of related words . . . which sound very
much like zvados. They are from a general root wad, which goes to form
such words of related signification as wadz, he sees, waban, the east, the
Orient, wadzish, white, b¢daban (bid-waban ), the dawn, waéan, daylight,
qwasseva, the light, and many others. Here is where we are to look for
the real meaning of the name Missabos. It originally meant the Great
Light. . . . {I believe that a similar analysis will explain the part
which the muskrat plays in the story. . . . The word for muskrat in
Algonquin is wayashk, the first letter of which often suffers elision. .
But this is almost the word for mud, wet earth, soil, ajzskz. ‘There is no
reasonable doubt but that here again otosis and personification came in
and gave the form and name of an animal to the original simple state-
ment. Zhai statement was that from wet mud dried by the sunlight, the
solid earth was formed'.”

The italics are mine.

In rebuttal of the above, I beg to submit that even in some Algonquin
versions” Michabo or Missabos is replaced by the Old One, and in that
case the ingenious fabric of Dr. Brinton loses its razson détre. Further-
more, even when the Algonquin hero’s personality remains of an animal
character, his name varies from Michabo to Manibozho, Nanabush,
Messou, Mideathon and Hiawatha*, which I suppose could not be
diverted into meaning the Great Light, etc. As to the identification of
the muskrat with the wet earth, the soil, through the quasi-homonymy

1 American Hero-Myths, p. 41-42.

* As in that current among the Blackfeet. See ‘‘The Owl,” University of Ottawa, May
1890, p. 298.

3 Notes on Primitive Man in Ontario, by David Boyle, Toronto, 1895, p. 18. It may be
added that some Algonquins credit the osprey with the success generally attributed to the
anuskrat.