Brave Man

Brave Man

by Waterspirit Greenhorn (Wakcexihecoga)

(1) And it was a Hocąk village, and it was not too far distant from the place called Te Xetera ("Great Lake," Lake Winnebago). It was not very far from where the people had originated that this village had been erected. And yet every winter they made feasts all throughout the winter. There they lived where there was a lodge with two fireplaces. An old man and his wife lived there together with their daughter, her husband, and their little son, and the daughter's single brother, this many lived together. And thus they remained, and the boy was very nearly like a man, but whenever the small boys would play, (2) he would be one among them. He was taller than absolutely everyone, but he did thus. His actions were rather funny, so he was not like humans. He was done. Finally, he became taller than all the men, but he did thus: he always carried a broken knife which he would use to make arrows for them.

And one day the old man said, "Now my son, now is the time that we always give a feast. Therefore, you can invite thirty of your boy relatives that are your friends and you can go out two days' travel. The boys can hunt and they might kill an animal of good flesh, so it seems to me," he said. (3) When the old man had spoken thus, the son said, "Howe!" He invited his friends and they got ready and started out early in the morning. The old man's son led them out. He carried his warclub and the others carried kettles and things of that kind. Finally, they disappeared in the distance.

Then the leader's sister said to her boy, "My son, you should go along with your uncle on the hunt and gather a little wood for him," the mother said to him. "Well, go on," she said to the funny boy. "Well, mother, I will go," he said. He took only the broken pointed knife and so this one chased after them. Finally, one of the men looked back and there was a man coming on the run. (4) When this one got near, it was the leader's nephew. And when he reached them, his uncle said, "Well, it is good that you came." So they went on. Finally, there they used dry wood to build a fire and the boy therefore gathered much wood and he replenished the fire all night. Therefore, they did not get cold. Then on the second morning again they started on and once more all day they traveled. It was evening and so there at the end, having finished, they stopped. And so the nephew cut some grass and built a lodge. Then he gathered a lot of wood so that everything would be ready and so he waited. (5) It was still dark when they finally were ready to return. They brought back a very big deer, and having dressed it, finally in time they boiled it until they got it cooked, then they ate it.

And after they ate it they all laid down to sleep, and the boy slept with his uncle, but the boy could not get to sleep. So he lay awake and watched the door. Finally, a man raised the door flap and peeped in at them. Then the boy became afraid, so he awakened his uncle and told him about the man he had seen, but he got angry and therefore went back to sleep again. Again for the second time the man came and again he looked in on them. Immediately he woke up his uncle and told him. (6) But even then he got angry again. "Guwa! kora! I try to sleep, but why does this one do this to me?" he said. So again he went off to sleep. Again the third time the person when he came again the boy again awoke his uncle and said to him, "Uncle, this time nothing will do except to do it [wake up]," he said to him. Thus he did, but his uncle started to fall asleep again. So again this one watched the door once more. Two men came and peeked in. And it was just before daylight.

Therefore, consequently, the boy was going to flee alone. He took nothing but a blunt knife and a little white blanket that he wore. These only he took and as this one went along on the way back there was a hollow log, so there he thus went in feet first. (7) So there he lay. And after a short time it became light. And he heard whoops. And he looked out at the day and it was snowing and he was afraid so he got inside again. Finally, two of them came chasing one another here. One lay exactly where he had come to be killed. However, thus he lay very still. So they made much noise. Finally, they quieted down. However, thus he remained there. Finally, they came away he thought, so he went to where the one who was killed was and he was without a head and he weltered in a large flow of blood. Once more he looked at this. There he went back to, and so the people he had been with at camp were all scattered about. They were without heads. He went and looked them all over. (8) He could not find where his uncle was. So there he stood and while he was thinking he said, "Kora! well since my uncle is not here, they must have taken him along, so I'll chase after him," he said.

Since he had traveled to the camp, he boiled himself some food and having eaten, thus he followed the big trail that lay there that they had made. So he continued all day. Finally he saw one, and it was a very big warparty. So he continued to follow them. When it was evening they built a fire there and there they went to sleep. And there they had the boy's uncle bound. He sat watching them nearby. Even though he was cold, he did not build a fire. And as they would discover his presence that is why, (9) therefore, he was without it. Then after awhile they untied the bonds from his hands and gave him a gourd. And they made him then arise to start the Prisoner's Dance and song, at first the nephew laughed very much, but finally he pitied his uncle very much and after awhile he began to weep. At first the nephew thought that the uncle was giving a feast, as they had talked about a feast. Finally, as he danced he knew. So he pitied him. He would think, "I'll go over there," but he did not do it. Finally, he said to them, "Go to sleep." After he said this to them, some of them went to sleep. Having said it to them again, more again went to sleep. Again, after saying it to them for a third time, again nearly all of them went to sleep. (10) Again, the fourth time, after he said it to them, this time all of them went to sleep. Then again having gone over there, he went there, and when he got there he said to his uncle, "What, then, were you doing? You were hardly putting out a feast to eat," he said to his uncle. "No, I was acting a part. In war when one is taken prisoner, they always make them do that," he said to his nephew. "Now then, my nephew, untie my bonds." "But not yet, until I do something to them, then I will untie you," he said. He went around taking all of the men's weapons. "Untie me," said his uncle. But instead thus again he placed together all the blankets and moccasins and piled them up to one side. (11) And when he had done thus, he untied his uncle. Then the man, the host, also went about and burst their eyes. Again, when he got back, he also did it again. And as they were cold as they stood around, so he did it to all of them again. And two of them he spared. From these two he cut off the ears and lips. Thus he did and sent them home. "When you get home you must do something: 'Brave Man (Warrior), he is the one who did it to us'," he said to them. "Thus you must say." He gave them back their moccasins and weapons. Then they cut their heads off and there they tied them to two small sticks and (12) then went away back home. And they traveled on until finally they reached their village. They got back home there. All the villagers heard of what Brave Man had done. And so, however, they remained there.

So every day he would be making arrows. Finally, then, the report came: "A warparty has come to the village," they said. So even now many were killed, yet he continued, however, making arrows. Now again, a man with a message was there again, so he went out and leaned against a lodge pole there and he looked on at the battle. (13) Finally, a man came running up to Brave Man, who stood there smiling. He struck at him with a metal-pointed warclub. He struck the club against the lodge pole there and it broke as it went by. Thus they did to him four times. And then he got angry. He gave a whoop and rushed for them. He would chase the great ones and when he caught them, he would burst their eyes. Thus he began to do to them. His people were being killed. Finally, they (the enemy) were all killed. Thus a blue sky (keraco) did when he came to earth, say the old people when they tell stories.¹

Commentary: "Wakcexihecoga" — this is given as the name of the author, when in fact it is really meant to be the title of the story. The protagonist of this story is one and the same as Bluehorn, also known as "Red Star" (Evening Star). We learn from "Bluehorn's Nephews" that Bluehorn is a Waterspirit, which explains the occurrence of the name Wakcexi-hecoga, "Waterspirit-Bluehorn," in the heading. Wakcexi means "Waterspirit"; he denotes horns; the suffix -ga is a definite article used to indicate a personal name. The word co denotes a color belonging to the spectrum from green through blue. This is why Hecoga can be translated as either "Green Horn" or "Blue Horn." The actual author is Caxšep-Woruxjî-Hire-ga (They Look upon an Eagle), the same who authored the other stories in this group (Radin's Notebook 66).

"like a man" — the story is about Waterspirit Bluehorn, who is also the Evening Star ("Red Star"). Next to the sun and moon, Evening Star is the brightest and largest object in the sky.

"small boys" — these are other stars which are diminutive by comparison to the Evening Star.

"he was taller" — when Evening Star is born, it arises from the sun at sunset. So it is then at its "shortest." It gradually parts from the sun, appearing day after day a little higher above the horizon. It is this sense in which he is "tall."

"a broken knife" — the Hocąk is mąhįpekųnųk, from mąhį́, "knife" (Dorsey, Miner); pe, "head, forehead, point"; kųnųk, "to cut, burn, or break something long in two, leaving a clean break" (Miner). It is clear that the knife is meant to symbolize something, but its referent is unclear. However, it does have its correlates in other myths about Bluehorn (Red Star). In "The Twins Retrieve Red Star's Head," Red Star and his doppelgänger (interpreted to be Morning Star) both have arms inlaid with knives, and his nephews the Twins do so as well. The broken pointed knife of Brave Man would seem to be of a piece with the inlaid knives of this character elsewhere, although the meaning of these implements is obscure there as well. However, this is the kind of knife possessed as the special weapon of Turtle, whose claw forms the arrowhead on Hocąk arrows. The knife itself is used to make arrowshafts. Therefore, it would seem that the knife is mentioned in order to align him with arrow making.

"to make arrows" — Brave Man finds arrow making an activity agreeable to his nature. The arrow in Hocąk has a number of natural associations arising from the language. The word for arrow, mą, also means "year, time." At the very end of the story, we are told that the protagonist is "a blue sky" who has come to earth. It is an activity of the blue sky to witness the passage of time (mą), and indeed the tenure of the blue sky is just the tenure of the sun, so the blue sky is a measure of time, a maker of arrows (mą). Another homonym for mą is "spring" in the sense of a course of water of underground provenience. Waterspirits also make springs.

"my son" — the son of the old man is the funny tall boy's uncle (mother's brother).

"thirty" — it is pretty clearly time that is alluded to by the 30 friends inasmuch as 30 days are a rounded up approximation to the solar time span of a moon. This would make the year 360 days of 12 moons. In making arrows, Brave Man is also making units of time (mą) that correspond to the friends, each of whom represents a day (hąp), not only as a physical manifestation of light (hąp), but as a defining unit of the fluid progress of time (as a counterpart to a phase of the moon). Each day is defined by the phase of the moon, a horned being like a deer, after whom they trail ("hunt"). We know from the snowfall mentioned below that the events take place in winter. Thus the 30 friends, being winter days, are short and can therefore be represented as boys who reach their untimely death before they can grow to the maturity and length of which they are capable in the summertime of the year. Brave Man really brings the sun and moon together.

"old man's son" — if the thirty companions of the son are correctly identified as days, then the leader of the days (hąp) should be Sun (Hąpwira). The father of Sun ought to be Earthmaker, but he does not appear in allegories as a character. A better theory is that the father is the Chief of the Waterspirits, since Sun rises from the waters at the edge of the earth after a nocturnal sojourn in the underworld, the domain over which the Waterspirits rule. Brave Man is hecųšge (grandson = nephew) to both the old man and his son.

"gather a little wood for him" — wood is the fuel of fire. It here represents the fuel of the cosmic fire, the sun. One of the mysteries of the sun is how it is able to sustain its fire. One idea is that it is refueled in its stay in the underworld. The fuel of the sun might actually have been thought of as water, since the sun "drinks up" water during the day. The Mesoamericans believed that human blood best served the diet of the sun and insured that it would continue to shine. The idea that they sun feeds on liquid would explain why Waterspirit Bluehorn, himself the strongest in light, would preside over the refueling of the sun.

"this one chased after them" — both Evening Star and the blue sky follow after the sun as it sets. However, Evening Star, as it tends towards conjunction, runs after the sun, getting closer and closer as time progresses, until it actually reaches it. This would make Evening Star the 31^st blue sky and thus correlates him with the first day of the next moon. This would identify the conjunction of Evening Star with the sun as a New Beginning of time.

"a very big deer" — when the moon is in opposition to the sun it is full near the western horizon. It is in the west that the action takes place (see below: 1, 2). Here the moon, a horned animal (see above), is at its largest and fattest. Since the sun rises on the opposite horizon, as the full moon is still in the sky in the west, it is literally the case that the blue sky "catches" the moon ("deer").

"they boiled it" — the sun is up as the full moon sets in the western Ocean Sea (Tejąja). It is in this sense that the deer is boiled.

"they ate it" — as the moon moves from full to conjunction, the sun will rise on it so that it can be seen in the blue sky of morning. Yet every new day, every new sky, sees a bit of the light of the moon lost as it goes from completely round to a mere sliver. Finally, it disappears from the sky altogether. This coincidence of successive days and the diminishment of the moon is aptly portrayed as the blue skies eating away the moon ("deer"). It is explicitly said elsewhere that this diminishment of the moon was originally the evil spirits eating it away night by night.

"they all laid down to sleep" — as the sun lies down and shuts its one eye, which is the eye of the sky, so the blue sky follows it to earth and there lies down and "sleeps" itself. The last of these blue skies does not sleep, although it lays down with its uncle the sun, since its (other) eye is the Evening Star.

"watched the door" — the Evening Star sits in the sky directly over the place where the sun sets which is the "door" to the lodge of the earth where he is sleeping. Although he, as a blue sky, has followed the sun, his eye nevertheless is open and in position to view the door.

"a man" — the man turns out to be a Thunderbird (as we shall see more clearly below), which in terms of natural phenomena, is a cloud.

"two men" — it is usual to have two scouts. These are the lead clouds of an impending storm.

"it was just before daylight" — the lodge in which the sun reclines and subsists in the dormant state is itself rotating to the east. The sun is now getting ready to wake up, but it may not be to a blue sky, but to an ambush of clouds (Thunders).

"the boy was going to flee alone" — the Evening Star, of course, does not rise in the east with the sun, but only in the west above the sun and trailing after it. Therefore, since the lodge has rotated to the east, Evening Star must make a retrograde trip to his station in the west where he is due to appear a little before sunset. Evening Star, of all stars, alone "rises" in the west.

"white blanket" — the clouds, which are the usual abode of Thunderbirds, are often represented as blankets. Morning Star is called "He who is Girded in Blankets." The sunset in particular, since in occurs in the west where the spirit village of the Thunderbirds lies, is represented as the blanket of Yųgiwi, the daughter of the Chief of the Thunders. At the same time, the horizontal log can represent the sky, a vault above and a vault below. He wraps himself in a white robe, as the blue sky does with white clouds. The white clouds are those that do not produce thunder and lightning, and therefore are not the abode of the Thunders. It also represents the isomorphic tunnels in which the Waterspirits live, vast underground networks lined in a white substance. The white lining is called the "dung" of the Waterspirits, which is to say the precipitates of water, most likely calcium carbonate, whether as limestone or as the stalagmites and stalactites of subterranean caverns. As condensates of the water of the blue sky, the white clouds are stalactites on a loftier stage and scale.

"it was snowing" — snow is a strange mediating substance. The clouds most like snow are the white clouds belonging to the blue sky, but the clouds that actually snow are just like the storm clouds of the Thunders. Yet snow clouds almost never give forth lightning and thunder. Snow rests upon the ground, yet its origins are in the sky. Snow is water in essence, yet its state is like that of the ground, although once it was part of a cloud. As long as it is snow, it seems to belong to neither the Thunders nor the Waterspirits. Nevertheless, snow is like a Waterspirit in that it unites the sky with the earth through water. It is the image of the blanket of the Waterspirit, like the wrap of the blue sky now come to be the wrap of earth and water.

"they made much noise" — the enemies of the Waterspirits, the Thunderbirds, attack them when it storms. Their weapon is the thunder, and therefore their trademark is loudest noise ordinarily heard in nature.

"the one who was killed" — in our story, one of the 30 seeks refuge in Brave Man's log, only to be slain in a particularly gory way. Here one of the days is slain, which occurs at the end of that day, which is to say, at sunset, whose flood of red at the horizon represents blood. This takes place in the west where both the Thunders and Bluehorn live.

"he was without a head" — the taking of heads is a vestige of the older practice that predated scalping, the latter being an abbreviated technique favored by European bounty agents. It would seem that the head of the blue sky would be the sun, and that at the moment of the day's death, it is this in particular that is separated from the somatic vault upon which it rests in gravity-defying inversion. The Thunders take away the light as a trophy, but retain it in the clouds as lightning. Thus, it becomes their servant and augments their power. As the Thunders live in the west, when they carry the solar head away, it sinks beneath the western horizon.

"a large flow of blood" — as the head of the day is taken west to the abode of the Thunders, the sky turns a sanguinary red. In at least one other Bluehorn story, blood is used to symbolize the sunset (q.v.).

"I'll chase after him" — Evening Star had fled from the east back to his station in the west. From this station, Evening Star invariably follows after the sun.

"bound" — the Thunders as clouds have covered over the sun.

"all of them went to sleep" — Bluehorn lulls them to sleep, which means that they are motionless and incapable of using their powers. He does this by chanting a command. Elsewhere, sound = light (see 1, 2, 3, 4), so that the neutralizing of the Thunders is a product of the light of the blue sky. This light is the sun, of course. It is the sun that is the agent of the blue sky in evaporating clouds. The blue sky triumphant not only stills the clouds but neutralizes them.

"he placed together all the blankets and moccasins" — as we saw above, the blanket is a symbol of the cloud. His actions therefore allegorically describe the sweeping of the sky of most of the clouds, which are herded over to a fraction of the sky that they once entirely covered. The moccasins are a synecdoche for their means of propulsion, which in this case is clearly wind. To remove their moccasins is to still the wind that propels the clouds, which causes them to stay put. Therefore, once again, the clouds are not able to cover the whole sky as they did before. For reasons that remain obscure, Evening Star (and his doppelgänger, Morning Star) is associated with wind, over which he has extraordinary power, as it says here:

(32) And he [Red Star] came running home, he even knocked all the trees down in his path, it is said. So they told him to come slower, so he stopped and the wind became calmer.²

It is clearly the wind that he generates that knocks over trees, and when he stops his dash, so the wind also ceases to gust. For more on this, see the Commentary to "The Twins Retrieve Red Star's Head." By moving and then arresting the clouds through the power of wind, Evening Star is able to free the sun who had been bound within their occluding grasp. And so it is said in the next sentence, "And when he had done thus, he untied his uncle." The piling up of the blankets and moccasins is just one and the same as untying his uncle (the sun).

"burst their eyes" — Brave Man bursts the eyes of the enemy because among Thunderbirds the eyes are the organs by which lightning — their weapon par excellance — is launched. The eyes, therefore, are the sheath in which their weapons lay. This is another image of the clouds, and it is the clouds that are evaporated or "burst." Bursting is a sound emitting process most usually accomplished by heat. Given that sound = light, the blue sky causes the clouds to give up their concealed force by heating them with its own light (the sun). They dissipate like the particles that are scattered by an explosion. This frees the sun, the uncle of Brave Man. However much the uncle might be like a bird, he is in the end a new day, and therefore one of the kindred of the blue sky.

"he cut off the ears and lips" — since birds have neither external ears nor lips, these are symbolically cut off the two Thunders, who become, as it were, messenger birds. This illustrates a strange worldwide theme which I have termed the "Mutilation Paradox." When a supernatural being loses a part of his anatomy, the function of the lost part becomes accentuated in the victim by other means. (This is a model of the sacrifice, wherein an [animal] member of society is offered to the spirits so that the function of the social member is accentuated or compensated for by some substitute profit.) So here the Thunders lose ears/lips, but gain the function of listening/speaking, in short, the function of the messenger. (For more on the Mutilation Paradox, see 1, 2.) Another irony is that two are selected, just as if they were scouts. They are the opposite of scouts, as they come back not to report that the enemy is unaware of their warparty, but that the warparty has been rubbed out. They are not sent by the warparty, but by the enemy. Although they still report a message about the enemy, they are now also reporting a message from the enemy. Although the story does not say so, the two who were spared for this function were probably the two scouts who peeped into the lodge just before the attack. As clouds, the two messengers hang low on the western horizon, where the Thunder village lies, reddened by their mutilations, and bearing silent testimony to the hegemony of the blue sky that follows after the sun, a sky whose vision resides in the Evening Star, the Red Star. It is interesting to note that a second order symbolism may be operative as well. The lips and ears represent sound (source and terminus), and sound represents light. This is the light of the west where the Thunders dwell along with Evening Star, and where the sun sets, reddening the clouds. So the second order symbol of the bloody mutilations is red light. It is precisely this light which gives Red Star his name, and so without doubt, the two reddened messengers give testimony in light that Red Star the brave has done this. The primary symbolism works according to the Mutilation Paradox. The object of the lost symbolic organs of sound is found accentuated in all Thunders, who make the loudest sounds in nature. For the removal of lips and ears, see the corresponding episode in "The Incarnate Thunderbird."

"the battle" — this is a battle between the Thunders and the Waterspirits (who are also the blue sky).

"he struck the club against the lodge pole" — Thunderbird clubs are just another image of the lightning, especially their metal spikes. It is tempting to see the lodge pole as the axis mundi. The lightning never strikes Brave Man in the head (the sun) or in his body (the vault of the sky). It strikes the post, which is made of wood, a reflection of the fact that lightning almost always hits trees. In the end, the Thunders cannot harm the sky, but the sky can, of course, burst the eyes of the Thunders from its solar light which dissipates the clouds.

Comparative Material. This story bears a faint resemblance to a series of Eurasian myths which I have entitled "The 30 Brothers." In these stories a group of men, usually 30 brothers, are chasing after an animal that leads them far astray. In the process they discover a new land. In some variants, a 31^st brother realizes a destiny to gain hegemony over the rest. Esoterically, these myths represent the rise to power of a new land in terms of luni-solar relationships.³ In the Hocąk story, some of these themes are expressed in the context of the struggle between the Thunders and the Waterspirits.

Links: Waterspirits, Bluehorn, Thunderbirds.

Stories: with Bluehorn (Evening Star) as a character: Bluehorn's Nephews, The Twins Retrieve Red Star's Head, Children of the Sun, Bluehorn Rescues His Sister, Grandfather's Two Families, The Man with Two Heads, Sun and the Big Eater, The Green Man (?); mentioning Thunderbirds: The Thunderbird, Waruǧábᵉra, How the Thunders Met the Nights, The Boy who was Captured by the Bad Thunderbirds, Traveler and the Thunderbird War, The Boulders of Devil's Lake, Thunderbird and White Horse, Bluehorn's Nephews, How the Hills and Valleys were Formed (vv. 1, 2), The Man who was a Reincarnated Thunderbird, The Thunder Charm, The Lost Blanket, The Twins Disobey Their Father, The Thunderbird Clan Origin Myth, Story of the Thunder Names, The Hawk Clan Origin Myth, Eagle Clan Origin Myth, Pigeon Clan Origins, Bird Clan Origin Myth, Adventures of Redhorn's Sons, Ocean Duck, Turtle's Warparty, The Daughter-in-Law's Jealousy, The Quail Hunter, Heną́ga and Star Girl, The Twins Join Redhorn's Warparty, Redhorn's Sons, The Dipper, The Stone that Became a Frog, The Race for the Chief's Daughter, Redhorn Contests the Giants, The Sons of Redhorn Find Their Father, The Warbundle of the Eight Generations, Medicine Rite Foundation Myth, Origin of the Hocąk Chief, The Spirit of Gambling, Wolf Clan Origin Myth, Black Otter's Warpath, Aracgéga's Blessings, Kunu's Warpath, The Orphan who was Blessed with a Horse, Black Otter’s Sacrifice to a Thunder, The Glory of the Morning, The Nightspirits Bless Ciwoit’éhiga, The Green Waterspirit of the Wisconsin Dells, A Waterspirit Blesses Mąnį́xete’ų́ga, Baldheaded Warclub Origin Myth, The Big Stone, Pete Dupeé and the Ghosts, Song to Earthmaker, The Origins of the Milky Way; mentioning snow: Waruǧábᵉra, The Glory of the Morning, Holy One and His Brother, Wolves and Humans, Grandfather's Two Families, The Four Steps of the Cougar, Redhorn's Father, Bladder and His Brothers, The Stench-Earth Medicine Origin Myth, The Old Man and the Giants, Old Man and Wears White Feather, Great Walker's Warpath, White Wolf, North Shakes His Gourd, The Fleetfooted Man, Lake Wąkšikhomįgra (Mendota): the Origin of Its Name, Witches, Shakes the Earth, Thunderbird Clan Origin Myth, Trickster Gets Pregnant, The Raccoon Coat, Silver Mound Cave, Soft Shelled Turtle Gets Married.

Themes: preoccupation with making arrows: The Man who went to the Upper and Lower Worlds, The Woman Who Became an Ant, Bluehorn Rescues His Sister; the war between Thunderbirds and Waterspirits: Traveler and the Thunderbird War, How the Thunders Met the Nights, The Boulders of Devil's Lake, The Twins Join Redhorn's Warparty, The Lost Blanket, Ocean Duck, The Daughter-in-Law's Jealousy, A Waterspirit Blesses Mąnį́xete’ų́ga, The Thunderbird, Heną́ga and Star Girl, Waruǧábᵉra, Bluehorn's Nephews, The Waterspirit of Sugar Loaf Mounds; someone takes shelter in a hollow log (in order to escape enemies): The Man with Two Heads, The Shaggy Man, Redhorn's Father, The Spirit of Maple Bluff, The Thunder Charm, Trickster Loses Most of His Penis; head hunting: White Fisher, Big Thunder Teaches Cap’ósgaga the Warpath, A Man's Revenge, How Little Priest went out as a Soldier, Little Priest's Game, Bluehorn's Nephews, The Twins Retrieve Red Star's Head, The Boy who was Blessed by a Mountain Lion, Young Man Gambles Often, Morning Star and His Friend (v. 2), The Dipper, The Four Slumbers Origin Myth, Porcupine and His Brothers, Turtle's Warparty, Ocean Duck, The Markings on the Moon, Wears White Feather on His Head, The Red Man, The Chief of the Heroka, Thunderbird and White Horse, The Man with Two Heads, The Sons of Redhorn Find Their Father, Redhorn's Sons, Fighting Retreat, The Children of the Sun, Heną́ga and Star Girl, Mijistéga’s Powwow Magic and How He Won the Trader's Store, The Were-Grizzly, Winneconnee Origin Myth; someone is abducted and led off into captivity: The Captive Boys, A Man's Revenge, Bluehorn's Nephews, The Lost Child, Wears White Feather on His Head, Įcorúšika and His Brothers, Bird Clan Origin Myth, The Man Whose Wife was Captured, Bladder and His Brothers, The Boy who was Captured by the Bad Thunderbirds, Bluehorn Rescues His Sister, Black Otter's Warpath, The Boy who was Blessed by a Mountain Lion, The Green Man, The Chief of the Heroka, Šųgepaga, Hare Gets Swallowed, Hare Acquires His Arrows, The Raccoon Coat, Wojijé, Wolves and Humans, The Woman Who Became an Ant, Thunderbird and White Horse, Heną́ga and Star Girl, Brass and Red Bear Boy, Traveler and the Thunderbird War (v. 5), The Boy who Flew, Testing the Slave, Soldiers Catch Two Boys, a Black One and a White One; hypnotic commands issued at a distance: The Birth of the Twins, The Two Boys, The Adventures of Redhorn's Sons; someone is charmed to sleep: Trickster Takes Little Fox for a Ride; a spirit causes someone to fall asleep: Hare Visits the Bodiless Heads, Waruǧabᵉra; a hypnotic command for enemies to sleep works on the fourth utterance: Hare Visits the Bodiless Heads.

Notes

¹ Paul Radin, "Wak'cexi Hecoga (Waterspirit Bluehorn) [the actual author is Caxšep-Horuxjį-Hire-ga (They Look upon an Eagle)]," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) #66, Story 2: 1-13.

² Paul Radin, "Morning Star (Wiragošge Xetera)," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Notebook 8: 1-93 [32].

³ Richard L. Dieterle, "The Thirty Brothers," Journal of Indo-European Studies, 15, #1-2: 169-214.