But you, Bear! sit here and whimper,
And disgrace your tribe by crying,
Like a wretched Shaugodaya,
Like a cowardly old woman!”
These three comparisons with a woman are to be found near each other on the same page. Mudjekeewis has, like a true hero, once more torn life from the jaws of death, from the all-devouring “terrible mother.” This deed, which, as we have seen, is also represented as a journey to hell, “night journey through the sea,” the conquering of the monster from within, signifies at the same time entrance into the mother’s womb, a rebirth, the results of which are perceptible also for Mudjekeewis. As in the Zosimos vision, here too the entering one becomes the breath of the wind or spirit. Mudjekeewis becomes the west wind, the fertilizing breath, the father of winds.[[634]] His sons become the other winds. An intermezzo tells of them and of their love stories, of which I will mention only the courtship of Wabuns, the East Wind, because here the erotic wooing of the wind is pictured in an especially beautiful manner. Every morning he sees a beautiful girl in a meadow, whom he eagerly courts:
“Every morning, gazing earthward,
Still the first thing he beheld there
Was her blue eyes looking at him,
Two blue lakes among the rushes.”
The comparison with water is not a matter of secondary importance, because “from wind and water” shall man be born anew.