Megissogwon, the Magician,
Manito of Wealth and Wampum,
Guarded by his fiery serpents,
Guarded by the black pitch-water.
You can see his fiery serpents,
The Kenabeek, the great serpents,
Coiling, playing in the water.”
This danger lurking in the west is known to mean death, which no one, even the mightiest, escapes. This magician, as we learn, also killed the father of Nokomis. Now she sends her son forth to avenge the father (Horus). Through the symbols attributed to the magician it may easily be recognized what he symbolizes. Snake and water belong to the mother, the snake as a symbol of the repressed longing for the mother, or, in other words, as a symbol of resistance, encircles protectingly and defensively the maternal rock, inhabits the cave, winds itself upwards around the mother tree and guards the precious hoard, the “mysterious” treasure. The black Stygian water is, like the black, muddy spring of Dhulqarnein, the place where the sun dies and enters into rebirth, the maternal sea of death and night. On his journey thither Hiawatha takes with him the magic oil of Mishe-Nahma, which helps his boat through the waters of death. (Also a sort of charm for immortality, like the dragon’s blood for Siegfried, etc.)
First, Hiawatha slays the great serpent. Of the “night journey in the sea” over the Stygian waters it is written:
“All night long he sailed upon it,