I have given the details of this myth and analyzed them in previous works;[222] here it is sufficient to say that it is a Light-myth, and one of noble proportion and circumstance, quite worthy of comparison with those of the Oriental world.
Traces of it are reported among the Lenape, and I doubt not that had we their ancient stories in their completeness, we should find that they had preserved it as wholly as the Chipeways. These related of their Nanabozho that he was the son of a maiden who had descended from heaven. She conceived without knowledge of man, and having given birth to twins, she disappeared. One of these twins was Nanabozho. Having formed the earth by his miraculous powers, and done many wonderful things, he disappeared toward the east, where he still dwells beyond the sunrise.
It was undoubtedly a fragment of this legend that the Swedish engineer, Lindstrom heard among the Lenape, on the Delaware, about 1650. They told him, or rather he understood them, as follows:—
"Once, one of your women (i.e., a white woman) came among us, and she became pregnant, in consequence of drinking out of a creek; an Indian had connection with her, and she became pregnant, and brought forth a son, who, when he came to a certain size, was so sensible and clever, that there never was one who could be compared to him, so much and so well he spoke, which excited great wonder; he also performed many miracles. When he was quite grown up, he left us, and went up to heaven, and promised to come again, but has never returned."[223]
This is but a mistranslation of the general Algonkin legend, in which the virgin mother bears a white and dark twin, the former of whom becomes the tribal culture hero and demiurgic deity.
Its interpretation is, that the virgin is the Dawn, who brings forth the Day, which assures safety and knowledge, and the Night, which departs with her. The Day leaves us, and in its personified form returns no more, though ever expected.
That such were the original form and significance of the myth, we have the testimony of Bishop Ettwein,[224] himself a Delaware scholar, and who drew his information from the natives as well as the missionaries. He tells us that their legend ran, that in the beginning the first woman fell from heaven and bore twins; that it was toward the east that they directed their children to turn their faces when they prayed to the spirits; and that their old men had said that it was an ancient belief that from that quarter some one would come to them to benefit them. Therefore, said they, when our ancestors saw the first white men, they looked upon them as divine, and adored them.
The Dutch travelers, Jasper Donkers and Peter Sluyter, relate a part of this myth as they heard it from New Jersey Indians in 1679. These informed them that all things came from a tortoise. It had brought forth the world, and from the middle of its back had sprung up a tree, upon whose branches men had grown.
This tortoise "had a power and a nature to produce all things, such as earth, trees and the like." But it was not the primum mobile, not the ultimate energy of the universe. "The first and great beginning of all things was Kickeron or Kickerom, who is the original of all, who has not only once produced or made all things, but produces every day." The tortoise brought forth what this primal divinity "wished through it to produce."[225]
This is a very interesting statement. It reveals a depth of thought on the part of the native philosophers for which we were scarcely prepared. The worthy Dutch travelers do not pretend to explain the myth. But its sense can be clearly interpreted.