In a voice that breathed soft as the breath of wild blossoms, he answered: “I am Go-hay, Spring! I have come to rule, and my lodge now covers the earth! I have talked to your mountain and it has heard; I have called the South Wind and it is near; the Sun is awake from its winter sleep and summons me quick and loud. Your North Wind has fled to his north sky; you are late in following. You have lingered too long over your peace pipe and its smoke now floats far away. Haste while yet there is time that you may lose not your trail.”
And Go-hay began singing the Sun song as he opened the door of the lodge. Hovering above it was a great bird, whose wings seemed blown by a strong wind, and while Go-hay continued to sing, it flew down to the lodge and folding Gau-wi-di-ne to its breast, slowly winged away to the north, and when the Sun lifted its head in the east it beheld the bird disappearing behind the far-away sky. The Sun glanced down where Gau-wi-di-ne had built his lodge, whose fire had burned but could not warm, and a bed of young blossoms lifted their heads to the touch of its beams.
Where the wood and the corn and the dried meat and fish had been heaped, a young tree was leafing, and a blue bird was trying its wings for a nest. And the great ice mountain had melted to a swift running river which sped through the valley bearing its message of the springtime.
Gau-wi-di-ne had passed his time, and Go-hay reigned over the earth!
NAMING THE WINDS
(Indian Legend)
Ga-oh the great master of the winds decided to choose his helpers from the animals of the earth. He blew a strong blast that shook the rocks and hills and when his reverberating call had ceased its thunderous echoes he opened the north gate wide across the sky and called Ya-o-gah, the Bear.
Lumbering over the mountains as he pushed them from his path, Ya-o-gah, the bulky bear, who had battled the boisterous winds as he came, took his place at Ga-oh’s gate and waited the mission of his call. Said Ga-oh, “Ya-o-gah, you are strong; you can freeze the waters with your cold breath; in your broad arms you can carry the wild tempests, and clasp the whole earth when I bid you destroy. I will place you in my far North, there to watch the herd of my winter winds when I loose them in the sky. You shall be North Wind. Enter your home.” And the bear lowered his head for the leash with which Ga-oh bound him, and submissively took his place in the north sky.