We have a nursery tale, of which children never weary, of a little boy
visiting a bear house and holding intercourse with them on terms as free
as Muckwa did. So, perhaps, the child of Norman-Saxon blood, no less
than the Indian, finds some pulse of the Orson in his veins.
As they loved to draw the lower forms of nature up to them, divining
their histories, and imitating their ways, in their wild dances and
paintings; even so did they love to look upward and people the
atmosphere that enfolds the earth, with fairies and manitoes. The
sister, obliged to leave her brother on the earth, bids him look up at
evening, and he will see her painting her face in the west.
All places, distinguished in any way by nature, aroused the feelings of
worship, which, however ignorant, are always elevating. See as instances
in this kind, the stories of Nanabojou, and the Winnebago Prince, at the
falls of St. Anthony.
As with the Greeks, beautiful legends grow up which express the aspects
of various localities. From the distant sand-banks in the lakes,
glittering in the sun, come stories of enchantresses combing, on the
shore, the long golden hair of a beautiful daughter. The Lorelei of the
Rhine, with her syren song, and the sad events that follow, is found on
the lonely rocks of Lake Superior.
The story to which I now refer, may be found in a book called Life on
the Lakes, or, a Trip to the Pictured Rocks. There are two which purport
to be Indian tales; one is simply a romantic narrative, connected with a
spot at Mackinaw, called Robinson's Folly.
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