CHAPTER VIII.
INDIAN LEGENDS AND TRADITIONS.
Potawatomi Legends.
Potawatomi theology - A good spirit and a bad - The creation legend - Warfare of Nanaboojoo and the manitous - The bridge of the dead - The prophet Keokuk and his new religion - The Potawatomies and their territory-Indians sober and drunk-Story of the Piasa bird - Burial customs - The giving of feasts - Story of a father's vengeance.
St. Louis University, January io, 1847.
Very Reverend and Dear Father Provincial)
GREEABLY to my promise, I send you the account given by the Potawatomies, residing at Council Bluffs, respecting their own origin, and the causes which gave rise to their " great medicine " and juggling, considered by them as of the highest antiquity. Such superstitions, indeed, are found to exist among all the tribes of the American continent, differing only in the form and the accompanying cere
monies. The Nanaboojoo, or Nanabush, of the Potawatomies, the Wieska, of the Ojibwas, the Wizakeshak,2 of the Crees, the Sauteux and the Blackfeet, the Etalapasse of the Chinooks on the coast of the Pacific, can, among these different tribes, be traced up to the same personage.
I send it verbatim, as it was communicated to me by Potogojecs, one of the most intelligent chiefs of the Potawatomi nation. Though fabulous, it is not entirely devoid
1 Legend of the Potawatomi Indians as related in a letter to the Father Provincial, dated St. Louis, January 1o, 1847. Published as Letters XXV, Oregon Missions, XXVII, Missions de 1'Origon. The English text is followed here.
2 Page 525.