It was represented by the Great Hare, Manibozho, or Nanaboshu.
Do we not find his typical picture, with those great mule-tufts,
(referred to by Professor Winchell,) the hare-like ears, on this coin
of Illinois?
{p. 362}
Read what the Indians tell of this great being
"From the remotest wilds of the Northwest," says Dr. Brinton, "to the
coast of the Atlantic, from the southern boundaries of Carolina to
the cheerless swamps of Hudson's Bay, the Algonquins were never tired
of gathering around the winter fire and repeating the story of
Manibozho or Michabo, the _Great Hare_. With entire unanimity their
various branches, the Powhatans of Virginia, the Lenni-Lenape of the
Delaware, the warlike hordes of New England, the Ottawas of the far
North, and the Western tribes, perhaps without exception, spoke of
this 'chimerical beast,' as one of the old missionaries calls it as
_their common ancestor_. The totem or clan which bore his name was
looked up to with peculiar respect. . . .
"What he really was we must seek in the accounts of older travelers,
in the invocations of the _jossakeeds_ or prophets, and in the part
assigned to him in the solemn mysteries of religion.
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