In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

The Foundation of Epic: Bringing the Tales into an Epic Cycle The Winnebago hare shapes himself; as he shapes himself he is shaping the world of the people out of Grandmother Earth, and Grandmother Earth regularly chronicles the changes that Hare is himself undergoing. The storyteller records the origins and then the fall of humanity, the final differentiation of animals and the origin of death.25 The melancholy hero is born. The hare has to do with differentiation. The grandmother is the earth in the process of being shaped by Hare. As the hare shapes himself, he is shaping the world of the Winnebago out of Grandmother Earth, as she reflects Hare’s changes. Once he is shaped and the earth is shaped, he can be swallowed. The trickery and creation then continue, and result in the origin of menstruation. The fall of the trickster, regarding his power to order things and to pass that power on to humans, results because of the trickster’s blunders. There is a final differentiation of animals and the establishment of rituals, followed by the origin of death by Grandmother Earth; Hare weeps for his people; he establishes the medicine rite with the hope of a better life for the people, knowing, however , that they will nevertheless die. Part . Birth: The hare, conceived without sexual intercourse, is born after seven months. [Sometimes, he tears his mother to pieces during childbirth.] His mother dies, and his grandmother raises him. He is mischievous, and he keeps moving further from home. Parts , , ,  have to do with the bow and arrow:  3 The Winnebago Hare Part . Trickster Hare sees a man: the man seems weak to him, so he blows at him, but he cannot blow him over (this becomes a pattern). The man shoots Hare with an arrow; his grandmother removes it, calling the man Hare’s “uncle.” Part . Getting wood for arrows: Trickster Hare is fascinated by the arrow, but he cannot make it go. His grandmother will teach him. First, make a bow. Grandmother sends him for hickory, wood for making arrows. He gets poplar, but that is no good. Then she sends him for turkey feathers for the arrows, then for glue made from a fish. Trickster begins target practice. The grandmother identifies trees, etc., teaching him to make weapons for survival. Part . Getting feathers for arrows: one day, he goes for feathers, is carried off by an eagle to its nest. When the parents are gone, he kills four young eagles, takes their feathers, skins one and wears it, flying like an eagle to the earth. He puts the feathers into the hollow of a tree, sends his grandmother to get them, but a streak of lightning flashes from the feathers. Hare keeps sending her back. He refuses to give her one of the feathers, and from that time makes his own arrows. Part . Getting arrow-points: Hare’s grandmother instructs him to get tobacco from his first grandfather, and take that to the second grandfather to get arrow-points. The pattern here is that, as Hare nears the first grandfather, he makes himself very tall and keeps leaping closer to the grandfather, who keeps increasing the amount of tobacco he will give Hare. Finally, Hare scatters the grandfather’s tobacco over the ground (an etiological detail), and kills the grandfather, who turns out to be a grasshopper. He tells his grandmother. Following the story’s pattern, she curses the hare for killing her brother: “Oh, you ugly big-eyed creature, you must have killed my brother.” When Hare threatens her as well, she recants, says she is glad, as “he was withholding from your uncles the tobacco belonging to them . . . ,” stating in essence that Hare created tobacco for humans. Part . Getting arrow-points: now Hare goes to the second grandfather, who has the arrow-points at various points on his body. Following the pattern, Hare, again tall, leaps at him as formerly, and the grandfather gives him inferior points from his wrist and ankle. Then Hare clubs him, kills him, forcing him to scatter his flints over the earth (the Winnebago believe that arrowheads are found on the earth: an etiological detail). He takes the arrow-points home, and tells his grandmother. She curses Hare: “Oh, you ugly, big-eyed, big-eared creature, I hope you did not kill my brother.” He threatens her, she recants. When he presses an arrow, the lodge is filled with lightning. Part . Hare...

Share