Wîsahkêcâhk
Cree · demigod · myth age (sacred story / âtayôhkêwin time) · Recorded classification
Trickster-transformer/culture-hero classed 'demigod' per schema. Plains Cree SRO wîsahkêcâhk; widely Wesakechak/Wisahketchahk; the same Algonquian figure as Anishinaabe Nanabozho. English nickname 'Whiskey Jack' is a folk-etymology of the name. No standard attested gear, hence materialCulture [].
Domains
- trickery
- transformation
Powers
- remake the earth after the flood
- name the animals and fix their natures
- trick others and bungle his own schemes
- shifts his own shape and the shapes and natures of the animals at will
Epithets
- Wîsahkêcâhk The trickster-transformer and culture-hero who renews the flooded world on a muskrat’s scrap of earthCree oral tradition; Bloomfield, Sacred Stories of the Sweet Grass Cree (secondary)
- Whiskey Jack English folk-etymology of WîsahkêcâhkGrokipedia, 'Wisakedjak' (secondary)
Relations
- sibling: Wolf, the Trickster Younger Brother
Sources
- Wîsahkêcâhk is the Cree trickster-transformer and culture-hero who remakes the earth after the flood and shapes the animals, a benevolent friend of humankind.: Leonard Bloomfield, 'Sacred Stories of the Sweet Grass Cree,' National Museum of Canada Bulletin 60 (1930). (ethnography); Leonard Bloomfield, 'Plains Cree Texts,' American Ethnological Society 16 (1934). (ethnography)