Hare

Hare (Wašjįgega, 'the Hare') is the great culture-hero of the Ho-Chunk and the fifth and last of the saving spirits Earthmaker sent to earth. Born to live among human beings, whom he calls his 'aunts and uncles', he conquered the bad spirits and monsters that had preyed on humanity and remade the world so that it would be survivable. When he tried to win everlasting life for people, his Grandmother — the Earth herself — explained that death had been ordained to prevent overcrowding; Hare then loosed death into the world by accident, but made amends by founding the Medicine Rite (the Medicine Lodge), through whose ritual discipline its members might attain a fullness of life and a measure of immortality. Earthmaker set Hare in charge of this earth, and his deeds are recorded in the Hare Cycle and in the Medicine Rite drama Radin published as *The Road of Life and Death*. The Winnebago carefully distinguish Hare, the benevolent world-shaper, from Trickster.

Domains

• culture hero
• medicine
• death
• protection

Powers

• Monster-slaying

Epithets

• Wašjįgega Ho-Chunk · Wasjingega · namethe HarePaul Radin, The Winnebago Tribe (1923) (secondary)

Relations

• created by: EarthmakerThe fifth and last of the saving spirits Earthmaker fashioned; Earthmaker placed him in charge of this earth.Radin, Winnebago Hero Cycles (1948); Dieterle, Encyclopedia of Hočąk Mythology, 'The Hare Cycle' (secondary)

Sources

• existence: Paul Radin, Winnebago Hero Cycles: A Study in Aboriginal Literature (1948) (secondary); Paul Radin, The Road of Life and Death (1945) (secondary); Richard L. Dieterle, Encyclopedia of Hočąk Mythology, 'The Hare Cycle' (secondary)