The Great White Bear is the paramount power of the world beneath the earth and, in the Menominee origin tradition, the mythical first ancestor of the nation. In the clan legend a great light-colored bear emerged from the ground at the mouth of the Menominee River and was transformed into the first man, founder of the Bear phratry; seeing a golden eagle overhead, he called it down to become his brother and the founder of the Thunderbird phratry. As chief of the underground powers the same being appears in a darker aspect, ranged among the horned, copper-tailed water-monsters whom Manabus wars upon to avenge his drowned brother. Sources connect, and sometimes distinguish, the benevolent ancestral bear and the dread underground bear-chief.