Manabus

Manabus is the great culture-hero and transformer of Menominee tradition, the being through whom the present order of the world was shaped and the medicine lodge given to humankind. Grandson of the earth-grandmother Nokomis, he was reared by her after the early death of his mother. Acting as emissary of the benevolent Great Good Spirit, he rid the world of monsters, taught the arts of survival, and figures in a long cycle of tales that shade from solemn creation to broad trickster escapade. The pivotal episode of his career is the drowning of his younger brother, the Wolf, by the malevolent powers beneath the water; his four days of mourning and his war of vengeance bring on a world-flood, after which he refashions the earth from a grain of soil retrieved by the muskrat. To console him for his brother's death and to reconcile the powers above and below, the good spirits founded the Mitäwin medicine society and initiated Manabus as its first member, so that human beings might cure sickness and lengthen their lives. Sources differ in glossing his name, some connecting it with the Great Hare and others with light or dawn.

Domains

• creation transformation
• trickery
• medicine mide

Powers

• transforms his shape and the shape of the world
• founds the medicine lodge
• recreates the flooded earth

Epithets

• the Great Rabbit — epithet linking the culture-hero to the hareHoffman, W. J. (1896). The Menomini Indians. 14th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, p. 113. (secondary)

Relations

• sibling: The WolfThe Wolf is his younger brother.Hoffman, W. J. (1896). The Menomini Indians. 14th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, pp. 113-114. (secondary)
• companion: NokomisNokomis is his grandmother, who reared him and remains his constant guardian.Skinner, A. & Satterlee, J. V. (1915). Folklore of the Menomini Indians. AP-AMNH 13(3). (primary)
• ally: Kese-ManetōwActs as emissary and agent of the Great Good Spirit.Hoffman, W. J. (1896). The Menomini Indians. 14th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, pp. 87-89. (secondary)
• enemy: The Great White BearWars on the underground powers to avenge the Wolf.Hoffman, W. J. (1896). The Menomini Indians. 14th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, pp. 113-114. (secondary)
• enemy: The Underwater PantherSkinner, A. & Satterlee, J. V. (1915). Folklore of the Menomini Indians. AP-AMNH 13(3). (primary)
• enemy: MisikinubikSkinner, A. & Satterlee, J. V. (1915). Folklore of the Menomini Indians. AP-AMNH 13(3). (primary)

Sources

• Manabus is the Menominee culture-hero and transformer who founded the medicine lodge and recreated the earth after the flood.: Hoffman, W. J. (1896). The Menomini Indians. 14th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1892-93, pp. 66-70, 87-114. (secondary); Bloomfield, L. (1928). Menomini Texts. Publications of the American Ethnological Society 12. (primary)