The Wolf
Menominee · numen · Menominee traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
The Wolf is the younger brother and inseparable companion of Manabus. In the central myth of the hero-cycle he is lured out upon the winter ice and dragged down and drowned by the malevolent underwater powers. After four days his shade returns to his grieving brother, but Manabus sends him away to the west, where he becomes ruler of the land of the dead and keeper of the fire that warms the souls of the departed as they travel the road of the setting sun. His death and translation to the underworld inaugurate human mortality and, indirectly, the founding of the medicine lodge, whose rites answer the death he was the first to suffer. Sources differ on whether the brother was a wolf from the first or a youth who took wolf form.
Domains
- death
- underworld
Powers
- rules the land of the dead
Relations
- sibling: ManabusYounger brother and companion of Manabus.Hoffman, W. J. (1896). The Menomini Indians. 14th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, pp. 113-114. (secondary)
Sources
- The Wolf, younger brother of Manabus, is drowned by the underwater powers and becomes ruler of the land of the dead, inaugurating human mortality.: Hoffman, W. J. (1896). The Menomini Indians. 14th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, pp. 113-114. (secondary); Skinner, A. & Satterlee, J. V. (1915). Folklore of the Menomini Indians. AP-AMNH 13(3). (primary)