The Thunderbird
Menominee · deity · Menominee traditional religion; continuing · deity
The Thunderbird, imagined as a great golden eagle, is the foremost of the Thunderers, the martial powers of the upper world whose wing-beats are thunder and whose glance is lightning. In the Menominee clan-origin the first Thunderbird descended at the summons of the ancestral bear to become his brother and the founding ancestor of the Thunder, or Eagle, phratry. As a class the Thunderers are the standing enemies of the horned underwater powers, whom they hunt with the lightning; this cosmic war between the beings of the sky and the beings beneath the water frames much of Menominee myth and ritual.
Domains
- sky thunder
- war
Powers
- hunts the underwater powers with lightning
Relations
- sibling: The Great White Bear
- enemy: The Underwater Panther
- enemy: Misikinubik