Cosmogonical and Culture Myths.--The Culture-hero, Michabo.--Myths from Lindstrom, Ettwein, Jasper Donkers, Zeisberger.--Native Symbolism.--The Saturnian Age.--Mohegan Cosmogony and Migration Myth. National Traditions.--Beatty's Account.--The Number Seven.--Heckewelder's Account.--Prehistoric Migrations.--Shawnee Legend.--Lenape Legend of the Naked Bear. _Cosmogonical and Culture Myths._ The Algonkins, as a stock, had a well developed creation-myth and a culture legend, found in more or less completeness in all their branches. Their culture hero, their ancestor and creator, he who made the earth and stocked it with animals, who taught them the arts of war and the chase, and gave them the Indian corn, beans and squashes, was generally called _Michabo_, The Great Light, but was also known among the Narragansetts of New England as _Wetucks_, The Common Father; among the Cree as _Wisakketjâk_, the Trickster; by the Chippeways as Nanabozho (_Nenâboj_), the Cheat; by the Black Feet as _Natose_, Our Father, or _Napiw_; and by the Micmacs and Penobscots as _Glus-Kap_, the Liar. I have given the details of this myth and analyzed them in previous works;[222] here it is sufficient to say that it is a Light-myth, and one of noble proportion and circumstance, quite worthy of comparison with those of the Oriental world. Traces of it are reported among the Lenape, and I doubt not that had we their ancient stories in their completeness, we should find that they had preserved it as wholly as the Chipeways. These related of their Nanabozho that he was the son of a maiden who had descended from heaven. She conceived without knowledge of man, and having given birth to twins, she disappeared. One of these twins was Nanabozho. Having formed the earth by his miraculous powers, and done many wonderful things, he disappeared toward the east, where he still dwells beyond the sunrise. It was undoubtedly a fragment of this legend that the Swedish engineer, Lindstrom heard among the Lenape, on the Delaware, about 1650. They told him, or rather he understood them, as follows:-- "Once, one of your women (_i.e._, a white woman) came among us, and she became pregnant, in consequence of drinking out of a creek; an Indian had connection with her, and she became pregnant, and brought forth a son, who, when he came to a certain size, was so sensible and clever, that there never was one who could be compared to him, so much and so well he spoke, which excited great wonder; he also performed many miracles. When he was quite grown up, he left us, and went up to heaven, and promised to come again, but has never returned."[223] This is but a mistranslation of the general Algonkin legend, in which the virgin mother bears a white and dark twin, the former of whom becomes the tribal culture hero and demiurgic deity.