Culture Hero and Transformer - Nanabozho

ANISHINABE (Ojibwe)

('AnishinaAbe' Means: "From Whence He Was Lowered")
Culture Hero/Transformer: Nanabush (or Nanabozho).

This supernatural hero had a central place in Anishinabe beliefs. Nanabush organized the earth out of chaos. You see in the beginning Gehi Mnidoo (Kitchi Manitou - Great Spirit) had a powerful dream and out of that dream came the mountains, rivers, land, water, plant world and animals. Unfortunately the world as it was in the beginning was tumbled into chaos. Something had to be done.

Grandfather Sun lit the earth and caused things to grow in the bosom of Mother Earth. The water cleaned and purified, the great winds offered the breath of life and brought great change to the world. The humans the gift of dreams was given. But, they were not yet formed in a manner that they knew what to do with them. So, Kitchi Manitou sent a great teacher, Nanabush.

He was the son of the West Wind and the great grandson of the Moon. He was sent by Gehi Mnidoo to teach the Ojibwa and one of his first jobs was to name all the plants, animals. He taught the Ojibwa to fish. He also was given unique powers to help organize the world out of the chaos. Like all Culture Hero's, he was a shapeshifter, and one of his favourite guises was as Mishabooz (Great Rabbit).

Nanabush's mother died at his birth, and he was raised by his grandmother, Nokomis. Throughout his life he did many good things, and sometimes he employed subterfuge to get the job done. In this respect he was quite human using all aspects of his mental, physical, spiritual and emotional self to help put the world in order.

I found this account of Nanabozho on Shannon Thunderbirds website. Here is the link.

http://www.shannonthunderbird.com/tribal_beliefs.htm

Here is some interesting background information from Shannons site...

Some Native peoples worshiped an all-powerful, all-knowing Creator or "Master Spirit", a being that assumed a variety of forms and both genders. This concept came to be more widely accepted in post-European contact history when Native people were exposed to Christianity and its idea of a Supreme Male Being. The idea of a "Creator" was introduced, but tribal societies would not go so far as to 'gender' this entity, therefore Creator is neither male or female."