KABIBONOKKA.

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To the fierce Kabibonokka, Mudjekeewis gave the cold and cruel north wind. He lives far away toward the north in the regions of ice and snow. In the autumn and winter he comes out from his home, and travels toward the south.

He stamps upon the rivers, and the waters freeze. Frost pictures appear upon the windowpanes, the birds fly southward, and no one remains in the kingdom of the north wind but the Diver. This brave Diver cares not for the cold or for the stormy north wind. He sits in his wigwam, merry and warm; for he has four great logs for his fire, and each log will last a month. Kabibonokka enters the wigwam, but cannot stand the heat, and so taunts the Diver and dares him to a combat in the open air. Long they fight; but at length the Diver conquers, and the cold and fierce Kabibonokka is driven back into his kingdom of the north.

The Diver is the glorious sun, who, with his warm golden beams, beats back the cold, and brings the pleasant summer with the birds and flowers.

“But the fierce Kabibonokka
Had his dwelling among icebergs,
In the everlasting snowdrifts,
In the kingdom of Wabasso,
In the land of the White Rabbit.
He it was whose hand in Autumn
Painted all the trees with scarlet,
Stained the leaves with red and yellow;
He it was who sent the snowflakes,
Sifting, hissing, through the forest,
Froze the ponds, the lakes, the rivers,
Drove the loon and sea gull southward,
Drove the cormorant and curlew
To their nests of sedge and sea tang
In the realms of Shawondasee.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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