by Sam Blowsnake
(308) Then again once while Thunder Cloud was sleeping, he dreamt. He met a man and he was a white looking man. (309) "Dressed in white buckskin, he was pleasant to look upon," he said. "My friend, it is not through mere chance that I have come to you," he said to him. A good deed you have done, and for this reason I am going to bless you," he said to him. "He is the one whom they call 'Nephew'," he thought. "Whatever you will say, if only you say it, as many of those who have not listened, all these will be confounded; and as many as listened, these at least will live. Just as they say how the one whom we call 'Nephew' denied reincarnation to the bad spirits, as many as there are, you will bring back as many as there are to these sorts who doubted your teachings," he said to him. And again they say one can be reincarnated if he fasts, and if he fasts a great deal, then certainly one of the various spirits will bless him. When the man (Thunder Cloud) finally died, the various ones who had blessed the ghost, those various spirits told him that he could go back there. He did well if he became human again. He could come back as a human being and live, they used to say.
Then again those who are called 'Giants' ('cannibals'), such as these blessed him, these Giants from across the sea. These Giants are said to be something very holy. They are said to be human beings. They are like human beings and they speak very much like us also, it is said. The Giants are holy it is said, (even though) it is told that they ate human beings. [1]
Commentary. "a white looking man" — the Hočąk is wąk skaižoné, which Radin translates as "looking very much like a white man." However, the term for a white man in the racial sense, is waxopinisga, "white spirit being." The man of the vision is compatible with being a white man in this sense, but he may also be a man whose appearance exemplifies the holiness symbolized by the color white.
"Nephew" — this is a reference to Hare, who refers to humanity as "my uncles and aunts." Inasmuch as he was the product of a virgin birth from a human female, all humans necessarily have this relationship to him. It is clear that Thunder Cloud believes that it is Hare who has come to him.
"you will bring back" — a reference to the practitioners of the new religion, the Peyote cult of Christianity (the Native American Church). Thunder Cloud was a prominent member of the Medicine Rite which was a competing religious system to the "Mescal Eaters." Hare (if that is who this spirit really is), is blessing Thunder Cloud with the power to win converts back to the old religion from among the Christians.
"it is told that they ate human beings" — Radin remarks that, "Every now and then the narrator [Sam Blowsnake] cannot refrain from making fun of the older beliefs, and this is especially the case when he speaks of mythological figures such as the cannibals [Giants]."
Stories: mentioning Thunder Cloud: Thunder Cloud Marries Again; featuring Hare as a character: The Hare Cycle, Medicine Rite Foundation Myth, The Necessity for Death, The Mission of the Five Sons of Earthmaker, Hare Acquires His Arrows, Hare Retrieves a Stolen Scalp, Hare Recruits Game Animals for Humans, Hare Kills Wildcat, The Messengers of Hare, Hare Secures the Creation Lodge, Hare Kills Flint, Hare Kills Sharp Elbow, Hare Visits His Grandfather Bear, Grandmother Packs the Bear Meat, Hare Visits the Bodiless Heads, Hare Visits the Blind Men, Hare Kills a Man with a Cane, Hare Burns His Buttocks, Hare Gets Swallowed, The Hill that Devoured Men and Animals, Hare Establishes Bear Hunting, Grandmother's Gifts, Hare and the Grasshoppers, The Spirit of Gambling, The Red Man, Maize Origin Myth, Hare Steals the Fish, The Animal who would Eat Men, The Gift of Shooting, Hare and the Dangerous Frog, The Coughing Up of the Black Hawks, The Animal Spirit Aids of the Medicine Rite, The Petition to Earthmaker; mentioning ghosts: The Journey to Spiritland, The Four Slumbers Origin Myth, The Resurrection of the Chief's Daughter, Holy One and His Brother, Worúxega, Little Human Head, Little Fox and the Ghost, Pete Dupeé and the Ghosts, The Lame Friend, Ghost Dance Origin Myth I, Ghost Dance Origin Myth II, Hare Steals the Fish, The Difficult Blessing, A Man's Revenge; about the journeys of ghosts to and from Spiritland: The Journey to Spiritland, The Four Slumbers Origin Myth, Ghost Dance Origin Myth II, The Resurrection of the Chief's Daughter, The Lame Friend, Ghost Dance Origin Myth I, Holy One and His Brother, Thunder Cloud is Blessed; featuring Giantsfeaturing Giants as characters: A Giant Visits His Daughter, Turtle and the Giant, The Stone Heart, Young Man Gambles Often, Spear Shaft and Lacrosse, Redhorn Contests the Giants, The Sons of Redhorn Find Their Father, Morning Star and His Friend, The Reincarnated Grizzly Bear, The Old Man and the Giants, Shakes the Earth, White Wolf, Redhorn's Father, The Hočągara Contest the Giants, The Roaster, Grandfather's Two Families, Redhorn's Sons, The Meteor Spirit and the Origin of Wampum, Little Human Head, Rich Man, Boy, and Horse, Sun and the Big Eater, The Big Eater, How the Thunders Met the Nights, The Origins of the Milky Way, Ocean Duck, The Blessing of a Bear Clansman, Wears White Feather on His Head, cf. The Shaggy Man; mentioning the Ocean Sea (Te Ją): Trickster's Adventures in the Ocean, Hare Retrieves a Stolen Scalp (v. 1), Otter Comes to the Medicine Rite, The Baldheaded Warclub Origin Myth, Trickster and the Children, The Twins Retrieve Red Star's Head, Wears White Feather on His Head, White Wolf, How the Thunders Met the Nights (Mąznį’ąbᵋra), Bear Clan Origin Myth (vv. 2a, 3), Wolf Clan Origin Myth (v. 2), Redhorn's Sons, Grandfather's Two Families, Sun and the Big Eater, The Journey to Spiritland (v. 4), The Sons of Redhorn Find Their Father (sea), The Dipper (sea), The Thunderbird (a very wide river), Wojijé, The Twins Get into Hot Water (v. 1), Redhorn's Father, Trickster Concludes His Mission, Berdache Origin Myth, Morning Star and His Friend, How the Hills and Valleys were Formed.
Themes: something is of a (symbolic) pure white color: White Bear, Deer Spirits, The Journey to Spiritland (v. 4), White Flower, Big Eagle Cave Mystery, The Fleetfooted Man, Thunderbird and White Horse, The Orphan who was Blessed with a Horse, Worúxega, The Two Boys, The Lost Blanket (white spirits), Skunk Origin Myth, He Who Eats the Stinking Part of the Deer Ankle, White Wolf, A Man and His Three Dogs, The Messengers of Hare, The Brown Squirrel, The Man Who Fell from the Sky, Bladder and His Brothers, White Thunder's Warpath, The Shell Anklets Origin Myth, The Dipper, Great Walker's Medicine (v. 2), Creation of the World (v. 12), Hare Secures the Creation Lodge, The Descent of the Drum, Tobacco Origin Myth (v. 5), The Diving Contest, Otter Comes to the Medicine Rite, The Arrows of the Medicine Rite Men, The Animal Spirit Aids of the Medicine Rite, Grandmother's Gifts, Four Steps of the Cougar, The Completion Song Origin, North Shakes His Gourd, Lifting Up the Bear Heads, Peace of Mind Regained; a spirit is quoted as he gives someone a blessing: Earthmaker Blesses Wagíšega (Wešgíšega), Traveler and the Thunderbird War, The Nightspirits Bless Jobenągiwįxka, Disease Giver Blesses Jobenągiwįxka, Eats the Stinking Part of the Deer Ankle, The Man Whose Wife was Captured, The Blessings of the Buffalo Spirits, The Boy who was Blessed by a Mountain Lion, Ghost Dance Origin Myth I, The Woman Who Fought the Bear, The Blessing of a Bear Clansman, Aračgéga's Blessings, The Girl who Refused a Blessing from the Wood Spirits, The Meteor Spirit and the Origin of Wampum, Great Walker's Medicine, Buffalo Dance Origin Myth, Thunderbird and White Horse, The Plant Blessing of Earth, The Completion Song Origin, The Man who was Blessed by the Sun, The Difficult Blessing, The Blessing of Šokeboka, A Waterspirit Blesses Mąnį́xete’ų́ga, Bow Meets Disease Giver, A Peyote Vision, The Healing Blessing; anthropophagy and cannibalism: A Giant Visits His Daughter, Turtle and the Giant, The Witch Men's Desert, The Were-Grizzly, Grandfather's Two Families, The Roaster, Redhorn's Father, Hawk Clan Origin Myth, The Lost Blanket, Young Man Gambles Often, White Wolf, The Shaggy Man, The Twins Get into Hot Water, Partridge's Older Brother, The First Fox and Sauk War, The Fox-Hočąk War, The Hočągara Contest the Giants, Morning Star and His Friend, Baldheaded Warclub Origin Myth, The Seven Maidens, Šųgepaga, The Reincarnated Grizzly Bear, The Woman who Loved Her Half-Brother, The Blessing of a Bear Clansman, Shakes the Earth, The Stone Heart.
Notes
[1] Paul Radin, Personal Reminiscences of a Winnebago Indian, Journal of American Folk-Lore, 26, #102 (1913): 293-318 (Sam Blowsnake narrative: 308-310). Informant: Sam Blowsnake, Thunderbird Clan.