[170-2] The orthography of Brebeuf is _aataentsic_. This may be analyzed as follows: root _aouen_, water; prefix _at_, _il y a quelque chose là dedans_; _ataouen_, _se baigner_; from which comes the form _ataouensere_. (See Bruyas, _Rad. Verb. Iroquæor._, pp. 30, 31.) Here again the mythological role of the moon as the goddess of water comes distinctly to light.
[171-1] This offers an instance of the uniformity which prevailed in symbolism in the New World. The Aztecs adored the goddess of water under the figure of a frog carved from a single emerald; or of human form, but holding in her hand the leaf of a water lily ornamented with frogs. (Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, i. p. 324.)
[171-2] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1636, p. 101.
[172-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1671, p. 17. Cusic spells it _Tarenyawagon_, and translates it Holder of the Heavens. But the name is evidently a compound of _garonhia_, sky, softened in the Onondaga dialect to _taronhia_ (see Gallatin's Vocabs. under the word sky), and _wagin_, I come.
[173-1] ~Ho Theos phôs esti~, The First Epistle General of John, i. 5. In curious analogy to these myths is that of the Eskimos of Greenland. In the beginning, they relate, were two brothers, one of whom said: "There shall be night and there shall be day, and men shall die, one after another." But the second said, "There shall be no day, but only night all the time, and men shall live forever." They had a long struggle, but here once more he who loved darkness rather than light was worsted, and the day triumphed. (_Nachrichten von Grönland aus einem Tagebuche vom Bischof Paul Egede_, p. 157: Kopenhagen, 1790. The date of the entry is 1738.)
[174-1] I accept without hesitation the derivation of this word, proposed and defended by that accomplished Algonkin scholar, the Rev. Eugene Vetromile, from _wanb_, white or east, and _naghi_ ancestors (_The Abnakis and their History_, p. 29: New York, 1866).
[174-2] White light, remarks Goethe, has in it something cheerful and ennobling; it possesses "eine heitere, muntere, sanft reizende Eigenschaft." _Farbenlehre_, sec's 766, 770.
[175-1] _Hist. of the N. Am. Indians_, p. 159.
[175-2] La Hontan, _Voy. dans l'Amér. Sept._, ii. p. 42.