5 sections of this entry are open to everyone: the summary, the people, the symbols, the lineage and the sources. The other 9 (Name and epithets, In the ancient sources, The myths, Worship and archaeology, How the god was depicted, What scholars debate, After antiquity, Did you know?, Codex relic) are part of the full Codex: PRO opens the whole study of all 500 deities, and without a subscription you can read one full entry a day, just like in the app.
These spirits and deities were worshipped by the many Native peoples of North America, from the Lakota to the Navajo and Iroquois. Their beliefs bind humans to the Great Spirit, to totem animals, and to balance with the land. Passed down orally, they survive in the Indigenous nations that endured colonization.
The Sun Dance gathered the Plains nations in fasting and sacrifice around the sacred tree. The Hopi dance with the kachinas, masked spirits of the rains, and the sacred pipe seals prayers and treaties — ceremonies still alive in today's nations.
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At a glance
Nanabozho (also spelled Nenaboozhoo, Nanabush, Manabozho, or Mänäbusch) is the central mythical figure, culture hero, and demiurge in the cosmology of the Anishinaabeg peoples (including the Ojibwe/Chippewa, Odawa, and Potawatomi), as well as neighboring Algonquian-speaking nations such as the Menominee. Born of a mortal mother and the West Wind, and reared by his grandmother Nokomis (the Earth), Nanabozho is not conceived as a detached or omnipotent supreme deity, but as a dual-natured intermediary: simultaneously a benevolent instructor, fearless hunter, comical trickster, and ecological transformer. In oral traditions documented by ethnologists and linguists such as Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Walter James Hoffman, and William Jones, Nanabozho is credited with reconstructing the terrestrial world following the great primordial flood via the earth-diver motif, stealing fire to shield humanity from winter frosts, naming and modifying the animals of the boreal forests, and mediating the sacred medical and spiritual mysteries of the Midewiwin (Grand Medicine Society).
6 min read · Reviewed on September 29, 2026 · How we research
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Sacred symbols
The hare, the floodwater, the muskrat and the medicinal plants
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Family
Parents
Winonah (Wenonah, primordial mortal woman, daughter of grandmother Nokomis)E-bangishimog (Epangishimog / Mudjekeewis, the Spirit of the West Wind)
Siblings
Chibiabos (Jiibayaabooz, the Spirit Hare/Wolf, beloved brother slain by underwater manitous and established as ruler of the spirit realm)Chakekenapok (Flint, whose birth caused their mother's death and whose bones were transformed into stone and arrowheads)Wabun (East Wind), Shawondasee (South Wind), and Kabibonokka (North Wind), wind spirits begotten by the West Wind
Nanabozho
Genealogy according to Walter James Hoffman, The Midēwiwin or 'Grand Medicine Society' of the Ojibwa (1891, pp. 166–175); William Jones, Ojibwa Texts (1917, pp. 1–250); Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Algic Researches (1839, vol. 1, pp. 134–174); Basil Johnston, Ojibway Heritage (1976, pp. 15–23)
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Sources and further reading
Primary sources
Hoffman, Walter James, The Midēwiwin, or 'Grand Medicine Society' of the Ojibwa (Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology). translation: Washington: Government Printing Office, 1891. read
Jones, William, Ojibwa Texts (Publications of the American Ethnological Society, Vol. VII, Part I: Nanabushu Tales, ed. Truman Michelson). translation: Leyden: E. J. Brill; New York: G. E. Stechert & Co., 1917. read
Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe, Algic Researches, Comprising Inquiries Respecting the Mental Characteristics of the North American Indians (Vol. I & II). translation: New York: Harper & Brothers, 1839. read
Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe, The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians. translation: Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1856. read
Studies
Johnston, Basil, Ojibway Heritage. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1976. open
Name and epithets
In standardized Ojibwe orthography, the name is written Nenaboozhoo (or Nanabozho). Algonquian linguists and ethnologists have examined its etymology extensively.
In the ancient sources
The Midēwiwin, or 'Grand Medicine Society' of the Ojibwa, 1891 CE. Walter James Hoffman provides foundational recordings of Mide ritual songs and birchbark scroll interpretations outlining Nanabozho's reception of herba…
The myths
The Earth-Diver and the Recreation of the World. In sacred accounts preserved by Hoffman and Jones, a devastating deluge inundated the earth following a fierce confrontation between Nanabozho and the malicious underwate…
Worship and archaeology
Unlike deities of Mediterranean or state polytheisms, Nanabozho was not served by a dedicated priesthood or institutional stone temples.
How the god was depicted
In sacred Mide birchbark scrolls and historical sketches compiled by Hoffman, Nanabozho is depicted through stylized line engravings: either as an anthropomorphic practitioner holding a sacred gourd rattle and an otter-…
What scholars debate
. Academic scholarship has focused on two prominent debates concerning Nanabozho. First is the nineteenth-century conflation initiated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem 'The Song of Hiawatha' (1855).
After antiquity
In modern Indigenous literature and drama across Canada and the United States, Nanabush/Nanabozho has been celebrated as a vibrant symbol of cultural persistence and decolonial expression.
Did you know?
Numerous geological landforms surrounding Lake Superior are connected in local lore to Nanabozho's mythical adventures, including rocks described as his beaver traps or stone kettle shards.
Codex relic
Handful of Earth. The grain of earth brought up from the bottom of the waters, with which he remade the world after the great flood.
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