Nana'b'oozoo

The last-born son of Winonah, Nana’b’oozoo is also the child that she (first) died giving birth to. Though he is a son of Ae-pungishimook, his father never came to visit or teach him the way he did with the other sons. Only his nookomis, Geezhigo-Quae, was there to raise him. Though he grew quickly to be a man, without the direction of a mother and father, his demeanor and perception of the World remained someone childlike and selfish. He wanted to be beloved of the people, and already had great power, but emotionally was given to extremes, and would never allow anyone to teach him anything. As a result, though he is always trying hard to do the good thing, he is often impeded by his failings. Besieged by bouts of laziness, cowardice, rage, and hunger he is easily distracted and often stumbles into more than his fair share of trouble. While he fashions himself a mighty warrior and hunter, he winds up more often than not a lucky fool. He discovered and cultivated many great powers which, of course, made his fumbling and successes greater by an order of magnitude. The people recognize him as a champion, however, and they also recognize that he is a Manitou, and Manitou can be a bit unstable by human terms.

There was a rumor going around that said that Nana’b’oozoo got into a canoe one day with Geezhigo-Quae and left the World. He was frustrated with the people’s lack of acceptance of him and their tendency to laugh and ridicule his foolishness. Yet, he noticed, they were quick to accept the strange ways of the newer pantheons. Of course, he failed to acknowledge that people were still sore about the whole “inciting riots and making the creator flood everything” incident, maintaining “That wasn’t me, it was that other asshole, Wisakedjak.”

The rumor was that he was going to stay away until the people missed him, apologized, and were ready to accept him. Of course, the only one spreading the rumor was Nana’b’oozoo, and when people realized it was yet another one of his schemes they just started ignoring him. Nana’b’oozoo has always been short on patience, however, and when no one cried over his absence he started quietly looking for ways to come back but didn’t want to lose face. He discovered social media in the modern World, and his Incarnations invariably become a socialmedia celebrity. His video channel alone is pretty popular, and he has millions of followers across various platforms. The fact that many people are laughing at him while he speaks his mind on World politics or his burlesque performances (which are very good, apropos of nothing) doesn’t seem to bother him much. As far as he’s concerned, he now has thousands of friends, and even if they’re laughing at him it’s a short trip to laughing with him. The downside is that Pukawiss’ Incarnations troll his brother’s pages something fierce. He downvotes all of Nana’b’oozoo’s videos and regularly reports his pages to be fake. Some folks subscribe and follow him just to watch the epic rages to which Nana’b’oozoo can be pushed by his brother. Every now and then someone tries to be as witty as Pukawiss on Nana’b’oozoo’s posts, and that usually doesn’t go well for them.

Nana’b’oozoo’s Scions find that they have their father’s knack for bumbling their way into and out of trouble. Luckily for them, Nana’b’oozoo is nothing but attentive to his Scions. He wants to make sure that he is around as a dad in some form for them.

Wisakedjak
At some point Nana’b’oozoo had a really bad day, and the Mantle known as Wisakedjak came to be. Wisakedjak is associated with many, if not most, of the same stories as Nana’b’oozoo, but he’s always been considerably more troublesome. While Nana’b’oozoo tends to be a lovable and kind-hearted fool and collaborative trickster, Wisakedjak, on occasion, starts trouble just to see what will go down. He’s often sorry when it goes bad, but the deed has already been done, and he sometimes moves to fix it but just as often runs away. Then there was that one great flood incident, which he is, again, really sorry about. The chief difference between the two is that Nana’b’oozoo is trickster who grows alongside humanity, teaching them to avoid mistakes by making them himself. Wisakedjak is a trickster in the more European model — he will punish and inflict savage lessons, which can be fatal if the learner doesn’t adapt.