vovat | Winter Games Are for the Birds

Depending on your heritage and belief system, happy second day of Christmas, Boxing Day, St. Stephen's Day, first day of Kwanzaa,

slfcllednowhere's birthday, and/or last Saturday of the year! Many happy returns of the day and turtle doves!

Different mythologies have different explanations for the changing of the seasons, and I'm thinking I'll probably get into Persephone and her pomegranate seeds pretty soon. Today, however, we're going to be looking at a legend told by the North American Ojibwe tribe. When I was a kid, my mom brought back a book of Ojibwe stories from Canada, and the one I remember best is the tale of the origin of winter. You can read the story here, but I'm also going to summarize it here. Basically, there was a loon who loved to play lacrosse, and annoyed all the other birds by constantly asking them to play when they weren't interested. The loon, whose name was Mong, was able to convince the hawk Kaikaik to play a match against him; but only if Kaikaik could get whatever he wanted if his team was victorious. When Kaikaik's team eventually did win, his demand was that the north wind would bring cold weather every year, and Mong and his fellows would have to fly south until it abated. I'm not sure exactly how Kaikaik was able to totally alter the climate, and it seems a bit harsh for him to punish pretty much all animals because he was annoyed at a lacrosse-obsessed loon, but there you go. Oh, and apparently Kaikaik's team even had its own logo.