Nanabozho, also called Nanabush, is the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi) culture hero and trickster, the Great Rabbit, who survives the flood and sends the animals to dive for earth, names the plants and animals, and teaches the people by his mistakes. The stories were recorded by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft in Algic Researches (1839), and Longfellow used them, with the name changed to Hiawatha, in The Song of Hiawatha (1855), which is a misattribution. Nanabozho is a manitou and a culture hero, not a deity to be worshipped, and he is distinct from the Cree Wisakedjak and the Wabanaki Glooscap. In Anishinaabe practice the stories are told in winter.
Modern Practice
Nanabozho is kept in the winter stories, and the practice is the telling, the listening and the learning from his mistakes. Tobacco and food shared are the offering, and the story is told when the snow is on the ground. He is not invoked for favours, and the stories are not a children's entertainment.