Some of my favorite local stories are those of Nanabozho, "first man", a kind of trickster figure who is also an ally to humans. Depending on the tribe and locale, he is the son of Giizhis, the Sun, and an earth woman who died, or his father is Ningaabii'anong the West Wind. Nanabozho was raised by his Nokomis, his grandmother. We only tell Nanabozho stories when the goon (pronounced go-n, meaning snow) is on the ground. Otherwise it will be easier for him to come when he hears his name, and maybe prank you! His tales are used for humor, to explain the why of something, and sometimes as cautionary stories. One of my favorites:
One morning Nanabozho got to thinking how he hadn't seen his friends the Anishinaabe for quite a long while. He walked through the forest down to their camp by Kichi-Gami (Lake Superior). As he walked he was surprised that he didn't hear the children playing, the women singing, the men working on their hunting equipment, the elders telling their tales of the old days. No one was fishing or repairing the wiigwaas (birch) of the lodges. The village seemed deserted! At last he found the people, laying in the maple forest with their mouths open. They had made cuts into the aninaatigoog (maple trees) and were drinking the thick sweet syrup. "This won't do at all," he said to himself. So he gathered some wiigwaas makakoon (birch baskets) and filled them with water. To the tops of those maples he climbed, and he poured all that water down into the maple trunks to thin out the syrup. The people sat up, surprised that now they had only water! Nanabozho told them: "I had to do this because you are being lazy! From now on if you want the syrup, you must work hard and gather much, and boil it for a day." And that is why maple syrup requires so much labor.
http://www.native-languages.org/nanabozho.htm
