Seneca Myths and Folk Tales

V Boys Who Defied Magic and Overcame It

9. Origin of Folk Stories

There was once a boy who had no home. His parents were dead and his uncles would not care for him. In order to live this boy, whose name was Gaqka, or Crow, made a bower of branches for an abiding place and hunted birds and squirrels for food.

He had almost no clothing but was very ragged and dirty. When the people from the village saw him they called him Filth-Covered-One, and laughed as they passed by, holding their noses. No one thought he would ever amount to anything, which made him feel heavy-hearted. He resolved to go away from his tormentors and become a great hunter.

One night Gaqka found a canoe. He had never seen this canoe before, so he took it. Stepping in he grasped the paddle, when the canoe immediately shot into the air, and he paddled above the clouds and under the moon. For a long time he went always southward. Finally the canoe dropped into a river and then Gaqka paddled for shore.

On the other side of the river was a great cliff that had a face that looked like a man. It was at the forks of the river where this cliff stood. The boy resolved to make his home on the top of the cliff and so climbed it and built a bark cabin.

The first night he sat on the edge of the cliff he heard a voice saying, “Give me some tobacco.” Looking around the boy, seeing no one, replied, “Why should I give tobacco?”

There was no answer and the boy began to fix his arrows for the next day’s hunt. After a while the voice spoke again, “Give me some tobacco.”

Gaqka now took out some tobacco and threw it over the cliff. The voice spoke again: “Now I will tell you a story.”

Feeling greatly awed the boy listened to a story that seemed to come directly out of the rock upon which he was sitting. Finally the voice paused, for the story had ended. Then it spoke again saying, “It shall be the custom hereafter to present me with a small gift for my stories.” So the boy gave the rock a few bone beads. Then the rock said, “Hereafter when I speak, announcing that I shall tell a story you must say, ‘Nio,’ and as I speak you must say ‘Hĕⁿ‘´,’ that I may know that you are listening. You must never fall asleep but continue to listen until I say ‘Dā´neho nigagā´is.’ (So thus finished is the length of my story). Then you shall give me presents and I shall be satisfied.”

The next day the boy hunted and killed a great many birds. These he made into soup and roasts. He skinned the birds and saved the skins, keeping them in a bag.

That evening the boy sat on the rock again and looked westward at the sinking sun. He wondered if his friend would speak again. While waiting he chipped some new arrow-points, and made them very small so that he could use them in a blow gun. Suddenly, as he worked, he heard the voice again. “Give me some tobacco to smoke,” it said. Gaqka threw a pinch of tobacco over the cliff and the voice said, “Hau’nio’´,” and commenced a story. Long into the night one wonderful tale after another flowed from the rock, until it called out, “So thus finished is the length of my story.” Gaqka was sorry to have the stories ended but he gave the rock an awl made from a bird’s leg and a pinch of tobacco.

The next day the boy hunted far to the east and there found a village. Nobody knew who he was but he soon found many friends. There were some hunters who offered to teach him how to kill big game, and these went with him to his own camp on the high rock. At night he allowed them to listen to the stories that came forth from the rock, but it would speak only when Gaqka was present. He therefore had many friends with whom to hunt.

Now after a time Gaqka made a new suit of clothing from deer skin and desired to obtain a decorated pouch. He, therefore, went to the village and found one house where there were two daughters living with an old mother. He asked that a pouch be made and the youngest daughter spoke up and said, “It is now finished. I have been waiting for you to come for it.” So she gave him a handsome pouch.

Then the old mother spoke, saying, “I now perceive that my future son-in-law has passed through the door and is here.” Soon thereafter, the younger woman brought Gaqka a basket of bread and said, “My mother greatly desires that you should marry me.” Gaqka looked at the girl and was satisfied, and ate the bread. The older daughter was greatly displeased and frowned in an evil manner.

That night the bride said to her husband, “We must now go away. My older sister will kill you for she is jealous.” So Gaqka arose and took his bride to his own lodge. Soon the rock spoke and began to relate wonder stories of things that happened in the old days. The bride was not surprised, but said, “This standing rock, indeed, is my grandfather. I will now present you with a pouch into which you must put a trophy for every tale related.”

All winter long the young couple stayed in the lodge on the great rock and heard all the wonder tales of the old days. Gaqka’s bag was full of stories and he knew all the lore of former times.

As springtime came the bride said, “We must now go north to your own people and you shall become a great man.” But Gaqka was sad and said, “Alas, in my own country I am an outcast and called by an unpleasant name.”

The bride only laughed, saying, “Nevertheless we shall go north.”

Taking their pelts and birdskins, the young couple descended the cliff and seated themselves in the canoe. “This is my canoe,” said the bride. “I sent it through the air to you.”

The bride seated herself in the bow of the canoe and Gaqka in the stern. Grasping a paddle he swept it through the water, but soon the canoe arose and went through the air. Meanwhile the bride was singing all kinds of songs, which Gaqka learned as he paddled.

When they reached the north, the bride said, “Now I shall remove your clothing and take all the scars from your face and body.” She then caused him to pass through a hollow log, and when Gaqka emerged from the other end he was dressed in the finest clothing and was a handsome man.

Together the two walked to the village where the people came out to see them. After a while Gaqka said, “I am the boy whom you once were accustomed to call ‘Cia’´dōdă’.’ I have now returned.” That night the people of the village gathered around and listened to the tales he told, and he instructed them to give him small presents and tobacco. He would plunge his hand in his pouch and take out a trophy, saying, “Ho ho’! So here is another one!” and then looking at his trophy would relate an ancient tale.

Everybody now thought Gaqka a great man and listened to his stories. He was the first man to find out all about the adventures of the old-time people. That is why there are so many legends now.

10. The Forbidden Arrow and the Quilt of Men’s Eyes20

Now (it seems), there were twin brothers one named Younger and the other Driven. The brothers were accustomed to play about two hills. Driven would go up one hill and jump to the summit of the other. Younger would stay in the valley between and amuse himself by shooting arrows at him as he jumped. Now as Driven jumped Younger sang a song:

“Ha-do-wi, Ha-do-wi, Ha-do-wi, Ha-do-wi,
O-ne-di-no-o-ha-ga-gon Ha-do-wi!”

Now their grandmother always forbade them to use a certain arrow. This arrow belonged to their father who used it. They played day after day in this manner. After some time they began to discuss among themselves why it was that their grandmother had forbidden them to use the arrow. Then they decided notwithstanding to use the arrow. So Driven ascended the hill and made ready to jump. Then Younger fixed his arrow ready to shoot. Then Driven jumped and Younger shot the arrow. Now an arrow never before had struck Driven as he jumped but this forbidden arrow pierced his body and carried him in a northward direction. Now as he flew with the arrow the arrow sang,

“Gwent-gwe-o, gwent-gwe-o, gwent-gwe-o!”

because it was feathered with the feathers of a wild duck. When Younger saw what calamity his arrow had wrought he gave a scream of alarm and started off in the direction of the arrow. He ran a long distance and after some time found the body of his brother transfixed to the earth with the arrow. He was not dead so he lifted him up and placed him on his back. Then Driven directed him to follow a northward road.

“There is a house a certain distance away,” said Driven, “where a number of women are gathered dancing. We must pass this house but we must not look upon them. Oh brother, cast not your eyes upon one of them!”

Now as they passed along they heard the women singing. They heard the echo of the songs and the sound of dancing. Soon they came near the house and the women saw them and called out inviting them to look up and see them. “Oh what have you on your back? Look up and behold us!” Now Younger did not look up nor did he make reply for he knew that the women were witches and that one glance of their eyes would be fatal to him. So when he passed by he kept his eyes directed to the ground and stooped over. So then they were safe.

Now again the brother spoke and said, “There is yet one more danger and it is the last. It may be fatal. A company of women is making a quilt of young men’s eyes. They gouge out the eyes of young men and sew them into a blanket (quilt). Now the eyes live and wink as in life for the skin of the eyelids are with the eyes. Now we must pass through their lodge and if we can do so without looking at the awful quilt we will be safe then.”

Now the lodge was a long one and when the two brothers entered the women saw them and said, “Bend not so low. Look up and see the beautiful quilt we are making. It is beautiful. What is it that you have upon your back? Look up!” Younger gave no heed to the words of the women but continued through the room. They were about to emerge from the door at the back when one woman held the quilt before the eyes of Younger. She held it where he saw it. Then Younger saw no more. He was blind and he had no eyes in his eye-sockets; they had jumped out and into the quilt. Driven leaped from his back and jumped out of the door. He did not know where Driven went.

Now Younger could not see, so he crept on his hands and knees. He crept a long ways and after a time he came to a place where corn was planted. There he halted for he thought that some one would surely notice him when they came to examine the corn. So he lay down there, and there he lay day after day. After a long time he heard the sound of a woman’s voice singing. And soon the woman saw him and was surprised to find a man in the field. She ran home to her sister and told her that a man was in the field and that he had no eyes in his eye-sockets. He was a human being, blind and alive. His eye-sockets were hollow. Then the older sister said, “We must not leave a human being in distress. We must take him into our house and nurse him to health. He will be a companion for us. We are alone.” So they went and found him and brought him to their house. They cleansed him and fed him on bear’s oil, for he had not eaten for a long time. Afterwards he was given stronger food. They gave him nourishment until he was stronger. After a time he grew strong and then they asked him how he came to be in so bad a condition. So he related how it happened.

“I was passing through a house,” he said, “and there were women within making a quilt of young men’s eyes. They put the quilt under my face and I saw and then I became blind. My brother was on my back for an arrow was through him. He disappeared. I know not where my brother is. So did the accident happen.”

Now Younger recovered his strength and then the older sister said, “You must marry my younger sister and live here as our companion.” So he consented and married the younger sister.

Now it appeared that after a certain time his wife gave birth to twins, boys. The older one they named Hanonni-da, meaning, he is a thistle, and the younger one they called Ho-da-da-o meaning, he cries. At the time of their birth the older sister called out their names and tossed them into the adjoining room. Then she told the husband that he was the father of twins and he gave thanks. Now the children seemed to be wizards. They did not suckle but played alone together in the room. No one talked to them but they talked. After a time they asked for a net ball that they might play lacrosse. So a net, a net-club and ball were brought to them. Then they played lacrosse in the room. Then they went out doors and played and again they went into the ground under the house and played. After a time they asked for bows and arrows. Then they went away for long periods of time, no one knew where. After a time the older sister brought them into the living room and said, “It is time for you to see your father.” So they said, “We will see our father.” Then the father felt over them for the first time and touched them. They climbed over his lap and played with him. After a time they began to laugh at him and the Last said, “How can he be my father since he has no eyes? I believe that he is not my father.” Then he asked his father, “Where are your eyes?” Then the father answered him, “In a certain place there are women making a quilt from young men’s eyes. Once I had to pass through their house and I would not look upon the quilt but they forced it under my face and that was the last that I saw. My brother was on my back and he jumped. Now I know not where my brother is. He has gone from me.” The Last replied, “Father, we will go there and get back your eyes.” But the older folk said, “Do not try, the women are horrible witches and we would lose you. We forbid you to go. So do not go.” So the boys went out and played together.

The two sisters went out after a time to get provisions and the father was left alone with the boys. He heard them talking together. It was strange and he did not understand them. “Hang on, hang on,” they were saying. “Hang on and after a time we will reach where father is and he will help us.” So they talked and pulled and called out each other’s names. Now it happened that they took their father by the hand and placed upon him the body of a human being. They had pulled it up through the ground. Now the body of the man they had, had an arrow in his chest. Also he had no eyes in his eye-sockets and he was nearly dead. The man was the father’s brother. Then the children said, “We will go and borrow some eyes for you that you may look upon each other.” So they went into the forest and when they had found a fawn they asked if she would give her consent if they should ask for her eyes to put in their father’s eye-sockets. The fawn consented when she heard their story and gave them her eyes. So they gave her moss to eat while they were gone. They went home with the fawn’s eyes and placed them in the father’s eye-sockets. Then he saw how his children looked and he was glad. So, moreover, they saw how he appeared when he had eyes in his eye-sockets. And they said, “Father, how long your eyelashes are!” for the fawn’s eyelashes were long. Now also the father saw his brother and was glad that it was he. Then said the boys, “We are now going in search of both of your eyes and you will have a joyous time.” Then they took the eyes of the fawn and carried them back to her and thanked her for their use.

Now they went on their journey to the place where their father had told them the house of the women quilting was. After a time they found it. Now on their way they had been discussing their plans. They decided to hide at the spring. Last was to transform himself into a duck and Thistle-like was to wait in hiding. They reached the spring and the younger brother changed himself into a duck and swam upon the surface of the spring. The older brother hid himself. Now after a time the youngest sister from the house came down to the spring for water and saw a duck swimming in the spring. So she tried to catch him but the duck dodged whenever she tried to grasp him. Then as she jumped over the spring the duck entered her body. Then she went home and the old woman of the house said, “Daughter you look as if you would soon have a child. It must be by the Creator for no man has passed this way.” So after a short time the daughter gave birth to a boy and the mother said, “It must be the gift of the Creator for no man has passed by.” Now the child would cry and would only be pacified when some valuable object was shown him. But soon again he would cry and they would show him another treasure. Now he began to cry very hard and nothing would pacify him, not even all their valued treasures. So the old woman said, perhaps the quilt of human eyes would please him, so the quilt was brought and he ceased crying and played with the quilt. Then the women all went out to work in the field. Now when they were gone he took the quilt and folded it and ran out of the house. The women discovered him and pursued him with hammers. They closed about him endeavoring to strike him but he dodged and they struck each other and killed each other, all but one and he killed her. Then he went and found his brother.

Now they returned home and greeted their father. They asked him what kind of eyes he had had and the father answered, “Oh they were peculiar eyes. They had a reddish cast.” Now the Last found the eyes and took them off the quilt and placed them back in his father’s eye-sockets. And when the father had his own eyes he said, “There are the eyes of my brother.” So the boys took them from the quilt and placed them in their uncle’s eye-sockets. And they saw each other and were very glad. Then the younger twin said, “We must now go and find the bones of the dead and restore them their eyes.” So they went and found the graves of the dead and gathered together all their skeletons,—half as many as there were eyes. And a voice from the pile spoke and said, “We are under the cover of a white bear.” So the boys found a white bear and skinned it and built a lodge like a sweat lodge and covered it over with the skin of the white bear. In the lodge they placed the bones of the dead men. In a short time the wigwam began to quiver and then the younger brother ran to an elm tree and began to kick it and it fell over and as it was falling he cried, “The tree is falling upon you. Flee for your lives.”

Now as they heard his warning the skeletons arose and ran out of the wigwam and into the woods. Now the eyes had been placed upon the skulls and the people had time to select their own, but Last was too hasty in kicking over the tree and they had little time to find their own bones. Thus when they came together in the woods they found themselves in a mixed condition. Some had legs too short, some had long arms and short legs,—their limbs, ribs, feet and finer bones were mismated. Then Last was sorry he had been so hasty. So he asked them all where they lived and some knew but some did not. He told all that knew to go to their homes and he told all that did not to come home with him. Now they went home with him but the house was too small to contain all. Then Last paced out the dimensions of a large house and his footprints outlining it were on the ground. Then he commanded a house to spring up and it did and was large enough to hold all the men and they lived there. Now these were cripples and deformed people and from them sprang the deformed and ugly people of today. Now the uncle recovered his health and the older sister married him so there were two couples in the house. So everything came out well and everyone was happy. So the legend ends.

NOTE.—The legend of the magic arrow and the quilt of eyes is a typical Seneca transformation myth. Its characteristic elements are, the orenda of twins, the magic arrow which they were forbidden to use, the transfixing of one party with an arrow and the tests of magic. The conception of the quilt of young men’s eyes appears in other stories, as also does that of borrowing eyes from animals to assist persons who had lost their eyeballs. The theme of the magical twins who grew to immediate maturity and played under the ground is also one employed elsewhere. The idea of conception through entering into a female to be born of her, also is a more or less frequent episode. As in other legends, the hero who acquires great orenda ends his career by restoring the bones of the magically slain and hastening their resurrection to such an extent that they appear with mismated limbs, thereby being the first monsters and cripples.

This legend was related in the Seneca tongue by Edward Cornplanter, and translated by William Bluesky, whose language forms the bulk of the version here presented. Certain corrections were made after reading the recorded account to Cornplanter.

11. Corn Grinder, the Grandson21

In a clearing in a thick pine forest there lived an old man and woman. Their lodge was far away from any Indian village, for they had no liking for the company of other people. They were a strange couple and often talked with trees, and the trees would answer them.

With the old folk lived a boy, their grandson, but he found no pleasure in the society of his grandparents, for they would never speak to him except to admonish him not to wander beyond certain limits.

“Go east, go west, go north,” they said, “but not away from the sound of the corn grinder. We have named you Corn Grinder so that you remember. Listen, never go south. Remember!”

Each morning after breakfast Corn Grinder would run into the woods with his bow and pass his time hunting birds. He became an expert marksman and could bring down a bird as far as his arrow could fly. By the time he was twelve years old he was familiar with the woods, to the east, the west and the north as far as the sound of his grandmother’s corn grinder reached. As he grew older he began to wonder why it was that daily the old people repeated the same old charge. “Go east, go west, go north, but not away from the sound of the grinder. Never go south!”

“Ho!” he exclaimed, “I will go south as far as I please.”

Taking his bow and quiver he ran from the lodge, skirted the clearing and came around to the southern border. With arrow fixed for instant use he skulked from tree to tree. He was going toward the forbidden south! Surely there must be some hideous monsters, poisonous reptiles or terrible witches here, that made his grandparents enjoin him to shun the south woods. They would not tell him what it was and because of this he was determined to find out at any cost. He listened at every footstep and glanced anxiously in every direction. His fears began to subside, however, when he saw nothing unusual. The same kind of birds flew in the trees and fell when his arrows pierced them. Plainly there were no witches here. He strode on bolder than before nor halted until in the distance he heard the sound of a corn mortar. He was on the alert in an instant, dropped on his hands and knees and crawled forward, covering his approach by the trunks of the pines. Presently he saw a few paces ahead an opening and drawing nearer saw an immense bark lodge in the clearing. A gigantic woman was standing beneath a tall tree cooking corn soup in a huge kettle. An extraordinarily large baby board leaned against the tree but no baby was in sight. Crawling, serpent-like, he wriggled his way through the high grass to the lodge. Entering it he saw a large fat baby, tall as a warrior and as fat as an old woman. The day was hot and the baby was without clothing as it lay on a couch of skins. Peering stealthily from the door he saw that the giantess was coming toward the lodge. Trembling yet determined to learn all he could of the strange folk, he concealed himself under the hemlock branches beneath the bed.

The woman came in and stretched herself out on the floor for a nap. The baby commenced to cry and then nearly crushed Corn Grinder by rolling over the very spot beneath which he lay. This made Corn Grinder angry indeed, and crawling out as best he could he ran from the lodge, skimmed a ladle full of scalding grease from the soup and running in threw it upon the baby’s abdomen and fled to the edge of the woods.

The infant awoke with a piercing shriek and began rubbing its stomach in frenzy, howling like a stricken wolf with agony. This awoke the mother who did her best to soothe her child and discover how it had been so mysteriously injured.

Meanwhile little Corn Grinder had thrown a bunch of pungent weeds into the soup and hastily concealed himself in a thicket.

Soon the gigantic woman emerged from the lodge and began stirring the soup. She drew a deep breath as its appetizing vapors reached her nostrils and said, “Age-wiu, how good!” Presently she began to sneeze. Again she sneezed and again and again, until she could scarcely stand, tears streaming from her eyes, water from her nose and saliva from her mouth. “Agē! Agē!” she gasped, “Some witch must be near.”

Little Corn Grinder chuckled with glee and rolled over and over, his sides quaking with merriment, to think how his weeds were destroying the giantess.

The fire died down, the steam ceased rising and the strangely affected woman stopped sneezing. The soup was done by this time and going back to the house the woman strapped the baby to the board and grasping a basket of bread and meat in one hand and the kettle of soup in the other, started off in a southerly direction. Corn Grinder followed close behind and saw her stop at a huge dead tree.

“Luk-ste, luk-ste, da-ja-jent!
Luk-ste, luk-ste, da-ja-jent!”

sang the woman in a low voice. The ground beneath them rumbled and in a moment the tree opened and out stepped a tall giant saying “Onĕk to-ha!” He greeted the woman with a friendly slap, patted the baby and then poured a laddle-full of soup down his throat. The pungent weeds burned the giant’s mouth. Wildly he danced around the tree tearing up the sod and holding his mouth open, drew his breath in and out to cool his blistered throat and tongue. When the smarting sensation ceased he ran toward the offending dish, and gave the kettle a kick that sent it flying over the trees and spilling the soup over the frightened woman and baby. The angered giant then began to berate the giantess for the mean trick she had played on him and kept grumbling until he had devoured the bread and meat and disappeared into the tree.

Corn Grinder’s eyes bulged from his head and he shuddered as, ear to the ground, he heard strange subterranean roarings. “Wah!” he exclaimed, “why can not I say ‘Luk-ste, luk-ste’?”

Gliding through the grass and bushes he followed the woman back to the lodge where she began to wash corn previous to preparing another meal for the giant in the tree.

“When the sun stands high she’ll be ready again,” said Corn Grinder to himself. “Then I will say ‘Luk-ste, luk-ste!’—that’s fun.”

With this determination he crawled back and hid behind a tree facing the mysterious dead trunk.

When the sun had risen to the mid-heavens Corn Grinder arose from his hiding place and walking cautiously to the mysterious tree struck it sharply with his bow, singing in a low tone the woman’s song, then jumped quickly back and fixed his arrow for instant use.

The ground trembled, the tree shook, then opened and the giant came forth. He looked around in all directions and growled in rage when he failed to discover any one: “More tricks,” he yelled.

Corn Grinder watched his chance and when the giant’s back was turned, he let fly an arrow piercing him through the stomach. Without a groan the giant fell. Corn Grinder looked down the path, saw the woman coming and fled with all haste back through the forest to his grandparents’ lodge. Bursting in the door he exclaimed breathlessly, “Oh grandmother! I killed him, I killed him!”

“Hold on,” said his grandmother, “who did you kill? Tell me all about it.”

Corn Grinder obeyed, omitting no detail of the adventure.

“Agē!” wailed the old woman. “You have killed your father, my own son. You must go on a long journey to a high mountain and obtain certain magical roots to restore him! You must go immediately! O grandson, why did you disobey us? How often did we tell you never to go south. All your family are wizards and witches and we hoped to save you! Agē, Agē!”

“I went, grandmother,” replied the boy, “because you told me not to go. If you had told me everything I should never have gone. Now hurry and get food for our journey,—two are going.”

As he was speaking the giantess and the baby came running down the path and rushed into the lodge.

“Corn Grinder has killed his father!” screamed the giantess.

“Where is he, where is he? We are going to kill him!”

“All right,” said Corn Grinder, popping out from under a bed, “kill me if you can.”

The furious giantess seized a corn mortar, the baby a pestle, and each strove to hit the boy with these weapons.

Corn Grinder dodged around in glee,—the excitement was exhilarating. The possibility of receiving a blow from the pestle or being smashed with a mortar made his feet nimble as never before. Finally when he had been hit and his doom seemed sealed he said to himself, “If I belong to the family of witches, I must be a witch as well,” and bounding into the air he jumped down the giantess’ mouth, slid down her throat, wrenched her heart from its fastenings and when she had fallen dead, he crawled out again, grabbed the pestle from the baby’s hands, cried “Da, da, da, da, da, da!” and killed the infant with a blow.

Without the least sign of excitement he said, “Now grandmother, hurry with my lunch. It will soon be dark and my friend and I wish to go early.”

“What friend?” asked the grandmother. “Why Da-ga-ga-we-so-da-de (Standing cob is coming),” replied Corn Grinder, “but you can’t see him. We have been companions since we were babies. Hurry, grandmother.”

Mutely the old woman obeyed and soon had a basket of food prepared for the journey.

Corn Grinder started on and entered the north woods where he must meet his friend Cob.

For a day they tramped through unknown forests, crossed mirey swamps and struggled through windfalls and at night lay down beneath a sheltering rock. The next day passed as the first, but the third presented increased obstacles. Wild beasts growled all around them. Toward noon, as Corn Grinder was munching a slice of corn bread, a monstrous dog rushed toward them. Ever prepared to ward off danger, Corn Grinder threw down his slice and spat out the morsel he was masticating. The dog bent his head to eat and the two boys ran out of sight, but not into safety, as they had imagined, for before them was a gigantic wild cat with wide open mouth. Without pausing in his flight Corn Grinder flung a chunk of meat into its jaws and ran faster than before. Exhausted, he sat down a moment to rest but as he did so a big bear rushed at him with a growl. Corn Grinder jumped form his seat, flung a dish of honey into its eyes and summing up all energy hurried on once more. Cob ran at his side and kept encouraging him to keep a stout heart.

At length they reached a clearing near the base of a mountain. Some one high in the air seemed singing a song over and over. They halted a moment and then pushed aside the underbrush, pausing again to listen to the song, which seemed growing louder. They were startled when they caught the words.

“Some strange thing is heralding our approach,” said Corn Grinder, and pushing aside the bushes he came out into the open.

A great multitude of people were assembled about a tall pine, shooting at something in the topmost branches of a tall pine. The two boys came nearer and noticed that whenever an arrow struck the tree near the creature in the branches, drops of water would run from its eyes and striking the ground become wampum. Corn Grinder was about to pull his bow when Cob struck his arm and said, “Stop! That is your father up there. Hurry on and let us get the medicine. If you do not soon his tears will cease to flow and they will kill him.”

The two boys ran panting through the crowd. Cob was invisible and Corn Grinder might as well have been for no one noticed him. They labored up a mountain, crossed great rocks and chasms and at sunset, in a deep rift in the mountain side, at the foot of a cataract found a wonderful plant.

“Grab it!” whispered Cob. “It is the medicine!”

Corn Grinder snatched at the plant, which flew from the ground and eluding his grasp soared upward but wary Cob with a high leap caught it by the roots before it was entirely beyond his grasp.

Cob instructed Corn Grinder to chew the roots of the plant and then rub his saliva over his body, his clothing, his bow and his arrows. This he did and felt new vigor thrilling every fiber. The journey down the mountain seemed easy and his feet were lighter than ever before.

Toward nightfall they reached the great pine again and saw people busy as before, shooting at the creature in the tree, but the tears were fewer and the wampum less.

“Hurry,” cried Cob. “Unless you shoot him before the next man’s arrow strikes he will truly be dead.”

Grinder spat on his arrows, rubbed the roots in his hair and then shot. The arrow struck the creature and it instantly vanished. Simultaneously, both Corn Grinder and Cob were pulled from their feet by some unseen force and sped through the air like the wind. High into the sky they went and when the moon began to shine they dropped down to earth again at the doorway of a new lodge, which they entered.

A woman was chanting a song to a baby. Corn Grinder looked closely and saw that it was the same woman and baby that he had killed but each had now become smaller. He looked back and saw the giant he had shot. He, too, had become smaller.

“I am your brother,” said the baby.

“I am your father,” said the man.

“I am your mother,” said the woman, “come, let us eat!”

GENERAL NOTES.—The story of Corn Grinder is another tale of an enchanted family. Corn Grinder is cared for by his grandparents who wish to shield him from his parents who are evilly magic people. He is told that he may venture from his grandmother’s lodge but to the south at no greater distance than the sound of the corn pounder, though in other directions he might go as far as he liked. The time comes when Corn Grinder resolves to disobey and travel south, where he discovers a lodge of giants and a gigantic infant. By craft he disturbs the giants, annoying them without being discovered, finally shooting the male giant. Rushing home he tells his grandmother who reveals to him that the giant is his father, and orders him to make haste to procure medicine roots to effect a restoration. When the giantess and infant pursue him to the lodge he escapes them and jumping down the giantess’ throat tears out her heart, soon afterward killing the infant.

He then reveals that he has an “unseen friend” who will aid him in his search for the medicine roots. After overcoming great dangers they obtain the roots and fly through the air to a new lodge where Corn Grinder discovers his parents restored to normal form. The injection of the beast in the tree wailing and transforming its tears into wampum brings into the story a common theme, that of a being excreting wampum. The songs and magical words used in this tale are not Seneca.

12. He-Goes-to-Listen22

In the old days when the Senecas were strong on the Genesee there lived near a large hill that rose from a river, a boy and his uncle.

When the boy was born he was named Hatondas, meaning He goes to listen. This name was bestowed because just before his birth his mother had dreamed that when he should arrive at a marriageable age two singing women would come from afar to be his wives. The mother also dreamed that she would die. In order to prepare him for his marriage she therefore sewed three bags that were witched. She filled one with great quantities of wampum, the second with beautiful clothing but the third was left empty. Though the bags were scarcely the size of a man’s hand they could hold things hundreds of times their own size.

When Hatondas was yet young his mother as her dream had foretold became mysteriously sick and shortly died, leaving her baby son to the care of his grandfather. The uncle knew the prediction of the mother’s vision concerning the coming of the women for the child, and, being a widower of many years and unable to secure a wife by fair means, resolved to disfigure the boy and claim the women destined for him. And so it was that when the boy reached the age of fourteen the old man each morning and evening would send him up the hill to listen.

“Listen nephew,” he commanded, “go up the hill, stop in the pines near the trail and listen. When you hear a strange sound hurry back and tell me. Be sure you sound it exactly.”

The boy would thereupon run as fast as possible to the hill top and secrete himself in the pine woods. The old man had used every artifice to make the boy cowardly and so when he heard an owl hooting in the darkness of the wood he trembled and ran in wild terror down the hill and rushed into the lodge.

“O O O—uncle, I’ve, I’ve—I’ve heard—”

“Now wait a bit my son, wait ’till I smoke.” And when the old man had finished his pipe he asked, “Well, what did you hear?”

“Noise like this,—O-O-O-Owah! o-o-o-owah!”

“Ugh, that’s nothing,” said the old man. “You are no good.” So saying he thrust a ladle into the fire and drew it out full of embers and bidding the boy stand fast threw them on his legs. Maddened by the pain the boy rushed from the lodge with cries of agony.

The next day Hatondas was again sent on the same errand and again terrified by a strange sound ran back to the old man and reported.

“Stop, stop!” the old fellow yelled. “Let me smoke first!” And when the last curl of blue vapor had been drawn from the old stone pipe he spoke, “Now tell me!”

“It was gak-gaw-gak-gaw-gak-gaw! O grandfather!”

“Chisnah! That was nothing,” the old man replied, and again threw hot ashes on the boy.

Day after day the same procedure continued and after a year the boy, once handsome and lithe, was scarred and crippled. The grandfather now devised new schemes. When he had sent He-goes-to-listen up the hill he stretched a deer tendon across the door way, and returning, the boy tripped and fell, severely bruising his face. The old schemer laughed and said, “Good joke, good joke, I’ll never do it again.” But each day as he sent the boy up the hill he would break his promise and the youth would be frightfully cut by the fall over the thong. However, after a while in spite of the old man’s promises the youth became wary in his pell-mell rush into the lodge and would step over the cord.

One autumn in the seventeenth year of He-goes-to-listen he returned from the hill in unusual haste and in great excitement. “O grandfather!” he exclaimed, and before the old man had time to smoke he cried out, “I heard noise, singing, like this: (SONG).

“Well, that all?” said the grandfather in a voice that revealed his suppressed excitement, “Well, I will thrash you hard for that.” Thereupon Hatondas received a most brutal beating and was thrown into the roaring fire. The next day the boy was bidden listen to every word in the song he should hear and report immediately.

The old man rubbed his face with oil and painted it with streaks of vermillion. He tied sinews to his flabby cheeks and pulling the wrinkles back, tied the strings behind his neck and let down his long black hair to hide the ruse. His sole idea in abusing and disfiguring the boy was to make him such a horrible sight that the mysterious women would refuse to marry him. He wanted them himself, and thus on the night after the singing, decked himself in his best, hoping to gain their favor. Hatondas had set out early in the morning but entranced by the singing did not return. On came the voices until he saw the singers themselves and saw them pass down the hill and enter the lodge.

The old man decked in his feathers and paint arose to meet them. “Welcome, welcome, my women,” he said. “Come in, the house is yours.”

But the women only said, “Where is Hatondas?”

“Oh I am he!” ejaculated the old reprobate.

But the women again asked, “Where is Hatondas?”

“Oh he? He is lying around somewhere with the dogs in the garbage,—but never mind him,—come sit by me.”

The women did not obey but sat on the low bench that belonged to Hatondas, and the would-be-youthful old man with all his smooth cheeks and decorations could not get them to converse with him.

“Come, come, better stay with me,—marry me,” he pleaded. “I am handsome,—Hatondas is crippled and ugly. Say ‘yes,’ you will marry me. Of course, say so.”

“Where is Hatondas?” was the resolute question.

The old man shuffled up and touched one of the women in a pleading way and she promptly knocked him down.

Hatondas returned. He had suddenly become bold. All his former fear of his grandfather had flown, likewise his fear of sounds and moving things. Courageously he entered the door and saluted the women. Seating himself on his grandfather’s bench he spent the entire afternoon chatting with them. As evening came on the women cooked his supper, leaving the old man to fare the best he could.

Night came and the time for sleeping. Hatondas threw himself upon his husk mats and rolled up in his skins. The two women lay on either side.

The old man frowned fiercely and the strings slipping from their fastenings let fall his skinny jowls, now more wrinkled than before.

“Ugh!” he exclaimed. “I say, two women don’t want one husband!” But as the women did not stir the frustrated old fellow lay down with a disgusted groan.

That night as he slept his heart changed and the next morning he awoke without any ill feeling toward Hatondas.

“Now, my boy,” he said after breakfast, “you must go away from here. Long time ago your mother left three bags for your journey. One bag is empty,—I will fill it.”

Bringing out a bag the size of a man’s hand he filled it with a basket of parched corn mixed with maple sugar, put in a bow and a bundle of arrows and last of all a buckskin suit and then charged Hatondas not to speak to a living creature other than his wives while on his journey, and warned him that if he should it would cause the loss of a bag.

Hatondas with his wives set out on the trail that led to the far country. Reaching the top of the hill that he had so often climbed one of the women said, “Oh here is a hollow log. There is an animal in it! You are ugly, Hatondas,—crawl in and see if you can scare it out.” The husband obeyed and wriggled through the log. He felt strange and when his head emerged from the other end of the log he felt like a different person. Looking in the next spring he saw that his face was smooth and handsome. He lifted his legging and saw a limb clean and unscarred. More than this, he noticed that instead of his filthy clothes he was clad in a new suit of white skin.

His delight was so great that he immediately forgot all warnings and talked without fear to two strangers whom he met, while his wives strode on ahead. Having satisfied their curiosity the strangers started on. Hatondas ran with great strides and after some time overtook his wives who immediately asked, “Where is your magic bag?” Alas, it was gone with all the wampum that it contained. This meant that when Hatondas should enter the strange country, it should be without honor and that he should be as a common man.

For several years Hatondas dwelt in the land of his wives and so well did he fight in battle and so brave was he in all things that by deeds he gained great fame. However, he tired of the strange land and longed to return and visit his own old home. After preparation he set out on the return journey, each of his wives bearing a large bundle of presents for the old uncle.

After a weary journey and after many days he reached the old lodge by the hill but found it tied fast.

“Kway!” he cried.

“Kway!” came the answer in a cracked voice. “Who are you?”

“Hatondas and my two wives.”

“Well, how do I know that?” asked the same cracked voice.

“Let me in and see.”

“Don’t you dare come in! If you try I’ll shoot you through the door-hole.”

“Well, I am going to go in so tell me how.”

“Well put your hands through the peek-hole and I will tie them to the post. I will come out and see and if it is real Hatondas you may come in.”

Hatondas did as bidden and some one inside tied his hands around the post. Then a decrepit old man came out with a hatchet.

“Aha! You were deceiving me just as I thought. You are not my nephew! Aha! I will kill you. So!”

“I am your nephew but my face is changed. Look and see if you don’t recognize my women.”

“No, I don’t know any of them. You must be killed now.” (Uncle sings death chant.)

“Hold on, old uncle, can’t we come to a bargain?” asked Hatondas.

“Ugh!” exclaimed the old fellow. “Bargain? Yes, guess so. Let me see. Yes, give me one of the women.”

“Truly, truly, if she will take you.”

In haste the grandfather cut the thongs that bound Hatondas and bade the entire party enter the lodge. When all were seated he said, slyly, “Well, I guess I like this one best.”

“What do you mean, uncle?”

“I mean I like this one for cutting you loose.”

“Ha! ha! ha! ha!” laughed Hatondas. “She won’t have you!”

Then the uncle laughed too and said it was all just for fun and that he knew them all the time.

As Hatondas looked about him he saw that the elm bark house had grown old and moss covered and in one place a tree had commenced to grow, but before another moon had come all things were as new again, but the old man grew older.

13. Hatondas, the Listener, Finds a Wife23

Hatondas was a poor orphan boy who lived with his uncle, an old man who was very wrinkled. They lived in a lodge far removed from any settlement, so that the boy grew up not knowing how other people acted.

The old uncle became more and more abusive and threw hot coals on Hatondas seeking to mutilate him. The boy never lifted his hand to strike his uncle but received his wounds without murmuring.

After a time the uncle said, “Now is the time when you must go up the hill and listen to all kinds of sounds. When you hear one that you never heard before, return to me.”

Soon Hatondas returned and imitated the notes of a chickadee. “No, no, that is not anything different!” exclaimed the old man, and straightway fell to abusing the boy.

Day by day Hatondas listened, hearing an owl, a hawk, a woodpecker, a deer and a bear. With each report his uncle threw coals of fire down his shirt or beat him on the face with a paddle.

One morning he heard a song, and listening, heard his own name called out.

Listening with strained ears he caught the words, “Hatondas, Hatondas, I am coming to marry you now. You hear this song so make ready.”

Quickly Hatondas ran to his uncle and reported what he had heard. The uncle now became greatly enraged and threw all manner of filth at Hatondas, then fell to beating his face with brands from the fire. When he had finished scolding the boy, the uncle washed his own face and put on his best clothing. Then he greased his hair and tied his cheeks back with a string, tying the string behind his head under his braid, to give the appearance of smooth cheeks.

Hatondas could not sleep that night for his bed was infested with vermin his uncle had put into it, and it was foul with refuse that his uncle customarily threw there to make Hatondas an unsavory person.

Morning came, and all kinds of birds began to sing. Hatondas listened as before, and at sunrise he arose and went up the hill where he was accustomed to wait listening for the sounds which his uncle ordered him to report.

Again he heard the sound of distant singing, and it was a woman’s voice. Now Hatondas began to feel very sad, for his appearance bothered him. He was dirty beyond all measure and his hair was encrusted with dried refuse. So he felt very lonely and without friends.

Soon again he heard the song and saw a woman a long ways off. She seemed calling his name, so he listened more intently. Then he saw a fine-looking young woman running toward him. As she neared him he saw that she had a basket of marriage bread. She looked at him in great pity and asked him to lead her to his lodge.

When they entered the lodge the young woman greeted the uncle, and said, “I have been sent by my mother to find a man here.”

“Oh I am the man you are looking for,” said the uncle, at the same time ordering Hatondas to leave the lodge. “I am so sorry my nephew is filthy,” said the uncle, in his most gracious language. “He is very dirty and utterly no good.”

“He is the man I have come to marry,” said the young woman.

Then the young woman took out a pot of oil and heated it, and calling Hatondas to her cleaned his head, lifting off a great mass of filthy crusts. At this the uncle was furious, and demanded that the young woman leave the boy alone. She continued her work until she had cleansed him when she said, “Oh, he will make a good husband when I clean him!”

“You must marry me,” cried out the uncle. “I have been waiting for you many years. See, my side of the lodge is very clean, and you could never sleep where Hatondas is accustomed to lie.” But the young woman repulsed him and went out into the woods with Hatondas, whereupon the old man burst into great rage, breaking his cheek-strings and making himself look hideous. “Oh, I knew it would come,” he screeched, “but I did not think so soon.”

When the young woman had found a hollow log she required Hatondas to crawl into it and then through to the other end. When he emerged he was clean and healed of his scars.

That night they were married, but at midnight a queer sound awoke Hatondas. He rose up and listened. Then the young wife awoke.

“He is upon us!” she cried, and leaping up, she called upon Hatondas to flee with her. Jumping upon the fireplace she scattered the glowing embers about the room and in a moment the lodge was in flames.

Together the two ran to the top of the hill to the rear of the lodge. The young wife drew from her garment a small bundle and dropped it upon the ground. Taking the whip she struck the bundle a smart blow. A tiny growl issued from the skin wrappings and grew louder as she continued to ply her switch. Presently a dog burst from the bundle and stood wagging his tail at her feet. She continued to lash it and with each stroke the dog grew larger and finally so large that both she and Hatondas were able to mount its back and sent it dashing onward at great speed.

After some time they arrived on the shores of a vast expanse of water. The wife patted the dog back into its bundle and dropped it in her pouch and with her husband leaped into a large canoe that lay moored to the shore. Untying the line, each grasped a paddle and swept the canoe out into the lake. They had gone but a short distance when a loud snort caused them to look back and there on the shore was a gigantic bear in the act of casting a long fish line, and even as they looked it fell, wrapping around the stern of the canoe. The craft stopped in its course with a sudden jerk and then began to speed backward to the shore.

“Quick, Hatondas,” exclaimed his wife, “empty your pipe on the line,” and Hatondas obeyed with surprising alacrity. The line snapped and with a sweep of the paddle this wife sent the canoe back into its track.

Foiled in his attempt to capture the pair the enraged monster pawed up the sand and pebbles. Swelling to an enormous size he thrust his mouth into the water and gulped it down in such immense quantities that the lake changed its current and flowed toward the mouth of the monster. Death seemed certain to the young couple for the canoe was drawn with great rapidity toward the beast, but ever resourceful, the young woman steadied herself, aimed and threw a round white stone directly at the creature’s belly. It struck him with great force causing him to jerk up his head with a roar of pain and then belch the waters back into the lake. In the swiftly outflowing stream, spurred on by the paddles, the canoe shot back to its former course.

The great bear was furious with disappointment and roared, “You cannot escape me, soon I will catch you. I am Nia-gwa-he!” and then began to blow his icy breath upon the water. Ice commenced to form and when he judged it sufficiently thick he galloped out over the surface of the lake. “You cannot escape me!” he bellowed, “I am Nia-gwa-he!”

The canoe stood fast in the ice and doom seemed certain to its inmates.

“Don’t be downcast, Hatondas,” said the wife, “only trust me.”

The wife knelt in the bottom of the canoe where she had a little fire burning and a pot of water.24 She was apparently resigned to the fate from which there seemed no escape. Then when the bear was almost upon them she stood upright and flung a kettle of steaming water at his feet. The beast stopped with a sudden jerk as the clay pot broke into fragments and the water splashed upon the ice. This momentary halt was fatal, for the water softened the ice and the monster sank beneath the waters and disappeared. The ice vanished and the canoe sped on once again.

Late in the day the canoe grated against the base of a high cliff that rose perpendicularly from the water. The wife called up to the top. A woman leaned over the edge far above and seeing the couple below dropped down two pairs of claw mittens. These Hatondas and his wife fastened to their hands, and, with their aid, made their way slowly and cautiously to the summit.

The wife’s sister greeted the bridal pair, and lead the way to a spacious lodge where a savory supper awaited them.

The wife told the story of her adventure expressing great joy at her escape from the monster bear.

After the evening meal the time for sleeping came and together the happy couple lay down upon a new bed of spruce boughs and wrapped themselves in soft newly-tanned skins.

A year passed and to the wife came twin baby boys. And so precocious were they that at their very birth they felled to the floor two curious men who had intruded into their mother’s lodge. They grew so rapidly that in a few hours they had become mature men of prodigious strength and great agility. The old woman provided them with warrior costumes and gave them presents of bows and brought a bear and a deer for the larder. A half starved settlement now feasted. New houses were reared, and new canoes built by these wonderful boys and great riches came to the family.

The mother was happy in her offspring and proud, but in the midst of her joy she began to contrast her present fortune with the unhappy days of her girlhood. She fell to brooding, and, as she lay upon the ground, the roar of a monster echoed through the forest. The twins rushed to her side exclaiming,

“Oh mother, here comes Nia-gwa-he looking like a buffalo!”

The boys stood guarding their mother as toward them rushed the huge beast. It dashed full upon them. The boys sank to their knees, and stabbed it on the bottom of its foot. When they arose their arms were wrapped around the creature and in a moment it was thrown through the air into a grove of oaks and there they buried it.

14. The Origin of the Chestnut Tree

In a lodge that stood alone in a land of hills lived Dadjedondji with his older brother Hawiyas. Dadjedondji busied himself each day in the forests hunting game, catching fish, gathering fruits, berries, roots and nuts and studying the wonders of the woods. He prepared his own meals in the lodge and always ate them alone, for, strange to relate, his brother steadfastly refused to eat with him or, indeed, to eat in the presence of anyone. He never hunted or cooked, but sat all day smoking moodily.

The boy often pondered over the strange difference between his brother and himself and at length resolved to pretend to start on his daily hunt, then turn back and secretly watch his bother. He did as he had planned but failed to discover his brother, Hawiyas, eating or at any extraordinary practice. Night came and the two boys lay side by side with their feet toward the fire. Dadjedondji remained awake in order to continue his watch and toward midnight heard his brother stir. In his anxiety to spy upon him Dadjedondji sat upright and his brother seeing him dropped back upon his couch. Dadjedondji chided himself for his impulsiveness and when, some time later, Hawiyas asked in an undertone, “Are you awake now?” he remained quiet and did not reply.

Later Hawiyas arose cautiously believing himself unobserved and crept to the side of the lodge. Dadjedondji was peeping through a hole in the skin that covered him. Hawiyas pushed aside a sheet of bark and drew forth a small kettle and a tiny bag. From the bag he took a small nut from which he scraped a few shavings with a flint. Casting them into the kettle he poured in a quantity of water and shaking the kettle placed it over the fire. The water soon began to heat, and as it did so, the kettle increased in size until a pudding was cooked, when he dipped it out, cleaned the kettle, shook it and stored it away with the bag. Then he began to eat greedily, and, having satisfied his hunger, lay down and slumbered again.

The next night Dadjedondji concluded to try the experiment and while his brother slept crept to the hiding place, found the kettle and bag, and did exactly as his brother had done. He ate the pudding and found it most delicious. Wishing more, he threw the entire contents of the bag into the kettle and set it on to boil again. It was not long before the kettle began to expand so much so that it filled half the house. Moreover the pudding began to boil over in enormous quantities.

With a cry of dismay the brother awoke.

“Oh what have you done?” cried he, “Oh! I am dead, you have killed your own brother. Oh!”

“What troubles you, brother?” asked Dadjedondji as he skipped out from the lodge, “You do not look very much like a dead man.”

“Oh!” exclaimed the brother, “you have used all my food. It is all I eat and can eat. No one can obtain more of its kind for it is far away and charmed, so you have killed me!”

Scarcely had he spoken when the walls bulged and the building collapsed.

“Oh, do not worry brother,” said Dadjedondji, “there is more where this grew.”

“Ah yes, but no man can get it, use what magic he may.”

The brother raved throughout the remainder of the night but Dadjedondji slept unmoved.

When the morning came Dadjedondji sprang from the ground and expressed his surprise at his brother’s sober countenance. “Tell me the full history of your magical food,” he commanded.

Moodily the brother answered, “To the east is a great gap in the earth. Beyond it is a monstrous serpent whose poisonous breath kills all that comes where it blows. Should a man by chance, escape him, beyond are two panthers. Should some cunning magician creep by unobserved, beyond, high in the tree that bears the wonderful nuts, is a witch whose very look makes men fall apart, and her six sisters devour their meat. So boast not my brother, you cannot reach the tree. Know only this,—you have killed your brother.”

Dadjedondji thought about it and said to himself, “All these things are strange. They are not right, neither are they in according with the ways I know about, and, therefore, I can conquer all these obstacles.”

Boldly he set out with his face toward the rising sun. After a day’s journey he came to a chasm that extended far beyond the eye’s reach. “This is not right,” thought the boy, so whittling a doll from a soft chunk of decayed log, he threw it across the chasm and followed it with a running jump. He landed safely on the other side and immediately resumed his journey. For a time he hurried onward and then nearly rushed into the yawning jaws of a big snake that leaped from a hidden cavern.

“Oh, get out of my way,” said Dadjedondji flinging a wooden doll into its mouth.

Presently from a thicket appeared two panthers. Dadjedondji drew two more dolls from his pouch and cast one into the mouth of each beast. Then, without looking behind hurried onward again. A song came floating through the air and following the direction Dadjedondji came to a large branching tree. In its topmost branches hung the singer,—a flayed human skin,—but her charm song had no effect upon the boy for he said, “It is all wrong and I am right, therefore evil cannot befall me.”

The skin-woman lifted her voice and sang with increased vigor, “An intruder comes to our clearing.”

“Come down here,” called Dadjedondji, “I have a present for you, gaswe’´da, wampum. Promise you will be kind.”

The skin-woman seeing the handsome purple quills descended and accepted the gift with many grimaces and then drew back into the tree.

Now wampum is the emblem of truth and the skin-woman was entirely controlled by evil. Holding the beautiful necklace in her hand she sang, “I have been bribed by a present of wampum not to tell of a stranger’s approach.”

While she sang she threw the beads over her head and around her neck and the beads grew tight and choked her into silence.

Out rushed the six sisters that had been called ravenous cannibals, but their shouts were not those of anger or of gluttons, but glad cries of joy. Coming up to Dadjedondji they saluted him and with extravagant flattery thanked him for coming to rescue them from their evil sister.

They gave him a great bag of brown nuts and sent him back on his journey. The great witch had now no food and perished.

On his return the panthers angry at the deception he had practiced on them, pounced from the bushes.

“Go away, you are not doing right. I never heard of panthers acting as you are. Are you not ashamed? Go now and never dare trouble men again! You are now free!”

The panthers, surprised at their intended victim’s words, rushed off in fright. Dadjedondji continued his journey and rebuked the serpent and sent it wriggling to the nearest lake. Then he addressed the chasm.

“Oh, Earth, why are you rent? This is not the way of doing things. I have never seen such fissures in my life before. Close up once again and let men enjoy themselves!” And the earth closed with a loud crash.

Walking safely across the solid earth where once the breach had been, he persevered until he reached the ruins of his home. His brother was sitting mournfully on a log still lamenting, but Dadjedondji bade him cheer up, and showed him the large bag of nuts. He gave him enough for several meals and then sent him on to the lodge of the six sisters where he could find a good wife to cook for him. Then he went upon the side hills and scattered the nuts over the ground and in time beautiful trees grew and now all the world has chestnuts. When they were confined to one tree they were magical but now their powers have gone and they neither spread nor burst kettles.

GENERAL NOTES.—There are a number of stories similar to this. In some the hero is a nephew living with his uncle. The adventures of the hero in overcoming the magic beasts that guard the paths to the chestnut tree are various and recited in greater or less detail. In some stories the youth pacifies the hunger of the monsters by flinging chipmunks at them which increase in size and afford them a full meal. In one version the last guard of the tree is the skin of the boy’s sister, dried and hanging over the path. The skin is alive but held by sorcery as the slave of the wicked witch sisters. When the hero presents the wampum to her she sings out: “I cannot tell you now that a stranger is about to assail us, for he has stopped my mouth with wampum.” The six sisters thereupon rush forth and finding no enemy beat the skin and tell it to tell the truth hereafter and not give false alarms. In similar stories the hero projects himself into the body of one of the witches, as is done in the story of the magic arrow and the quilt of men’s eyes. He is then born and cries incessantly for power over the tree and the witch, yielding, he becomes master of the chestnuts. He is also the deliverer of the dried skin which he conjures back to its normal self, when he finds it to be his own sister. The mole is the hero’s dream animal and it aids him to perform his deeds of magic.

15. Divided Body Rescues a Girl From a Wizard’s Island

A brother and younger sister dwelt in a lodge together. The sister cooked the meals and the brother did the hunting. The brother, whose name was Crow, never allowed his sister to leave the lodge. “Oh my sister,” he would say, “Do not even venture to the spring.” When the young man went on a hunting trip he would set his dog as guard over his sister and caution him to prevent her from leaving the lodge.

On a certain morning the girl began to debate with herself the reasons why she should be kept within the lodge. Soon she decided that it was wrong to keep her from seeing the world outside. So she pushed aside the curtain, exclaiming, “Now I shall see!” Being thirsty she had taken a bark water vessel and made ready to dip water from the spring. As she sank her bowl beneath the surface of the water something grabbed her by the hair and whisked her through the air. She did not know where she was going but when she again felt the ground beneath her feet she looked about and saw that she was on an island in a large lake. Soon an old man came to her and said, “This is where you are going to stay,” at the same time pointing to a great lodge.

All about the lodge were human bones from which the flesh had been gnawed, and the place was most filthy. The girl then knew that she had been abducted by a cannibal wizard, Oñgwe Iās. She knew that there was no easy way of escape but she resolved not to give up hope. Each morning Oñgwe Iās would come to the lodge with human flesh which he would demand that she prepare as food for him. Then he would demand that she bring him water from the spring, carrying it in a bark container that hung on the center pole of the lodge.

One morning while she was at the spring she saw a young man standing before her. He looked very pleasant and soon spoke to her. “Oñgwe Iās has not been successful today,” he said. “Tomorrow morning when he asks you to bring him water he will hit you with his club, seeking to kill you. Be ready and when you reach for the bowl jump around behind the post and Oñgwe Iās will hit the pole and break his arm. Then run to the spring here and I will give you assistance. My name is Sgagedi, the Other Side.”

The next morning Oñgwe Iās was very ferocious and roared at the girl, ordering her to bring him water from the spring. Cautiously she reached up for the water bowl and then slipped around the pole. With a crash a great club swung against the spot where the girl had been but in a moment she had fled from the lodge, while the monster was bellowing with the pain of a broken arm.

Quickly the girl reached the spring where she found the young man looking very pleasant. “Be ready now,” he called. “My canoe is on the shore.”

She stepped into the canoe and sat in the center while Sgagedi with a jerk shoved it from the beach, throwing one half of his body to the bow of the canoe and leaving one half at the stern. He paddled from both ends and went very rapidly.

Oñgwe Iās soon restored his broken arm and began to sing a charm song, calling upon the winds to blow the canoe back to him. A strong wind began to blow and presently the canoe was swept back to the island, where Oñgwe Iās was waiting on shore. It seemed as though they were doomed but just as they were about to ground, Sgagedi threw tobacco on the water and called upon the wind to blow the other way, which it did. Sgagedi now did not cease to paddle but kept up his effort until the canoe was safe on the opposite shore.

With a great bump the canoe struck the beach, sliding up onto the sand. As it did so the body of Sgagedi came together with a snap and he became reunited.

From the beach, inland there was a path, and by this the couple ran on into the forest. Presently the path divided and as it did so Sgagedi’s body was cloven and each half ran on, the girl following the left side. The path reunited and so did the body of the man. Still the two ran on until they saw an elderly woman on the path ahead. She approached and took the girl into a lodge. “I am glad you came,” she said. “I have been waiting for you to become my daughter-in-law.”

After a while the young woman and Sgagedi were married, but the bride could not be happy for she continually was saying, “Oh where is my brother?”

Now when the brother returned to his lodge and found his sister gone he had scolded the dog and forced it to tell what had happened. “I tried to grasp the sister as the monster seized her,” he asserted, but the brother called him an unfaithful friend, whereupon the dog turned into a smooth stone. The brother grieved the loss of his sister and sat with his head down before the ashes of his lodge fire.

In due season the sister bore two sons who were twins, and they quickly grew to be large boys. Every day they would run down to the shore to see their father scouring the lake after witches and monsters, seeking to slay them. At last they, too, wished to explore the lake and so took a canoe and paddled across it to the opposite shore. “Now we will search for our uncle, for whom our mother continually cries,” said they to one another.

They noticed an old streak in the sky and followed it far inland until they came to a clearing overgrown with bushes. Looking carefully into this opening, one twin said to the other, “A bark lodge appears to have fallen down here.” So they went forward and examined the ruined lodge and in pulling aside the bark and poles they felt a body and it was breathing. They pulled it out of the rubbish and found it to be a man. They brushed him off and restored him to his wonted self. Then one said, “This appears to be our uncle.”

“I am your uncle,” said the old man. “My dog is a stone. Oh, will you restore my dog to life!” So the twins restored the dog and then all went back to the lake and entered the canoe.

By rapid paddling they reached home that day and when the sister saw her brother she knew him and was very glad.

16. The Origin of the Buffalo Society

A youth who had wandered out into the plains of the West in search of game, lost the trail, and though he searched with all diligence he was unable to find it again. Throwing himself upon the ground he brooded over his ill fortune and longed with all the intenseness of his soul that he might be again back in his native village.

It was sunset and in the gloaming the youth saw a company of people gathered about a fire, evidently in earnest council. Cautiously he advanced, hoping to learn who the people were. For several minutes he lay concealed in the tall rank grass and creeping nearer was surprised to learn that it was he, himself, who formed the subject of the discussion. Much greater was his amazement when an old lady arose, and walking directly to his hiding place lifted him to his feet and said, “Come, I have adopted you.”

“Oh is that it!” exclaimed the boy in disappointment, “I was hoping you would guide me home.”

“No, not yet,” said the old lady, “you must learn first.”

Marveling at her words, the youth followed the old woman to her lodge and dwelt there.

It seemed strange to him that the people of the village never hunted but traveled together in bands over the prairies. He wondered at the shaggy heads of the men and their dark hairy leggings. He seemed as in a dream and yet all he saw and did seemed real. He learned much of the wondrous tribe with which his lot had been cast, and as the months went by he learned more and more. Often he danced in the ceremonies of the tribe, often he sang and often he made medicine in the council lodges on the prairies until he knew almost everything that a tribesman knew. Although his sojourn was one full of incidents and adventures he never ceased to mourn for his own home and people and often plead to be shown the trail, but his foster mother would only say, “No, not yet, for you have not learned all.” What this meant he did not know and pined as before for home.

One night he was awakened by the far-away sound of a drum. Its slow dull note made the youth more melancholy than before. His heart seemed to stop in its natural course and beat slow to the tap of the drum. Greatly depressed, he crept to the bedside of his foster mother and pleaded for a guide to his home trail.

“No not yet, my son,” said the old woman, “but perhaps very soon. Listen to the sound of that far distant drum. Now let me tell you that which you have not known. Far away to the west beneath a great hill lives the great chief of all buffaloes and an evil chief is he. When he drums it is a sign he wishes all to gather around his mound for he is anxious for a race. He has an evil plan. Being a mighty runner he often calls us to his lodge and he whom the chief selects must race until death strikes away his life from the unequal chase. The terrible race continues until the evil chief has satisfied his insane fancy and dismissed the assembled throngs. Soon you will hear the chief sing and when he does all of us must answer his call by starting immediately on the journey.”

“How is it that a buffalo is your chief?” asked the youth.

“Because we are all buffaloes,” was the answer.

The youth bit his lip and felt much chagrined to think he had not known this before. Surely he had had sufficient evidence.

Supplementing the note of the drum came a song. Simultaneously there was a great stamping. Everyone was rushing at a furious pace in the direction of the song. The youth ran with his mother. For ten days and ten nights the wild rush continued, ever led on by the song.

On the evening of the tenth day the rushing multitude reached the hill from whence the song issued and rested.

That night the old lady came to the youth and said: “This has been a terrible rush and many have died from exhaustion, many from wounds and many have been trampled to death. Many children have been left behind to die. Oh that this may be the last mad stampede! Now listen, he will challenge you to a race. Do not fear, but take this medicine and when he calls you, race him to death. Shoot him in the red spot on his hand. When you awake tomorrow I will give you a bow and arrow.”

The youth awoke late the next morning and to his amazement saw a great herd of buffaloes gathered around the hill. From the summit of the hill came a great roar. It was the chief buffalo speaking.

“There is a human boy among us,” it said, “I command him to race me.”

Trembling, the youth walked toward the hill and as he did so a shaggy buffalo came sauntering slowly up to him. On her neck was a bow and arrow.

“I am your mother,” said the buffalo. “Remember if you run swiftly you may overcome the evil chief. Remember his body is, under the skin, covered with a bony plate. His ribs have all grown together so that no arrow can pierce to his heart. No matter what is said, shoot only at the spot on his hand, for as a human he runs.”

“Come boy, it is time to run,” roared the buffalo chief.

Around the great hill-like mound stretched two circles of animals. Between them was a path over which the contestants must run. The buffalo chief started the race by shouting, “Catch me or at sunset I will trample you to the dust.”

Undaunted, the boy leapt to the course and ran his best. Toward noon the chief, surprised at the endurance of his intended victim, yet believing himself safe, sat down for rest, but the youth strode faster the longer he ran and doubly fast when the buffalo lagged.

Springing toward the chief the youth shouted, “I’ll catch you, yow! yow!”

Up leaped the buffalo and panting, ran around the course at the top of his speed. Close behind him was the youth, disconcerting him with his cries of derision, and his calls of “Yow! Yow!” Calling up all his energy the buffalo sprinted ahead and sat down for rest, but hardly had he touched the grass when the youth with his aggravating “Yow Yow!” sped toward him shouting, “I’ll catch you soon. You have not seen me run yet.” So, fearing defeat, the buffalo chief ran as fast as his magic could send him but to his intense annoyance the boy stuck close to his heels.

The sun was sinking low and as it sank large and red to the level of the western prairie the buffalo chief fell with a groan and moaned. “Oh I am worsted, I am disgraced! Shoot me, boy, shoot me, your one arrow will transfix my heart, oh I am beaten!” The crafty beast was endeavoring to deceive the boy but the human boy saw through the beast’s subtilty.

“Arise!” commanded the boy, “I am ready to shoot you!”

“Oh my heart,” moaned the defeated chief as he arose.

“Throw up your hands!” and quicker than thought the boy sent an arrow speeding into the red spot on his hand.

A great shout rent the air. The buffalo chief had fallen, had perished. The glad cry of the assembled herds floated far over the plains and rumbled like the echoing voice of the thunder gods. Long did the stamping herds roar their shout of thanksgiving and afterward heaped upon him honor and praise and called him their deliverer. They promised him all the power that the race of the buffaloes could bestow.

“When you wish health and fortune, when you wish a balm for fear and a panacea for trouble, and a cure for disease burn tobacco and call upon the spirits of the buffalo,” was the instruction of the new chief who was chosen.

The throngs of animals dispersed in bands, each led to its range by its chief.

The youth accompanied the old woman back to her lodge ten days journey away and listened attentively when she imparted to him all the secrets the buffaloes knew.

“You know our dances, our songs and our mysteries. Preserve these things forever in a society of human creatures,” said the buffalo woman. “Now you may go to your home among the man animals. Now I bid you adieu, my son, I am sorry you must go. A guide will lead you to the trail.”

The youth bade the people farewell and last of all his good foster mother and followed the guide to the trail that lead to the land of the human.

After many days the youth came to a village of his people and calling a council told his adventures. To all but the old folk he was a stranger, but when he made friends he selected a company and to them he imparted the secret of the buffaloes.

Thus originated the Society of Buffaloes, which today exists as a power among the Seneca.

17. The Boy Who Could Not Understand

A Study in Seneca Idioms. Related by Edward Cornplanter, 1906.

There was a boy who had been reared in the woods by an old woman who never thought it worth while to teach him oratory25 or rhetoric26. He had never attended a council or listened to a sachem’s speech and so he never learned the use of words. When the old woman died the boy’s grandfather came and took him home with him hoping to make him useful. The boy was very obedient and obeyed every word commanded. His grandfather began to have confidence in him and one day sent him out to locate a bear tree. “Now when you discover the tree wade’´ode”, (leave your nails on it),” said the grandfather.

Now the boy thought this strange advice but hastened to obey his old protector. After some wandering he found a bear tree and then remembering that he must leave his nails upon it tore off his finger nails and stuck them in the bark of the tree. This caused him most excruciating pain and he was hardly able to get home. However, he thought that this was to make him brave and he was confident that his grandfather knew best how to educate a warrior. He went to his grandfather and proudly displayed his bleeding fingers. “See, grandfather,” he said, “I have found a bear tree and have left my finger nails upon it.”

The old man looked at the boy in wonder. “What have you done?” he asked.

“Left my nails upon the tree,” answered the boy.

“Oh, you poor ignoramus,” laughed the old warrior, “I did not mean that you should tear out your nails by the roots and stick them in the bark. I meant that you should put your eyes on the tree when you saw one. When I said ‘put your nails on it’ I meant that you should remember the tree so that you could take it at any time you wished. Go now and put your eyes on the tree (ĕⁿse‘´ganeiondĕⁿ’).”

“Oh, grandfather,” moaned the boy, “why did you not say what you meant!” and ran out to put his eyes on the tree. He found the tree again, and began pulling at his eyelids and eyes. Having no nails he could not get a good hold and the operation was most painful. Finally he gouged out one eye with a stick and hung it on the bear tree. Going back to his grandfather’s lodge he greeted him.

“I have left one eye on the tree, grandfather,” he said. “I kept the other so that I could find my way home.”

The old man looked at his grandson and was angry. “You are most foolish!” he said. “When I say, ‘leave your eyes on a thing’ I mean that you must be able to recognize it instantly when you see it again.”

“Oh, grandfather,” wailed the boy, “why do you never say what you mean?”

“I do,” said the grandfather, “but you do not easily understand my meaning.”

Now when the boy was recovered from his bruises the old man asked that the boy take him to the bear tree that they might kill a bear. Each had a bow and quiver of arrows. When they reached the tree the old hunter climbed up the trunk and lighted a torch and threw smoke wood down the hollow to smoke out the bear. “Now, grandson,” he said, “shoot him here when he comes out,” and the old man patted his heart.

The bear came out on a run and as he did the boy lifted up his bow and aimed at the old man’s heart. It was the place that he had been instructed to shoot, so he thought.

The old man was exceedingly angry and yelled out, “You shoot the bear, not me.” The boy shot the bear and the old man slid down the tree. “You fool,” he yelled, “so you were going to shoot me!”

“You told me to shoot right there, grandfather,” pleaded the boy, “and I wanted to obey for I thought you knew best.”

“No, I meant the bear,” retorted the old hunter. “Now we will cut him up.” So they dressed the bear.

Now it is customary to call the pancreas, the oskwi´sont (tomahawk); the diaphragm the o’kăā (skirt); the fat around the kidneys the face (ogoⁿ’´sa’), and the ventral portion (oho´a), door. So the old man said, “I have placed the door, the tomahawk, the false face and the skirt aside. Go home and cook them for me and I will return. Split a stick and put the tomahawk in it and put it in the fire. When it snaps yell ‘Hai-ie’ and I will come.”

Now the grandfather busied himself cutting up the bear and cutting its meat into strips and chunks. He also prepared its skin. Then he was ready to go home. He glanced at the log where he had laid the organs and found them still there. “I wonder what blunder the boy has made now,” he mused and took them with him to the lodge. When he arrived there he found that the stupid orphan had torn the door from its fastenings and had split it into pieces. Moreover the boy was running around the lodge yelling, “Hai-ie!” Inside the old man saw his best stone tomahawk in the fire. It was red hot and when a draft of air struck it it would snap and every time it did the boy would whoop, “Hai-ie!” In a cauldron a false face, a breech skirt and the splinters of the door were boiling.

“It is too hot within!” explained the boy. “Hai-ie!” he paused to say as the tomahawk snapped. “It’s too hot, so I am watching outside and—hai-ie!”

The patience of the long suffering grandfather was exhausted and he said some things that the boy thought himself much aggrieved for he said, “Why did you not tell me what you meant?”

The grandfather took matters in his own hand and cooked the meal. The time was at hand also when he must notify his charge that by right of birth he was a chief and that on the morrow he must commence his duties as a runner. The next day the old man with due solemnity told the boy that he was a secondary chief. “We will have a great feast,” he said. “I want you to run and notify all the tall trees (Gai´esoⁿs), all the rough places (Ain´djatgi), all the swamps (Gaiⁿ´dagoⁿ), and all the high hills (Gai´nonde). When you return do not fail to ‘jounce your uncle on your knee’ (esĕⁿ´sĕnt’o’).”

Now the young chief thought this peculiar but he found tall trees in plenty and invited them all to the feast, likewise he invited the mountains and the swamps and returning gave his uncle a kick that knocked him down. The uncle immediately did the same thing to the impudent boy who ran rather lamely back to his grandfather. The old man listened to the tale with impatience and then explained that the ‘tall trees’ were the sachems, the ‘mountains’ the war chiefs, and the ‘swamps’ the common warriors. By ‘uncle’ he meant the relatives of the family and by ‘jouncing with his knee’ simply to notify them. “Oh,” gasped the boy, “why do you never say what you mean!” Of course he had the work to do all over and the feast came in due season. When it was over the boy said, “Grandfather, there is meat left and soup also.”

“Well,” said the grandfather, “give each one half a spoon.”27

The lad did not see what good that would do but he instantly obeyed, going to the shed and chopping twenty wooden spoons in halves and then giving each guest a piece.

“Here you,” some one objected, “What are these things for?”

The boy was about to say that he had but obeyed his grandfather when the old man himself looked up and saw that the stock of finely carved spoons had been destroyed by his stupid ward. “Shawĕn´noiwĭs!” roared the old fellow. (Sha-wen-noi-wis means incurable fool.) “Why have you ruined my good spoons?”

“I did just as you said,” was the meek answer. Then he answered, “There is yet meat left, Haksot!”

“De sa di wa o gwut, tie it on your head and let it hang,” commanded the grandfather, meaning that it should be distributed to the particular friends of the family.

The boy took an elm bark rope and tied the juicy meat on his forehead.

“It is disagreeable, grandfather,” he complained, “for the juice and oil drip into my eyes.”

The old man explained, and the boy feeling much abused answered, “Oh why can you never say what you mean?”

The time came when the boy chief must marry. The grandfather told the boy where a family of lovely girls lived. “Go shove your legs in the door,” (Satci´nondăt—show your leg), said he, meaning that the boy should go visiting.

The young chief stuck his legs under the door and sat there all night. The next morning the old woman within gave him a blow with a corn pounder and he ran limping to his advisor to discover the trouble. “Oh you fool,” said the old man, “I meant that you should ‘shake the old lady’s skirt’,” meaning that he should seek a daughter. When he did this however he was kicked and pounded until he could hardly crawl. Now he had a very difficult time courting for it is hard to describe in direct words how to court and to marry, so when he followed his grandfather’s words he found much trouble. Now when he married his wife made him understand and he learned many new things. Now this is all that I can tell.

GENERAL NOTES.—The Boy Who Could Not Understand is the only tale of its kind secured by the writer among the Seneca. It is related as a humorous commentary on the literal meanings of certain idioms of the Seneca that are so well understood that they never cause confusion. The author of this tale must have deliberately analyzed each term and sought to give it a literal application. One might suppose that a captive Algonkin invented it to explain his own plight in learning the Seneca tongue.

This tale was related by Edward Cornplanter and it has been recorded essentially in his own language, except where better grammar or a better word straightens out the English. I am sure that Cornplanter might have expanded his story considerably, but he hastened it to a conclusion to give me the Seneca equivalents of some obscure bits of slang frequently heard in English. His own literal translations of American slang into Seneca made him wax merry, and he concluded by saying, “So you see it don’t make any sense at all.”

18. The Boy Who Lived With the Bears

Hono‘ was an unloved stepson. His foster father never had a kind word for him and begrudged the very food that little Hono‘ ate.

“You eat like a wolf,” the harsh man would snap. “It is a nuisance to feed you.”

“Agē´,” sighed little Hono‘, “when I am a man and can hunt and fight I will repay you. Then will you like me?” implored the boy, but his evil guardian only growled.

At length the stepfather began to cast about how he might rid himself of the child and after some meditation decided to feign friendliness and lure Hono‘ away on a hunting excursion. So it happened that one day he said pleasantly, “Come now Hono‘, it is time for you to learn to hunt. How would you like to go on a journey with me?”

Hono‘ was delighted and promptly replied he would go.

The two traveled for some time through the bush lands and Hono‘ thinking this strange said, “I always thought hunters went to the deep woods and not in the bushes.”

“Don’t worry,” the stepfather replied, “I am an old hunter and know my business. Come hurry along, I will show you a wonderful place.”

“Well where is my bow and my quiver of arrows?” asked Hono‘ anxiously. “I ought to have one.”

“Oh after a while,” was the retort. “Now hurry along.”

“And when I am a great hunter will you be good to me always?” asked Hono‘, dreaming of the success he hoped to achieve, but the only answer was a grunt.

After a journey of several miles the stepfather stopped abruptly and simulating surprise said excitedly, “See, look, look! There is a hole. Hurry Hono‘, crawl in and catch the game. Oh you will be a big hunter now!”

Little Hono‘ was happy that he could be of service and in imagination saw glorious days ahead. Dropping upon his hands and knees he crawled into the hole in the ground and ran down the tunnel until he could no longer see, because of the darkness. Then, as he was about to return he saw the round opening ahead suddenly grow dark and with it the entire cavern. Guided by the walls he ran forward with speed born of terror and crashed his head into the stone that obstructed the opening.

Outside the evil man laughed in savage glee as he thought how easily he had shaken off the untaught Hono‘.

“He will never push that boulder away,” said he, as he strolled back to his lodge.

The blow had stunned the boy but after some time he was awakened by the sound of voices. Listening he discovered that on the earth outside a council was in session and his name was being frequently used. He had not long marvelled over the matter when he heard someone endeavoring to remove the stone. Finally it rolled down the hill and a voice called down the hole.

“Come out upon the earth if yet you are living,” it said.

Shyly the boy emerged from the hole and sat down upon the grass. About him on every hand were animals.

“The boy is rescued,” said a porcupine, who seemed to be the spokesman. “Who will care for him?”

Instantly there was a prolonged medley of cries. Each animal about him was either barking, yelping, grunting or screeching. Everyone was shouting “I’ll care for him!”

“Hold!” cried the porcupine. “Do not volunteer without reason. You must be fit for the task. Let each tell his temper and his habits and most of all what he eats, then the boy may choose his own guardian.”

Acting upon the suggestion each one extolled its own merits to the boy, but all in turn were rejected until a bear woman said, “I am old and rather surly, but I have a warm heart. I live happily in summer and sleep much in winter. I eat honey, nuts and berries.”

“Oh you will do,” interrupted Hono‘, shouting as loudly as he could. “I can stand that all right!”

To Hono‘ the strange part of the proceedings was that all the animals seemed human creatures and yet like beasts. They all spoke in one language and acted as friends although Hono‘ believed many mortal enemies.

The council adjourned and Hono‘ followed his bear mother down a trail that led to a thick wood.

On the way the bear spoke. “I wished you to become my grandson,” she said, “because I have lost one and wish you to take his place and drive away my sorrow.”

The two soon arrived at a great hollow stub and the bear taking the boy by the neck like a cub drew him into the hollow. Hono‘ looked about and found his quarters very comfortable. He was greatly pleased when the grandmother introduced him to two young bears, her grandsons, and told him they were his playmates.

When Hono‘ was hungry the grandmother bear gave him a honey-comb and some dried berries. When he was thirsty she gave him her paw to suck.

Hono‘ found his playmates boisterous fellows and many a time he received hard knocks but gave back as many as he received.

“Have care, Hono‘,” his grandmother warned him. “Wherever you get scratched hair will grow. So take caution, for unless you do you will look like a cub.”

Summer came and the berries ripened. The bear grandmother suggested that it might be sport for the boys to go with her and gather the winter store of berries. The boys were delighted and consented instantly. Then the old bear said: “Now, Hono‘, we always have much trouble while gathering berries. Bad animals and bad men and bad birds swarm to the berry patches and seek to harm us. Now you are a warrior and I wish to dress you in skins, to paint your face and to give you a bow and a quiver of arrows. Run around the hill and shout and whoop as loud as you can, and if enemies appear, shoot without mercy. This done we will have a prosperous season.”

Hono‘ did as was asked and returning reported that he had shot many birds but nothing else. The bears, therefore, went upon the hillside fearlessly and gathered great baskets full of berries.

The summer season grew into autumn and nutting time came.

“This is a dangerous time,” said the old bear, “and I feel that evil will befall us. Hunters swarm the woods now after autumn fruits, roots and game.”

It was cautiously, indeed, that the bears gathered up the winter’s store of nuts but for some time no human hunter was seen. One day, however, the old bear exclaimed, “Ah, here he comes. Now Hono‘, I will show you the classes of hunters you humans have. I do not fear this one for he is a Do-sko-a-o, or brush-in-the-mouth-hunter. See, he is chewing a pine twig. This gives us the scent and we can flee long before he reaches us, for this ’brush-mouth’ is too careless.”

The bears were hiding in a large hollow tree, and, true to the mother bear’s prophecy, the hunter did not see them but plodded along trailing his bow and chewing the pine. When he had passed by the bears scampered back to the chestnut tree and climbing it shook down the delicious brown nuts.

On the morrow, as Hono‘ and the bears were starting out, the old bear exclaimed in a whisper, “A hunter is coming, but fear not, he is a blind man. See, he is eating and holds his bowl so far over his eyes that he cannot see anything before him. When he walks through the forest he looks neither right nor left but walks unconcerned, yet strangely hopes for game. Look again, for another hunter will shortly appear. He is ‘heavy stepper’ and warns before he comes. Still another hunter comes,” continued the bear woman, “He is ‘swinging mouth’; keep away from his chin and you are safe. Notice, he appears to be singing loudly, but in reality he is only humming very low or even only thinking of his song. Listen to me Hono‘, bears can hear singing if only thought and sung in the mind.”

On their homeward journey the old bear putting her nose to the ground said: “Alas, alas! We must hurry now and hide for real evil is coming.” The bears hastened their steps and soon were safely concealed in their tree. Then the wise old bear looking through her window in a frightened tone said: “At last, a true hunter has come. He is of the class we call four eyes. He has a dog with him and no sign escapes their eyes. See even now he is approaching this tree. Ah, he is a great hunter and is your own evil foster father. When he cuts down the tree let me run first, and, last of all, Hono‘ you follow.”

Scarcely had she spoken when the hunter approached the tree and surveyed it critically. Gathering some dry leaves and twigs he built a fire around the dry old stub and as the flames ate in he cut out the coals, leaving a fresh surface for the fire. In a few minutes it crashed and fell. The old woman bear rushed out and began to run towards the west but had only taken a few leaps when an arrow pierced her heart, but her ghost-body ran on. The two cubs emerging met death in a similar way, then Hono‘ crawling out cried, “Father, are you going to shoot me, too?”

“Agē´!” exclaimed the hunter in surprise. “How came you here,” and Hono‘ told his story.

The stepfather was greatly impressed, and taking the boy by the hand, said, “I am sorry, my boy, I was ever unkind. I am sorry I killed your friends. If you had only called me I should have hearkened and all would have been well, but now Agē´! I shall always have bad luck!”

The hunter looked upon his stepson with great awe and invited him back to his home, for he was afraid of the bear ghosts.

“And am I useful now?” asked the boy, “and will you like me?”

The hunter said, “truly.”

He never dared hunt again but Hono‘ did.

GENERAL NOTES.—In this legend an unloved stepson is lured to a hole in the ground by his foster father and caused to enter it on the pretense of looking for game. The hole is then closed by a boulder and Hono‘ left a prisoner. Soon he hears animals talking about his fate and in a few moments the boulder is rolled away and he emerges to hear a lively discussion by the animals as to who can best care for him. A bear mother finally secures him and takes him with her, instructing him in the ways to avoid the human beings who hunt bears. In the end the bear mother gives up her life to save Hono‘ and he escapes only to find that this foster father was the hunter. The two become reconciled.

The ideas of the bear mother and of the bear wife of a human man are common Seneca concepts.

This legend was related during the winter of 1904–1905 by Edward Cornplanter. Later I secured versions from Mrs. Aurelia J. Miller and David George. From the notes of all these versions this present version has been compiled. I am aware that it is in my own words rather than in the language of any one of my informants. I have added nothing, however, and have carefully kept the story to its original form.

19. The Seventh Son28

My grandfather used to tell it to go to sleep by.

There were seven brothers two years apart. Their grandparents took care of them. They were all extra hunters. It seems the way my grandfather told it, each one shot an animal and used its skin for a short skirt; one had bear skin and the others different skins.

The grandparents knew of a family of beautiful daughters a good ways east that would make good wives, but had bad habits. Oh my, they were queer folks.

It seems each boy must go out when he was come to manhood and listen for signs of women,—the women to marry. So when the oldest was a man the grandfather said, “Now you must go away and listen, then come back.” All right, so he went away and by and by he came back and said: “Oh Grandfather!” “Now wait,” said the grandfather, “I must smoke first.” So he filled up his pipe hard and took a coal and made big clouds,—smoke, it was. Then by an’ by he said, “Now you tell me.” So the boy,—man now,—said, “O-whoo-oo-o. Whoo-ho-wa-a!” “All right,” grandfather says, “next morning you go off again. Go east and don’t stop. You keep right on.” So he went on and didn’t come back.

By and by the second son said, “I am a man now. Now’s my time to go off.” All right, so he went off and came back and heard a wren and he said he had heard something. When the grandfather finished smoking he said: “Now you follow that on and keep right east and don’t stop ’tall.” So he never came back.

So turns came to all and they went too, same way and heard crow, rabbit, deer, cracking sticks, and they followed the sounds.

Then the seventh son came of age and he was a kind of a witch [sic] and he dressed up in his best. Now I am going to describe his dress. He had a short skirt to the middle, most to his knees, made of nice spotted deer-skin,—yearling,—and he had nice moccasins and nothing else only a ga-gē-da, (a breast sash). And so he was like a big witch.29 He went off and he didn’t turn round when he heard a noise but kept right on going.

By and by he came to a path and saw one man’s tracks, by and by two, three, four, by and by, good many,—regular path. Pretty soon so many that the path, it was good deal dust in it, and he kept on. Then he noticed other tracks and paths coming on,—the big road it is, now, from every direction. Now way off in the distance he saw smoke rising. He kept looking. He thought something was going to happen. He was all alone on the big path in the dusty plain. Path gets wider the more he goes along. By and by he thinks he’d better look nice so he stripped off some bark and rolled it and spit on it to make a nice neck-string. My! it was a nice one and shined where he spit on it. By and by he went along and he saw a bush and a big thing on it—what hornets live in,—hanging down. It was a very big thing, so he went up slow and took some moss and clay in his fingers and made a plug and pasted up the door where hornets came out. Then he picked it off and he was a big witch, and rolled the big,—why, I guess it’s nest, you call it,—roll in his hands and got it small like a little bottle and he spit on it. My, it shined! Then he fastened the bottle to his neck on the bark. Oh it looked nice! Then he shook up the bottle hard. Oh! Then he went along and he saw a milk-weed stalk with pods popped open. So he pulled out the white threads and cut the stalk and got his hands sticky—and rubbed it on his long hair. Then he spit on it some more and stuck in the white stuff and worked a long time and it looked nice. You couldn’t see his black hair. It looked all white, like a dandelion. So he went along and he thought he would spit on his hands and rub it on his body and he did and it got all colors and they changed. Oh my! And he went on and he began to notice he was going down hill and he went on and the hill got steeper. He saw smoke all the time and now he saw it coming out of a big house and the road went right into the door. And the hill got steeper and by and by very steep and slippery. And he got there and said, “Yo hoh´! I am in for it now!” So he looked sharp and saw a woman in the door and he was all right. Then all of a sudden he looked around and oh my! his foot slipped and he fell right down the hill and didn’t stop until he landed right in the middle of the room. Now the old woman there said, “Yes, get the kettle ready. We’ve been waiting long enough for that animal.”

Now there were seven sisters there and the oldest was an old maid and all were except the youngest, and the oldest said, “Go get the knife and we will butcher him.” So they tied his body to a post and they were ready to kill him. Then the youngest said, “Oh look, he isn’t like the others. He has curious hair and his body shines! His skirt is nice, it is spotted and pretty and has deer’s hoofs rattling for a fringe. Let us look at him.” So she touched his hair and pulled it and said, “My, it is funny, it won’t pull out. Let’s not kill him yet.” So she looked at him some more. Pretty soon she says, “Oh what a funny bottle,” and she pulled out the cork and all of a sudden, out came something, bump, on the floor. Now he was a great witch and when the hornets struck the floor he used his great magic, and oh! it was strong magic! Now when the women looked, Ah-gey! the hornets were warriors! And they kept falling out until the house was full and the hornet captain took out his knife and cut the strings on the post and then he stopped up the bottle.

The old woman called her youngest daughter to her and said: “I am a big witch but he is a bigger one. If I get beaten you must burn down the house and all things in it. You must burn all the medicine because it will kill you all if you don’t. Then have all the ashes of me and everything buried.” Then the mother rushed and yelled, “Kill him!” and she tried it but a hornet-man warrior raised his tomahawk and he didn’t hit her but she fell down dead. So the oldest sister ran to stick a knife in him and a warrior raised his arm and she fell dead and he didn’t hit her. And they were all afraid and stood back and the youngest daughter kind o’ cried and said, “I’ll give up my way and eat what he eats and I’ll take him for my husband.” So right away the chief hornet married them.

So there was no more fighting and it was dark and he and the seventh daughter went to bed because they were married and the five sisters planned to kill him as he slept but it was so he had a friend, a guard who was a star. And the star came down and sat on his eye and the witch sisters thought him awake and by and by the star went away, but it was morning then and they couldn’t kill him.

So that day he ordered the big lodge to be burned and all the medicine in it and the body of the mother in it. It was a very big fire and hot and after awhile the mother’s head burst open and up in the smoke flew all kinds of evil birds that no one eats,—owls and screech-owls, and hawks and crows, and big crow buzzards, and black eagles and wild poison animals with feathers. Now the wife said he must not kill those animals but let them fly away. She told him before her mother died that must be the way. So that’s how it happened all kinds of mischief got scattered around.

Then the sisters told him that once in a fight all of their men were killed and everybody else only them and they didn’t have any men and wanted some now because they had made up their minds that they wouldn’t eat any more people. So some of his warriors married the sisters and others he sent out to find wives for some of the hornet men had no hornet wives. He wanted to make a big village there.

So then he went back and brought his grandparents to the new village and they were surprised and knew he was a big witch then. Now when all the warriors had returned with wives he said, “You are mine.” Then he uncorked his bottle and let out more warriors for his grandparents. So they went to another village and the warriors built houses and boats and cleared land and made a big town.

Now the youngest daughter told her husband where his brother’s bones were hidden. And she showed him the spot and he dug up the bones and was in a hurry to match them and smoked on them and they came to life again but he had been in too much of a hurry. He didn’t put the bones together the right way they ought to be and that was very bad because when the meat grew on again some had long legs, some long some short, some had broken arms, some too many fingers, some not enough, some had not enough ribs and so were soft and bent over. Oh they were in an awful fix! Their bones were not a match and some were missing because they had been chewed up. Oh! But the brothers had lots of hornets to work for them and it was easy. So now that’s why crooked and lame people come to be born. They are the grandchildren,—way down,—of the brothers, and it is awful!

Now that’s only how far my Grandfather told us because he said we wouldn’t go to sleep if we listened to more and he never finished it but next time began it all over again.

GENERAL NOTES.—This is a characteristic Seneca legend and its elements are not at all unusual. As a variation I have given it almost exactly in the same language as originally related to me by Mrs. Aurelia Jones Miller. My informant was a woman of unusual natural intelligence and spoke English fairly well, but she frequently omitted the articles, “the,” “an” and “a,” and in other ways her language was picturesquely provincial, but typical of the reservation brogue.

The conclusion of the story copies a common theme, that of restoring the bones of persons slain by witchcraft. The hero is in too much of a hurry and forces the skeletons to assemble so quickly that the bones are mismated, producing cripples and misshapen people when they are conjured back to living flesh.

20. The Boy Who Overcame All Magic by Laughter30

The world was once visited by a demon of enchantment who scattered all the people and bewitched all the animals, all the trees, all the lakes, all the rivers, all the boys and girls and all the older people. Strange to say, nobody knew that they had been enchanted; they only knew that all their wishes were thwarted and that there was misery everywhere.

Now, Gajihsondis did not know that he had been placed under an evil spell. He was a boy and was filled with all the ambitions of a boy, but all his desires were curbed by his queer-looking old grandfather. The boy did not even know that it was strange to live in a hole in the ground under his grandfather’s bed or to be whipped with burning switches.31 He only knew that he wanted to do things,—to play down by the spring and to go hunting. After a while he grew curious to know the reason of things and so asked many questions.

One day when he had grown to the age of twelve years he asked: “My grandfather, where are my parents? Why have you never taken me to my father and my mother?”

His grandfather eyed him curiously and refused to give Gajihsondis any satisfaction. But the boy kept questioning until the old man growled like a bear and said: “My grandson, you should not ask questions. You have forced me to speak and you must not blame me for the trouble that you have now brought upon the world. You shall now die because I am about to answer you. There is a spring near the path that leads from this lodge into the deep forest. I have never let you go there because in that spring is a terrible monster that is filled with great magic. His orenda (magical potence) is more powerful than anything else in the world. If you go far from this lodge the beast will reach out with his long claws and devour you. You have never been allowed to stray from the doorway because of this. But now that you know this circumstance you must learn to use a bow and arrow. You must become a hunter, for what I have told you has made me very old and I shall soon be unable to hunt.”

The old man, looking more ugly than ever, went to his hunting pouch and took out a small bow and a quiver of arrows. “Now, take these, my grandson. Go and hunt. Find your first prey on a tree.”

Gajihsondis went out of the lodge very happy. “I am now a hunter,” thought he. “I shall soon bring in all the meat.” He watched carefully for signs of game. Then he spied what he thought a great bird upon the trunk of a tree. He lifted up his bow and shot but missed his quarry. Thereupon he ran back to the lodge and cried: “Oh grandfather, I have been unable to kill my prey.” Then he wept with disappointment.

“I thought you would fail,” said the grandfather. “You have never had practice. I will hang up the foot of a raccoon and you must shoot this wherever I hang it. When you hit it every time without missing once you may go on a hunt again.” He then hung the coon’s foot by a cord to the roof-pole and allowed it to dangle over the fire. “I am going on a hunt now but it will be my last. If you are unable to hit the raccoon’s foot by the time I return we are lost.”

Thereupon the grandfather took his hunting equipment and departed. This gave Gajihsondis his chance. After many failures he hit the foot and when he became proficient he tried other things.

After many days the grandfather returned. “We are lost now,” said he. “The beast is coming to devour us. Only four days remain for us to live.” “I’ll shoot it,” exclaimed Gajihsondis. “I am a good marksman now!”

The old man laughed. “Oh no,” said he. “I gave you an arrow that can never hit its mark. You cannot shoot.” “But my grandfather,” contradicted the boy, “I never miss the mark.” The grandfather grunted, “Wha-a-a-ah.”

Gajihsondis then shot the raccoon’s foot. This made the old man look up. “It is only a chance,” he said. “You had power with you but for a moment. Never more can you do it. I will place the foot elsewhere. Thereupon he threw it to the top of a tall tree. “Now you cannot hit it,” he said.

Gajihsondis took easy aim and hit the foot knocking it from its hanging to another tree much higher and with a second arrow he knocked it again, bringing it to the ground.

Instead of being pleased the old man was very angry and said: “Who has been here to guide you? There is some evil thing lurking about. Well, never mind this, you can not kill real game. You have no arrows to hit anything.”

Gajihsondis then went out and saw the bird he first had aimed at. Again he shot, and killed it this time. Taking it up he ran in great glee to his grandfather. “Oh contempt!” exclaimed the old man. “You have killed nothing but a chickadee.” But even so, the old man worried, for he knew that his grandson had killed the first creature which by custom a child is permitted to kill when he learns to hunt.

Again the boy went out and soon returned with a raccoon. It was a fine fat animal and made a good meal for the two, but the grandfather ridiculed the boy and said it was only temporary luck, for the boy possessed no orenda (magical power). Again the boy tried his skill and killed a fine turkey which the old man dressed and cooked, at the same time sneering as before. On his fourth excursion Gajihsondis killed a deer and brought it in. This time the old man angrily exclaimed, “It is not right that you should become proficient as a hunter but it seems that you have. Oh now we shall all die for you will consider yourself able to leave this lodge and to follow the path.”

Now, this is just what Gajihsondis wanted to do. He had only one desire,—to overcome the monster that barred him from his father and mother. “Now I am going,” said he, without further ado. “I shall slay the monster.”

The old man scolded and wept, but Gajihsondis was soon out of sight down the well-beaten path that led from the lodge into the deep forest. After a day’s journey he found a gigantic frog crying out terrible threats. “Whoso comes near this spring,” he croaked, “shall die. I eat whoever comes near this spring.”

Gajihsondis was not a bit frightened; he simply drew his bow and shot the frog, and though it was larger than he, he tied its feet together and hung it to his carrying frame and returned to his grandfather’s lodge. The old man was very angry but the boy only laughed. Now he had learned a new trick, that of laughing. He had never done this before and to have him laugh made his grandfather even more angry.

The grandson went out a second time and found a gigantic duck guarding the spring. It cried out threats and proclaimed its great power. This did not daunt Gajihsondis who merely fixed his bow and shot it. Again he returned to his grandfather who became even more angry. “How could you do this?” he asked. “By magic the path was changed, but you found the spring again. You shall not find it again.”

For a third time the boy went out on his hunt for the spring and easily found it, for as plain as day he could see a path leading directly to it. (Now this was strange for it was not a path that ordinary eyes could see, which made the grandfather believe that it could not be discovered.) When he neared the spring he heard the cries of a great beaver threatening to gnaw anyone in twain who approached the pool. It was a very terrifying beaver but Gajihsondis found it an easy mark for his arrows. He laughed as he trussed it in his carrying frame and laughed as three days later he flung it down at his grandfather’s doorway. The old man roused himself in furious anger and flung his “bundles”32 in the fire. He pawed the earth like a beast and shouted until his throat bled, but Gajihsondis only laughed again and went away, saying, “Oh it is very easy!”

Now when he went down the path Gajihsondis knew that it had been changed. First he had gone north, then west, then south, and now he was going east over the path, that while invisible to common eyes, was visible to him, yet he did not know how he could see it. For if he tried to look he could see nothing, and when he did not try he could see everything. He also knew something that he would not tell.

For a fourth time he drew near to the mysterious pool. It was most beautiful and the trees about it were very tall. There were rocks looking like enchanted beasts asleep about it. The water, itself, was very clear and sparkled as if the sun were upon it, even when it was night. Gajihsondis went right up to the spring and flung in a fishing-line. In an instant he had a bite and some terrifying thing began to pull him into the water, but though he was sore pressed and saw himself falling over the edge of the pool he laughed, and when he did he gave a great pull, staggered backward, and pulled out a lizard four times his own length. It was the blue Dagwĕⁿ´’nigoⁿ´ge. Though he had hooked it the creature was not dead, but as Gajihsondis looked at it, it sprang toward him with a cry and bit off both his legs. This made Gajihsondis laugh with all his might and he laughed so hard that the beast grew weak. The creature then despairing of killing the boy stabbed him in the breast with its tail, crying, “Put me back in the spring.”

Again the boy laughed. “Oh how can I put you back in the spring,” said he, “seeing that I have no legs wherewith to walk? Replace my legs and I will put you back.” Then he laughed again.

Now the lizard was a creature of great magic and it conjured a man and a woman who came forth from the water and made Gajihsondis’s legs whole again and smoothed up the wound where the incision had been. The boy laughed and instead of thanking them caught them with his fish line and cut off the heads of each. “I know you,” said he. “You are the evil servants of Lizard.” So saying he cast them in a fire and burned them to ashes. When the heads were consumed they burst with a loud explosion and out flew a great flock of screech-owls. He then threw the lizard back into the pool, saying, “I despise you for your lack of magic.”

Laughing as he went, Gajihsondis followed the path until he came to a clearing. Though he greatly wondered what was in the clearing, for he heard human voices, he could not proceed, for there, hovering over the path, were many white owls, screaming at him and swooping down to pluck out his eyes.

Gajihsondis now thought of a plan to overcome the owls. It seems best to be truthful, he thought, and so he determined what to say. So he called out, “I claim this land. It is mine and I shall possess it, but I am willing to make one of you owls chief with me.” The owls then began to quarrel among themselves as to who would be chief. They made a great noise and soon had clawed each other to death. None remained to rule with Gajihsondis, so he went forward. As he proceeded he found that the path had changed and that instead of entering the clearing from the north he was entering from the west. Soon he paused for the path was guarded by powerful panthers.

Again he resolved to declare his intentions. “I claim this land,” he cried. “It is mine, I shall possess it, but am willing to make one of you panthers chief to govern with me.” The two panthers then began to quarrel and soon were engaged in murderous combat. In a few moments both were dead. Gajihsondis then went on, but noticed that the path had changed and that he was entering the clearing from the south.

He paused as he was about to enter the clearing for there, guarding the path with lowered antlers, were two elk. He saluted them calling out, “This is my land. I shall possess it, but I shall make one of you chief to help me govern.” As before, the creatures fought themselves to death, each one desiring to be chief. Gajihsondis then journeyed on, finding as before that the path had changed. This time he approached from the east.

As he was about to enter the clearing two enormous serpents rose up and hissed at him. As before he loudly proclaimed: “I claim this land. It is mine and I shall possess it, but I am willing to make one of you rattlesnakes chief with me.” Then did the great serpents begin to fight and after a fierce struggle both bit one another and both died.

Gajihsondis strode on into the clearing and found a great lodge within. It was strongly built and large enough to hold a great company of people. Entering the lodge, he found an old man cooking corn mush. The old man said nothing until the food was cooked when he said, “Come eat; it is ready.” The two finished the meal for Gajihsondis was very hungry and was especially fond of corn pudding. “We will now sleep here,” said the old man pointing to mats on the floor.

Both lay down on the mats instead of upon the long shelf-like beds that were on either side of the lodge. As the old man lay down with all his clothing, his pouch leaped from him and went to a peg on the center pole; his leggings drew from him and rolled up in a corner; his moccasins leaped to a bench, and his breech-cloth came off and hung itself over a pole. Then all the supper dishes leaped about, the pot emptying itself and then jumping to the upper shelf of the lodge. After a while the old man went to sleep, and as he did a white deer emerged from his breast, leaped into the air and sailed away through the smoke hole. Gajihsondis watched far into the night. He could not sleep for the utensils in the lodge moved about and talked to each other.

Gajihsondis conceived the idea of robbing the house of its magical objects and finally decided it might be better to escape without a burden. Carefully he crawled out from his skin coverings and made haste to withdraw. He did this with entire success, and ran a long way into the night. Soon, however, he saw a white deer dart down from the sky and enter the smoke hole of the lodge. He knew then that the old man would awake and pursue him. Nor was he mistaken, for soon he could hear the old man running after him. On and on he came until when just behind Gajihsondis he waved his war club and struck the boy on the head.

“I have killed another,” shrieked the old man, as he sawed a knick in his war club with his flint knife. “No man escapes me.”

The old man then went about the forest and restored all the animals slain or dead through the craft of Gajihsondis. At length he found the lizard in the pool and told it all concerning his work of restoration. “It must be Gajihsondis who has done all this,” said the lizard after he had been restored to his own magical power. “Only Gajihsondis could have slain all these helpers. I greatly fear that he has acquired sufficient magic to slay us all.”

“But I have slain him and he will trouble us no more,” said the old man.

“Oh, no,” replied the lizard. “Gajihsondis will revive. Then let us beware.”

The old man returned to his lodge and passed the body of Gajihsondis and to his great satisfaction saw the great crows picking at it. “He is dead,” he thought, and went straightway to sleep.

The boy soon recovered consciousness and, completely restored, he crept into the old man’s lodge. “I will now be truthful,” he thought. “I will address the war club.”

“War club,” he commanded. “Stand up,” and the club stood erect. “Now war club, in you is power. I want you to be my friend and assist me in slaying my enemy. I am a man and will not be denied.”

The war club then pointed to a bed far away from the door and Gajihsondis went to the bed and saw a pile of soft tanned pelts. Removing these he saw a sleeping maiden. He took a brand from the fire and held it over the girl. “I have now come for you,” he said. “I am going to rob this house and take you with me. This is my land and I shall rule it.” The girl looked at Gajihsondis and was pleased. She liked the looks of Gajihsondis. “I will go,” she said, “but first you must slay my uncle. It is because he fears you will find me that we are all bewitched.”

The boy then went over to the old man and awakened him. His clothing flew upon him, a white deer entered his body and then he sat up. “What do you want?” he inquired.

“I want to fight with you,” said Gajihsondis.

“Now just wait,” said the old man. “I must get my war paint ready.” So saying he threw charcoal from the fire in the corn mortar and made a black paste. Then he took red paint from a box. He applied black to one side of his face and red to the other.

“Now I am ready,” he announced. “Why do you wish to fight me?”

“I want all your things and I am going to take your niece,” said the boy.

At this the old man became very angry and whooped. He then sang a magic song and grasped his war club, and rushed upon Gajihsondis. The young man grasped his war club and then the two began to fight. In a short time the old man was overcome and exhausted. Gajihsondis bound up the old man and put him in his carrying frame. Then he took the girl by the hand and led her away to his own lodge.

Reaching his grandfather’s lodge he noticed for the first time that it was identical with the one in which he had had his fight. His grandfather and the old man looked the same. There was no difference.

When the old man, his grandfather, saw that Gajihsondis had brought home the old man bound and also the girl, he was very angry but said nothing. He made up his mind to kill the boy and to marry the girl. Now when the boy slept and the girl had crawled into her robes afar from the door, the old man grasped his war club and sang to it. Now the prisoner sat up and did likewise, and both did exactly as the other did. “I will kill the boy now,” said the old man, and so saying, he shot three arrows into his back.

In a short time the boy awakened, being in great pain. He arose and went out of the lodge. Near the creek he found a sweat lodge and as he stood near it a voice spoke: “Go in,” it said. “I will help you.” He looked and there saw another person exactly like himself, only very white and clear. “I have always known you were my friend,” said Gajihsondis. “But this time I see you.”

Gajihsondis went into the lodge and took a sweat, and when the arrows had come out he took an emetic. After a while he saw clearly in the dark. He saw his friend walk toward him and enter his body. The two became one. “This is the power that has guided me,” he thought. “But I will never tell anyone I have seen him, until the day I am about to die.”

Thereupon he returned to the lodge and awoke his grandfather. “Come and fight me, grandfather,” he exclaimed. “I believe that you have done me a great wrong.”

The old man sprang from his bed and as he did so the prisoner became as a mist and floated into him. Then the grandfather grasped his war club but it was no longer strong like good hickory, but soft like wet rawhide. He could not fight.

He began to whimper. “Oh, my grandson,” he moaned. “Do not kill your grandfather. My strength is gone. I will confess. I have been a great wizard and have created many evil monsters and slain many people by magic. Now I am undone. Oh restore my nature and make me human again. Do not kill me.”

“Then tell me everything,” demanded Gajihsondis, and the old man told him of his conjuring. The girl, he said, was fore-ordained as Gajihsondis’ wife, his parents were in the ground back of the lodge in the clearing. He had exercised his magic in order to claim the girl. He and the old man in the house in the clearing were one and the same person, though dual by magic. The path was well trodden because he had traveled over it so many times.

“I must now go out and kill all the monsters,” said Gajihsondis. He did so and killed all the magically evil creatures. He dug up the ground back of the lodge in the clearing and there found a bark house hidden by the roots of the trees. There he found his mother, his father and his sister. All were very happy that Gajihsondis had released them and together they made their journey back to the grandfather’s lodge. When he saw them returning he died and turned into a shriveled human skin. This Gajihsondis rolled into a bundle and hid it in the rafters. Then he called to the girl and she came out of the blankets from the bed at the far side of the lodge. She was a beautiful young woman and dressed in fine garments.

“Who is this?” asked Gajihsondis’s father and mother.

“This is my wife,” he replied. “We shall all live in a new house.”

So he took them all away and he showed them a new lodge of bark he had built. So this is the story of Gajihsondis.

GENERAL NOTES—The introductory paragraph of this legend is not a part of the story but is the answer which Cornplanter gave me in response to my inquiry how it happened that so many stories began with a recital of unnatural conditions.

There are interesting allusions in this tale, and many of them are characteristic. These include the theme of the orphaned boy living with an uncle or grandfather, cruel beatings or punishment by fire, living in the ground, the boy suddenly becoming self-confident through the reception of orenda or magical power, overcoming all obstacles and destroying the source of evil enchantment.

There are other elements, which while characteristic in a measure, are so striking as to be worthy of comment. In this story the cycle of four attempts emphasizes the importance of the number four in Seneca folk-thought. Gajihsondis kills four animals in his attempts to learn to become a hunter, he overcomes four beasts at the spring, he finds four paths, each in one of the prime cardinal directions, he overcomes four magical guards of the trail. When he finally enters the clearing and discovers the bark lodge he discovers a new obstacle.

The unusual elements now follow. These are the discovery that the lodge in the clearing is after all only a replica of the one in which his grandfather and he had lived together (although the story does not at first make this clear); the strange conception of clothing flying from the body of the wearer, completely undressing him, and returning to him when he awakens; the idea of the man’s name-genius (the white deer), leaving his body when he sleeps, the talking war club (which seems somewhat symbolic), and finally the concept of a double personality, one portion or unit being unseen. Gajihsondis had a soul-self which materialized and guarded his life, gave him information and pointed out his means of restoration. The grandfather also had a double in the person of the evil wizard in the identical lodge.

This legend has another element which seems quite unique; it is the power of laughter over wizardry. Gajihsondis had only to laugh at a monster to overcome it, though he did not always do this.

I cannot help but feel that in the form here presented this tale of the occult and mysterious is only a portion of a fuller story, the details of which are only partially developed in this version. This comment may apply to many of the legends, for inquiry about certain points always brings forth additional information and frequently other episodes.