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  SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION----BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.


  MYTHS

  OF

  THE IROQUOIS.


  BY

  ERMINNIE A. SMITH.




CONTENTS.

                                                              Page.
  CHAPTER I.--GODS AND OTHER SUPERNATURAL BEINGS                 51
    Hi-nun destroying the giant animals                          54
    A Seneca legend of Hi-nun and Niagara                        54
    The Thunderers                                               55
    Echo God                                                     58
    Extermination of the Stone Giants                            59
    The North Wind                                               59
    Great Head                                                   59
    Cusick's story of the dispersion of the Great Heads          62
    The Stone Giant's wife                                       62
    The Stone Giant's challenge                                  63
    Hiawatha and the Iroquois wampum                             64

  CHAPTER II.--PIGMIES                                           65
    The warrior saved by pigmies                                 65
    The pigmies and the greedy hunters                           66
    The pigmy's mission                                          67

  CHAPTER III.--PRACTICE OF SORCERY                              68
    The origin of witches and witch charms                       69
    Origin of the Seneca medicine                                70
    A "true" witch story                                         71
    A case of witchcraft                                         72
    An incantation to bring rain                                 72
    A cure for all bodily injuries                               73
    A witch in the shape of a dog                                73
    A man who assumed the shape of a hog                         73
    Witch transformations                                        74
    A superstition about flies                                   74

  CHAPTER IV.--MYTHOLOGIC EXPLANATION OF PHENOMENA               75
    Origin of the human race                                     76
    Formation of the Turtle Clan                                 77
    How the bear lost his tail                                   77
    Origin of medicine                                           78
    Origin of wampum                                             78
    Origin of tobacco                                            79
    Origin of plumage                                            79
    Why the chipmunk has the black stripe on his back            80
    Origin of the constellations                                 80
    The Pole Star                                                81

  CHAPTER V.--TALES                                              83
    Boy rescued by a bear                                        83
    Infant nursed by bears                                       84
    The man and his step-son                                     85
    The boy and his grandmother                                  86
    The dead hunter                                              87
    A hunter's adventures                                        88
    The old man's lesson to his nephew                           89
    The hunter and his faithless wife                            90
    The charmed suit                                             92
    The boy and the corn                                         96
    The lad and the chestnuts                                    97
    The guilty hunters                                           99
    Mrs. Logan's story                                          100
    The hunter and his dead wife                                103
    A sure revenge                                              104
    Traveler's jokes                                            107
    Kingfisher and his nephew                                   108
    The wild-cat and the white rabbit                           110

  CHAPTER VI.--RELIGION                                         112
    New Year's festival                                         112
    Tapping the maple trees                                     115
    Planting corn                                               115
    Strawberry festival                                         115
    Green-corn festival                                         115
    Gathering the corn                                          115




_ILLUSTRATIONS._


  PLATE XII.--Returning thanks to the Great Spirit               52
       XIII.--Stone giant or cannibal                            56
        XIV.--Atotarho, war chief                                60
         XV.--The Flying Head put to flight                      64




MYTHS OF THE IROQUOIS.

BY ERMINNIE A. SMITH.




CHAPTER I.

GODS AND OTHER SUPERNATURAL BEINGS.


The principal monuments of the once powerful Iroquois are their myths
and folk-lore, with the language in which they are embodied. As these
monuments are fast crumbling away, through their contact with European
civilization, the ethnologist must hasten his search among them in order
to trace the history of their laws of mind and the records of their
customs, ideas, laws, and beliefs. Most of these have been long
forgotten by the people, who continue to repeat traditions as they have
been handed down through their fathers and fathers' fathers, from
generation to generation, for many centuries.

The pagan Iroquois of to-day (and there are still many) will tell you
that his ancestors worshiped, as he continues to do, the "Great Spirit,"
and, like himself, held feasts and dances in his honor; but a careful
study of the mythology of these tribes proves very clearly that in the
place of one prevailing great spirit (the Indian's earliest conception
of the white man's God) the Iroquois gods were numerous. All the
mysterious in nature, all that which inspired them with reverence, awe,
terror, or gratitude, became deities, or beings like themselves endowed
with supernatural attributes, beings whose vengeance must be
propitiated, mercy implored, or goodness recompensed by thank-offerings.
The latter were in the form of feasts, dances, or incense.

Among the most ancient of these deities, and regarding which the
traditions are the most obscure, were their most remote
ancestors--certain animals who later were transformed into human shape,
the names of the animals being preserved by their descendants, who have
used them to designate their gentes or clans.

Many races in that particular stage of savagery when the human intellect
is still in its child-like state, being impressed by the awful and
incomprehensible power of Thunder, have classed it foremost among their
deities, with attributes proportioned to the disposition or status of
the worshiper.

Hi-nun, the beneficent Thunder God of the Iroquois, compares most
favorably with the same god as worshiped by other races. Ever
accompanied by his equally powerful assistants, his mission was
understood to be only to promote the welfare of that favored people,
though isolated personal offenses might demand from him a just
retribution. It was therefore safe to make unto him, on his near
approach to earth, his most acceptable offering, the burning tobacco,
and so firmly rooted has become that ancient custom, that the aged
superstitious Iroquois of to-day can often be seen making this little
offering on the near approach of every thunder-storm. It is not
difficult to follow the crude reasoning by which was ascribed to
Hi-nun the goodness and glory of having destroyed the giant monsters
which either poisoned the waters or infested the land. That such had
existed was evident from the bones often discovered, and what power
other than the crashing bolt of Hi-nun could have accomplished their
destruction? The similarity discoverable in the myths of many peoples
regarding the Thunder God and his mission of destruction to giant
animals, making this an almost universal myth, is probably traceable to
this simple and natural explanation, and presents no argument that the
myth itself has traveled. It may, then, be safely assumed that Hi-nun
was an indigenous god of the Iroquois, the product of their own crude
reasoning powers.

Brother of the great Hi-nun was the West Wind, who, with him, brought
from the clouds the vivifying rain, and who finally assisted the
