HEwS] INTRODUCTION 61 



mentation, this is the mental process through which they dimly 

 apprehend the significance of the complex and closely interrelated 

 phenomena of life and of environing nature, and the medium by 

 which they harmonize the ceaseless functioning of these with their 

 own experience, with the activity of their own subconscious mind, and 

 with the divine prom})tings and visions vouchsafed them by the 

 dawn of their own superconscious intellect. 



The initial step of the process is the ingenuous act of the imagina- 

 tion in personifying, yea, in ideally humanizing, the bodies, elements, 

 and forces of environing nature ; as, for instance, the picturing by the 

 Iroquois and their neighbors, the Algonquian, of snow as the living 

 body of a man formed bj' the God of Winter, whose breath was potent 

 enougli to drive animals and birds into their winter retreats and some 

 even into hibernation, represented us the hiding of the animals from 

 his brother, the Master or God of Life. 



The next step in the process is the socialization of this .vast com- 

 pany — the imputation of life, soul, purpose, and a rational role to 

 them constitutes the epic, which is also the poet's liandiwork. 



As the basis of religious expression, Seneca-Iroquoian myths and 

 legends, in common with those of all other men, are to most people 

 the empt}' tales of superstition, the foundations of idolatry, be- 

 cause its gods and deities, forsooth, have never actually existed. 

 But myths are fictitious only in form and dress, while they are true 

 in matter and spirit, for truth is congruity between reason and 

 objects, and hence is eternal and universal. 



The human side of these personifications of the processes and 

 phenomena of nature in some instances has become so real and so 

 natural that these beings no longer act or function in terms of the 

 processes of nature only, but as the thaumaturgic fetishes of potent 

 sorcerers, performing wonderful feats of orenda, as they ai-e repre- 

 sented as doing in a large number of these narratives. Now, these 

 accounts are certainly not mj'ths and are not legends in the true sense 

 of the term, but are, rather, fictitious narratives or tales of i-eputed 

 individual human achievement, quite incredible, of course, as authen- 

 tic acts of mankind. They center about .the reputed affairs of a 

 himian being, or do so at least in the view of the modern story-teller. 



In the collection of Seneca narratives of Mr. Curtin eight relate 

 to the Genonsgwa (the Stone Coats or Stone Giants), six to rii"no"' 

 (Hinon) or the Thunder People, six to the Dagwanoenyent or 

 Whirlwind People, five to the Sliagodiioweq or Wind People, and 

 three to the Djogeon or Dwarf People. It is probable that the two 

 groups of " wind " peoples originally arose from a single personage. 

 From single personages like Hi"no°' or Thunder, Shagodiioweq or 

 the Wind, and Dagwanoenyent or the Cyclone or Whirlwind, the 



