228 SENECA FICTION, LEGENDS, AND MYTHS [ktu. a.nx.32 



43. IIiNON Saves a Woman from Suicide 



In a certain village a young man and a young woman were mar- 

 ried. Soon after their marriage they set out on a hunting expedition. 

 After traveling some distance they came to a dense wood, where they 

 stopped ivnd built a brush lodge. Every morning the young man, 

 leaving his wife at the lodge, always with the warning not to sleep 

 during the day, went out in pursuit of game. 



One afternoon, coining back earlier than usual, the young man 

 found her asleep. lie saw a great rattlesnake among the skins on 

 which she lay. While trying to pull the snake away, it disappeared 

 into her body through her pudendum. When she awoke the young 

 man, without saying anything of what had occurred, proposed th^t 

 they should go back to the village, as he was tired of hunting. On 

 reaching home, he told his wife to go her way and he would go his. 



Not long after this she married another man. On the following 

 morning her new husband was found dead. She soon married still 

 another man, who was also found dead on the morning after the 

 marriage. Her people then resolved to find out from the first hus- 

 band why he had put her away. After much persuasion he told 

 them why, saying, '" While hunting I often asked her never to sleep 

 in the daytime, but one afternoon on returning to my camp I found 

 her asleep; there was also a rattlesnake in the bed, which, when I 

 tried to drive it away, disappeared into her body." 



The mother of the young woman told her what they had heard 

 from the first husband. She was so ashamed and troubled that she 

 determined to kill herself by going over Niagara Falls, (jetting 

 into her canoe a mile or so above the Falls, she pushed out into 

 the middle of the river. The mother followed her, but too late to 

 _stop her daughter. As the canoe neared the Falls the latter, lying 

 down and covering her face with her mantle, disappeared over the 

 brink. But Hinon, who dwells' under the Falls, taking the young 

 woman from the water, carried her to his home, where he prepared 

 medicine which he gave to her; then, looking at her, he raised her 

 by the shoulders and let her down on her feet. The second time he 

 did this a dead snake dropped out of her person on the ground. 

 Hinon said, " I am glad to see this snake. Now I shall have some- 

 thing to eat." Roasting the snake on the hot coals of his hearth he 

 i'te it. 



The young woman lived with Hinon for some time. As she could 

 not eat his food, he often brought ears of corn, saying. " Here is some 

 corn from your mother's field." Then he would bring a roasted 

 squash with the words, " I brought this fi'om your mother's coals," 

 having taken it from her fireside. 



