636 SENECA FICTION, LEGENDS, AND MYTHS [kth. ann.32 



" So now, too, this assembly of people, such as it is, is giving thanks 

 this day. He willed that there shall be persons who shall have the 

 ability to sing the songs of the Great Feather Dance, which were 

 bestowed on us by our Creator. So now we thank you, Singers, who 

 have this power and who have so well again performed your duty, 

 a duty which is not an easy one. 



" May all the people here enjoy peace and health until the time for 

 the next celebration of this ceremony, which is fixed at a future day. 

 Live, then, in peace and health. I end." 



121. A Corn Legend and a Flood Story 



There is a story that in ancient times there occurred a great 

 calamity, which was caused by a rain that lasted three months. 

 The result of this long rain was that the waters rose high and soon 

 flooded the whole extent of the dry land. Only one man was saved. 

 He climbed a tree to save himself from the waters. 



The waters rose high in every place except on one tract of land 

 on which stood a village of about six families, from which all the 

 game had disappeared; so the people of these families had nothing 

 to eat. This village was situated on the bank of a small stream 

 where grew a large number of slippery-elm trees. The absence of 

 all other food compelled the miserable wretches to strip the bark 

 from these trees to use as food. They dried the bark and then 

 pounded it into a kind of coarse meal, which they mixed with water 

 to make a sort of bread to satisfy their hunger. 



During this terrible time of scarcity, one night when all others 

 were fast asleep one of the young men of the small village, being 

 awake, heard some person walking with very heavy tread. He was 

 not moved to fear by this experience, so he decided not to inform 

 his companions of what he had heard. For 30 successive nights he 

 heard this tramping and walking to and fro, as he surmised. But 

 the young man had been thinking deeply on the meaning of the 

 sounds he had been hearing night after night, and on the morning 

 of the day following the thirtieth night he informed his companions 

 that some person was about to pay them a visit. The sounds of the 

 walking had appeared to him to come from the east. 



Not long after this the people realized the truth of what he had 

 told them, for a strange woman **'^ came to their lodge. No one knew 

 whence she came, for they were surrounded by water, and there was 

 no land in sight. The strange woman did not remain at this lodge, 

 but went directly to the lodge of the brother of the young man 

 who had heard her walking. When the brother, who had been 

 outside the lodge, reentered it he found the woman seated. He had 

 never before seen another woman like her, for she was beyond meas- 



