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 tu 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 geu- 

 eration 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 mys- 

 terious 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 propiti- 

 ated, mercy implored, or goodness recompensed by thank-ofi'erings. 

 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 — cer- 

 tain 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 



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