13(> IROQl'dlAN COSMOLOGY 



As has been suggested, the (Ifvelopiueiit of legend is not always 

 internal, from the activities of the people dealing with the materials 

 sui)plied by the legend itself, but often, and naturally, from alien 

 material, from ideas and coneepts consciously or unconsciously adopted 

 from other peoples. And thus older forms and concepts, the ancient 

 dogmas, are displaced or changed by accultural influences and by a 

 more definite knowledge of nature acijuired through a wider experi- 

 ence, a closer observation, and a more discriminating interpretation 

 and apprehension of environing phenomena. Cosmok)gies. therefore, 

 are composite, representing the accumulated explanations of many 

 things by many generations in diverse times. The correct and funda- 

 mental analysis must therefore seek by a wide comparison of mate- 

 rials to separate the accultural from the autochthonous product. This 

 analysis, however, can bring to light only such material as still exhibits 

 by some marked token of incongruity its alien origin; for it is obvious 

 that accultural matter in time becomes so thoroughly assimilated and 

 recast that a more or less complete eongruity is established between it 

 and the cosmologic material with which it is joined, but to which it is, 

 in fait, alien. Furthermore, where reason demands it, metaphor and 

 personification must be reduced to concrete statements of objective 

 facts upon which the original figurative expressions were founded; in 

 short, the process resulting in metai)hor and personification nuist be 

 carefully retraced, so far as it may be possible so to do from the 

 materials in hand. 



It must not be overlooked that although these legends concerning 

 the beginnings of things are usually called myths, creation stories, or 

 cosmogonies, the terms myth and creation are, in fact, misnomers. 

 In all of these narratives, except such as are of modern date, creation 

 in the modern acceptation of the word is never signified, nor is it even 

 conceived; and when these legends or narratives are called myths, it 

 is because a full comprehension and a correct interpretation oi them 

 have to a large extent been lost or l)ecause they have been supphmted 

 by more accui-ate knowledge, and they are related without a clear con- 

 ception of what they were designed to signify, and rather from custom 

 than as the source of the major portion of the customs and ceremonies 

 and opinions in vogue among the people relating them. 



Five diti'erent versions of the Iroquoian cosmology have been 

 i-ecorded by the author at different times from 188!) to 19uO. Of these 

 only three appear in the fellowing pages, namely, one Onondaga, one 

 Mohawk, and one Seneca legend. 



The first text is an Onondaga version of the Iroquoian cosmology, 

 obtained in 18S9 on the Grand Kiver reservation. Canada, from the 

 late chief and fire-keeper, John Buck, of the Onondaga tril)e. After- 

 ward, in 1897, it was revised and somewhat enlarged by the aid of Mr 

 Joshua Buck, a sou of the first relator. It is not as long as tlie Mohawk 



