BULL. 30] 



TEHARONHIAWAGON 



719 



'He, the Sky-holder,' is a close approxi- 

 mation to the accepted signification. 

 Tradition states that this name was given 

 him by his grandmother, ^1 yren'M^-i', under 

 the following circumstances: Soon after 

 his birth and the death of his mother, his 

 grandmother asked him and his twin 

 brother, "Do you two know whence you 

 two came, and whitheryou shall go, when 

 you two depart hence?" This brother 

 replied confidently: "I, myself, do know 

 the place whence you and we have come. 

 Verily, it is from the world on the upper 

 side of the sky. I myself, indeed, will 

 not forget it. I will hold it fast [as if with 

 my hands], the place whence I came." 

 His grandmother said: "Truly, indeed, 

 thou dost know the whole matter. More- 

 over, I shall call thee, on this account, 

 T'haen'hiaica' ^ gV {De'haen'hiawd' t'hon'), 

 for thy memory has not changed, being 

 as if thou hadst just come thence" ). 



An imaginary anthropic being of the 

 cosmogonic philosophy of the Iroquoian 

 and other American mythologies, who for 

 convenience of expression may be called a 

 man-being. To him, the embodiment or 

 personification of life, was attributed b}' 

 the wise men of the elder time the forma- 

 tion or creation and preservation of life 

 and the living in the normal and the 

 beneficent bodies and things in terres- 

 trial nature. His peculiar character as 

 one of the great primal earth powers of 

 the second great cosmical period is best 

 defined in terms of the manifestations 

 and activities of the various forms of floral 

 and faunal life — reproduction, germina- 

 tion, budding, and growth — on the earth. 

 His parentage was noble, although his 

 paternity was seemingly not definitely 

 fixed. This interpretation and definition 

 of the mythological concept embodied in 

 the dominating character of Teharonhia- 

 wagon are given here as those which most 

 satisfactorily account for the motives and 

 activities manifested in his life, notwith- 

 standing the fact that he has been con- 

 nected in an indefinite way with the sun 

 or light and the sky by such well-known 

 writers as Lafitau, Charlevoix, Le Jeune, 

 Brinton, and others. These writers have 

 probably been misled by regarding the de- 

 ri vation of the name as conclusii ve evidence 

 as to the reason for its imposition on him. 

 In the most definite of the cosmic mythi- 

 cal traditions of the Iroquoian peoples Te- 

 haronhiawagon was a twin brother of 

 Tawiskaron (q. v.), although other and 

 perhaps earlier and more primitive ac- 

 counts make him a quadruplet along with 

 his brother mentioned above, the number 

 four however being probably suggested by 

 the well-nigh universal cult of the four 

 quarters. 



One of the earliest recorded names ap- 

 plied to Teharonhiawagon is that of the 

 Hurons, written by Sagard. In his His- 



toire du Canada (1636, repr. 1836) he 

 wrote it Youskeha, but in the accompany- 

 ing Dictionnaire Huronne it appears 

 under the form Yoscaha. In the Jesuit 

 Relations it is commonly written lous- 

 keha [ISskeha), rarely therein Jouskeha, 

 although the last is approximately pho- 

 netically correct. According to Peter D. 

 Clarke, a native Wyandot (Huron) his- 

 torian (Traditional Hist. Wyandotts, 150, 

 1870), this name should be written 

 Tezhuskahau, which, he says, is the cog- 

 nomen of the "God of the Forest, or 

 Nature." His translation is approxi- 

 mately correct, as will appear hereafter. 

 This spelling shows that the Jouskeha 

 form of the Jesuit Relations is preferable 

 to that of loudeha; but Tezhuskaliau of 

 Clarke may be TidjoshVa', a contracted 

 form of Ttsio^skd'd', the component ele- 

 ments of which are: ti-, a demonstrative 

 pronominal prefix referring to size, num- 

 ber, or quantity, 'so,' 'so much,' 'so 

 many ' ; s-, the iterative adverbial prefix, 

 'again,' 'anew'; /o-, the prefix personal 

 pronoun of the third person, singular 

 number, zoic gender, meaning 'it'; sM'-, 

 the nominal stem of the noun os'ka', 

 'sprout,' 'shoot'; and «'-, the adjective 

 ' little,' ' small,' sometimes with the cari- 

 tive sense, 'dear little.' The expression 

 then signifies, 'So it (is) again a dear lit- 

 tle sprout.' This is clearly an epithet 

 expressive of the floral side of the char- 

 acter of Teharonhiawagon. This expres- 

 sion is paralleled in signification and 

 composition by the IMohawk Oteronton- 

 m' 'a', sometimes accompanied by the term 

 Wd'Hd' , 'maple,' of which the Onon- 

 daga Oden^donni'd' is only a dialectic 

 variant. The analysis of the Mohawk 

 expression is as follows: o-, the prefix 

 personal pronoun of the third person, 

 singular number, zoic gender, meaning 

 'it'; te-, a modified form of the reflexive 

 pronoun, signifying 'self; ront-, the 

 nominal stem of the noun o)'ofi^<«', 'it- 

 tree'; onni'-, the verbal stem of the per- 

 fect tense, signifying ' has made' ; a'-, the 

 adjective meaning 'little.' 'small,' and 

 refers to the accompanying noun-stem; 

 the expression then signifies: 'It self a 

 small tree has made,' or 'It has made it- 

 self into a small tree,' i. e. 'a sapling.' 

 These derivations of the chief appella- 

 tives commonly applied to Teharonhia- 

 wagon show that he was never connected 

 in any manner with sun, sky, or dawn. 

 Teharonhiawagon has been erroneously 

 identified by different authors with Hia- 

 watha (q. v.), witii Agreskwe {Are- 

 girens^kivd', 'The Reason or Cause for 

 Absence), the Iroquoian War god, and 

 with Agatkonchoria, 'Masked Face,' the 

 name of a society whose members are 

 professed exorcists of disease, deriving 

 their authority from Hadu'i^' (Onon- 

 daga) or Shagodiiowe'''g6wa, the primal 



