132 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



the Great Spirit at a later time, but offerings were usually sim- 

 pler; some tobacco burned, a pipe or beads dropped at some 

 sacred place, were the common gifts. Worship was by singing 

 or dancing; seldom with prayer. 



Though the myths in which the origin of many nations is in- 

 volved are to be taken with reservations, they may have interest 

 and value. Those of the Iroquois are many and conflicting. The 

 creative myth, in which the woman falls from the sky, alighting 

 on the turtle's back, which thenceforth supports the world, was 

 not peculiar to the Iroquois, being told by others with varying 

 details. The creature which at last brings up earth from the 

 bottom of the sea, using it for the germ of the great island of 

 America, is not always the same, nor do all relate the later events 

 alike. When the woman's descendants appear, there is a greater 

 variation still. David Cusick's story of the two children, the 

 Good and Bad Mind, is well known. Mr James Dean, the inter- 

 preter, gave the Oneida story with other particulars. The father 

 of the children lived at the bottom of the sea, and lured the 

 Good Mind to his home, to save him from the malice of his 

 mother and brother, and tell him what to do. The great contest 

 began after this, with its peculiar weapons. When slain, the 

 flinty body of the Evil Mind became the great range of the Rocky 

 Mountains. 



The Seneca chief Canassatego — not the earlier Onondaga of 

 that name — had another tale of man's creation. One of their 

 deities raised the land of Konosioni above the waters, and sowed 

 five handfuls of red seed in it. From these came the Five 

 Nations ; prosperous when following his advice, unfortunate 

 when disregarding it. 



The story of national origin and migration is not always the 

 same. The Delaware tradition is that the Delawares and the 

 Five Nations came eastward together, side by side and harmoni- 

 ously, dispossessing those who were in the way and amicably 

 dividing the land. There is some ground for part of this. 



David Cusick, the Tuscarora historian, had a different tale to 

 tell. The people were hid in a great mountain at Oswego Falls, 



