IROQUOIS MYTHS AND LEGENDS 



89 



For a moment she wavered, terrified by the sudden screaming 

 of the bird, but remembering the charm the medicine men had 

 given, her courage came back to her, and imploring the protection 

 of the good spirits, she drew her ash bow. To her horror it was 

 limp as a wisp of straw ! The night dews had softened it, its strength 

 had gone, and she knew not what to do; for the bird still shrieked 

 above her, and she felt that she was doomed. Though despairing, 

 still her faith remained, and she clasped the charm upon her neck, 

 and recalling the power words of the medicine men, whispered 

 them to the arrow as she again bent her bow, and the arrow flew 

 true to its aim! 



Shrill and fast were the shrieks of the bird, for the arrow had 

 pierced its heart. And its wild fluttering wings threshed the air 

 in its pain and rage as it reeled headlong to the lake, lashing the 

 water to foam as it sank! 



The legend tells, that when the Witch Gull disappeared in the 

 lake, a flock of wild birds arose from the foam, and hovering for 

 a time over the spot, winged away to the south. They were the 

 white sea crow, a variety well known to the red man. These 

 birds had been devoured by the Ji-jo-gweh, and so imprisoned 

 until happily released by its death. 



When, preceding a storm, the sea crows are seen in hurrying 

 flocks, the red man knows that the spirit of the Ji-jo-gweh is driving 

 them, as his spirit is then haunting the clouds. 



SGAH-AH-SO-WAH AND GOT-GONT, THE WITCH HAWK AND THE 



WITCH BEAR WOMAN 



The Witch Hawk was hovering. His talons were ready. His 

 keen eye measured the sky. His dusk-colored wings silently 

 brushed the air as the pinions of the breeze stir the breath of the 

 night. The flight of the Witch Hawk was the foredoom of evil. 

 He could be visible or invisible, whichever might best serve his 

 weird flying, Sgah-ah-so-wah, the Witch Hawk, the dread of all 

 birds, who chase him away from their lands. 



Unseen, one day he was hovering over the maize land where 

 O-gas-hah, an Indian woman, was toiling with her bone hoe, and 

 the maize, bent low as she fed it the nourishing earth. 



O-gas-hah had strapped her young infant in its ga-yash (splint 

 cradle), woven of sweet-scented woods, and hung it on a low branch 

 of an elm where the summer breeze rocked it a song. A swift of 

 the wind quivered the corn Reaves, and the air seemed heavy 

 with warnings as O-gas-hah gazed at the sky and, thought she, 



