IROQUOIS MYTHS AND LEGENDS 



95 



silver canoe which was vast in dazzling splendor as it floated on 

 the waters, which bore him to the furthermost shore where he met 

 a great eagle which, seeming to be waiting, guided him to its home 

 whose pearl-white dome touched the high sky above the gray 

 clouds which were hovering over the far distant earth beneath. 



Within the dome, multitudes of birds of dazzling plumage were 

 circling the air; some were feathered like unto the rainbow lines; 

 others as the white snowdrift; but the greater flock was gray as 

 the night shadows and darkened the dome as they winged past. 

 In a corner, dense with threatening blackness, were groups of 

 vampires whose talons spread out reeking with blood, as they 

 restlessly reeled to and fro in the strangeness as if searching for 

 prey that came not to this land of bird life. These terrors the 

 eagle seemed pushing back as they flocked to the front, when from 

 amid the wheeling and whirring and the beating of wings against 

 the still air, came a voice saying: " Not so fast Ott-wais-ha, you 

 are a stranger to this sky way of the birds ; you have left the body 

 of your hunter below, who is locked as fast to his sleep as the root 

 to its tree. Here the eagle sleeps not, the vulture rests not and 

 its wings flutter for flight in the darkness as the earth sleeps below; 

 your journeying is long; this is but a rest place on the way to the 

 lands of the Creator. You are too soon for that trail, you can not 

 wait here. Even now your body below breathes to the sun; return 

 swift to his day and night earth life and train it how to live your 

 life; teach it its evil and good; cry into its ear the wail of warning 

 and the shout of victory. We are of the peace path which you 

 will soon travel, but you are not yet strong; the death birds hover 

 near, they scent the blood of your meat, and will drain it to death ! " 

 The voice ceased its strange intoning, a something winged by the 

 dreamer who looked in vain for the eagle. The water, the silver 

 canoe, the myriad of birds, all had vanished as, waking, the dreamer 

 opened his eyes to the sun which was sending its beams through 

 the shades of the forest. " I know, and will remember, I have 

 heard the warning," said the hunter, as he wended his way to the 

 game. 



And the dream to the dreamer? The spark of fire which had 

 issued from the lips of the sleeper became the Ott-wais-ha, the 

 " immortal fire of life "; the little brook the " great water"; the 

 willow leaf the " silvery canoe "; the skull of the bird the great 

 dome in which were hovering the eagle, the vulture, the vampires, 

 the three contentious attributes of mortal life, the noble, the 

 degraded, the murderous; all these the Ott-wais-ha had shown to 

 its earth soul. 



