IROQUOIS MYTHS AND LEGENDS 



107 



winter homes when the snow falls. Even the vine that crept 

 over the lodge door may listen so eagerly that it will forget to let 

 down its sap before the frost comes and die. The bird singing on 

 the tree's limb which leafs above the door may in his wonder and 

 bewilderment forget the sun way to the south and fall a victim to the 

 first snow. The ground animals may stop to listen, with their 

 heads half out of their burrows and, marveling over the story, tarry 

 till the winter seals them there to perish in the ice breath of the 

 north blast. Knowing these things, the Indian reserves his myth 

 tales until the winter time comes and his fireplace glows. 



When the leaves have strewn the barren earth and the snow 

 has covered the leaves, and built its mounds high in the lowlands, 

 the " Little People " are safe folded in their shadow slumbers and 

 the earth knows them no more until the melting snows and the 

 swollen streams and the leafing trees summon them to the season 

 of springtime. 



THE DREAM FAST, JIS-GO-GA, THE ROBIN 1 



The primal precept incumbent upon the Iroquois father was to 

 impress upon the mind of his young son the preparation for his 

 manhood, which must be brave and heroic. Previous to the 

 maturity of the Iroquois boy, the mother had supreme control of 

 his life save the occasional journeys with his father, who would 

 teach the ways of the forest, but when the hour of his manhood 

 arrived, it was the ambitious father who imposed upon him the 

 importance of the Dream Fast. And this grave premanhood 

 ceremony was further dignified by the belief in dreams, the most 

 potent of which would come to the faster who, at his maturity, 

 followed the custom of his ancestors and, leaving his boyhood 

 behind him, sought the divining of his man's life. 



During the fast, which must be continued for not less than 7 days, 

 the " clan spirit " of the young faster should appear to him in a 

 dream and symbolize the bird, animal, reptile, fish, trees, plants, 

 roots, or anything else that it might select for the guardian of his 

 future life. 



The Seneca-Iroquois have eight clans as follows : the Bear, Beaver, 

 Wolf, Deer, Turtle, Heron, Hawk and Snipe. Should the dreamer 

 have been born of the Bear clan, the spirit of the bear will appear 

 to him in his dreams and show him his future guardian, and the 

 dreamer accepts the choice. If the clan spirit does not appear 



1 This is a legend of the puberty ceremony, common in different forms among many 

 tribes. 



