, 1876-12-01
"a Legend OF the Seneca Indians.

~. inlro behind the sheet Of water
y LE;rb pours down at the falls Of Mag
- For a long time he dwelt there,
..,,pi.hing the Indians with his stun
-;.y t..alS. hut never venturing forth 10
,r,,ti,,. his strange art before their
-. They could hear him, and knew
4. n. there: but never n vet had he
In srcn: nor is IL at all likely that he
ar the effects Of the sun would have
in se,n but for n little incident, the
r-,ult, Of which brought him forth.
Young aud beautiful maiden. resid-
ing At Seneca village, Just above the
t,ils- hal been contracted in marriage
hv her father TO an old man Of disagree
sble manners and hideous person. She
A opce resolved to seek death rather
,han drag out the life Of misery which
sBeh a union must bring about; and,
With this object in view, she launched
forth from the village in q bark canoe,
and swept down the rapids Of Niagara,
singing her own death song until she
took the awful leap.
But death was not ready for her.
Herno, the Thunder spirit, happened to
be wide awake; and, when he saw her
coming down among the foaming waters,
he coolly caught her in his blanket, and
conyeyed her to his home behind the
falls.
OF course, the maiden had romance
enough about her to be grateful for all
this. more especially when she found
she was entirely beyond the reach of the
monster her "cruel parient had Sc
lected to comfort her through life. She
fell upon the neck of the Thunder, and
wept sweet tears. The tears softened his
stern heart, and led him to smooth blck
il not to toy with her golden tresses. In
short. to hurry through a long story,
/ they got tu billing and cooing-they fell
Ssin love-they made the interesting fact
known to each other; and the wronged
though beautiful maiden became the
wife of Herno, the Thunder spirit.
And. as a matter of course, she was very
happy.
About this time the Senecas of the
village above the falls were visited with
pestilence which swept them off by
hundreds, and, while some prayed to
the Great Spirit for help, others gath
cred around the cataract and sent in
their petitions to Herno. The tale of
their sufferings moved the Thunderer,
and he sent the maiden forth to tell her
people that q monstrous serpent was
dwelling beneath their village, Just be-
low the surface of the ground; that it
was depending upon their bodies for
food, and that it came forth at the end
Of every moon and poisoned the waters,
in order that they might die and be
buried within its reach.
As soon as the Indians learned this,
they pulled up and moved to another
locality; consequently, when the great
serpent poisoned the waters as usual,
the earth brought him no food. This
was an affair so strange that he crawled
forth to see what it meant, when, to his
surprise, he found the village was de-
serted.
With many curses on the head Of the
Thunderer, as the author of his misfor-
tune, the serpent took the trail of the
retreating Indians, and started away in
hot pursuit.
The maiden still loved her people,
and, when she saw the serpent moving
on TO effect their further destruction,
she appealed to her husband to arrest
him. Herno was not deaf to her en-
treaties, and so he stepped forth from
his hiding-place, and launched a hiss
ing bolt after the serpent, which struck
HIM Just as he was endeaVoring to cross
the narrows, some distance above the
falls.
The wound produced was fatal one,
and the great monster foated down the
stream, and lodged upon the verge Of
the cataract, stretching nearly from
shore to shore. The swift waters were
damned up by the obstruction, but
they finally broke through the rocks be-
nlnd, and thus the whole top of the falls
! upon which the snake rested were pre-
clpltated with it into the abyss below,
excepting small portion, which is now
knoyn as Goat Island.
1t almost entirely ruined the home of
the Thunderer, for it reduced the great
space behind the waters to o very mar
row compass. He still occupies it Gs q
sleeping apartment, however, and you
may now hear him snoring under there
yon stand on the shore; but if he
would exercise himself in his favorite
pasnme of throwing thunderbolts, he is
tied. --'--
unreasonable as this myth may sound ,
snere can be no doubt that the Senecas
Deneved every word of it. When they
were to be met with in the Niagara
SSVuntry, they pointed out a place near
Sne mouth Of Cayuga Creek, where the
IAnKs were shelved out in a semi-circu-
ar form, and declared that it had been
uone by the serpent in his death throes.
alter having been wounded by Herno's
Sunaerbolt. - And to this tradition may
Ue attributed their custom of putting
@way their dead upon scaffolds above