Year: 1879

Herno, the great thunder-spirit, had


his lodge behind the sheet of water
| which pours down the falls of Niagara.
For avery long time he had dwelt there,


astonishing the Indians with his stun
/ ming peals, but never venturing forth to
practice his strange art before their eyes.
| They could hear him, and knew he was
| there; but never, as yet, had he been
| seen nor is it at all likely that he, or
the effects of the sun, ever would have
/ been seen, but for a little incident, the
results of which brought him forth.
A young and beautiful maiden, resi-
ding at the Seneca village, Just above the
| falls, had been contracted in marriage
| by her father to an old man of disagree
able manners and hideous person. She
at once resolved to seek death rather
than drag out the life of misery which
such a union would 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 yet ready for her.
Herno, the thunder-spirit, happened to
be awake; and, when he saw her COM
ing down among the foaming waters, he
only caught her in his blanket, and
conveyed 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 pa-ri-ent" had
selected to comfort her through life.
She fell upon the neck of the thdhderer
and wept sweet tears. The tears soft
ened his stern heart, and led him to
smooth back, if not to toy with her gold
en- tresses. In short, to hurry through
a long story, they got to billing and
cOoing they fell in love they made the
interesting affair known to each other:
and the wronged though beautiful,
maiden became the wife of Herno, the
thunder-spirit. And, as a matter OF
cCurse, she was very happy.


About this time, the Senecas of the
village above the falls, were visited with
pestilenee which swept them of 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 or
their sufferings moved the thunderer,





people that a monstrous serpent was
dwelling beneath their village, Just be-
low the surface of the ground; that it
was depending on 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 reacn.


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 discovered that the village
was deserted.


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 move on
to effect their future destruction, she
appealed to her husband to arrest him.
Herno was not deaf to her entreaties;
and so he stepped forth from his hiding
place, and launched kissing bolt at the
reptile, which struck him just as he was
endeavoring to cross the narrows, some
distance above the falls.


The wound produced was a fatal one,
and the green monster foated down the
stream, and lodged upon the verge of
the cataract, stretching from shore to
shore. The swift waters were damned
I'D by the obstruction, but they finally
broke through the rocks behind, and
thus the whole top of the falls upon
which the serpent rested were precipi-
tated into the abyss below, excepting a
small portion now known as Goat Island.


1t almost enti1ely ruined the home OF
the thunderer, for 1t reduced the great
space behind the waters to avery narrow
compass. He still occupies it as a sleep
ing apartment, however, and you may
now hear him snoring under there, if
you stand on the shore but if he would
exercise himself in his favorite pastime
of throwing thunderbolts, he is forced
to come forth into space less limited.


Unreasonable as this mith may sound,
there can be no doubt but that the Sene-
cas- believed every word of it. When
they were to be met with in the Niagara
country, they pointed out a place near
the mouth OF Cayuga creek where the
banks were shelved out in a semi-circu-
lar form, and declared that it had been
done by the serpent in his death throes,
after having been wounded by Herno's
Aunderbolt. And to this tradition may
be attributed their custom of putting
away their dead upon scafolds above
the ground, instead of burying them