Year: 1876

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SENECA INDIANS.


Herno, the great Thunder Spirit, had
his lodge behind the sheet of water that
pours down at the Falls of Niagara. For
very long time he dwelt there, aston
ishing the Indians with his stunning
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-uOr is it at all likely that he,
or the effects of the sun, ever would
have been seen, but for little incident,
the results of which brought him forth.


A young and beautiful maiden, resid-
ing at Seneca village, just above the
fall, 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 might bring about; and
with this object in view, she launched
forth from the village in bark canoe,
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 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 Sc
Iected to comfort her through life. She
| fell upon the neck of the ThundeFer, and
| gnef FNoA
| his stern heart, and led him to smooth
back, if not to toy with, her golden
tresses. In short, to hurry through
long story, they got to billing and COO.
| ing, they fell in love, they made the in
teresting affair 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 a 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 a 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 he
buried within its reach.


AS soon as the Indians learned this,
they pulled up and moved to another To-
cality; consequently, when the great ser
pent 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 misfOT-
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 ap-
pealed 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 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 aud 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-
hind, and thus the whole top of the falls
upon which the snake rested was pre-
cipitated with it into the abyss below,
excepting a small portion, which is now
known as Goat Island.


1t almost entirely ruined the home OF
the Thuuderer-for it reduced the great
space behind the waters to very mar
row compass. He still occupies it as a
sleeping 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 lin


tied.


Unreasonable as this myth may
sound, there can be no doubt but that
/ the Senecas believed every worl of it.
) When they were to be met with in the
Niagara country, they pointed out a
t place near the mouth of Cayuga Creek,
where the banks were shelved out in a
= semi-circular form, and declared that 1t
had been done by the serpent, in his
death throes, after having been wounded
= by HernOs thunderbOlt. And to this
4 tradition may be attributed their Gus
tom of putting away their dead upon
J scaffolds above the ground, instead OF
D burying them.