Year: 1876

A Legend of the Seneca Indians.

 Herno, the great Thunder spirit, had his lodge behind the sheet of water which pours down at the falls of Mi agara. For long time he 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 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 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 union must bring about; and with this object in view she launched forth from the village in park canoe and swept down the rapids of Niagara sing ing her own death song until she took the awful leap.

 But death was not ready for her. Herno, the Thunder spirit, happened to

 

 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 se- lected to comfort her through life. She fell upon the neck of the Thunderer and wept sweet tears. The tears softened his stern heart, and led him to smooth back if not to toy with her golden tress- es. In short, to hurry through long story, they got to billing and cooing0 they fell in love-they made the inter- esting affair known to each other; and the wronged though beautiful maiden became the wife of Herno, the Thunder spirit. And, as matter of course, she was very happy.

 About this time the Senecas of the viii lage above the falls were visited with a pestilence which swept them off by hum dreds, and while some prayed to the Great Spirit for help, others gathered around the cataract and sent in their pe- titions to Herno. The tale of their sufferings moved the Thunderer, and he sent the maiden forth to tell her people that monstrous serpent was dwelling beneath their village, just below the surface of the ground; that it was de- pending 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 To- cality; consequently when the great scr 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 sur prise, he found 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 there treating 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. l Herno was not deaf to her entreaties, 1 and so he stepped forth from his hiding place and launched hissing 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 behind, and thus the whole top of the falls upon which the snake rested was precipitated with it into the abyss below, excepting small portion, which is now known as Goat island.

 It almost entirely ruined the home of the Thunderer, for it reduced the great space behind the waters to very narrow compass. He still occupies it as sleep irg apartment, however, and you may now hear him snoring under there as you stand on the shore; but if he would ex- ercise himself in his favorite pastime of throwing thunderbolts he is forced to come forth into space less limited.

 Unreasonable as this myth may sound, there can be no doubt that the Senecas believed every word of it. When they were to be met with in the Niagara country they pointed out 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 thunderbolt. And to this tradition may be attributed their custom of putting away their dead upon scaffolds above ground instead of burying them.