Seneca Mythology
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Seneca Mythology
Seneca mythology refers to the mythology of the Seneca people, one of the six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy from the northeastern United States. Figures Some important figures in Seneca mythology are: * Eagentci, whose name translates as "ancient-bodied one", is the Earth-mother, or First Mother. Her Huron name is Atahensic. * Djieien was a man-sized spider who survived most attacks because its heart was buried underground. * Djodi'kwado' () was a horned serpent * Othegwenhda (Hiawatha) stabbed the heart under the Earth with a tree limb. * Dagwanoenyent is a vicious northern witch who is depicted as a whirlwind. Her child's father killed her. * Gaasyendietha is a fire-breathing dragon that inhabits Lake Ontario. * Hagondes is a cannibalistic trickster and clown spirit. * Kaakwha (also Kanawha) is the solar deity and god of light and truth, subordinate to Hawenniyo, a fertility god. * The Dahdahwat are animals who appear in dreams and visions. * Gagqa () is the crow sp ...
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Mythology
Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrative as a myth can be highly controversial. Many adherents of religions view their own religions' stories as truth and so object to their characterization as myth, the way they see the stories of other religions. As such, some scholars label all religious narratives "myths" for practical reasons, such as to avoid depreciating any one tradition because cultures interpret each other differently relative to one another. Other scholars avoid using the term "myth" altogether and instead use different terms like "sacred history", "holy story", or simply "history" to avoid placing pejorative overtones on any sacred narrative. Myths are often endorsed by secular and religious authorities and are closely linked to religion or spirituality. Many soc ...
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Seneca People
The Seneca () ( see, Onödowáʼga:, "Great Hill People") are a group of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous Iroquoian-speaking people who historically lived south of Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes in North America. Their nation was the farthest to the west within the Six Nations or Iroquois, Iroquois League (Haudenosaunee) in New York before the American Revolution. In the 21st century, more than 10,000 Seneca live in the United States, which has three federally recognized Seneca tribes. Two of them are centered in New York: the Seneca Nation of Indians, with two Indian reservation, reservations in western New York near Buffalo, New York, Buffalo; and the Tonawanda Band of Seneca, Tonawanda Seneca Nation. The Seneca-Cayuga Nation is in Oklahoma, where their ancestors were relocated from Ohio during the Indian Removal. Approximately 1,000 Seneca live in Canada, near Brantford, Ontario, at the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation. They are descendants ...
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Iroquois Confederacy
The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to the French as the Iroquois League, and later as the Iroquois Confederacy. The English called them the Five Nations, comprising the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca (listed geographically from east to west). After 1722, the Iroquoian-speaking Tuscarora people from the southeast were accepted into the confederacy, which became known as the Six Nations. The Confederacy came about as a result of the Great Law of Peace, said to have been composed by Deganawidah the Great Peacemaker, Hiawatha, and Jigonsaseh the Mother of Nations. For nearly 200 years, the Six Nations/Haudenosaunee Confederacy were a powerful factor in North American colonial policy, with some scholars arguing for the concept of the Middle Ground, in that Europe ...
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United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ...
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Atahensic
Atahensic is an Iroquois sky goddess. Atahensic is associated with marriage, childbirth, and feminine affairs in general.Douglas M. George-kanentiio (1995).''Skywoman: Legends of the Iroquois.'' Clear Light Books According to legend, at the time of creation, a tree broke and left a hole in the ground that led to the centre of the Earth. Atahensic fell from the sky, and before falling into the hole left by the tree, she was carried down on the wings of birds. After her fall, the birds brought her down the hole onto water. A giant turtle then emerged from the underground waters and carried her to the surface. She then gave birth to Earth Mother, who in turn gave birth to Hahgwehdiyu and Hahgwehdaetgah, twin sons. Hahgwehdaetgah, the evil twin, killed Earth Mother by bursting out of her side during birth. Hahgwehdiyu, the good twin, then planted a seed into his mother's corpse. From this seed grew maize, as a gift to mankind. :"This tahensicis the Huron name for the first mo ...
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Djieien
In Seneca mythology, Djieien is a monstrous spider six feet tall. It could not be killed because it had hidden its heart underground. The great hero Othegwenhda (Hiawatha Hiawatha ( , also : ), also known as Ayenwathaaa or Aiionwatha, was a precolonial Native American leader and co-founder of the Iroquois Confederacy. He was a leader of the Onondaga people, the Mohawk people, or both. According to some account ...) discovered Dijien's heart and so killed it. Djieien figures in the tale of ''Hagowanen and Ot'hegwenhda''. References {{NorthAm-myth-stub Iroquois legendary creatures Mythological monsters Mythological spiders ...
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Djodi'kwado'
Mythology of the Iroquois includes the creation stories and folktales of the Native Americans who formed the confederacy of the Five Nations, later the Six Nations. Historically, these stories were recorded in wampum and recited, only being written down later. In the written versions, the spellings of names differ due to transliteration and spelling variations in European languages that were not yet standardized. Variants of the stories exist, reflecting different localities and times. Oral traditions The Iroquois have passed down their stories as a centuries-old oral tradition. Through these stories, listeners learn values, laws, and acceptable behaviors in their communities For example, "Girl Who Was Not Satisfied" is a traditional story about a girl who runs off with a man for his looks. The moral of the story is to judge people based on their character, not their looks. The story also teaches people the importance of valuing what they already have. Iroquois storytelli ...
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Hiawatha
Hiawatha ( , also : ), also known as Ayenwathaaa or Aiionwatha, was a precolonial Native American leader and co-founder of the Iroquois Confederacy. He was a leader of the Onondaga people, the Mohawk people, or both. According to some accounts, he was born an Onondaga but adopted into the Mohawks. Legend Although Hiawatha was actually a real person, he was mostly known through his legend. The events in the legend have been dated to the middle 1100s through the occurrence of an eclipse coincident with the founding of the Iroquois Confederacy.Dates of 1390–1630 have also been proposed. This material and quotations are taken from the Mohawk version of the legend, as related by the prominent chief Seth Newhouse (Dayodekane). For an Onondaga version of the legend, see Parker: "The Hiawatha Tradition". When the founder of the Confederacy, Dekanawidah, known as ''The Great Peacemaker'', first came to Iroquoia, one of the first people he met was Hiawatha, not yet called by that na ...
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Dagwanoenyent
The Flying Head (also known as ''Big Head'' or the ''Great Head'') is a cannibalistic spirit from Iroquois and Wyandot mythology. Description According to both Iroquois and Wyandot, Flying Heads are described as being ravenous spirits that are cursed with an insatiable hunger. It is generally described as resembling a human head with long dark hair, "terrible eyes", and a large mouth filled with razor sharp fangs. In some versions, the Flying Head has a pair of bat wings jutting from each side of its cheek and bird-like talons. Other versions replace its bat wings with those of a bird. In all instances, they're described as being larger in size than that of the tallest man and possessing a hide that no weapon can penetrate. The legend According to folklore, the Flying Head drove the original native inhabitants who lived in the area of the state of New York near the source of the Hudson River, in the Adirondack Mountains away from their hunting grounds before the Europeans came. ...
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Gaasyendietha
Gaasyendietha, according to Seneca mythology, is a giant serpent that dwells in the deep areas of rivers and lakes of Canada, especially Lake Ontario. This serpent could fly on a trail of fire, and it could also spew fire, which has led to it being viewed as analogous to European dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...s. It is also known as the 'meteor dragon', in reference to its supposed origin from a meteoroid that had impacted the Earth. It is also capable of crossing the heavens on a trail of fire. In the tale "Ganyadjigowa", the hero Ganyadjigowa (The Mudhen) was killed by Gaasyendietha, in the form of an old man. References External links * * Toronto Urban Legends: The Great Serpent of Lake Ontario Dragons Iroquois legendary creatures Canadian legendar ...
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Trickster
In mythology and the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a character in a story (god, goddess, spirit, human or anthropomorphisation) who exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherwise disobey normal rules and defy conventional behavior. Mythology Tricksters, as archetypal characters, appear in the myths of many different cultures. Lewis Hyde describes the trickster as a "boundary-crosser".Hyde, Lewis. ''Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art''. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998. The trickster crosses and often breaks both physical and societal rules: Tricksters "violate principles of social and natural order, playfully disrupting normal life and then re-establishing it on a new basis." Often, this bending or breaking of rules takes the form of tricks or thievery. Tricksters can be cunning or foolish or both. The trickster openly questions, disrupts or mocks authority. Many cultures have tales ...
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Iroquois Mythology
Mythology of the Iroquois includes the creation stories and folktales of the Native Americans who formed the confederacy of the Five Nations, later the Six Nations. Historically, these stories were recorded in wampum and recited, only being written down later. In the written versions, the spellings of names differ due to transliteration and spelling variations in European languages that were not yet standardized. Variants of the stories exist, reflecting different localities and times. Oral traditions The Iroquois have passed down their stories as a centuries-old oral tradition. Through these stories, listeners learn values, laws, and acceptable behaviors in their communities For example, "Girl Who Was Not Satisfied" is a traditional story about a girl who runs off with a man for his looks. The moral of the story is to judge people based on their character, not their looks. The story also teaches people the importance of valuing what they already have. Iroquois storytelli ...
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