Legends, Customs and Social Life of the Seneca Indians, of Western New York (Classic Reprint)

Book excerpt: Excerpt from Legends, Customs and Social Life of the Seneca Indians, of Western New York The Indian, like every sensible mythologist, begins with Creation. One tribe relates how the first inhabitants - and all the first inhabitants were Indians - sprang from the heart of the earth. Another tribe has a different notion, depending, as each does, upon the whim of its own story tellers; but with the royal line of tribes - the Senecas - creation's story runs like this: In the great past, deep waters covered all indeed, every thing was water. Thousands of ducks, large and small, of every varied plumage, sailed upon these waters. What they subsisted on it matters not. One morning when the sun was shining and not a cloud was visible, high above the waters api peared a beautiful woman. Her complexion was very dark. She was falling from the unexplored and boundless ether. The ducks gathered in council, and resolved to meet the fair crea ture in the air, and break the force of her dangerous fall, by the substantial prop of their strong wings. So they rose, and, pinion overlapping pinion, gave her rest upon their backs, and sailed with their precious freight to the bosom of the placid sea below. But she must be fed, and how? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.