Post by blackcrowheart on Jun 4, 2007 20:07:55 GMT -5
Dagwanoenyent (Whirlwind)[1] - Seneca
TWO brothers, one a young man, the other a small boy were one day out in the
woods together. They heard a great noise overhead and looking up saw a
DAGWANOEnYENT, an enormous head, flying above them.
The elder brother called out "Gówe! gówe!"
The DAGWANOEnYENT said, "Thank you. Thank you. You should always sing in
that way when you are going to fight. If you do, I will be on your side and
kill your enemies for you."
Taking three hairs from his head the DAGWANOEnYENT gave them to the
brothers, saying, "When you want to escape from danger, get water and draw
these hairs along in it. When you take them out, drops of water will hang to
them and those drops will bring rain." Then the DAGWANOEnYENT went on,
leaving the two brothers.
By those hairs the brothers often escaped from their enemies.
Whenever they wanted rain, they had only to draw the hairs through water and
then shake off the drops; right away heavy rain fell. The hairs were long
kept by the Senecas.
The narrator thinks there is one hair yet. It is owned by a man who lives on
the Alleghany Reservation.
Footnotes:
[1] Always represented as a head without a body.
Seneca Indian Myths, by Jeremiah Curtin; New York; E.P. Dutton & Company
[1922] and is now in the public domain.
TWO brothers, one a young man, the other a small boy were one day out in the
woods together. They heard a great noise overhead and looking up saw a
DAGWANOEnYENT, an enormous head, flying above them.
The elder brother called out "Gówe! gówe!"
The DAGWANOEnYENT said, "Thank you. Thank you. You should always sing in
that way when you are going to fight. If you do, I will be on your side and
kill your enemies for you."
Taking three hairs from his head the DAGWANOEnYENT gave them to the
brothers, saying, "When you want to escape from danger, get water and draw
these hairs along in it. When you take them out, drops of water will hang to
them and those drops will bring rain." Then the DAGWANOEnYENT went on,
leaving the two brothers.
By those hairs the brothers often escaped from their enemies.
Whenever they wanted rain, they had only to draw the hairs through water and
then shake off the drops; right away heavy rain fell. The hairs were long
kept by the Senecas.
The narrator thinks there is one hair yet. It is owned by a man who lives on
the Alleghany Reservation.
Footnotes:
[1] Always represented as a head without a body.
Seneca Indian Myths, by Jeremiah Curtin; New York; E.P. Dutton & Company
[1922] and is now in the public domain.