NOTES
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
72. The Angleworm (?).
73. The Snipe.
74. The Chipmunk.
75. The Heron.
76. Long-snouted One.
77. Long-Upper-Eyelids.
78. The Netmaker = the Spider.
79. This is a proper name.
80. The nephew of Spider.
81. In the details of cannibalism in this and the other paragraphs of this story there is no protest against the eating of human flesh; this is probably a reflex of the attitude toward this abominable practice.
82. The three native terms are the descriptive epithet which was applied to a cruel old wizard who was a cannibal; they signify, “He-puts-them-on-an-island-habitually Potato-Duck or Tuber-Duck.” This species of duck was enslaved by him.
83. The two native words together signify, “He is a man-eater,” hence, a cannibal.
84. This deliberation in torturing a victim was characteristic also of the burning of war prisoners; the latter being fed and cared for and rested lest they should die too soon and so deprive the ceremony of its sacrificial character and the company of full satisfaction at seeing an enemy suffer.
85. This is the hell-diver, as some say, or the mudhen, as others say.
86. This term means simply “Great Duck.”
87. Canada Wild Goose.
88. The Great Blue Lizard, a mythical animal, which probably arose from describing an ordinary lizard in terms of the alligator.
89. The Humming Bird.
90. This is another mythical animal, which appears under various forms in different stories.
91. This is the common name of the meteor, the so-called firedragon; but as a Man-Being, the meteor endowed with human life and faculties, it is prominent in many stories.
92. The original meaning of this term is “He is master or controller or ruler of it”; i.e., any object of conversation. It is now a name of the God of the Christian Church, and so is applied here to the one whom the earlier story-tellers would have called ‘Teʻharoⁿʻhiawăʹʼgoⁿʼ’, the Master of Life.
93. This native term at present is applied to the imported idea, “devil,” which was quite foreign to the thinking of the early Seneca. It is also the name of the muckworm.
94. This native term is an epithet applied to a mythical character well known in story-telling. It signifies “The Trickster,” or, more literally, “He who abuses people by craft often.” Cf. Note 155.
95. This long epithet signifies, “He is the ruler” or “the chief personage.”
96. The Rattlesnake.
97. The Large Woodpecker.
98. The Locust, literally, “Corn-ripener.”
99. The Crow. [796]
100. The Large Owl.
101. The Vulture (?), or other high-flying, large, half-mythical bird.
102. The Great Bumblebee.
103. The Winged Ant.
104. Phebe (?) Bird; some say, the Gull.
105. The Speaker or Preacher and the Definer or Interpreter.
106. This paragraph shows that even trees and shrubs were endowed with human speech.
107. This is a vague statement of the change held to be needful in the human body before it can enter the realm of the departed—of those who have died.
108. See preceding note.
109. The Master of Life.
110. In this and the immediately preceding paragraphs are stated some ideas concerning the world of the departed—heaven.
111. There are a number of other tales in which these ideas are set forth in slightly varied form.