Seneca Fiction, Legends, and Myths Thirty-Second Annual...

A man with his wife and child lived happily together in a village. One day the man said to his little family, “We will start off to the woods tomorrow to hunt.” They set out the next day and were two days and nights on the road. Having reached their destination, they [454]built a fire, and the man started off hunting, telling his wife to boil samp and that he would be back in time to put meat with it. He went up a stream and came back in time with game. Having cut up some of the meat, his wife put it with the samp. About dusk supper was ready and they ate heartily. The man continued to hunt every day, killing one to three deer, and also bear, so they soon had a great deal of dried venison and bear meat, whereupon the man said, “We shall soon have plenty of meat.”

One night he said that he dreamed there were other hunters near by who could kill nothing. Now this man had four dogs. One day he met a man who said that he could kill nothing; that he had three companions who could find no game in the wood; and that the three had nothing to eat. Another day the man met the same three hunters in the woods. They asked him whether he would not give them some meat, something to eat. “No; I will not,” said he; “I have told my wife that we would stay long enough to get a sufficient quantity of meat. I have nothing to give away.” So saying, he went home.

The next morning his wife went for a load of wood, leaving her child in a swing in the lodge. When she returned she heard somebody talking to her baby. She was frightened at this, for she thought it must be Genonsgwa. The words were, “You look very sweet to me.” On going in, the mother saw a large naked woman sitting by the swinging cradle, who said: “I know just what you thought when you heard me singing. You gave yourself up for lost. I am not going to harm you. I came in to get something to eat. Perhaps you would give me some meat.” She replied, “I will give you some, for you seem very kind and good.” With these words she took two or three pieces of meat from the side of the lodge, saying, “I will cook them for you.” “No,” said the naked woman; “I will eat the meat as it is.” After eating three hams of venison she asked for more, “For,” said she, “I eat a great deal when I get started.” When she had eaten enough, she said, “I have finished now. I shall go and come again.” The woman watched her as she went out, saying to herself, “That woman looks very savage.” The naked woman, turning to her, said, “I am Genonsgwa.” When he came the woman told her husband what had happened.

Early the next morning her husband went hunting. At night the dogs began to bark and became terribly frightened. The husband said, “I think that Genonsgwa is going to come and kill us. You would better go home with the child.” “I will stay with you and will be killed, if necessary,” replied the woman. She begged her husband to go with her, but he said, “No; I will stay and save our meat.” Then he heard the bushes around the lodge breaking and a wind blowing down the smoke-hole. [455]

The next night they heard something again coming nearer and nearer, and the dogs were greatly frightened. Then a face looked down through the smoke-hole from the top of the lodge—the face of one of the three hunters. Making a hole through the bark wall of the lodge, the man said to his wife, “Creep through and escape,” but she did not want to go. The dogs began to bark at a distance on the side opposite the hole in the wall, coming closer to the lodge, and again he told his wife to creep through the hole and hurry away on a side trail. Having done so, she started off with the baby on her back. She went on, and by and by she heard a dog howl. The dog, coming up to her, said, “Your husband is killed.” Keeping on a little way farther, she heard a second dog making a noise as though dying. The first dog said, “Go on as fast as you can; save yourself.” Only two dogs were left now. The woman remembered a place through which they had come on the way to the woods—a hollow log—but she feared that when the men came up they might run a stick into it, causing the baby to cry. Next day she climbed a hemlock tree, hiding herself and the child in its branches. She said to the little one, “Now you must be good and keep quiet.” After the woman had become somewhat rested, she saw the three men coming with loads of meat on their backs, engaged in talking about how they got the good venison. They stopped under the hemlock tree in which the woman and her baby were resting.

While the men were lying below the child made water, whereupon the woman, thinking how she could save herself and the little one, caught the water in her hands and drank it. One drop, however, fell on a man directly beneath her, at which he said, “There must be a hedgehog in this tree; we will cut it down in the morning.” At daylight one of the hunters said, “Let us go on.” When they were out of sight, the woman, coming down from the tree, went homeward.

On the way the mother said to her child, “You have now no father, poor baby.” When she was near home she saw that there was a light there. The three men, having parted, went to their homes. The woman hurried on, crying, Goʹweh! goʹweh! meaning that a man had been killed. The people who heard the cry hurried to meet her. She told everything. Taking her home, they put her in her lodge. An old man came to the lodge and asked, “Are you telling the truth?” “Yes,” she replied. “Well, we will have a dance,” said he, “and call the neighbors together. You must hide so that nobody will see you.” He hung up a blanket in a corner of the Long Lodge, and when the people were coming in she hid behind it. When the people were dancing one of the three hunters came with blood on his clothes, while the other two had blood on their backs. The old man said to them, “Your backs are all bloody.” “Yes; we are good hunters,” they replied; then they danced a while—[456]the women first, then the men. After fastening the door the old man asked the three men about their hunting. He said they should dance once more, and then they would talk a little. All felt free and happy, and one of the three men was talking pretty loud. The people danced again, and having finished, sat around a while. Then the old man said, “I will ask these three men whether they are free of crimes during their absence.” They replied, “We are; we hunted all the time.” Thereupon the old man brought out the woman, who told all.