LEGEND OF THE SENECAS CONCERNING THEIR ORIGIN.
All the legends when related by different people, have slight variations, but the general features are the same, and are preserved with remarkable exactness, considering [[107]]that they have been handed down for centuries in this oral way. The following is all the account the Senecas can give concerning their origin.
They grew out of the crest of a mountain, at the head of Canandaigua Lake. The mountain which gave them birth is Ge-nun-de-wah-gauh, or the Great Hill. Hence they are called the Great Hill People.
A little boy during his rambles in the woods, found a pretty serpent, which he carried home for a plaything. In the course of time the serpent grew to be very large, and so voracious that he devoured all who came within the reach of his monstrous jaws. At length he coiled himself around the base of the mountain, so that none could pass to and fro, without falling victims to his ravenous appetite, and besides, the atmosphere was poisoned by his fetid breath. But starvation stared them in the face, and the people determined upon a sally, hoping to destroy the monster and escape unharmed. The serpent was so large that there was no hope of leaping over his body, and there was no way but to attempt a passage where the head and tail met. In a body all the people rushed down, determined on victory or death, and were all destroyed, except a little boy and his sister, who were left alone to defy the monster. Then came a pleasant dream to the boy, which directed him to string his bow with the silken tresses of his sister, and shoot the serpent in the eye, or underneath a scale. The child obeyed, and the arrow performed the work of death. In the convulsive throes of the serpent, the heads of the multitudes which he had devoured, were thrown upon the earth, and when he uncoiled, they rolled with him into the lake, where being petrified by the water, they still remain in the form of round stones, which cover the bed of the lake to this day! [[108]]
This is about as marvellous as the preservation of Romulus and Remus, and exhibits the same kind of propensity to account for what is unaccountable, and give themselves “a local habitation and a name.” It is also quite as credible as many of the stories concerning the early history of the heroes of ancient history and fable, which are thought worth recording by every author who writes of Greece and Rome, and are read by every child with wonder.