Seneca myths and folk tales

by Arthur C. Parker

The next morning Hauñwandeh felt a pain in his stomach and soon he felt a scratching in his throat. Out came a green sprig which he snatched quickly and, pulling up a small withered plant he thrust the sprig into the hole and waited.

For a very long time the uncle awaited the return of his nephew, and mourned greatly. Not once did he leave the lodge but sat within with his face covered with the white ashes from the lodge fire. Each day a sound would be heard and a voice would call, “Hail Uncle, I have returned!” Leaping up with gladness the uncle would look out, but see only a scampering fox or mocking screech owl, or perhaps a wild goose. So he fell to answering all calls by saying, “Depart quickly, I know that you are deceiving me.” So, in mourning he sat, covered with ashes and growing thinner and weaker every day.

Hauñwandeh watched the green sprig, and noticed that it had begun to grow. This pleased him greatly and he called all the bones in the valley saying: “I will gather you together in one pile. I will cause your resurrection and you shall escape with me for I have a growing tree which we may climb.” So saying he gathered the bones in a pile and called quickly, “Hurry now, for you shall arise. Quickly, for the tree is growing. Hasten, for I am now thrusting a tree upon you, and you must arise before the tree falls upon you.” Then he kicked over the tree and it fell, but before it touched the ground all the skeletons arose looking like men. The two partly eaten men recovered and said, “We are your relatives.” Now two men who had been restored fell to quarreling, because each had taken the other’s legs in the haste of arising, but the boy commanded them to be still and follow him up the tree. So all followed, and he further ordered all to look upward and not downward, for one look downward meant destruction. The tree was very tall and it took a long time to climb it, and when the company had climbed a long ways the two quarreling men looked down to see how far they had gone, and as they looked they turned to skeletons again and their bones rattled through the limbs of the tree and past the others who were climbing.

At length all reached the top and gathered about the edge of the cliff. Then the boy saw that the company looked very friendly, and he discovered two brothers among them. “I must go to the house of the young woman,” he said to his brothers. “I leave this company in your care. I must overcome the evil magic of the great witches. When I have done this I shall return. Wait for me.”

Hauñwandeh determined to have his revenge. He sought the house of the witches and went straight toward it. Reaching the door, he entered saying, “I have come.”

Sitting in the lodge was the young woman who had bewitched him, and at the lodge fire was the mother, the great witch, and in the rear of the lodge were six daughters.

The mother looked up, saying, “Oh son-in-law, I dreamed you would come. My daughter is waiting for you.”

That night the old witch became disturbed in her sleep and arose and flung herself in the fire, crying out a strange noise. Hauñwandeh grabbed the corn pounder and hit her on the head, saying, “Awake and tell me.” So she awoke and said, “Oh son-in-law, I have dreamed that calamity will befall us unless you repair to the long lake and kill two white otters, and do it quickly, before the skin curtain of the lodge door stops swinging, from your out-going.”

“That will be very easy,” answered the youth. “Be at ease and I will soon return.” So speaking he tied his long hairs together and made a string that reached from the door to the lake. This he tied to the skin curtain and kept it swinging as he ran to the lake.

“Otters come forth,” he commanded, and one great white otter leaped from the lake, but the youth killed it with a round white stone that he carried in his pouch. As he did this a wave arose and sped toward him bearing on its crest the other great white otter. As it leaped toward him he killed it as he had the first. Running back to the lodge he flung the bodies in, with a laugh, exclaiming, “Here are your otters.”