[170-1] The names I8skeha and Ta8iscara I venture to identify with the Oneida owisske or owiska, white, and tetiucalas (tyokaras, tewhgarlars, Mohawk), dark or darkness. The prefix i to owisske is the impersonal third person singular; the suffix ha gives a future sense, so that i-owisske-ha or iouskeha means “it is going to become white.” Brebeuf gives a similar example of gaon, old; a-gaon-ha, il va devenir vieux (Rel. Nouv. France, 1636, p. 99). But “it is going to become white,” meant to the Iroquois that the dawn was about to appear, just as wanbighen, it is white, did to the Abnakis (see note on page 166), and as the Eskimos say, kau ma wok, it is white, to express that it is daylight (Richardson’s Vocab. of Labrador Eskimo in his Arctic Expedition). Therefore, that Ioskeha is an impersonation of the light of the dawn admits of no dispute.
[170-2] The orthography of Brebeuf is aataentsic. This may be analyzed as follows: root aouen, water; prefix at, il y a quelque chose là dedans; ataouen, se baigner; from which comes the form ataouensere. (See Bruyas, Rad. Verb. Iroquæor., pp. 30, 31.) Here again the mythological role of the moon as the goddess of water comes distinctly to light.
[171-1] This offers an instance of the uniformity which prevailed in symbolism in the New World. The Aztecs adored the goddess of water under the figure of a frog carved from a single emerald; or of human form, but holding in her hand the leaf of a water lily ornamented with frogs. (Brasseur, Hist. du Mexique, i. p. 324.)
[171-2] Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1636, p. 101.
[172-1] Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1671, p. 17. Cusic spells it Tarenyawagon, and translates it Holder of the Heavens. But the name is evidently a compound of garonhia, sky, softened in the Onondaga dialect to taronhia (see Gallatin’s Vocabs. under the word sky), and wagin, I come.
[173-1] Ὁ Θεος φως εστι, The First Epistle General of John, i. 5. In curious analogy to these myths is that of the Eskimos of Greenland. In the beginning, they relate, were two brothers, one of whom said: “There shall be night and there shall be day, and men shall die, one after another.” But the second said, “There shall be no day, but only night all the time, and men shall live forever.” They had a long struggle, but here once more he who loved darkness rather than light was worsted, and the day triumphed. (Nachrichten von Grönland aus einem Tagebuche vom Bischof Paul Egede, p. 157: Kopenhagen, 1790. The date of the entry is 1738.)
[174-1] I accept without hesitation the derivation of this word, proposed and defended by that accomplished Algonkin scholar, the Rev. Eugene Vetromile, from wanb, white or east, and naghi ancestors (The Abnakis and their History, p. 29: New York, 1866).
[174-2] White light, remarks Goethe, has in it something cheerful and ennobling; it possesses “eine heitere, muntere, sanft reizende Eigenschaft.” Farbenlehre, sec’s 766, 770.
[175-1] Hist. of the N. Am. Indians, p. 159.
[175-2] La Hontan, Voy. dans l’Amér. Sept., ii. p. 42.