Seneca Fiction, Legends, and Myths

Anonymous

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The Seneca (= Place of the Stone) are a noted and influential tribe of the Iroquois, or the so-called Five Nations of New York. When first known they occupied a region in central New York, lying between the western watershed of the Genesee r. and the lands of the Cayuga about Seneca lake, having their council fire at Tsonontowan, near Naples, in Ontario co. After the political destruction of the Erie and Neuters, about the middle of the 17th century, the Seneca and other Iroquois people carried their settlements westward to L. Erie and southward along the Alleghany into Pennsylvania. They are now settled chiefly on the Allegany, Cattaraugus, and Tonawanda res., N. Y., and some live on Grand River res., Ontario. Various local bands have been known as Buffalo, Tonawanda, and Cornplanter Indians; and the Mingo, formerly in Ohio, have become officially known as Seneca from the large number of that tribe among them. In the third quarter of the 16th century the Seneca was the last but one of the Iroquois tribes to give its suffrage in favor of the abolition of murder and war, the suppression of cannibalism, and the establishment of the principles upon which the League of the Iroquois was founded. However, a large division of the tribe did not adopt at once the course of the main body, but, on obtaining coveted privileges and prerogatives, the recalcitrant body was admitted as a constituent member in the structure of the League. The two chiefships last added to the quota of the Seneca were admitted on condition of their exercising functions belonging to a sergeant-at-arms of a modern legislative body as well as those belonging to a modern secretary of state for foreign affairs, in addition to their duties as federal chieftains; indeed, they became the warders of the famous “Great Black Doorway” of the League of the Iroquois, called Kaʻnhoʻhwădjiʼgōʹnăʻ by the Onondaga. In historical times the Seneca have been by far the most populous of the five tribes originally composing the League of the Iroquois. The Seneca belong in the federal organization to the tribal phratry known by the political name Hoñdoñnīsʹʻĕⁿʼ, meaning, ‘they are clansmen of the fathers,’ of which the Mohawk are the other member, when the tribes are organized as a federal council; but when ceremonially organized the Onondaga also belong to this phratry. In the federal council the Seneca are represented by eight federal chiefs, but two of these were added to the original six present at the first federal council, to give representation to that part of the tribe which had at first refused to join the League. Since the organization of the League of the Iroquois, approximately in the third quarter of the 16th century, the number of Seneca clans, which are organized into two phratries for the performance of both ceremonial and civil functions, have varied. The names of the following nine have been recorded: Wolf, Hoñnatʻhaiioñʹnĭʻ; Bear,Hodidjioñniʹʼgā; Beaver, Hodigĕⁿʹʼgegāʼ; Turtle, Hadiniăʹʻdĕñʻ; Hawk, Hadisʻhweⁿʹʼgaiiuʼ; Sandpiper,Hodiʼneʻsiʹiuʼ, sometimes also called Snipe, Plover, and Killdeer; Deer, Hadinioñʹgwaiiuʼ; Doe,Hodinoⁿʹʼdeogāʼ, sometimes Hoñnoñtʹgoñdjĕⁿʻ; Heron, Hodidaioⁿʹʼgāʼ. In a list of clan names made in 1838 by Gen. Dearborn from information given him by Mr Cone, an interpreter of the Tonawanda band, the Heron clan is called the Swan clan with the native name given above. Of these clans only five had an unequal representation in the federal council of the League; namely, the Sandpiper, three, the Turtle, two, the Hawk, one, the Wolf, one, and the Bear, one.