{"collection":"Sacred Texts: Native American","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_nam_iro_sim_sim09_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_nam_iro_sim_sim09_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_nam_iro_sim_sim09_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/nam/iro/sim/sim09.htm","summary":"This is an Iroquois mythological narrative that personifies seasonal forces as characters in a family drama, belonging to the tradition of etiological myth \u2014 stories that explain natural phenomena through supernatural actors. Two sisters follow their mother's instructions to marry two brothers by bringing ritual corn bread, but on their first attempt take the wrong trail and are pursued by SHAGODYOWEG GOWA (the Wind People), barely escaping by shedding their clothes and bread to distract their pursuers. After successfully completing the marriage on a second attempt, the sisters repeatedly violate their husbands' warning to stay indoors for ten days, allowing SHAGODYOWEG GOWA \u2014 described as a deceiver whose true nature they cannot perceive \u2014 to abduct them. The story culminates in a cosmic battle between H\u00d3THO (Cold Weather/Winter), armed with a hatchet he carries in his own hip, and SHAGODYOWEG GOWA, who fights with a rattle; their clash traveling eastward uproots the landscape before Winter defeats Wind and extracts a promise to leave the sisters alone. A notably distinctive claim is the embedded explanation that the sharp cracking of trees in winter is caused by H\u00d3THO striking them with his hatchet, grounding an abstract seasonal conflict in an observable natural sound. The work is of interest to readers curious about Iroquois cosmology and the mythological framing of seasonal struggle as domestic and familial conflict among supernatural kin.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"Seneca Indian Myths: H\u00f3tho Conquers Shagodyoweg Gowa","tradition":"Sacred Texts: Native American","translated_text":null,"word_count":776}