{"collection":"Sacred Texts: Native American","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_nam_iro_sim_sim35_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_nam_iro_sim_sim35_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_nam_iro_sim_sim35_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/sim35.htm","summary":"This is a Seneca oral narrative in the tradition of Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) mythic storytelling, following a fast-running warrior who survives a disastrous war party against the Cherokees and then undergoes a series of supernatural trials on his lone journey home. He encounters the ancient hairless bear NYAGWAIHE, escapes it through a muddy deer-lick, and is then guided by a spirit helper \u2014 revealed at the end to be a SHAGODYOWEG GOWA \u2014 who directs him through two nights of testing where he must refuse to share food with a crowd of tormenting spirits or face death. He stumbles into a village of buffalo people, marries a woman there, and is challenged by the jealous young Buffalo chief to a foot race in which the loser forfeits his life; the Seneca wins by shooting the buffalo from behind during the race, fulfilling a prophecy that a common man would kill him and liberating the village. The buffalo wife and mother-in-law then accompany the man home, help his mother with her sugar-making, and voluntarily depart \u2014 even directing hunters to shoot them so their spirits can return home faster, leaving their physical bodies as meat. The story is notable for presenting buffalo people as fully social beings with marriages, jealousy, and politics, and for its sustained emphasis on obedience to spirit-world instructions as the mechanism of survival.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"Seneca Indian Myths: The Buffalo Women","tradition":"Sacred Texts: Native American","translated_text":null,"word_count":1959}