{"collection":"Sacred Texts: Native American","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_nam_iro_sim_sim50_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_nam_iro_sim_sim50_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_nam_iro_sim_sim50_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/sim50.htm","summary":"This is an Iroquoian oral narrative, likely Seneca or Mohawk in origin, belonging to the tradition of Indigenous northeastern North American mythic tales collected in ethnographic contexts. It tells the story of a young woman who discovers she has married into a family of cannibals \u2014 her brothers-in-law hunt and eat human flesh \u2014 and must escape while her husband is underground, aided by a stranger who transports her magically by shooting her inside an arrow. Her supernaturally gifted husband pursues her with a tracking dog called Good Ear, transforming himself into a flea to cross water, while she receives sequential help from a chain of spirit-craftsmen \u2014 Flintmaker, Netmaker, and the brothers of Red-hot \u2014 each of whom delays or destroys the pursuer at the cost of their own life or great effort. The husband and dog are ultimately killed by having their hearts burned to ash in a red-hot kettle, and the woman is guided home over several days by a stranger who reveals himself as Thunder (H\u00edno'), who has provided her with food throughout the journey. The tale is distinctive for its matter-of-fact treatment of cannibalism as a supernatural condition, the use of spittle as a decoy voice, and the gradual revelation that her helpers are named spirit beings \u2014 Chickadee and Thunder \u2014 who operate within a layered cosmology without explicit moralizing. Readers interested in Iroquoian cosmology, pursuit-and-escape story structures, or the role of spirit intermediaries in northeastern Indigenous traditions will find this a compact and structurally rich example.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"Seneca Indian Myths: The Young Woman and Thunder","tradition":"Sacred Texts: Native American","translated_text":null,"word_count":1737}