{"collection":"Sacred Texts: Native American","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_nam_iro_sim_sim59_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_nam_iro_sim_sim59_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_nam_iro_sim_sim59_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/sim59.htm","summary":"This is a Native American mythological tale, likely from an Iroquois or related northeastern woodland tradition, following a tiny supernatural boy named Popkp\u00e9knos (Quail) who is abandoned in a hollow tree as an infant and raised by his elder brother. Despite his miniature size, the boy possesses extraordinary strength and a magic club, and he systematically defies his father's warnings by traveling to each cardinal direction to confront and destroy the dangerous beings who dwell there: frogs, the Thunder family, the giant Stone Coat (a figure of ice and cold), and a monstrous gambler who collects human heads. Each conquest brings back a trophy or benefit \u2014 a tobacco pouch, a great hunting dog, freed men \u2014 though the father consistently greets these victories with alarm rather than gratitude. The tale's closing gloss makes its cosmological stakes explicit: Popkp\u00e9knos personifies Summer and Warm Weather, so his defeat of Stone Coat (Cold and Ice) and the Thunder family encodes a seasonal myth about warmth's triumph over winter and storm. The story is distinctive for its comic-heroic tone \u2014 the tiny hero repeatedly outsmarts giants through cunning and trickery rather than raw power \u2014 and for treating mythic world-ordering as the mischievous adventure of a child too small to fill a hole in a tooth.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"Seneca Indian Myths: Quail Kills Cold Weather and the Thunder Family","tradition":"Sacred Texts: Native American","translated_text":null,"word_count":1998}