{"collection":"Sacred Texts: Native American","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_nam_iro_sim_sim79_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_nam_iro_sim_sim79_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_nam_iro_sim_sim79_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/sim79.htm","summary":"This is a Native American oral narrative \u2014 most likely from the Iroquois or Seneca tradition \u2014 belonging to the widespread genre of the pursuit tale combined with the rescue quest. A young man frees his sister from a cannibalistic monster (the \"man-eater\"), using a trick of miniaturizing her inside a hollow arrow to transport her, then fleeing southward while the creature pursues in the form of a bear. The brother deploys three magical objects his father gave him \u2014 a flint, a pigeon feather, and a beaver tooth \u2014 each conjuring a vast barrier (a world-spanning rock, an enormous deposit of droppings, a vast swamp) that delays but never permanently stops the man-eater, since each obstacle dissolves while the pursuer sleeps. The siblings survive through a chain of supernatural helpers \u2014 a net-maker uncle, a village chief who disguises them, and finally a powerful old man with ten warrior sons who kill the bear and win a high-stakes ball game (heads as wager) against fifty opponents. A distinctive feature is the story's systematic logic of escalation and failure: every trick works only temporarily, ratcheting tension until external aid, not the hero's own resources, delivers the final defeat. The tale closes with the old man marking a sky-trail to guide the siblings home, a cosmological touch that elevates what is otherwise a suspense-driven chase narrative into something closer to myth.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"Seneca Indian Myths: A Brother and Sister Pursued by a Ma...","tradition":"Sacred Texts: Native American","translated_text":null,"word_count":2139}