Sacred Texts: Native American

Iroquoian Cosmology: A Seneca Version

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This is a Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) creation myth, likely a recorded and translated version from the Seneca or Onondaga tradition — the translation style, terminology ("otgon," "man-beings"), and formal apparatus suggest an early 20th-century ethnographic transcription, possibly from J.N.B. Hewitt's work for the Bureau of American Ethnology. The narrative opens in a sky world where a jealous chief pushes his pregnant wife through a hole left by an uprooted sacred tree; she falls toward a primordial sea below. Underwater beings debate who can save her, and Turtle volunteers, forming the foundation on which she scatters earth from her hands to create land — the classic "Turtle Island" earth-diver cosmogony. The Sky Woman then creates the sun, night, and names the major constellations (the Pleiades as "They-are-dancing," the Big Dipper as "They-are-pursuing-the-bear," the Morning Star as "It-brings-the-day"), establishing herself explicitly as a divine controller. The myth then shifts to a second generation: the Sky Woman's daughter is impregnated by Wind, dies giving birth to twin boys — one normal, one grotesquely warty, who tears out through her navel — and the story closes with the elder twin setting out to find his father. Anyone interested in Indigenous North American cosmology, earth-diver creation traditions, or the role of female creator figures in Iroquoian religion will find this a primary-source narrative rich with astronomical knowledge and theologically significant detail.

Iroquoian Cosmology: A Seneca Version

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