Seneca Indian Myths: Note

This is a preface or editorial introduction to a collection of Seneca (Iroquois) oral mythology, compiled by ethnographer Jeremiah Curtin for the Smithsonian Bureau of Ethnology in the 1880s. The text recounts how Curtin learned the Seneca language, traveled to the Versailles, New York reservation in 1883, and overcame initial tribal resistance — led by a skeptic named Two Guns — to collect myths from elderly community members, with crucial support from Solomon O'Beal, a respected elder and descendant of Handsome Lake. A central and urgent claim runs throughout: by the time of collection, only the oldest Senecas retained any knowledge of their traditional mythology, meaning this material would have been permanently lost had Curtin not gathered it when he did — and the editor confirms that by publication date, this knowledge had indeed vanished entirely from living memory. The introduction also provides ethnographic glimpses of Seneca ceremonial life, including a funeral feast ten days after death and a spring planting festival, observed during Curtin's 1888 return visit. Curtin's relationship with the community deepened to the point that the tribe formally adopted him, giving him the name "Hi-we-sas" (Seeker of Knowledge). The text frames the collection as both a scholarly resource for folklore and comparative mythology scholars and an irreplaceable preservation of a belief system that no longer exists in living tradition.

Seneca Indian Myths: Note

Related pages View as graph →