Seneca_mythology
Seneca mythology
Native American mythology
Seneca mythology refers to the mythology of the Onödowáʼga: (Seneca people), one of the six nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) from the northeastern United States and Canada.
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Most Seneca stories were transmitted orally, and began to be written down in the nineteenth century. The ethnologist Jeremiah Curtin began transcribing stories in 1883.[1] In 1923, Arthur C. Parker published Seneca Myths and Folk Tales. Parker identified eleven factors characterizing Seneca folklore:[2]: pp.3–5
- Spirits pervade all nature
- Good spirits are constantly making war upon evil spirits
- There is such a thing as orenda or magical power
- Any being possessing orenda may transorm himself into any form
- All nature is conscious
- All living creatures have souls
- There is in the heaven world a Master of life and soul
- The spirits of departed men and animals wander over their familiar haunts
- Dreams are experiences of the soul as it leaves the body
- There are monsters that men seldom see
- There are such beings as wizards, witches and sorcerers