Seneca Fiction, Legends, and Myths

Part 1 comprises the matter recorded in the field by Jeremiah Curtin in 1883, 1886, and 1887 on the Cattaraugus reservation, near Versailles, New York, including tales, legends and myths. This work of Mr. Curtin represents in part the results of the first serious attempt to record with satisfactory fullness the folklore of the Seneca. The material consists largely of narratives or tales of fiction-naive productions of the story-teller's art which can lay no claim to be called myths, although undoubtedly they contain many things that characterize myths-narratives of the power and deeds of one or more of the personified active forces or powers immanent in and expressed by phenomena or processes of nature in human guise or in that of birds or beasts. Part 2 also consists of Seneca legends and myths, which are translations made expressly for this work from native texts recorded by J. N. B. Hewitt in the autumn of 1896.