The Seneca woman spoke with a beautiful soft voice. She was far younger than the others at the Meeting Place. She explained her reason for being there. "I have been selected to be the keeper of our story. Our tribe is spreading farther apart and we must keep our heritage alive," she said. The elders of the Seneca tribe chose four people of the younger generation to keep the story. Then she passed a peace pipe around to the others because this was an important part of the ritual for the Seneca Indians.

The body of water contained many kinds of fish and birds that were able to survive in the water. One day, like every other day, something was falling from the sky. One of the young ducks was gazing into the vast sky and saw something rapidly falling. The group of ducks began questioning what it was that was falling and what they were going to do about it. The ducks banded together and flew toward the falling object to catch it before it hit the water. When they reached the object they realized that it needed land to survive and not just water. Fish and birds of all sorts came together to find soil to create land for the creature. This creature was named woman by the animals. Try after try the birds and fish found nothing to make land with. Then, a bird named hell-diver came up with some dirt from the bottom. The ducks sent for the greatest turtle of all to put the dirt on his back. Several birds and fish kept getting more and more soil and bringing it up to the back of the turtle. More and more turtles gathered around to help. The beavers were recruited to pack down the soil on the turtles' backs with their large tails. When there was a large mass on the turtles' backs, the fish and the birds placed the woman on land.

The beavers and turtles and birds kept adding to the land mass until it was very large. The woman began wandering the land aimlessly. One day the woman gave birth to a child. The child grew up very quickly. She explored the land and all of the creatures. One day while she was wandering about, she found a young man about her same age. She asked where he had come from and he said he had come from the sky. These two met at daybreak and separated at nightfall. One night she looked back and only saw a turtle walking away. She ran home to her mother and told her that she had been deceived by a turtle. The girl surely knew this would lead to her death during labor. The girl told her mother after she died giving birth, the mother should bury her and that two corn stalks would grow from her, and the mother should feed it to her twin sons.

The sons grew quick and strong. The eldest son wandered by himself all across the lands. When he was out wandering he would often create things out of mud. When he was finished, he would blow on the things he made of mud and they would come to life. He created deer, birds, grasshoppers and finally a man. He continued to create new beings this way for some time. When there was finally a large number of beings, they began selecting companions and that is how the world and human beings as we know them were created.



Author's Note: I chose the Seneca creation myth because it fit well with my other stories. I kept the basic story of the Seneca creation myth but I shortened it drastically. The original version is very long and goes very in depth and gets somewhat confusing. The men who create other beings out of the dirt continue to do so over and over again. This happens at least ten different times. I thought it was a little redundant so I opted to end the story. The ending I used may be somewhat abrupt, but I found it hard to create a different ending and keep the main parts of the story.
This story also contained the theme of four that is consistent with the other stories in my storybook. The theme of four is very relevant to many Native American tribes.




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Bibliography
Story Title: A Seneca Version
Book Title: Iroquoian Cosmology
Book Author: J.N.B. Hewitt
Year: 1903
Websource: Sacred-Texts



Seneca Indian Woman. Websource.
Peace Pipe Ceremoney. Websource