Folk Tales of the Iroquois — Part 2 (The Boy Who Learned the Songs of Birds · The Pigmies and the Greedy Hunters · A Bird in Search of a Mate · Swan's Daughters Marry Earthquake's Son · The Moose Woman)
Part two of the Iroquois shelf. Five Seneca tales of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy), collected by Jeremiah Curtin and Erminnie A. Smith, heard in the collectors' English exactly as printed. In The Boy Who Learned the Songs of Birds, the younger of two brothers learns his songs from the birds themselves, wears first two turkey feathers and then a turkey-skin pouch that grows fast to his body until he is Turkey in earnest — and when a woman full of witchcraft carries his brother away to the West, it is Turkey who pulls free of the skin and sends Moose running to bring his brother home, for from birds came all the songs and dances. In The Pigmies and the Greedy Hunters, hunters of the Seneca Reservation throw away meat when game is plentiful and starve when it fails, until a pigmy rebukes their wastefulness, forgives them, feeds them in a cavern, and carries them home in the night. In A Bird in Search of a Mate, a young woman sings along the river bank for a husband, refuses the deer who would feed her on moss and the bear who offers hawthorn berries and roots, and chooses the singer who promises seeds — and the two become the first birds of Spring. In Swan's Daughters Marry Earthquake's Son, old Swan sends her daughters with marriage bread to Split Face, and Owl steals their basket and plays the bridegroom before the girls see through him, reach the long house, and bring their mother home to live by Earthquake's fire. And in The Moose Woman, a hunter's unseen forest wife — who is of the Moose family — cooks and tans for him in his cabin until he breaks his promise and marries in the village, loses his power over game, and follows the trail of little moccasins his children leave for him, to be forgiven. The episode opens and closes with its theme, Imperial Violin Masquerade, heard also briefly between the stories.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Chapters:
0:37 The Boy Who Learned the Songs of Birds
11:44 The Pigmies and the Greedy Hunters
14:25 A Bird in Search of a Mate
17:37 Swan's Daughters Marry Earthquake's Son
22:20 The Moose Woman
Passage notes, carried as printed and declared: in the opening tale two turkeys are killed at the boy's request, for feathers and for a pouch — a summarised line each, craft and subsistence; the witch-women's intent to kill the brother is reported in the telling and never enacted, and the brother is rescued unharmed. The remaining tales of these collections are not read in this part. Held for the owner's ruling by name: The Friendship of an Otter · The Old Man's Lessons to His Nephew · How the Bear Lost His Tail · Origin of the Constellations · Origin of Wampum · the creation narratives (The Creation of Men · The Creation of Man · A Genesis Tradition · A Tale of the Sky World). Ceremonial and sacred material in these collections — the Thanksgiving Address liturgy, the cosmology and medicine-society material — is held by class and is not read. Excluded by name: The Man-Eating Wife, the Little Old Woman and the Morning Star · Coon Deceives Crawfish · The Crawfish and the Raccoon · The Fox and the Rabbit · The Race Between the Turtle and the Bear · The Snake with Two Heads · Infant Nursed by Bears · Origin of Tobacco. The two other tellings of the chipmunk story stand unused — one telling only was read, in Part 1. No claim of completeness for these collections is made.
From Jeremiah Curtin's Seneca Indian Myths (1923) and Erminnie A. Smith's Myths of the Iroquois (1883) — all public domain, the collectors' English as printed; these are their texts, not new translations. Narrated by Violetta. Theme: Imperial Violin Masquerade.
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