The victor returned to his grandmother, and established
his lodge in the far east, on the borders of the great ocean, whence
the sun comes. In time he became the father of mankind, and special
guardian of the Iroquois. The earth was at first arid and sterile, but
he destroyed the gigantic frog which had swallowed all the waters, and
guided the torrents into smooth streams and lakes.[171-1] The woods he
stocked with game; and having learned from the great tortoise, who
supports the world, how to make fire, taught his children, the Indians,
this indispensable art. He it was who watched and watered their crops;
and, indeed, without his aid, says the old missionary, quite out of
patience with such puerilities, "they think they could not boil a pot."
Sometimes they spoke of him as the sun, but this only figuratively.[171-2]
From other writers of early date we learn that the essential outlines of
this myth were received by the Tuscaroras and the Mohawks, and as the
proper names of the two brothers are in the Oneida dialect, we cannot
err in considering this the national legend of the Iroquois stock.
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