There
is strong likelihood that the Taronhiawagon, he who comes from the Sky,
of the Onondagas, who was their supreme God, who spoke to them in
dreams, and in whose honor the chief festival of their calendar was
celebrated about the winter solstice, was, in fact, Ioskeha under
another name.[172-1] As to the legend of the Good and Bad Minds given
by Cusic, to which I have referred in a previous chapter, and the later
and wholly spurious myth of Hiawatha, first made public by Mr. Clark in
his History of Onondaga (1849), and which, in the graceful poem of
Longfellow, is now familiar to the world, they are but pale and
incorrect reflections of the early native traditions.
So strong is the resemblance Ioskeha bears to Michabo, that what has
been said in explanation of the latter will be sufficient for both. Yet
I do not imagine that the one was copied or borrowed from the other. We
cannot be too cautious in adopting such a conclusion. The two nations
were remote in everything but geographical position.
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