DAGWANOEnYENT (WHIRLWIND) 1

p. 256

TWO brothers, one a young man, the other a small boy were one day out in the woods together. They heard a great noise overhead and looking up saw a DAGWANOEⁿYENT, an enormous head, flying above them.

The elder brother called out "Gówe! gówe!"

The DAGWANOEnYENT said, "Thank you. Thank you. You should always sing in that way when you are going to fight. If you do, I will be on your side and kill your enemies for you."

Taking three hairs from his head the DAGWANOEⁿYENT gave them to the brothers, saying, "When you want to escape from danger, get water and draw these hairs along in it. When you take them out, drops of water will hang to them and those drops will bring rain." Then the DAGWANOEⁿYENT went on, leaving the two brothers.

By those hairs the brothers often escaped from their enemies.

Whenever they wanted rain, they had only to draw the hairs through water and then shake off the drops; right away heavy rain fell. The hairs were long kept by the Senecas.

The narrator thinks there is one hair yet. It is owned by a man who lives on the Alleghany Reservation.

Footnotes

256:1 Always represented as a head without a body.