Note 423 — SENECA FICTION, LEGENDS, AND MYTHS (continued 2)

On the third day after the arrival of the young woman in the family she still had hopes of entrapping the recluse by inducing him to share her bed with her. In fact, she had been sent by her notorious mother, Gahoⁿʻdjiʼdāʹʻhoⁿk, to marry this youth, not because the mother thought he would make her daughter a suitable husband, but rather because she wished to get him into her power, for, on her own account, she feared to allow him to grow to manhood without an attempt to destroy him, knowing well that all who were regarded as deanoäʹdoⁿʼ423 were possessed of most potent orenda (magic power), which they would put into use as soon as they attained manhood—at the age of puberty. The recluse youth had foreseen for many months the events which would come to pass after the arrival of this dutiful daughter of Gahoⁿʻdjiʼdāʹʻhoⁿk. He knew well that the great witch had sent her for the express purpose of getting him into her power in order to destroy him before he could develop into manhood. Hence, he sturdily resisted all the wiles of the daughter to get him to embrace her, as he knew that such action would place him at the mercy of her mother. He feared being bewitched; he realized that he must exert to the full his orenda against that of the great witch, for he was aware that the penalty for being defeated was death. In order to carry out her scheme the young bride arose on the third day when all except the recluse and herself had left the lodge, and going over to the bedside of the youth, again entreated him tearfully to come to her couch. But he was obdurate, rudely repulsing her advances, until finally she returned to her own side of the fire. Despairing of accomplishing her purpose by gentle means, the young woman, whose anger was thoroughly aroused by the youth’s refusal to be seduced by her, went out of the lodge into a dense thicket, and, baring her legs, she plunged into the midst of briers and thorns, which lacerated them very badly. In this condition she returned to the lodge to await the coming of her husband. When her husband and his brothers and sister had returned the young woman kept her peace for a while, although she pretended to be troubled in mind. But after they had eaten their supper and had retired for the night she told her husband a story of another attempted assault on her by his youngest brother, and to confirm this she showed him in the ill-lighted room her torn and blood-stained legs and thighs. Her husband made no reply, although he had decided what to do.