Note 142 — SENECA FICTION, LEGENDS, AND MYTHS (continued 9)

The Seneca, like all the other Iroquoian peoples, apply the term oñʹgweʻ, “man,” “human being,” not only to human beings like themselves but also to such beings as arise from the personification of the phenomena of nature and life which assume the form and faculties and activities of human beings. It was a habit of these languages to qualify this term oñʹgweʻ by the adjective oñʹweʻ, meaning “native, original, true, natural,” to distinguish the real human beings from the creations of their poetic fancy; and upon the advent of trans-Atlantic peoples the term oñgweʹʻoñweʻ remained to distinguish the Indian man from the newcomer.