Arthur C. Parker

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This is the story of the famous and controversial Seneca chief and orator Red Jacket (Sagoyewatha, ca. 1750–1830), whose passionate and articulate defense of the old ways won the admiration of many but also earned him the enmity of Chiefs Joseph Brant and Cornplanter. Red Jacket received a medal from George Washington as a token of friendship. He is remembered as a vocal and persistent opponent of foreign encroachment on the Iroquois, protesting bitterly against the sale of tribal lands and involvement in European-American disputes, missionary activities, and various efforts to "civilize" the Iroquois. Arthur C. Parker, a renowned scholar of the Iroquois and a member of a distinguished Seneca family, offers an engaging and highly readable account of Red Jacket's life. The biography follows Red Jacket from his early years along the Genesee River through the invasion of Seneca lands during the Revolutionary War, the Big Tree Treaty of 1797, and the rise of the prophet Handsome Lake. Parker (1881–1955) has authored several books on the Iroquois, including Seneca Myths and Folk Tales (Nebraska 1989).

Collected here are the timeless Native American fables and legends handed down by noted Seneca anthropologist Arthur C. Parker. Growing up on the Cattaraugus Indian reservation in western New York, Parker knew the importance of the storyteller in Iroquois lives. The Seneca stories of animals, whose weaknesses and strengths are suspiciously like those of human beings, held a special place for Parker, who is considered by many as one of the greatest orators in any language. Oral traditions - whether myths, legends, or folktales - are more than just "stories." They are the way by which a society communicates to its members the order and meaning to be found in the world around them. Young adults and children, especially, will be captivated by these Seneca tales.

"On the Cattaraugus reservation, it was part of a child's initial training to learn why the bear lost its tail, why the chipmunk has a striped back, and why meteors flash in the sky," writes Arthur C. Parker at the beginning of Seneca Myths and Folk Tales. His blood ties to the Senecas and early familiarity with their culture led to a distinguished career as an archaeologist and to the publication in 1923 of this pioneeering work. Parker recreates the milieu in which the Seneca legends and folktales were told and discusses their basic themes and components before going on to relate more than seventy of them that he heard as a boy. Here is the magical Senecan world populated by unseen good and evil spirits, ghosts, and beings capable of transformation. Included are creation myths; folktales involving contests between mortal youths and assorted powers; tales of love and marriage; and stories about cannibals, talking animals, pygmies, giants, monsters, vampires, and witches.

A definitive ethnological study of the Iroquois' subsistence, religious traditions, laws, and customs.