The Iroquois called the morning star by this name, which translates as "she who brings the day." Their religion recalled the time when the great hunter Sosondowah ("great night") was stalking a supernatural elk. The hunt brought him to the heavens where the jealous goddess Dawn snared Sosondowah as her doorkeeper.

The new slave could not remain faithful to his duties, for down on Earth he saw Gendenwitha, then a mortal woman, and daily left his duties to court her. While Dawn was busy coloring the sky, the hunter was singing to his beloved: in spring as a bluebird; in summer, a blackbird; in autumn, a hawk. It was as a hawk that he tried to carry Gendenwitha to heaven with him. Dawn, angry at his disappearance from her doorstep, turned the woman into a star and set Gendenwitha just above her door. There she shines today, just out of reach of her dark hunter-lover.

Back To Goddesses Archives
Back to Goddess of the Week

This page was last updated on - May 1997. "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore!"
Copyright © 1997Lia Wolf-Gentry A member of