Asked for a material explanation for these critters in lakes that widely freeze over—like the Erie and the Champlain—and that could hardly support a single big predator, much less a breeding population, we are at a loss. We can only point out the significance of the big snake in both mythology and Jungian psychology. We will also say that these big critters are reported in other deep, cold, mind-defying places about the world, like Loch Ness. There is probably something going on that we haven’t figured out yet, and whatever it is, it is not as simple as a “true or false.”
THE THUNDERERS
In so many world mythologies, there is a clash between fire and sky forces, symbolized by explosive flame and lightning, and earth and water forces, personified by enormous snakes, reptiles, and lizards. We see this with the Iroquois.
One of the great Iroquois gods was called, in Seneca, Heno. Parker tells us that it means “he great voice,” a pretty apt name for this power of the sky. So esteemed was this Thunder Being that it’s not clear that he and the Creator are totally separate entities.
In a striking parallel to the Indic thunder god Indra, the Iroquois Heno keeps an entourage of thunder boys. At least some of them are probably noble orphans, lost children ruined by disaster or fate, saved from death and raised by another Thunderer. Sometimes the orphan of a chief favored by the Thunderers will be so honored. Others are love children of wayward Thunderers.
One of these Thunderers is pretty hard to resist when he comes in the form of a splendid young chief. He tells his mortal bride not to let their boy play with other kids. Just a slap from him would kill a natural human; he’s that full of juice. Soon he goes back to the heavens and joins the apprentice Thunderers. Their jobs are to patrol the world on the lookout for evil magical beings.
They are also the Thunder Beings’ spies, one each inside a thunder cloud, on the lookout for the otkon forces of the earth. But they’re a frisky bunch. It’s hard to see how anyone sleeps in their part of the Iroquois heaven.
Now and then one of these formerly mortal Thunderers comes back to the world with extra abilities. They’re really good at straightening out a lawless village or a pack of witches terrorizing a community. Sometimes they pitch in with the Little People and launch a bolt or two at the giant underground buffalo when they are on the loose.
A former mortal raised and trained as a Thunderer is of special use to the high one. The head Thunderer himself and his mightiest minions can be scented a long way off by their enemies on the earth. Riding a cloud, packing a magical bow and a quiver of bolts, a mortal-born Thunderer is just human enough to fool them.
So strong was the faith that mortal children might be raised to the ranks of Thunderers that some Iroquois had no fear of lightning storms. “We have a relative there who makes the thunder,” an Oneida woman told Hope Emily Allen in the early twentieth century.
THE MONSTER BEAR
Most feared of beasts in the magical Iroquois zoo is this big, devilish-looking critter. He isn’t even built like a natural bear. Sometimes the alternative form of a wizard, he loves running contests, luring men and swift boys to bet their lives on a race. These marathons last from sunrise to sunset, and second place for the mortal means dinner.
Like Achilles, this demon bear has a weak spot on the pad of a foot. A spike or arrow here can kill him. In a tale or two the Little People take him down when they pity his human quarry, as does the right tricky hero with red willow weapons. Others whip him with wits or magic and maybe talk him out of a couple of his teeth—the bounty of generations. His bones are medicine. Just the powder in a potion makes a human unbeatable as a runner. Such a heavy totem is the monster bear that he’s the focus of a whole dance society, one of the few mythic animals so used.
We don’t know any Iroquoians who claim to have met the demon bear in our woods. There are enough Bigfoot reports to make you wonder if people are taking one for the other. There are those who think all myths are distortions of real events. Some suggest that Australia’s dawn beasts live on in the dreamtime images of its own native peoples. Could the demon bear be a memory? Was there a natural parallel in the northeastern woods?
In his dreams, Edgar Cayce (1877–1945) raved that the Atlanteans shunned North America because its mammal predators were so nasty. Archaeology half supports the twentieth century’s “sleeping prophet”: The ice age’s meat eaters were dreadful. There was the American lion, Panthera leo atrox, much bigger than lions of our day. There was Canis dirus, a loping assassin we call the dire wolf. The saber-toothed tiger was an ambush-slasher, and outsized hyenas and wolverines were stalking terrors. The top killer, though, seems to have been Arctodus, the giant short-faced bear, a rangy goon that ate not a thing but flesh and marrow.
Nicknamed the bulldog bear for its strange, pushed-in face packing so mighty a bite, Arctodus could run forty miles an hour. Its five-foot limbs and eight-inch claws could rake or club any foe. When it stood on two legs, its stubby chin would have rested on a basketball rim. The first Americans had to face it. Was this the demon bear?
Zoologists note the curiosity that big cats are spooked by the bark of dogs. It’s not the dogs they dread; it’s the sound, evidently like that of a once-real animal so fearsome
