Gaasyendietha

Gaasyendietha is the fire-dragon of Seneca tradition, a powerful serpent-like being identified with the meteor, which lives in deep lakes and rivers and flies between them trailing flames.

The Name

Gaasyendietha (written Gaasyendietʻha in the published texts) is the Seneca name for the meteor, which in Seneca stories is also a living being. The Tuscarora ethnologist J. N. B. Hewitt, who edited the main collection of Seneca tales, translated the name as "He emits or casts out flames of fire." He reported related names in other Iroquoian languages, including a Mohawk word meaning "It-light-goes-about-habitually." English writers came to call the creature the "fire-dragon" or "meteor dragon."

The Story

Gaasyendietha appears in several tales collected among the Seneca on the Cattaraugus Reservation in western New York. In "Dagwanoenyent and Gaasyendietha," a man warned by a dream escapes the destruction of his village and kills the whirlwind monster Dagwanoenyent. Following his dream's instructions, he walks around an upturned tree and finds Gaasyendietha waiting with its great mouth open. When the man shows no fear, the fire-dragon laughs, takes the form of a man, and tells him to pull out one of its teeth. The tooth gives him the power to change his shape and later lets him see deep into the ground. Gaasyendietha flies off through the air, and later returns as the man's friend to help him run from another monster.

In other stories the fire-dragon is less friendly. Hewitt wrote that it was counted among the most powerful sorcerers known, but not as a constant enemy of people. Some tales show it helping a human escape enemies, and others tell of fire-dragons killed by powerful human sorcerers.

Appearance and Powers

The published texts give few physical details beyond a huge mouth and great teeth, but Hewitt's notes explain its nature. The fire-dragons were the meteors of nature. They lived in the deepest parts of lakes and rivers because the Master of Life had bound them there by a spell: their bodies shed sparks and flames, and if they stayed out of the water too long they would set the world on fire. They were allowed only to fly through the air from one deep lake or river to another, which is why a meteor streaks across the sky. Like other horned serpents of Seneca tradition, they could take human form.

Origins and Sources

The stories were recorded by Jeremiah Curtin in the 1880s and by Hewitt in 1896, and published by the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1918 in Seneca Fiction, Legends, and Myths. Hewitt noted that Seneca storytellers traditionally told such tales only in winter, when serpents sleep and cannot overhear, which gave the stories a sacred or restricted character. Popular books sometimes add details, such as a link to Lake Ontario or an origin from serpent eggs, that are not found in this primary collection.

Legacy

Because it flies, burns, and lives in water, Gaasyendietha is often called the closest Native North American match to the European dragon. That comparison is a modern one. In Seneca tradition it belongs among the powerful beings of the lakes and rivers, set against the Thunderers of the sky.

Related

• Horned Serpent: The Horned Serpent is a great water serpent with horns found in the traditions of many Native American nations, a powerful being of rivers, lakes, and the world below, often opposed by the Thunderbirds.
• Uktena: The Uktena is a great horned serpent of Cherokee tradition, as thick as a tree trunk, with a blazing crystal crest called the Ulûñsû'ti on its forehead, and so dangerous that even seeing it could bring death.
• Boitatá: The Boitatá is a fiery serpent of Brazilian folklore, a glowing snake of flame whose name comes from Tupi words for "snake" and "fire," seen at night over fields, rivers, and marshes.
• Piasa: The Piasa is a monster once painted on the Mississippi River bluffs near Alton, Illinois, described by Jacques Marquette in 1673 as a horned, scaly creature with a human-like face and a long tail.
• Dragons Across Cultures
• What is a Dragon?

Sources and Further Reading

• Jeremiah Curtin and J. N. B. Hewitt, Seneca Fiction, Legends, and Myths, Thirty-second Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (Government Printing Office, 1918)

Cite this entry: “Gaasyendietha,” Draconika Encyclopedia of Dragons, https://www.draconika.com/dragons/gaasyendietha.