Flint vs Sapling

The hard-minded twin grandson of Sky Woman, born in a way that costs their mother's life, who in Haudenosaunee tradition shapes the earth's difficult features in contest with his brother Sapling.

In most recorded tellings, Flint is born after his brother Sapling in a way described as unusually violent, some tellers say he forces his way out rather than being born in the ordinary manner, and this birth costs their mother's life, which is why Sky Woman raises the Twins herself. From there, Flint shapes the parts of the world that make life harder: difficult terrain, dangerous animals, or winter, depending on the teller. Hewitt's and Parker's recorded tellers do not agree on how the brothers' rivalry ends, and this site does not present one outcome as final.

The good-minded twin grandson of Sky Woman, who in Haudenosaunee tradition shapes the world's fertile land, food plants, and easy rivers, opposite his hard-minded brother Flint.

What English retellings often call Sapling or Skyholder is given different names by different Haudenosaunee nations and tellers: the Mohawk name Teharonhiawagon ("He Holds Up the Sky") is recorded by several 19th- and 20th-century sources, while Arthur C. Parker's Seneca tellers use Djuskaha and other terms. This site uses Sapling and Skyholder as the most common English forms while naming the Mohawk term as one nation's own name for him, not the only correct one.