Dagwanoenyent, the Storm Wind

A head with streaming hair

Parker lists Dagwanoeient, the Storm Wind, among the nature beings of Seneca tradition and describes it appearing as a flying head with long streaming hair. It is the violent counterpart of Gä'ha', the kindly zephyr, and its passage tears through forests. The Flying Heads of Haudenosaunee story, enormous heads that fly through the air on their own hair, belong to the same family of images, and the Tuscarora writer David Cusick already described flying heads troubling the people in 1827.

Kept apart from ceremony

Masks and the societies that use them are ceremonial matters the Haudenosaunee have asked outsiders not to depict or describe, and some winds and faces in Seneca tradition are connected with that practice. This entry is therefore limited to the storm wind as it appears in published descriptions and stories.