Haudenosaunee TraditionChief of the Sky World
Earth Holder
Te'haon'hwendjaiwa'khon'(Tehaonhwendjaiwakhon (Parker's spelling, simplified))
Also known as The Sky Chief, The Ancient One, He-Holds-the-Earth
- the Sky World
- the celestial tree
The chief of the Sky World and husband of Sky Woman, who in many tellings uproots the great celestial tree, opening the hole through which she falls.
About Earth Holder
The chief above
Before there is earth, the recorded cosmologies describe a Sky World with its own people, lodges, and a great tree that lights it. Its chief, called Earth Holder in Parker's Seneca material and given other names in the Onondaga, Seneca, and Mohawk versions J.N.B. Hewitt recorded, takes Sky Woman as his wife. Parker summarises a Seneca telling in which the chief becomes jealous and troubled, and, prompted by a dream or by the Fire Beast, uproots the great tree; Sky Woman falls, or is pushed, through the opening to the waters below.
Why the tree comes down
The reasons differ from teller to teller, and Hewitt's comparative texts are the fullest record of that difference: in some versions the chief is ill and dreams that the tree must be uprooted to cure him; in others jealousy drives him; in others Sky Woman leans over the hole out of curiosity and falls. This site treats those as genuine variants, not errors to be resolved, and does not describe the chief as simply good or wicked.
After the fall
Earth Holder stays in the Sky World, which continues above the new earth. The recorded tellings say little more about him after the fall; the story's attention turns to Sky Woman, her daughter, and the twins, and this site does not add to what the sources give.
Worship and cult
Temples, festivals, and practices recorded for Earth Holder
No ceremony for this figure is described in the public sources this site draws on.
Family
Earth Holder's family at a glance
- Who were Earth Holder's spouses and consorts?
- Spouses and consorts of Earth Holder recorded in the atlas: Sky Woman.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Arthur C. Parker, Seneca Myths and Folk Tales
- J.N.B. Hewitt, Iroquoian Cosmology, Bureau of American Ethnology Annual Reports 21 and 43
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Parallels are editorial comparisons across traditions: a shared role does not, by itself, establish a shared origin.
Family relationships come from the atlas's kinship records. Ancient sources often disagree on divine genealogy.
Genealogy
Family tree
Earth Holder's parents, consorts, children and rivals, as recorded in the atlas.