Haudenosaunee TraditionCreator & Culture Hero
Sapling
Teharonhiawagon(Teharonhiawagon)
Also known as Skyholder, Teharonhiawagon, Djuskaha
- creation
- growth
- the useful and the good
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.
About Sapling
A name that varies by nation
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.
The Twins' contest
After their grandmother Sky Woman raises them, Sapling and his brother Flint shape the features of the earth in opposite ways, one making it fertile, temperate, and easy to live in, the other making it difficult: mountains, rapids, and thorns, in some tellings, or dangerous creatures in others. Parker and Hewitt's recorded tellers differ on how their rivalry resolves, some describing a contest Sapling wins decisively, others describing an ongoing balance between the two rather than one twin's defeat. This site follows its sources in presenting that as unresolved variation, not a single correct ending.
Worship and cult
Temples, festivals, and practices recorded for Sapling
No specific ceremony for Sapling is described in the public sources this site draws on; the Three Sisters (corn, beans, and squash) that many tellings credit to him remain a living agricultural and ceremonial staple among Haudenosaunee communities today, a continuity this site notes without describing any restricted ceremony attached to it.
Family
Family tree
Sapling's parents, consorts, children and rivals, as recorded in the atlas.
Questions about Sapling's family
- Who are Sapling's parents?
- The atlas's kinship records name one parent of Sapling: Sky Woman's Daughter. Ancient accounts do not always agree on divine parentage.
- Who are Sapling's siblings?
- Siblings of Sapling recorded in the atlas: Flint.
In the atlas
Where Sapling appears
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
Cite this page
No publication date is recorded for this page, so each citation uses n.d. and today's date as the access date.
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.
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