To begin with the first named. Deganawida was one of the world’s wonder children. His conception, birth, and career are largely idealized by tradition. Prophetic dreams and visions announced to his doubting grandmother his alleged divine origin and heavenly mission among men; prodigies attended his birth and childhood; he had power on earth and in heaven—that is to say, he knew and sought to do the will of the Master of Life, Te‘haroⁿ‘hywă’k′hoⁿ’. His mother and grandmother were poor and despised and lived alone in a small lodge by themselves on the outskirts of the village to which they belonged, and so they had few, if any, visitors who might seek the daughter for a wife. But there came a day when the watchful mother became aware that her daughter would herself in due time give birth to a child, and bitterly did she reprove her for not marrying a man in the customary way, for now she was bringing scandal upon her mother and herself. The daughter, however, steadfastly denied that she had had commerce with any man at any time, but her mother doubted her and carried her reproof so far as to cause the daughter much bitterness of spirit, and she, therefore, spent much time in silently weeping, for she loved her mother and claimed that she did not know the cause of her pregnancy, and she was deeply grieved by her mother’s chiding. It was then that the mother had a dream in which she was told by a divine messenger that she was doing her daughter great wrong in not believing her statement that she did not know the source of her condition; and she was further told that her daughter would bear a male child, whom they must call Deganawida, and that he would be indirectly the cause of ruin to their people. The repentant mother upon awaking asked her daughter’s forgiveness for the wrong she had done her in not believing her denials. They, however, decided to destroy the life of the child when it should be born because of the dream’s declaration that he would grow up and be the source of evil to their people. So when the child was born they carried it to a neighboring stream of water, which was frozen over, and cutting a hole in the ice thrust the child into it to drown, and they returned to their lodge. But when they awoke in the morning they found the child unharmed and lying asleep between them. This attempt to rid themselves of this child was repeated twice more, but each time no harm came to the child, and then after consultation the two women decided that it was the will of the Master of Life that they should raise the child. They were most kind to him thereafter, and they gave him the name Deganawida, as the dream had directed the grandmother to do. He was reputed to have been one of seven brothers, but in regard to the father or fathers of the six younger brothers tradition is silent.