It was said of Ioskeha that he acted the part of husband to his grandmother. In other words, the myth presents the germ of that conception which the priests of ancient Egypt endeavored to express when they taught that Osiris was "his own father and his own son," that he was the "self-generating one," even that he was "the father of his own mother." These are grossly materialistic expressions, but they are perfectly clear to the student of mythology. They are meant to convey to the mind the self-renewing power of life in nature, which is exemplified in the sowing and the seeding, the winter and the summer, the dry and the rainy seasons, and especially the sunset and sunrise. They are echoes in the soul of man of the ceaseless rhythm in the operations of nature, and they become the only guarantors of his hopes for immortal life.[1] [Footnote 1: Such epithets were common, in the Egyptian religion, to most of the gods of fertility. Amun, called in some of the inscriptions "the soul of Osiris," derives his name from the root _men_, to impregnate, to beget. In the Karnak inscriptions he is also termed "the husband of his mother." This, too, was the favorite appellation of Chem, who was a form of Horos. See Dr. C.P. Tiele, _History of the Egyptian Religion_, pp. 124, 146. 149, 150, etc.] Let us look at the names in the myth before us, for confirmation of this. _Ioskeha_ is in the Oneida dialect of the Iroquois an impersonal verbal form of the third person singular, and means literally, "it is about to grow white," that is, to become light, to dawn. _Ataensic_ is from the root _aouen_, water, and means literally, "she who is in the water."[1] Plainly expressed, the sense of the story is that the orb of light rises daily out of the boundless waters which are supposed to surround the land, preceded by the dawn, which fades away as soon as the sun has risen. Each day the sun disappears in these waters, to rise again from them the succeeding morning. As the approach of the sun causes the dawn, it was merely a gross way of stating this to say that the solar god was the father of his own mother, the husband of his grandmother. [Footnote 1: I have analyzed these words in a note to another work, and need not repeat the matter here, the less so, as I am not aware that the etymology has been questioned. See _Myths of the New World_, 2d Ed., p. 183, note.] The position of Ioskeha in mythology is also shown by the other name under which he was, perhaps, even more familiar to most of the Iroquois. This is _Tharonhiawakon_, which is also a verbal form of the third person, with the dual sign, and literally means, "He holds (or holds up) the sky with his two arms."[1] In other words, he is nearly allied to the ancient Aryan Dyâus, the Sky, the Heavens, especially the Sky in the daytime.