Flying Head

The Flying Head, or Kanontsistóntie’s, is a spiritual being within the traditional belief systems of the Iroquois people.

According to folklore, the Flying Head drove the original native inhabitants who lived in the area of the state of New York near the source of the Hudson River, in the Adirondack Mountains away from their hunting grounds before the Europeans came. In the early nineteenth century a Mohawk guide in the town of Lake Pleasant, New York, who called himself Capt. Gill, claimed it was Lake Sacandaga where the legend took place. The tribe had their village on a hill that is now located behind the Hamilton County buildings. The name of the previous inhabitants has been lost to history, and the legend of The Flying Head ensured that every neighboring tribe steered clear for many years. The Flying Head legend survives, but the name of the tribe who invented it is gone. The hill where the unknown tribe's village was located, is considered cursed. Three different hotels were built on the sacred site and all three had a short life span and burned to the ground mysteriously. Capt. Gill lived in a wigwam at the outlet of the lake, Lake Pleasant. He had a wife named Molly, and Molly had a daughter named Molly Jr., whom Capt. Gill didn't claim as his own.

One version of the story says that there was once a very severe winter, that killed off plants and drove the moose and deer to other areas. Local native hunters decided against following them. The fishing too failed, and, according to legend, the famine became so severe that whole families began to die. Young members of the community began to talk of migrating from the area, surrounded as they were by hostile tribes, merely to shift their hunting ground for a season was not possible. They proposed a secret march to the great lake off to the west. They believed that once safely beyond the lake it would be easy enough to find a new home.

According to legend, the old men of the tribe were opposed to leaving their homelands and said that the journey was madness. They said too that the famine was a scourge which the Master of Life inflicted upon his people for their crimes; that if the punishment were endured, it would pass; if ran from, the results would follow them forever. The legend also states that the old men added that they would rather perish by inches on their native hills, that they would rather die that moment, than leave their land forever, to live with plenty upon strange lands. The legend goes on to say that the young men were enraged and promptly killed the old men.

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