Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney

was obtained in nearly the same form from Swimmer and John Ax (east) and from Wafford (west), and a version is also given in the Wahnenauhi manuscript. Hagar notes it briefly in his manuscript Stellar Legends of the Cherokee. So much of belief and custom depend upon the myth of Kana'ti that references to the principal incidents are constant in the songs and formulas. It is one of those myths held so sacred that in the old days one who wished to hear it from the priest of the tradition must first purify himself by "going to water," i. e., bathing in the running stream before daylight when still fasting, while the priest performed his mystic ceremonies upon the bank. In his Letters from the Alleghany Mountains, written more than fifty years ago, Lanman gives (pp. 136, 137) a very fair synopsis of this myth, locating the game preserve of Kana'ti, whom he makes an old Cherokee chief, in a (traditional) cave on the north side of the Black mountain, now Mount Mitchell, in Yancey county, North Carolina, the highest peak east of the Rocky mountains. After his father had disappeared, and could not be found by long search, "The boy fired an arrow towards the north, but it returned and fell at his feet, and he knew that his father had not travelled in that direction. He also fired one towards the east and the south and the west, but they all came back in the same manner. He then thought that he would fire one directly above his head, and it so happened that this arrow never returned, and so the boy knew that his father had gone to the spirit land. The Great Spirit was angry with the Cherokee nation, and to punish it for the offense of the foolish boy he tore away the cave from the side of the Black mountain and left only a large cliff in its place, which is now a conspicuous feature, and he then declared that the time would come when another race of men should possess the mountains where the Cherokees had flourished for many generations." The story has numerous parallels in Indian myth, so many in fact that almost every important concept occurring in it is duplicated in the North, in the South, and on the plains, and will probably be found also west of the mountains when sufficient material of that region shall have been collected. The Ojibwa story of "The Weendigoes," [519] in particular, has many striking points of resemblance; so, also, the Omaha myth, "Two-faces and the Twin Brothers," as given by Dorsey. [520] His wife was Selu, "Corn"--In Cherokee belief, as in the mythologies of nearly every eastern tribe, the corn spirit is a woman, and the plant itself has sprung originally from the blood drops or the dead body of the Corn Woman. In the Cherokee sacred formulas the corn is sometimes invoked as Agawe'la, "The Old Woman," and one myth (number 72, "The Hunter and Selu") tells how a hunter once witnessed the transformation of the growing stalk into a beautiful woman. In the Creek myth "Origin of Indian Corn," as given in the Tuggle manuscript, the corn plant appears to be the transformed body of an old woman whose only son, endowed with magic powers, has developed from a single drop of her (menstrual?) blood. In Iroquois legend, according to Morgan, the corn plant sprang from the bosom of the mother of the Great Spirit (sic) after her burial. The spirits of corn, bean, and squash are represented as three sisters. "They are supposed to have the forms of beautiful females, to be very fond of each other, and to delight to dwell together. This last belief is illustrated by a natural adaptation of the plants themselves to grow up together in the same field and perhaps from the same hill." [521] Sprang from blood--This concept of a child born of blood drops reappears in the Cherokee story of Tsul`kalû' (see number 81). Its occurrence among the Creeks has just been noted. It is found also among the Dakota (Dorsey, "The Blood-clots Boy," in Contributions to North American Ethnology, IX, 1893), Omaha (Dorsey, "The Rabbit and the Grizzly Bear," Cont. to N. A. Eth., VI, 1890), Blackfeet ("Kutoyis," in Grinnell, "Blackfoot Lodge Tales"; New York, 1892), and other tribes. Usually the child thus born is of wilder and more mischievous nature than is common. Deer shut up in hole--The Indian belief that the game animals were originally shut up in a cave, from which they were afterward released by accident or trickery, is very widespread. In the Tuggle version of the Creek account of the creation of the earth we find the deer thus shut up and afterward set free. The Iroquois "believed that the game animals were not always free, but were enclosed in a cavern where they had been concealed by Tawiskara'; but that they might increase and fill the forest Yoskeha' gave them freedom." [522] The same idea occurs in the Omaha story of "Ictinike, the Brothers and Sister" (Dorsey, in Contributions to North American Ethnology, VI, 1890). The Kiowa tell how the buffalo were kept thus imprisoned by the Crow until released by Sinti when the people were all starving for want of meat. When the buffalo so suddenly and completely disappeared from the plains about twenty-five years ago, the prairie tribes were unable to realize that it had been exterminated, but for a long time cherished the belief that it had been again shut up by the superior power of the whites in some underground prison, from which the spells of their own medicine men would yet bring it back (see references in the author's Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians, in Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, part 1, 1901). The Kiowa tradition is almost exactly paralleled among the Jicarilla (Russell, Myths of the Jicarilla Apaches, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, Oct., 1898). Storehouse--The unwadâ'li, or storehouse for corn, beans, dried pumpkins, and other provisions, was a feature of every Cherokee homestead and was probably common to all the southern tribes. Lawson thus describes it among the Santee in South Carolina about the year 1700: "They make themselves cribs after a very curious manner, wherein they secure their corn from vermin, which are more frequent in these warm climates than in countries more distant from the sun. These pretty fabrics are commonly supported with eight feet or posts about seven feet high from the ground, well daubed within and without upon laths, with loam or clay, which makes them tight and fit to keep out the smallest insect, there being a small door at the gable end, which is made of the same composition and to be removed at pleasure, being no bigger than that a slender man may creep in at, cementing the door up with the same earth when they take the corn out of the crib and are going from home, always finding their granaries in the same posture they left them--theft to each other being altogether unpracticed." [523] Rubbed her stomach--This miraculous procuring of provisions by rubbing the body occurs also in number 76, "The Bear Man." Knew their thoughts--Mind reading is a frequent concept in Indian myth and occurs in more than one Cherokee story. Seven times--The idea of sacred numbers has already been noted, and the constant recurrence of seven in the present myth exemplifies well the importance of that number in Cherokee ritual. A tuft of down--In the Omaha story, "The Corn Woman and the Buffalo Woman" (Dorsey, Contributions to North American Ethnology, VI, 1890), the magician changes himself into a feather and allows himself to be blown about by the wind in order to accomplish his purpose. The wolf does the same in a Thompson River myth. [524] The self-transformation of the hero into a tuft of bird's down, a feather, a leaf, or some other light object, which is then carried by the wind wherever he wishes to go, is very common in Indian myth. Play ball against them--This is a Cherokee figurative expression for a contest of any kind, more particularly a battle. Left an open space--When the Cherokee conjurer, by his magic spells, coils the great (invisible) serpent around the house of a sick man to keep off the witches, he is always careful to leave a small space between the head and tail of the snake, so that the members of the family can go down to the spring to get water. Wolves--The wolf is regarded as the servant and watchdog of Kana'ti. See number 15, "The Fourfooted Tribes." From these have come all--In nearly every Indian mythology we find the idea of certain animal tribes being descended from a single survivor of some great slaughter by an early hero god or trickster. Thus the Kiowa say that all the prairie dogs on the plains are descended from a single little fellow who was too wary to close his eyes, as his companions did, when the hungry vagrant Sinti was planning to capture them all for his dinner under pretense of teaching them a new dance. A gaming wheel--This was the stone wheel or circular disk used in the wheel-and-stick game, called by the Cherokee gatayûsti, and which in one form or another was practically universal among the tribes. It was the game played by the great mythic gambler Ûñtsaiyi' (see number 63). It has sometimes been known in the north as the "snow-snake," while to the early southern traders it was known as chunki or chungkey, a corruption of the Creek name. Timberlake (page 77) mentions it under the name of nettecawaw--for which there seems to be no other authority--as he saw it among the Cherokee in 1762. [525] It was also noted among the Carolina tribes by Lederer in 1670 and Lawson in 1701. John Ax, the oldest man now living among the East Cherokee, is the only one remaining in the tribe who has ever played the game, having been instructed in it when a small boy by an old man who desired to keep up the memory of the ancient things. The sticks used have long since disappeared, but the stones remain, being frequently picked up in the plowed fields, especially in the neighborhood of mounds. The best description of the southern game is given by Adair: "They have near their state house a square piece of ground well cleaned, and fine sand is carefully strewed over it, when requisite, to promote a swifter motion to what they throw along the surface. Only one, or two on a side, play at this ancient game. They have a stone about two fingers broad at the edge and two spans round. Each party has a pole of about eight feet long, smooth, and tapering at each end, the points flat. They set off abreast of each other at 6 yards from the end of the playground; then one of them hurls the stone on its edge, in as direct a line as he can, a considerable distance toward the middle of the other end of the square. When they have ran [sic] a few yards each darts his pole, anointed with bear's oil, with a proper force, as near as he can guess in proportion to the motion of the stone, that the end may lie close to the stone. When this is the case, the person counts two of the game, and in proportion to the nearness of the poles to the mark, one is counted, unless by measuring both are found to be at an equal distance from the stone. In this manner the players will keep running most part of the day at half speed, under the violent heat of the sun, staking their silver ornaments, their nose, finger and ear rings; their breast, arm and wrist plates, and even all their wearing apparel except that which barely covers their middle. All the American Indians are much addicted to this game, which to us appears to be a task of stupid drudgery. It seems, however, to be of early origin, when their forefathers used diversions as simple as their manners. The hurling stones they use at present were time immemorial rubbed smooth on the rocks, and with prodigious labour. They are kept with the strictest religious care from one generation to another, and are exempted from being buried with the dead. They belong to the town where they are used, and are carefully preserved." [526] In one version of the Kana'ti myth the wheel is an arrow, which the wild boy shoots toward the four cardinal points and finally straight upward, when it comes back no more. When they get above the sky they find Kana'ti and Selu sitting together, with the arrow sticking in the ground in front of them. In the Creek story, "The Lion [Panther?] and the Little Girl," of the Tuggle collection, the lion has a wheel "which could find anything that was lost." The twilight land--Usûñhi'yi, "Where it is always growing dark," the spirit land in the west. This is the word constantly used in the sacred formulas to denote the west, instead of the ordinary word Wude'ligûñ'yi, "Where it sets." In the same way Nûñdâ'yi, or Nûñdâgûñ'yi, the "Sun place, or region," is the formulistic name for the east instead of Digalûñgûñ'yi, "Where it [i. e., the sun] comes up," the ordinary term. These archaic expressions give to myths and formulas a peculiar beauty which is lost in the translation. As the interpreter once said, "I love to hear these old words." Struck by lightning--With the American tribes, as in Europe, a mysterious potency attaches to the wood of a tree which has been struck by lightning. The Cherokee conjurers claim to do wonderful things by means of such wood. Splinters of it are frequently buried in the field to make the corn grow. It must not be forgotten that the boys in this myth are Thunder Boys. The end of the world--See notes to number 7, "The Journey to the Sunrise." Anisga'ya Tsunsdi'--Abbreviated from Anisga'ya Tsunsdi'ga, "Little Men." These two sons of Kana'ti, who are sometimes called Thunder Boys and who live in Usûñhi'yi above the sky vault, must not be confounded with the Yûñwi Tsunsdi', or "Little People," who are also Thunderers, but who live in caves of the rocks and cause the short, sharp claps of thunder. There is also the Great Thunderer, the thunder of the whirlwind and the hurricane, who seems to be identical with Kana'ti himself. Deer songs--The Indian hunters of the olden time had many songs intended to call up the deer and the bear. Most of these have perished, but a few are still remembered. They were sung by the hunter, with some accompanying ceremony, to a sweetly plaintive tune, either before starting out or on reaching the hunting ground. One Cherokee deer song; sung with repetition, may be freely rendered: O Deer, you stand close by the tree, You sweeten your saliva with acorns, Now you are standing near, You have come where your food rests on the ground. Gatschet, in his Creek Migration Legend (I, p. 79), gives the following translation of a Hichitee deer hunting song: Somewhere (the deer) lies on the ground, I think; I walk about. Awake, arise, stand up! It is raising up its head, I believe; I walk about. Awake, arise, stand up! It attempts to rise, I believe; I walk about. Awake, arise, stand up! Slowly it raises its body, I think; I walk about. Awake, arise, stand up! It has now risen on its feet, I presume; I walk about. Awake, arise, stand up!