Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney

Notes on the Iroquois, page 358, as having been obtained in 1846 from the Cherokee chief, Stand Watie. It was obtained by the author in nearly the same form in 1890 from James Wafford, of Indian Territory, who had heard it from his grandmother nearly eighty years before. The incident of the dancing skeletons is not given by Schoolcraft, and seems to indicate a lost sequel to the story. Haywood (Nat. and Aborig. Hist. Tenn., p. 161) mentions the Cherokee deluge myth and conjectures that the petroglyphs at Track Rock gap in Georgia may have some reference to it. The versions given by the missionaries Buttrick and Washburn are simply the Bible narrative as told by the Indians. Washburn's informant, however, accounted for the phenomenon by an upheaval and tilting of the earth, so that the waters for a time overflowed the inhabited parts (Reminiscences, pp. 196-197). In a variant related by Hagar (MS Stellar Legends of the Cherokee) a star with fiery tail falls from heaven and becomes a man with long hair, who warns the people of the coming deluge. It is not in place here to enter into a discussion of the meaning and universality of the deluge myth, for an explanation of which the reader is referred to Bouton's Bible Myths and Bible Folklore. [535] Suffice it to say that such a myth appears to have existed with every people and in every age. Among the American tribes with which it was found Brinton enumerates the Athapascan, Algonquian, Iroquois, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Caddo, Natchez, Dakota, Apache, Navaho, Mandan, Pueblo, Aztec, Mixtec, Zapotec, Tlascalan, Michoacan, Toltec, Maya, Quiche, Haitian, Darien, Popayan, Muysca, Quichua, Tupinamba, Achagua, Auraucanian, "and doubtless others." [536] It is found also along the Northwest coast, was known about Albemarle sound, and, as has been said, was probably common to all the tribes. In one Creek version the warning is given by wolves; in another by cranes (see Bouton, cited above).