Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney

from John Ax and Ta'gwadihi', and was afterward heard of frequently in connection with the cave at Citico. It is mentioned by Ten Kate in "Legends of the Cherokees," obtained in the Indian Territory, in the Journal of American Folk-Lore, January, 1889. Tla'nuwa--The Tla'nuwa (Tsa'nuwa or Sû'nawa in the Middle dialect) is a mythic bird, described as a great hawk, larger than any bird now existing. There is a small hawk called tla'nuwa usdi', "little tla'nuwa," which is described as its smaller counterpart or image, and which the Cherokee say accompanies flocks of wild pigeons, occasionally when hungry swooping down and killing one by striking it with its sharp breast bone. It is probably the goshawk (Astur atricapillus). The great Tla'nuwa, like the other animals, "went up." According to Adair (History of the American Indians, p. 17) the Cherokee used to compare a miserly person to a "sinnawah." When John Ax first recited the story he insisted that the whites must also believe it, as they had it pictured on their money, and holding up a silver coin, he triumphantly pointed out what he claimed was the figure of the Tla'nuwa, holding in its talons the arrows and in its beak the serpent. He was not so far wrong, as it is well known that the Mexican coat of arms, stamped upon the coins of the republic, has its origin in a similar legend handed down from the Aztec. Myths of dangerous monster serpents destroyed by great birds were common to a number of tribes. The Tuscarora, formerly eastern neighbors of the Cherokee, told "a long tale of a great rattlesnake, which, a great while ago, lived by a creek in that river, which was Neus, and that it killed abundance of Indians; but at last a bald eagle killed it, and they were rid of a serpent that used to devour whole canoes full of Indians at a time" (Lawson, Carolina, p. 346). Tla'nuwa'i--"Tla'nuwa place," the cliff so called by the Cherokee, with the cave half way up its face, is on the north bank of Little Tennessee river, a short distance below the entrance of the Citico creek, on land formerly belonging to Colonel John Lowrey, one of the Cherokee officers at the battle of the Horseshoe bend (Wafford). Just above, but on the opposite side of the river, is U`tlûñti'yi, the former haunt of the cannibal liver eater (see number 66, "U`tlûñta, the Spear-finger"). Soon after the creation--As John Ax put it, adopting the Bible expression, Hilahi'yu dine'tlana a'nigwa--"A long time ago the creation soon after." Rope of linn bark--The old Cherokee still do most of their tying and packing with ropes twisted from the inner bark of trees. In one version of the story the medicine-man uses a long udâ'i or cohosh (Actæa?) vine. Holes are still there--The place which the Cherokee call Tla'nuwa-a'tsiyelûñisûñ'yi, "Where the Tla'nuwa cut it up," is nearly opposite Citico, on Little Tennessee river, just below Talassee ford, in Blount county, Tennessee. The surface of the rock bears a series of long trenchlike depressions, extending some distance, which, according to the Indians, are the marks where the pieces bitten from the body of the great serpent were dropt by the Tla'nuwa.