Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney

Ta'gwadihi' and is well known in the tribe. The version from the Wahnenauhi manuscript differs considerably from that here given. In the Bible translation the word dakwa' is used as the equivalent of whale. Haywood thus alludes to the story (Nat. and Aborig. Hist. Tenn., p. 244): "One of the ancient traditions of the Cherokees is that once a whale swallowed a little boy, and after some time spewed him upon the land." It is pretty certain that the Cherokee formerly had some acquaintance with whales, which, about the year 1700, according to Lawson, were "very numerous" on the coast of North Carolina, being frequently stranded along the shore, so that settlers derived considerable profit from the oil and blubber. He enumerates four species there known, and adds a general statement that "some Indians in America" hunted them at sea (History of Carolina, pp. 251-252). In almost every age and country we find a myth of a great fish swallowing a man, who afterward finds his way out alive. Near to the Cherokee myth are the Bible story of Jonah, and the Greek story of Hercules, swallowed by a fish and coming out afterward alive, but bald. For parallels and theories of the origin and meaning of the myth among the ancient nations, see chapter IX of Bouton's Bible Myths. In an Ojibwa story, the great Manabozho is swallowed, canoe and all, by the king of the fishes. With his war club he strikes repeated blows upon the heart of the fish, which attempts to spew him out. Fearing that he might drown in deep water, Manabozho frustrates the endeavor by placing his canoe crosswise in the throat of the fish, and continues striking at the heart until the monster makes for the shore and there dies, when the hero makes his escape through a hole which the gulls have torn in the side of the carcass (Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, I, pp. 145-146).