Myths of the Cherokee Extract from the Nineteenth Annual...

U′laʻgû′—This is not the name of any particular species, but signifies a leader, principal, or colloquially, “boss,” and in this sense is applied to the large queen yellow-jacket seen in spring, or to the leader of a working gang. The insect of the story is described as a monster yellow-jacket.

14.The Deluge (p. 261): This story is given by Schoolcraft in his 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.31 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.”32 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.

15.The four-footed tribes (p. 261): No essential difference—“I have often reflected on the curious connexion which appears to subsist in the mind of an Indian between man and the brute creation, and found much matter in it for curious observation. Although they consider themselves superior to all other animals and are very proud of that superiority; although they believe that the beasts of the forest, the birds of the air, and the fishes of the waters were created by the Almighty Being for the use of man; yet it seems as if they ascribe the difference between themselves and the brute kind, and the dominion which they have over them, more to their superior bodily strength and dexterity than to their immortal souls. All being endowed by the Creator with the power of volition and self motion, they view in a manner as a great society of which they are the head, whom they are appointed, indeed, to govern, but between whom and themselves intimate ties of connexion and relationship may exist, or at least did exist in the beginning of time. They are, in fact, according to their opinions, only the first among equals, the legitimate hereditary sovereigns of the whole animated race, of which they are themselves a constituent part. Hence, in their languages, these inflections of their nouns, which we call genders, are not, as with us, descriptive of the masculine and feminine species, but of the animate and inanimate kinds. Indeed, they go so far as to include trees, and plants within the first of these descriptions.

All animated nature, in whatever degree, is in their eyes a great whole from which they have not yet ventured to separate themselves. They do not exclude other animals from their world of spirits, the place to which they expect to go after death.”33

Animal chiefs and councils—In Pawnee belief, according to Grinnell, the animals, or Nahurac, possess miraculous attributes given them by the great creator, Tirawa. “The Pawnees know of five places where these animals meet to hold council—five of these Nahurac lodges.” He gives a detailed description of each. The fourth is a mound-shaped hill, on the top of which is a deep well or water hole, into which the Pawnee throw offerings. The fifth is a rock hill in Kansas, known to the whites as Guide rock, and “in the side of the hill there is a great hole where the Nahurac hold councils.”35

The same belief is noted by Chatelain in Angola, West Africa: “In African folk tales the animal world, as also the spirit world, is organized and governed just like the human world. In Angola the elephant is the supreme king of all animal creation, and the special chief of the edible tribe of wild animals. Next to him in rank the lion is special chief of the tribe of ferocious beasts and highest vassal of the elephant. Chief of the reptile tribe is the python. Chief of the finny tribe is, in the interior, the di-lenda, the largest river fish. Chief of the feathery tribe is the kakulu ka humbi, largest of the eagles. Among the domestic animals the sceptre belongs to the bull; among the locusts to the one called di-ngundu. Even the ants and termites have their kings or queens. Every chief or king has his court, consisting of the ngolambole, tandala, and other officers, his parliament of ma-kota and his plebeian subjects, just like any human African saba” (Folk tales of Angola, p. 22).

Asking pardon of animals—For other Cherokee references see remarks upon the Little Deer, the Wolf, and the Rattlesnake; also number 4, “Origin of Disease and Medicine,” and number 58, “The Rattlesnake’s Vengeance.” This custom was doubtless general among the tribes, as it is thoroughly in consonance with Indian idea. The trader Henry thus relates a characteristic instance among the Ojibwa in 1764 on the occasion of his killing a bear near the winter camp:

“The bear being dead, all my assistants approached, and all, but more particularly my old mother (as I was wont to call her), took his head in their hands, stroking and kissing it several times; begging a thousand pardons for taking away her life; calling her their relation and grandmother; and requesting her not to lay the fault upon them, since it was truly an Englishman that had put her to death.

“This ceremony was not of long duration; and if it was I that killed their grandmother, they were not themselves behind-hand in what remained to be performed. The skin being taken off, we found the fat in several places six inches deep. This, being divided into two parts, loaded two persons; and the flesh parts were as much as four persons could carry. In all, the carcass must have exceeded five hundred weight.

“As soon as we reached the lodge, the bear’s head was adorned with all the trinkets in the possession of the family, such as silver arm-bands and wrist-bands, and belts of wampum; and then laid upon a scaffold, set up for its reception, within the lodge. Near the nose was placed a large quantity of tobacco.

“The next morning no sooner appeared, than preparations were made for a feast to the manes. The lodge was cleaned and swept; and the head of the bear lifted up, and a new stroud of blanket, which had never been used before, spread under it. The pipes were now lit; and Wawatam blew tobacco smoke into the nostrils of the bear, telling me to do the same, and thus appease the anger of the bear on account of my having killed her. I endeavored to persuade my benefactor and friendly adviser, that she no longer had any life, and assured him that I was under no apprehension from her displeasure; but, the first proposition obtained no credit, and the second gave but little satisfaction.

“At length, the feast being ready, Wawatam commenced a speech, resembling, in many things, his address to the manes of his relations and departed companions; but, having this peculiarity, that he here deplored the necessity under which men labored thus to destroy their friends. He represented, however, that the misfortune was unavoidable, since without doing so, they could by no means subsist. The speech ended, we all ate heartily of the bear’s flesh; and even the head itself, after remaining three days on the scaffold, was put into the kettle.”—Travels, pp. 143–145.

The Rabbit—The part played by the Rabbit or Hare and his symbolic character in Indian myth has been already noted (see “Stories and Story Tellers”). In his purely animal character, as an actor among the fourfooted creatures, the same attributes of trickery and surpassing sagacity are assigned him in other parts of the world. In the folktales of Angola, West Africa, “The Hare seems to surpass the fox in shrewdness,” and “The Hare has the swiftness and shrewdness of the Monkey, but he is never reckless, as the Monkey sometimes appears to be” (Chatelain, Folktales of Angola, pp. 295, 300). In farthest Asia also “The animals, too, have their stories, and in Korea, as in some other parts of the world, the Rabbit seems to come off best, as a rule” (H. N. Allen, Korean Tales, p. 34; New York and London, 1889).

The buffalo—Timberlake repeatedly remarks upon the abundance of the buffalo in the Cherokee country of East Tennessee in 1762. On one occasion, while in camp, they heard rapid firing from their scouts and “in less than a minute seventeen or eighteen buffaloes ran in amongst us, before we discovered them, so that several of us had like to have been run over, especially the women, who with some difficulty sheltered themselves behind the trees. Most of the men fired, but firing at random, one only was killed, tho’ several more wounded” (Memoirs, p. 101). According to a writer in the Historical Magazine, volume VIII, page 71,1864, the last two wild buffalo known in Ohio were killed in Jackson county in 1800.

The elk—This animal ranged in eastern Carolina in 1700. “The elk is a monster of the venison sort. His skin is used almost in the same nature as the buffelo’s [sic].... His flesh is not so sweet as the lesser deer’s. His hams exceed in weight all creatures which the new world affords. They will often resort and feed with the buffelo, delighting in the same range as they do” (Lawson, Carolina, p. 203).

Cuts out the hamstring—No satisfactory reason has been obtained for this custom, which has been noted for more than a century. Buttrick says of the Cherokee: “The Indians never used to eat a certain sinew in the thigh.... Some say that if they eat of the sinew they will have cramp in it on attempting to run. It is said that once a woman had cramp in that sinew and therefore none must eat it” (Antiquities, p. 12). Says Adair, speaking of the southern tribes generally: “When in the woods the Indians cut a small piece out of the lower part of the thigh of the deer they kill, length-ways and pretty deep. Among the great number of venison hams they bring to our trading houses I do not remember to have observed one without it” (History of the American Indians, pp. 137–138).

White animals sacred—According to a formula in the Tuggle manuscript for curing the “deer sickness,” the “White Deer” is chief of his tribe in Creek mythology also. Peculiar sacredness always attaches, in the Indian mind, to white and albino animals, partly on account of the symbolic meaning attached to the color itself and partly by reason of the mystery surrounding the phenomenon of albinism. Among the Cherokee the chiefs both of the Deer and of the Bear tribe were white. On the plains the so-called white buffalo was always sacred. Among the Iroquois, according to Morgan (League of the Iroquois, p. 210), “the white deer, white squirrel and other chance animals of the albino kind, were regarded as consecrated to the Great Spirit.” One of their most solemn sacrifices was that of the White Dog.

The bear—A reverence for the bear and a belief that it is half human is very general among the tribes, and is probably based in part upon the ability of the animal to stand upright and the resemblance of its tracks to human footprints. According to Grinnell (Blackfoot Lodge Tales, p. 260), “The Blackfeet believe it to be part brute and part human, portions of its body, particularly the ribs and feet, being like those of a man.” In a note upon a Navaho myth Matthews says (Navaho Legends, p. 249): “The bear is a sacred animal with the Navahoes; for this reason the hero did not skin the bears or eat their flesh. The old man, being a wizard, might do both.”

“A Delaware hunter once shot a huge bear and broke its backbone. The animal fell and set up a most plaintive cry, something like that of the panther when he is hungry. The hunter instead of giving him another shot, stood up close to him, and addressed him in these words: ‘Hark ye! bear; you are a coward and no warrior as you pretend to be. Were you a warrior, you would shew it by your firmness, and not cry and whimper like an old woman. You know, bear, that our tribes are at war with each other, and that yours was the aggressor [probably alluding to a tradition which the Indians have of a very ferocious kind of bear, called the naked bear, which they say once existed, but was totally destroyed by their ancestors].... You have found the Indians too powerful for you, and you have gone sneaking about in the woods, stealing their hogs; perhaps at this time you have hog’s flesh in your belly. Had you conquered me, I would have borne it with courage and died like a brave warrior; but you, bear, sit here and cry, and disgrace your tribe by your cowardly conduct.’ I was present at the delivery of this curious invective. When the hunter had despatched the bear, I asked him how he thought that poor animal could understand what he said to it? ‘Oh,’ said he in answer, ‘the bear understood me very well; did you not observe how ashamed he looked while I was upbraiding him?’”

The wolf and wolf killer—Speaking of the Gulf tribes generally, Adair says: “The wolf, indeed, several of them do not care to meddle with, believing it unlucky to kill them, which is the sole reason that few of the Indians shoot at that creature, through a notion of spoiling their guns” (History of the American Indians, p. 16). The author has heard among the East Cherokee an incident of a man who, while standing one night upon a fish trap, was scented by a wolf, which came so near that the man was compelled to shoot it. He at once went home and had the gun exorcised by a conjurer. Wafford, when a boy in the old Nation, knew a professional wolf killer. It is always permissible to hire a white man to kill a depredating wolf, as in that case no guilt attaches to the Indian or his tribe.

16.The Rabbit goes duck hunting (p. 266): This story was heard from Swimmer, John Ax, Suyeta (east), and Wafford (west). Discussions between animals as to the kind of food eaten are very common in Indian myth, the method chosen to decide the dispute being usually quite characteristic. The first incident is paralleled in a Creek story of the Rabbit and the Lion (Panther?) in the Tuggle manuscript collection and among the remote Wallawalla of Washington (see Kane, Wanderings of an Artist among the Indians of North America, p. 268; London, 1859). In an Omaha myth, Ictinike and the Buzzard, the latter undertakes to carry the trickster across a stream, but drops him into a hollow tree, from which he is chopped out by some women whom he has persuaded that there are raccoons inside (Dorsey, Contributions to North American Ethnology, VI). In the Iroquois tale, “A Hunter’s Adventures,” a hunter, endeavoring to trap some geese in the water, is carried up in the air and falls into a hollow stump, from which he is released by women (Smith, Myths of the Iroquois, in Second Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnology). In the Uncle Remus story, “Mr. Rabbit Meets His Match Again,” the Buzzard persuades the Rabbit to get upon his back in order to be carried across a river, but alights with him upon a tree overhanging the water and thus compels the Rabbit, by fear of falling, to confess a piece of trickery.36

17.How the Rabbit stole the Otter’s coat (p. 267): This story is well known in the tribe and was heard from several informants, both east and west. Nothing is said as to how the Otter recovered his coat. It has exact parallels in the Creek myths of the Tuggle collection, in one of which the Rabbit tries to personate a boy hero by stealing his coat, while in another he plays a trick on the Lion (Panther) by throwing hot coals over him while asleep, at a creek which the Rabbit says is called “Throwing-hot-ashes-on-you.”

18.Why the Possum’s tail is bare (p. 269): This story was heard from several informants, east and west. In one variant the hair clipping was done by the Moth, and in another by the spells of the Snail, who is represented as a magician. The version here given is the most common, and agrees best with the Cherokee folklore concerning the Cricket (see number 59, “The Smaller Reptiles, Fishes, and Insects”).

The anatomical peculiarities of the opossum, of both sexes, have occasioned much speculation among the Indians, many of whom believe that the female produces her young without any help from the male. The Creeks, according to the Tuggle manuscript, believe that the young are born in the pouch, from the breathing of the female against it when curled up, and even Lawson and Timberlake assert that they are born at the teat, from which they afterward drop off into the pouch.

19.How the Wildcat caught the Gobbler (p. 269): This story was heard from John Ax and David Blythe (east) and from Wafford and Boudinot (west). The version given below, doctored to suit the white man’s idea, appears without signature in the Cherokee Advocate of December 18, 1845:

“There was once a flock of wild turkeys feeding in a valley. As they fed they heard a voice singing. They soon discovered that the musician was a hare, and the burden of his song was that he had a secret in his breast which he would on no account divulge. The curiosity of the turkeys was excited, and they entreated the hare to tell them the secret. This he finally consented to do if they would procure for him the king’s daughter for his wife and go with him and dance around their enemy. They engaged to do all, and the hare led them to where a wildcat lay apparently dead. The hare prevailed upon them to close their eyes as they danced. The wildcat meanwhile silently arose and killed several of them before the rest found out what a snare they had been caught in. By this artifice on the part of the wildcat, seconded by the hare, the former had a sumptuous repast.”

This, with its variants, is one of the most widespread of the animal myths. The same story told by the Cherokee, identical even to the song, is given in the Creek collection of Tuggle, with the addition that the Rabbit’s tail is afterward bitten off by the enraged Turkeys. In another Creek version, evidently a later invention, the Raccoon plays a similar trick upon the Deer for the benefit of the Panther. The Kiowa of the southern plains tell how the hungry trickster, Sinti, entices a number of prairie dogs to come near him, under pretense of teaching them a new dance, and then kills all but one, while they are dancing around him, according to instruction, with their eyes shut. With the Omaha the Rabbit himself captures the Turkeys while they dance around, with closed eyes, to his singing (Dorsey, “The Rabbit and the Turkeys,” and “Ictinike, the Turkeys, Turtle, and Elk,” in Contributions to North American Ethnology, VI). The same stratagem, with only a change of names, recurs in another Omaha story, “The Raccoon and the Crabs,” of the same collection, and in a Cheyenne story of White-man (A. L. Kroeber, Cheyenne Tales, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, July, 1900), and in the Jicarilla story of “The Fox and the Wildcat” (Russell, Myths of the Jicarilla, ibid., October, 1898). The Southern negro version, which lacks the important song and dance feature, is given by Harris in his story of “Brother Rabbit and Mr Wildcat.”37

20.How the Terrapin beat the Rabbit (p. 270): This story was obtained from John Ax and Suyeta and is well known in the tribe. It is sometimes told with the Deer instead of the Rabbit as the defeated runner, and in this form is given by Lanman, who thus localizes it: “The race was to extend from the Black mountain to the summit of the third pinnacle extending to the eastward” (Letters, p. 37).

In the Creek collection of Tuggle the same story is given in two versions, in one of which the Deer and in the other the Wolf is defeated by the stratagem of the Terrapin. The Southern negro parallel is given by Harris (Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings) in the story, “Mr Rabbit Finds His Match at Last.” It seems almost superfluous to call attention to the European folklore version, the well-known story of the race between the Hare and the Tortoise.

“Indian Fables. Mr William P. Ross: I have recently stumbled on the following Cherokee fables, and perhaps you may think them worth inserting in the Advocate for the sake of the curious. I am told that the Cherokees have a great many fables. If I understand the following, the intention seems to be to teach cunning and artifice in war. Æsop.” The newspaper paragraph bears the pencil initials of S[amuel] W[orcester] B[utler].

Other Indian versions are found with the Jicarilla (“Fox and Rabbit,” Myths of the Jicarilla, by Frank Russell, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, October, 1898) and Sioux (S. D. Hinman, cited in Transactions of the Anthropological Society of Washington, I, p. 103, Washington, 1882). The southern negro variant, “The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story,” is the introductory tale in Harris’s Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings. A close parallel occurs in the West African story of “Leopard, Monkey, and Hare” (Chatelain, Folktales of Angola).

22.The Rabbit and the Possum after a wife (p. 273): This specimen of Indian humor was obtained at different times from Swimmer, John Ax, Suyeta (east), and Wafford (west), and is well known in the tribe. Wafford, in telling the story, remarked that the Rabbit was the chief’s runner, and according to custom was always well entertained wherever he went.