NOTES AND PARALLELS TO MYTHS (continued 2)
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Mooney, James
Ah tan
Down the stream
Ah yah chokese
if you hear
Mah kah cho kofe
chase going
Hoche yoke saw
up the stream
Lit kahts chars,
run,
Lit kahts chars.
run.
A thle poo
Up the stream
Ahyohchokese
if you hear
Mah kah cho kofe
the chase going
Thorne yoke saw
to the high mountain
Lit karts chars,
run,
Lit karts chars.
run.
Translation
If you hear the noise of the chase
Going down the stream
Then run up the stream.
If you hear the noise of the chase
Going up the stream
Then run to the high mountain,
Then run to the high mountain.
118.Baby song, to please the children (p. 401): This song is well known to the women and was sung by both Ayâsta and Swimmer.
119.When babies are born: The wren and the cricket (p. 401): These little bits of Indian folklore were obtained from Swimmer, but are common tribal property.
120.The Raven Mocker (p. 401): The grewsome belief in the “Raven Mocker” is universal among the Cherokee and has close parallels in other tribes. Very near to it is the Iroquois belief in the vampire or cannibal ghost, concerning which Schoolcraft relates some blood-curdling stories. He says: “It is believed that such doomed spirits creep into the lodges of men at night, and during sleep suck their blood and eat their flesh. They are invisible” (Notes on the Iroquois, p. 144). On one occasion, while the author was among the Cherokee, a sick man was allowed to die alone because his friends imagined they felt the presence of the Raven Mocker or other invisible witches about the house, and were consequently afraid to stay with him. The description of the flying terror appears to be that of a great meteor. It is a universal principle of folk belief that discovery or recognition while disguised in another form brings disaster to the witch.
The “diving” of the raven while flying high in air is performed by folding one wing close to the body, when the bird falls to a lower plane, apparently turning a somersault in the descent. It seems to be done purely for amusement.
121.Herbert’s spring (p. 403): The subject of this old trader’s legend must have been one of the head-springs of Chattooga river, an upper branch of Savannah, having its rise in the southern part of Jackson county, North Carolina, on the eastern slope of the ridge from which other streams flow in the opposite direction to join the waters of the Tennessee. It was probably in the vicinity of the present highlands in Macon county, where the trail from Chattooga river and the settlements on Keowee crossed the Blue ridge, thence descending Cullasagee to the towns on Little Tennessee.
126.Plant lore (p. 420): For ceremonies, prayers, and precautions used by the doctors in connection with the gathering and preparation of medicinal roots, barks, and herbs, see the author’s Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees, in the Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1891.
Violet—The Onondaga name signifies “two heads entangled,” referring, we are told, to “the way so often seen where the heads are interlocked and pulled apart by the stems” (W. M. Beauchamp, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, October, 1888).
Cedar—For references to the sacred character of the cedar among the plains tribes, see the author’s Ghost-dance Religion, in the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, part 2, 1896.