Further inquiry elicited the names of several others who might be
supposed to have such papers. Before leaving a visit was paid to one
of these, a young man named Wilnoti, whose father, Gatigwanasti, had
been during his lifetime a prominent shaman, regarded as a man of
superior intelligence. Wilnoti, who is a professing Christian, said
that his father had had such papers, and after some explanation from
the chief he consented to show them. He produced a box containing a
lot of miscellaneous papers, testaments, and hymnbooks, all in the
Cherokee alphabet. Among them was his father's chief treasure, a
manuscript book containing 122 pages of foolscap size, completely
filled with formulas of the same kind as those contained in Swimmer's
book. There were also a large number of loose sheets, making in all
nearly 200 foolscap pages of sacred formulas.
On offering to buy the papers, he replied that he wanted to keep them
in order to learn and practice these things himself--thus showing
how thin was the veneer of Christianity, in his case at least. On
representing to him that in a few years the new conditions would
render such knowledge valueless with the younger generation, and that
even if he retained the papers he would need some one else to explain
them to him, he again refused, saying that they might fall into the
hands of Swimmer, who, he was determined, should never see his
father's papers. Thus the negotiations came to an end for the time.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXVI