The next book procured was obtained from a woman named Ayâsta, “The
Spoiler,” and had been written by her husband, Gahuni, who died about
30 years ago. The matter was not difficult to arrange, as she had
already been employed on several occasions, so that she understood the
purpose of the work, besides which her son had been regularly engaged
to copy and classify the manuscripts already procured. The book
was claimed as common property by Ayâsta and her three sons, and
negotiations had to be carried on with each one, although in this
instance the cash amount involved was only half a dollar, in addition
to another book into which to copy some family records and personal
memoranda. The book contains only eight formulas, but these are of
a character altogether unique, the directions especially throwing
a curious light on Indian beliefs. There had been several other
formulas of the class called Y´û´ⁿwĕhĭ, to cause hatred between
man and wife, but these had been torn out and destroyed by Ayâsta on
the advice of an old shaman, in order that her sons might never learn
them. In referring to the matter she spoke in a whisper, and it was
evident enough that she had full faith in the deadly power of these
spells.
In addition to the formulas the book contains about twenty pages of
Scripture extracts in the same handwriting, for Gahuni, like several
others of their shamans, combined the professions of Indian conjurer
and Methodist preacher. After his death the book fell into the hands
of the younger members of the family, who filled it with miscellaneous
writings and scribblings. Among other things there are about seventy
pages of what was intended to be a Cherokee-English pronouncing
dictionary, probably written by the youngest son, already mentioned,
who has attended school, and who served for some time as copyist on
the formulas. This curious Indian production, of which only a few
columns are filled out, consists of a list of simple English words
and phrases, written in ordinary English script, followed by Cherokee
characters intended to give the approximate pronunciation, together
with the corresponding word in the Cherokee language and characters.
As the language lacks a number of sounds which are of frequent
occurrence in English, the attempts to indicate the pronunciation
sometimes give amusing results. Thus we find: _Fox_ (English
script); _kwâgisĭ´_ (Cherokee characters); _tsú‛lû´_ (Cherokee
characters). As the Cherokee language lacks the labial _f_ and has no
compound sound equivalent to our _x_, _kwâgisĭ´_ is as near as the
Cherokee speaker can come to pronouncing our word _fox_. In the same
way “bet” becomes _wĕtĭ_, and “sheep” is _síkwĭ_, while “if he has
no dog” appears in the disguise of _ikwĭ hâsĭ nâ dâ´ga_.