Listen! In the Frigid Land above you repose, O Red Man, quickly we two
have prepared your arrows for the soul of the Imprecator. He has
them lying along the path. Quickly we two will take his soul as we go
along.
Listen! In the Frigid Land above you repose, O Purple Man, * * * *.
Ha! Quickly now we two have prepared your arrows for the soul of the
Imprecator. He has them lying along the path. Quickly we two will cut
his soul in two.
_Explanation._
This formula, from A‛yû´ⁿinĭs’ book, is for the purpose of
driving away a witch from the house of a sick person, and opens up a
most interesting chapter of Cherokee beliefs. The witch is supposed
to go about chiefly under cover of darkness, and hence is called
sûⁿnâ´yĭ edâ´hĭ, “the night goer.” This is the term in common
use; but there are a number of formulistic expressions to designate
a witch, one of which, u´ya igawa´stĭ, occurs in the body of the
formula and may be rendered “the imprecator,” i.e., the sayer of
evil things or curses. As the counteracting of a deadly spell always
results in the death of its author, the formula is stated to be not
merely to drive away the wizard, but to kill him, or, according to the
formulistic expression, “to shorten him (his life) on this side.”
When it becomes known that a man is dangerously sick the witches from
far and near gather invisibly about his house after nightfall to worry
him and even force their way in to his bedside unless prevented by the
presence of a more powerful shaman within the house. They annoy the
sick man and thus hasten his death by stamping upon the roof and
beating upon the sides of the house; and if they can manage to get
inside they raise up the dying sufferer from the bed and let him fall
again or even drag him out upon the floor. The object of the witch in
doing this is to prolong his term of years by adding to his own life
as much as he can take from that of the sick man. Thus it is that
a witch who is successful in these practices lives to be very old.
Without going into extended details, it may be sufficient to state
that the one most dreaded, alike by the friends of the sick man and by
the lesser witches, is the Kâ´lana-ayeli´skĭ or Raven Mocker, so
called because he flies through the air at night in a shape of fire,
uttering sounds like the harsh croak of a raven.
The formula here given is short and simple as compared with some
others. There is evidently a mistake in regard to the Red Man, who is
here placed in the north, instead of in the east, as it should be.
The reference to the arrows will be explained further on. Purple,
mentioned in the second paragraph, has nearly the same symbolic
meaning as blue, viz: Trouble, vexation and defeat; hence the Purple
Man is called upon to frustrate the designs of the witch.
To drive away the witch the shaman first prepares four sharpened
sticks, which he drives down into the ground outside the house at each
of the four corners, leaving the pointed ends projecting upward and
outward. Then, about noontime he gets ready the Tsâlagayû´ⁿlĭ
or “Old Tobacco” (_Nicotiana rustica_), with which he fills his pipe,
repeating this formula during the operation, after which he wraps the
pipe thus filled in a black cloth. This sacred tobacco is smoked only
for this purpose. He then goes out into the forest, and returns just
before dark, about which time the witch may be expected to put in
an appearance. Lighting his pipe, he goes slowly around the house,
puffing the smoke in the direction of every trail by which the witch
might be able to approach, and probably repeating the same or another
formula the while. He then goes into the house and awaits results.
When the witch approaches under cover of the darkness, whether in his
own proper shape or in the form of some animal, the sharpened stick on
that side of the house shoots up into the air and comes down like an
arrow upon his head, inflicting such a wound as proves fatal within
seven days. This explains the words of the formula, “We have prepared
your arrows for the soul of the Imprecator. He has them lying along
the path”. A‛yû´ⁿinĭ said nothing about the use of the sharpened
sticks in this connection, mentioning only the tobacco, but the
ceremony, as here described, is the one ordinarily used. When wounded
the witch utters a groan which is heard by those listening inside the
house, even at the distance of half a mile. No one knows certainly who
the witch is until a day or two afterward, when some old man or woman,
perhaps in a remote settlement, is suddenly seized with a mysterious
illness and before seven days elapse is dead.