Cherokee myths may be roughly classified as sacred myths, animal
stories, local legends, and historical traditions. To the first
class belong the genesis stories, dealing with the creation of the
world, the nature of the heavenly bodies and elemental forces, the
origin of life and death, the spirit world and the invisible beings,
the ancient monsters, and the hero-gods. It is almost certain that
most of the myths of this class are but disjointed fragments of an
original complete genesis and migration legend, which is now lost. With
nearly every tribe that has been studied we find such a sacred legend,
preserved by the priests of the tradition, who alone are privileged to
recite and explain it, and dealing with the origin and wanderings of
the people from the beginning of the world to the final settlement
of the tribe in its home territory. Among the best examples of
such genesis traditions are those recorded in the Walam Olum of the
Delawares and Matthews' Navaho Origin Legend. Others may be found in
Cusick's History of the Six Nations, Gatschet's Creek Migration Legend,
and the author's Jicarilla Genesis. [463] The Cheyenne, Arapaho,
and other plains tribes are known to have similar genesis myths.
The former existence of such a national legend among the Cherokee
is confirmed by Haywood, writing in 1823, who states on information
obtained from a principal man in the tribe that they had once a long
oration, then nearly forgotten, which recounted the history of their
wanderings from the time when they had been first placed upon the earth
by some superior power from above. Up to about the middle of the last
century this tradition was still recited at the annual Green-corn
dance. [464] Unlike most Indians the Cherokee are not conservative,
and even before the Revolution had so far lost their primitive customs
from contact with the whites that Adair, in 1775, calls them a nest
of apostate hornets who for more than thirty years had been fast
degenerating. [465] Whatever it may have been, their national legend
is now lost forever. The secret organizations that must have existed
formerly among the priesthood have also disappeared, and each man now
works independently according to his individual gifts and knowledge.
The sacred myths were not for every one, but only those might hear who
observed the proper form and ceremony. When John Ax and other old men
were boys, now some eighty years ago, the myth-keepers and priests
were accustomed to meet together at night in the âsi, or low-built
log sleeping house, to recite the traditions and discuss their secret
knowledge. At times those who desired instruction from an adept in
the sacred lore of the tribe met him by appointment in the âsi, where
they sat up all night talking, with only the light of a small fire
burning in the middle of the floor. At daybreak the whole party went
down to the running stream, where the pupils or hearers of the myths
stripped themselves, and were scratched upon their naked skin with
a bone-tooth comb in the hands of the priest, after which they waded
out, facing the rising sun, and dipped seven times under the water,
while the priest recited prayers upon the bank. This purificatory
rite, observed more than a century ago by Adair, is also a part of the
ceremonial of the ballplay, the Green-corn dance, and, in fact, every
important ritual performance. Before beginning one of the stories of
the sacred class the informant would sometimes suggest jokingly that
the author first submit to being scratched and "go to water."
As a special privilege a boy was sometimes admitted to the âsi on such
occasions, to tend the fire, and thus had the opportunity to listen to
the stories and learn something of the secret rites. In this way John
Ax gained much of his knowledge, although he does not claim to be an
adept. As he describes it, the fire intended to heat the room--for the
nights are cold in the Cherokee mountains--was built upon the ground
in the center of the small house, which was not high enough to permit
a standing position, while the occupants sat in a circle around it. In
front of the fire was placed a large flat rock, and near it a pile of
pine knots or splints. When the fire had burned down to a bed of coals,
the boy lighted one or two of the pine knots and laid them upon the
rock, where they blazed with a bright light until nearly consumed,
when others were laid upon them, and so on until daybreak.
Sometimes the pine splints were set up crosswise, thus, ××××, in a
circle around the fire, with a break at the eastern side. They were
then lighted from one end and burned gradually around the circle, fresh
splints being set up behind as those in front were consumed. Lawson
describes this identical custom as witnessed at a dance among the
Waxhaw, on Catawba river, in 1701:
Now, to return to our state house, whither we were invited
by the grandees. As soon as we came into it, they placed our
Englishmen near the king, it being my fortune to sit next him,
having his great general or war captain on my other hand. The
house is as dark as a dungeon, and as hot as one of the Dutch
stoves in Holland. They had made a circular fire of split canes
in the middle of the house, it was one man's employment to add
more split reeds to the one end as it consumed at the other,
there being a small vacancy left to supply it with fuel. [466]
To the second class belong the shorter animal myths, which have lost
whatever sacred character they may once have had, and are told now
merely as humorous explanations of certain animal peculiarities. While
the sacred myths have a constant bearing upon formulistic prayers and
observances, it is only in rare instances that any rite or custom
is based upon an animal myth. Moreover, the sacred myths are known
as a rule only to the professional priests or conjurers, while the
shorter animal stories are more or less familiar to nearly everyone
and are found in almost identical form among Cherokee, Creeks, and
other southern tribes.
The animals of the Cherokee myths, like the traditional
hero-gods, were larger and of more perfect type than their present
representatives. They had chiefs, councils, and townhouses, mingled
with human kind upon terms of perfect equality and spoke the same
language. In some unexplained manner they finally left this lower
world and ascended to Galûñ'lati, the world above, where they still
exist. The removal was not simultaneous, but each animal chose
his own time. The animals that we know, small in size and poor in
intellect, came upon the earth later, and are not the descendants of
the mythic animals, but only weak imitations. In one or two special
cases, however, the present creature is the descendant of a former
monster. Trees and plants also were alive and could talk in the old
days, and had their place in council, but do not figure prominently
in the myths.
Each animal had his appointed station and duty. Thus, the Walâ'si
frog was the marshal and leader in the council, while the Rabbit was
the messenger to carry all public announcements, and usually led the
dance besides. He was also the great trickster and mischief maker, a
character which he bears in eastern and southern Indian myth generally,
as well as in the southern negro stories. The bear figures as having
been originally a man, with human form and nature.
As with other tribes and countries, almost every prominent rock and
mountain, every deep bend in the river, in the old Cherokee country
has its accompanying legend. It may be a little story that can be
told in a paragraph, to account for some natural feature, or it
may be one chapter of a myth that has its sequel in a mountain a
hundred miles away. As is usual when a people has lived for a long
time in the same country, nearly every important myth is localized,
thus assuming more definite character.
There is the usual number of anecdotes and stories of personal
adventure, some of them irredeemably vulgar, but historical traditions
are strangely wanting. The authentic records of unlettered peoples
are short at best, seldom going back much farther than the memories
of their oldest men; and although the Cherokee have been the most
important of the southern tribes, making wars and treaties for three
centuries with Spanish, English, French, and Americans, Iroquois,
Shawano, Catawba, and Creeks, there is little evidence of the fact in
their traditions. This condition may be due in part to the temper of
the Cherokee mind, which, as has been already stated, is accustomed
to look forward to new things rather than to dwell upon the past. The
first Cherokee war, with its stories of Âganstâ'ta and Ata-gûl'kalû',
is absolutely forgotten. Of the long Revolutionary struggle they
have hardly a recollection, although they were constantly fighting
throughout the whole period and for several years after, and at one
time were brought to the verge of ruin by four concerted expeditions,
which ravaged their country simultaneously from different directions
and destroyed almost every one of their towns. Even the Creek war,
in which many of their warriors took a prominent part, was already
nearly forgotten some years ago. Beyond a few stories of encounters
with the Shawano and Iroquois there is hardly anything that can be
called history until well within the present century.
With some tribes the winter season and the night are the time for
telling stories, but to the Cherokee all times are alike. As our
grandmothers begin, "Once upon a time," so the Cherokee story-teller
introduces his narrative by saying: "This is what the old men told
me when I was a boy."
Not all tell the same stories, for in tribal lore, as in all other
sorts of knowledge, we find specialists. Some common minds take note
only of common things--little stories of the rabbit, the terrapin,
and the others, told to point a joke or amuse a child. Others dwell
upon the wonderful and supernatural--Tsul`kalû', Tsuwe'nahi, and
the Thunderers--and those sacred things to be told only with prayer
and purification. Then, again, there are still a few old warriors
who live in the memory of heroic days when there were wars with the
Seneca and the Shawano, and these men are the historians of the tribe
and the conservators of its antiquities.
The question of the origin of myths is one which affords abundant
opportunity for ingenious theories in the absence of any possibility
of proof. Those of the Cherokee are too far broken down ever to be
woven together again into any long-connected origin legend, such as
we find with some tribes, although a few still exhibit a certain
sequence which indicates that they once formed component parts of
a cycle. From the prominence of the rabbit in the animal stories,
as well as in those found among the southern negroes, an effort has
been made to establish for them a negro origin, regardless of the fact
that the rabbit--the Great White Rabbit--is the hero-god, trickster,
and wonder-worker of all the tribes east of the Mississippi from Hudson
bay to the Gulf. In European folklore also the rabbit is regarded as
something uncanny and half-supernatural, and even in far-off Korea
he is the central figure in the animal myths. Just why this should
be so is a question that may be left to the theorist to decide. Among
the Algonquian tribes the name, wabos, seems to have been confounded
with that of the dawn, waban, so that the Great White Rabbit is really
the incarnation of the eastern dawn that brings light and life and
drives away the dark shadows which have held the world in chains. The
animal itself seems to be regarded by the Indians as the fitting
type of defenseless weakness protected and made safe by constantly
alert vigilance, and with a disposition, moreover, for turning up at
unexpected moments. The same characteristics would appeal as strongly
to the primitive mind of the negro. The very expression which Harris
puts into the mouth of Uncle Remus, "In dem days Brer Rabbit en his
fambly wuz at the head er de gang w'en enny racket wus en hand," [467]
was paraphrased in the Cherokee language by Suyeta in introducing his
first rabbit story: "Tsi'stu wuliga'natûtûñ' une'gutsatû' gese'i--the
Rabbit was the leader of them all in mischief." The expression struck
the author so forcibly that the words were recorded as spoken.
In regard to the contact between the two races, by which such stories
could be borrowed from one by the other, it is not commonly known
that in all the southern colonies Indian slaves were bought and
sold and kept in servitude and worked in the fields side by side
with negroes up to the time of the Revolution. Not to go back to the
Spanish period, when such things were the order of the day, we find
the Cherokee as early as 1693 complaining that their people were being
kidnaped by slave hunters. Hundreds of captured Tuscarora and nearly
the whole tribe of the Appalachee were distributed as slaves among
the Carolina colonists in the early part of the eighteenth century,
while the Natchez and others shared a similar fate in Louisiana,
and as late at least as 1776 Cherokee prisoners of war were still
sold to the highest bidder for the same purpose. At one time it was
charged against the governor of South Carolina that he was provoking a
general Indian war by his encouragement of slave hunts. Furthermore,
as the coast tribes dwindled they were compelled to associate and
intermarry with the negroes until they finally lost their identity
and were classed with that race, so that a considerable proportion
of the blood of the southern negroes is unquestionably Indian.
The negro, with his genius for imitation and his love for stories,
especially of the comic variety, must undoubtedly have absorbed much
from the Indian in this way, while on the other hand the Indian,
with his pride of conservatism and his contempt for a subject race,
would have taken but little from the negro, and that little could
not easily have found its way back to the free tribes. Some of these
animal stories are common to widely separated tribes among whom there
can be no suspicion of negro influences. Thus the famous "tar baby"
story has variants, not only among the Cherokee, but also in New
Mexico, Washington, and southern Alaska--wherever, in fact, the piñon
or the pine supplies enough gum to be molded into a ball for Indian
uses--while the incident of the Rabbit dining the Bear is found with
nearly every tribe from Nova Scotia to the Pacific. The idea that
such stories are necessarily of negro origin is due largely to the
common but mistaken notion that the Indian has no sense of humor.
In many cases it is not necessary to assume borrowing from either
side, the myths being such as would naturally spring up in any
part of the world among primitive people accustomed to observe the
characteristics of animals, which their religious system regarded
as differing in no essential from human kind, save only in outward
form. Thus in Europe and America the terrapin has been accepted as
the type of plodding slowness, while the rabbit, with his sudden dash,
or the deer with his bounding stride, is the type of speed. What more
natural than that the story-teller should set one to race against the
other, with the victory in favor of the patient striver against the
self-confident boaster? The idea of a hungry wolf or other beast of
prey luring his victims by the promise of a new song or dance, during
which they must close their eyes, is also one that would easily occur
among any primitive people whose chief pastime is dancing. [468]
On the other hand, such a conception as that of Flint and the Rabbit
could only be the outgrowth of a special cosmogonic theology, though
now indeed broken and degraded, and it is probable that many myths
told now only for amusement are really worn down fragments of ancient
sacred traditions. Thus the story just noted appears in a different
dress among the Iroquois as a part of their great creation myth. The
Cherokee being a detached tribe of the Iroquois, we may expect to
find among the latter, if it be not already too late, the explanation
and more perfect statement of some things which are obscure in the
Cherokee myths. It must not be forgotten, however, that the Indian,
like other men, does some things for simple amusement, and it is
useless to look for occult meanings where none exist.
Except as to the local traditions and a few others which are obviously
the direct outgrowth of Cherokee conditions, it is impossible to
fix a definite starting point for the myths. It would be unwise to
assert that even the majority of them originated within the tribe. The
Cherokee have strains of Creek, Catawba, Uchee, Natchez, Iroquois,
Osage, and Shawano blood, and such admixture implies contact more
or less intimate and continued. Indians are great wanderers, and a
myth can travel as far as a redstone pipe or a string of wampum. It
was customary, as it still is to a limited extent in the West, for
large parties, sometimes even a whole band or village, to make long
visits to other tribes, dancing, feasting, trading, and exchanging
stories with their friends for weeks or months at a time, with the
expectation that their hosts would return the visit within the next
summer. Regular trade routes crossed the continent from east to
west and from north to south, and when the subject has been fully
investigated it will be found that this intertribal commerce was as
constant and well recognized a part of Indian life as is our own
railroad traffic today. The very existence of a trade jargon or a
sign language is proof of intertribal relations over wide areas. Their
political alliances also were often far-reaching, for Pontiac welded
into a warlike confederacy all the tribes from the Atlantic border
to the head of the Mississippi, while the emissaries of the Shawano
prophet carried the story of his revelations throughout the whole
region from the Florida coast to the Saskatchewan.
In view of these facts it is as useless to attempt to trace the origin
of every myth as to claim a Cherokee authorship for them all. From
what we know of the character of the Shawano, their tendency toward
the ceremonial and the mystic, and their close relations with the
Cherokee, it may be inferred that some of the myths originated
with that tribe. We should naturally expect also to find close
correspondence with the myths of the Creeks and other southern
tribes within the former area of the Mobilian trade language. The
localization at home of all the more important myths indicates a long
residence in the country. As the majority of those here given belong
to the half dozen counties still familiar to the East Cherokee, we
may guess how many attached to the ancient territory of the tribe
are now irrecoverably lost.
Contact with the white race seems to have produced very little
impression on the tribal mythology, and not more than three or four
stories current among the Cherokee can be assigned to a Caucasian
source. These have not been reproduced here, for the reason that they
are plainly European, and the author has chosen not to follow the
example of some collectors who have assumed that every tale told in
an Indian language is necessarily an Indian story. Scores recorded in
collections from the North and West are nothing more than variants from
the celebrated Hausmärchen, as told by French trappers and voyageurs
to their Indian campmates and halfbreed children. It might perhaps
be thought that missionary influence would be evident in the genesis
tradition, but such is not the case. The Bible story kills the Indian
tradition, and there is no amalgamation. It is hardly necessary to say
that stories of a great fish which swallows a man and of a great flood
which destroys a people are found the world over. The supposed Cherokee
hero-god, Wâsi, described by one writer as so remarkably resembling
the great Hebrew lawgiver is in fact that great teacher himself, Wâsi
being the Cherokee approximate for Moses, and the good missionary who
first recorded the story was simply listening to a chapter taken by
his convert from the Cherokee testament. The whole primitive pantheon
of the Cherokee is still preserved in their sacred formulas.
As compared with those from some other tribes the Cherokee myths are
clean. For picturesque imagination and wealth of detail they rank
high, and some of the wonder stories may challenge those of Europe
and India. The numerous parallels furnished will serve to indicate
their relation to the general Indian system. Unless otherwise noted,
every myth here given has been obtained directly from the Indians,
and in nearly every case has been verified from several sources.
"I know not how the truth may be,
I tell the tale as 'twas told to me."
First and chief in the list of story tellers comes A`yûñ'ini,
"Swimmer," from whom nearly three-fourths of the whole number were
originally obtained, together with nearly as large a proportion of the
whole body of Cherokee material now in possession of the author. The
collection could not have been made without his help, and now that he
is gone it can never be duplicated. Born about 1835, shortly before
the Removal, he grew up under the instruction of masters to be a
priest, doctor, and keeper of tradition, so that he was recognized as
an authority throughout the band and by such a competent outside judge
as Colonel Thomas. He served through the war as second sergeant of the
Cherokee Company A, Sixty-ninth North Carolina Confederate Infantry,
Thomas Legion. He was prominent in the local affairs of the band,
and no Green-corn dance, ballplay, or other tribal function was ever
considered complete without his presence and active assistance. A
genuine aboriginal antiquarian and patriot, proud of his people and
their ancient system, he took delight in recording in his native
alphabet the songs and sacred formulas of priests and dancers and the
names of medicinal plants and the prescriptions with which they were
compounded, while his mind was a storehouse of Indian tradition. To
a happy descriptive style he added a musical voice for the songs and
a peculiar faculty for imitating the characteristic cry of bird or
beast, so that to listen to one of his recitals was often a pleasure
in itself, even to one who understood not a word of the language. He
spoke no English, and to the day of his death clung to the moccasin and
turban, together with the rattle, his badge of authority. He died in
March, 1899, aged about sixty-five, and was buried like a true Cherokee
on the slope of a forest-clad mountain. Peace to his ashes and sorrow
for his going, for with him perished half the tradition of a people.
Next in order comes the name of Itagû'nahi, better known as John Ax,
born about 1800 and now consequently just touching the century mark,
being the oldest man of the band. He has a distinct recollection of
the Creek war, at which time he was about twelve years of age, and
was already married and a father when the lands east of Nantahala
were sold by the treaty of 1819. Although not a professional priest
or doctor, he was recognized, before age had dulled his faculties, as
an authority upon all relating to tribal custom, and was an expert in
the making of rattles, wands, and other ceremonial paraphernalia. Of
a poetic and imaginative temperament, he cared most for the wonder
stories, of the giant Tsul`kalû', of the great Uktena or of the
invisible spirit people, but he had also a keen appreciation of the
humorous animal stories. He speaks no English, and with his erect
spare figure and piercing eye is a fine specimen of the old-time
Indian. Notwithstanding his great age he walked without other
assistance than his stick to the last ball game, where he watched
every run with the closest interest, and would have attended the
dance the night before but for the interposition of friends.
Suyeta, "The Chosen One," who preaches regularly as a Baptist
minister to an Indian congregation, does not deal much with the Indian
supernatural, perhaps through deference to his clerical obligations,
but has a good memory and liking for rabbit stories and others of
the same class. He served in the Confederate army during the war as
fourth sergeant in Company A, of the Sixty-ninth North Carolina,
and is now a well-preserved man of about sixty-two. He speaks no
English, but by an ingenious system of his own has learned to use
a concordance for verifying references in his Cherokee bible. He is
also a first-class carpenter and mason.
Another principal informant was Ta'gwadihi', "Catawba-killer," of
Cheowa, who died a few years ago, aged about seventy. He was a doctor
and made no claim to special knowledge of myths or ceremonials, but
was able to furnish several valuable stories, besides confirmatory
evidence for a large number obtained from other sources.
Besides these may be named, among the East Cherokee, the late Chief
N. J. Smith; Salâ'li, mentioned elsewhere, who died about 1895;
Tsesa'ni or Jessan, who also served in the war; Ayâ'sta, one of the
principal conservatives among the women; and James and David Blythe,
younger men of mixed blood, with an English education, but inheritors
of a large share of Indian lore from their father, who was a recognized
leader of ceremony.
Among informants in the western Cherokee Nation the principal was
James D. Wafford, known to the Indians as Tsuskwanûñ'nawa'ta,
"Worn-out-blanket," a mixed-blood speaking and writing both
languages, born in the old Cherokee Nation near the site of the
present Clarkesville, Georgia, in 1806, and dying when about ninety
years of age at his home in the eastern part of the Cherokee Nation,
adjoining the Seneca reservation. The name figures prominently in
the early history of North Carolina and Georgia. His grandfather,
Colonel Wafford, was an officer in the American Revolutionary army,
and shortly after the treaty of Hopewell, in 1785, established a colony
known as "Wafford's settlement," in upper Georgia, on territory which
was afterward found to be within the Indian boundary and was acquired
by special treaty purchase in 1804. His name is appended, as witness
for the state of Georgia, to the treaty of Holston, in 1794. [469]
On his mother's side Mr Wafford was of mixed Cherokee, Natchez,
and white blood, she being a cousin of Sequoya. He was also remotely
connected with Cornelius Dougherty, the first trader established among
the Cherokee. In the course of his long life he filled many positions
of trust and honor among his people. In his youth he attended the
mission school at Valleytown under Reverend Evan Jones, and just before
the adoption of the Cherokee alphabet he finished the translation
into phonetic Cherokee spelling of a Sunday school speller noted in
Pilling's Iroquoian Bibliography. In 1824 he was the census enumerator
for that district of the Cherokee Nation embracing upper Hiwassee
river, in North Carolina, with Nottely and Toccoa in the adjoining
portion of Georgia. His fund of Cherokee geographic information thus
acquired was found to be invaluable. He was one of the two commanders
of the largest detachment of emigrants at the time of the removal, and
his name appears as a councilor for the western Nation in the Cherokee
Almanac for 1846. When employed by the author at Tahlequah in 1891 his
mind was still clear and his memory keen. Being of practical bent, he
was concerned chiefly with tribal history, geography, linguistics, and
every-day life and custom, on all of which subjects his knowledge was
exact and detailed, but there were few myths for which he was not able
to furnish confirmatory testimony. Despite his education he was a firm
believer in the Nûñne'hi, and several of the best legends connected
with them were obtained from him. His death takes from the Cherokee
one of the last connecting links between the present and the past.