At the mouth of Suck creek, on the Tennessee, about 8 miles below
Chattanooga, is a series of dangerous whirlpools, known as "The
Suck," and noted among the Cherokee as the place where Ûñtsaiyi',
the gambler, lived long ago (see the story). They call it Ûñ'tiguhi',
"Pot-in-the-water," on account of the appearance of the surging,
tumbling water, suggesting a boiling pot. They assert that in the old
times the whirlpools were intermittent in character, and the canoemen
attempting to pass the spot used to hug the bank, keeping constantly
on the alert for signs of a coming eruption, and when they saw the
water begin to revolve more rapidly would stop and wait until it
became quiet again before attempting to proceed.
It happened once that two men, going down the river in a canoe,
as they came near this place saw the water circling rapidly ahead of
them. They pulled up to the bank to wait until it became smooth again,
but the whirlpool seemed to approach with wider and wider circles,
until they were drawn into the vortex. They were thrown out of the
canoe and carried down under the water, where one man was seized by
a great fish and was never seen again. The other was taken round and
round down to the very lowest center of the whirlpool, when another
circle caught him and bore him outward and upward until he was finally
thrown up again to the surface and floated out into the shallow water,
whence he made his escape to shore. He told afterwards that when he
reached the narrowest circle of the maelstrom the water seemed to
open below him and he could look down as through the roof beams of
a house, and there on the bottom of the river he had seen a great
company of people, who looked up and beckoned to him to join them,
but as they put up their hands to seize him the swift current caught
him and took him out of their reach.