David R Reed

It's March 22nd!

2010-03-22T20:18:00.000-07:00

This post may be premature, because the day isn't over. I'll have to take the right tone in this post. You see, I'm somewhat superstitious about March 22nd. Four separate life changing events have occurred on this date over the years, and I'm always glad when the clock strikes 24:00. Of course, it's already the 23rd in Dublin, and there's absolutely no logical reason to think that bad things tend to happen to me on the 22nd, but still . . .

Paul Krugmans Character Issues

2009-11-18T11:03:00.001-08:00

A couple of researchers with too much time on their hands decided to anaylze Paul Krugman's statements over a long period of time to see whether or not his opinions or advice would actually advance the cause or improve the lives of the common people, or whether his advice was based on political wrangling. It's pretty clear that in general, Paul Krugman isn't any more interested in helping the poor than is Bernie Madoff.

The link is to a .PDF file at econ journal watch, when you click it it will try to download or open a .PDF file (you need Adobe Acrobat Reader or a utility that allows you to view pdf's.)

You can read the entire report here: Pal Krugmans Character

Preaching to the Choir? Tell a Story Instead

2009-11-14T17:40:00.000-08:00

An excerpt from The American Culture.

Public respect for religious liberty, free markets, and limited government do not arise from people studying academic treatises. These ideals arise from a culture conducive to their expression. It is useless to urge these principles to sprout from a cultural ground no longer fertile for them. Yet that is what the Right does, repeatedly, with books about government and politics. [Bloggers are famous for this, anyone apt to read an epistle already agrees with them]

It is high time we reflect on what John Adams thought was his progeny’s right.

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.

Perhaps Adams was hinting at the idea that the nation he was creating could only endure so long as the arts and culture nourished the moral imagination. Matthew Spalding notes that those who fought and died in the American Revolution were not inspired by the “study of politics and war.” They were stirred by stories.

Levi Preston of Danvers, Mass., was in his early 20s in the spring of 1775 when he fought in the Battle of Concord at the opening of the American Revolution. Many years later, Captain Preston was asked why he went to fight that day.

Was it the intolerable oppressions of British colonial policy, or the Stamp Act? “I never saw any stamps,” Preston replied. What about the tax on tea? “I never drank a drop of the stuff; the boys threw it all overboard.” It must have been all his reading of Harrington, Sidney, and Locke on the principles of liberty? “Never heard of ’em. We read only the Bible, the catechism, Watt’s Psalms and Hymns, and the Almanack.”

Neither the politics of the day nor polemics fed Preston’s moral imagination. It was music, agriculture, and books packed full of stories. There is precious little in common between Preston’s reading list above and the majority of ISI’s, Regnery’s or Encounter’s book catalog. Stories inspire us in the struggles we face, not academic lectures.

What skeptics miss

2009-11-13T17:18:00.001-08:00

In the glee that comes from reasoning oneself past mysterious energies, demons, and aliens from other worlds it is easy to miss the importance of myth in human society. If it weren't for myth, we wouldn't have the epics of Homer, the Bible, the Buddha, and several centuries of human thought and experience.

It was the belief in mysterious forces that fueled art, literature, and science for at least 2000 years. It is in myth that human fears and desires are expressed. They are evident in our art and literature today. Whether we view a story as fantastic or the solemn truth, that it appeals to us on some level speaks volumes about our society and culture. We cannot choose the way we are remembered, it just happens.

What would a heritage devoid of myth look like?

In the early 21st Century, a new culture of skepticism prevailed which spelled the end of myth, folklore, and religion. Since then, ethnologists have used deductive reasoning to determine 21st century mans motivations, with mixed results.

I don't believe that truth will be the ultimate outcome. I suspect that future civilizations would be at a loss to explain who we were, or why we did the things we did. They won't have to consider the reasons behind stone monuments, parades, or horror movies because they won't exist. An culture without myth would be as colorless as a blank page, sterile, and without character.

The Magic of Louis L'Amour

2009-11-13T17:11:00.000-08:00

When I wish to escape, one of my favorite storytellers is Louis L'Amour. Most of his tales take place in the frontier west that really was, and involve perceptions that never were. They are good stories, and allow me to imagine a simpler time when a man could get by with little more than a good horse and a knife. How simple such an existence would have been.

That frontier travelers all sought a richer, not simplistic life merits little narration and is completely absent in his main characters motivations. The builders and achievers are usually supporting characters, or the bad guys. If anyone could lay claim to a heritage of simple freedoms it would be the native americans, not the white settlers and traveling cowboys and "gunmen." But that's another topic.

L'Amours' stories are rife with superstition and supernatural beliefs. While his skepticism shows in places, he makes passing references to what I call the "third eye" almost constantly. The third eye is the ability to sense when there is someone watching you. Invariably his characters also have the ability to "sense" when something is about to happen (pre-cognition.)

The latter characteristic is usually attributed to some degree of obsessive-compulsive behavioral disorder, and the third-eye comes from paranoia, and yes, all of his heros share these traits. Of course, fear of attack by real hostiles isn't paranoia. The enemy is real, and if they are about, they might be watching you.

How in the world would anyone be able to tell if someone was looking at them? Tests have been conducted on many people to see if there was anything to this belief, and the results were as you might have guessed, about 50-50. That's the same odds as a coin toss. In literature however, characters have an uncanny knack of knowing when someone is watching.

If your on a horse, hundreds of miles from "civilization" (meaning where white people live,) then such a perception is invariably followed by the pre-cognition that something is about to happen, and it's going to be bad. Sure enough, that's about when some "indians" leap from out of nowhere, or a hidden gunmen fires a shot (just as the hero turns or moves of course, suffering only a painful superficial wound.)

These two supernatural powers get L'Amours main characters out of more fixes than you can shake a stick at. Surprisingly, most of his characters aren't born with this power. It's always developed over years of hunting and traveling through the wilderness. Native americans knew nothing but, and it didn't help them at Wounded Knee, Plymouth Rock, or the myriad of other places where white eurpopeans appeared hellbent on destruction and genocide.

Think about it. If to develop these powers you had to spend a childhood in the wilderness, then John Smith and Miles Standish never would have made it off the beach. You can't tell when you are being watched. You can't see the future. If you think you can, then you need to read up on Obsessive Compulsive Behavior and Paranoia.

Origin of Corn Stories II

2009-11-10T12:57:00.000-08:00

Creek Origin of Corn I.

It is said that corn was obtained by one of the women of the Tåmålgi clan. She had a number of neighbors and friends, and when they came to her house she would dish some sofki (a native dish made from corn) into an earthen bowl and they would drink it. They found it delicious, but did not know where she got the stuff of which to make it.

Finally they noticed that she washed her feet in water and rubbed them, whereupon what came from her feet was corn. She said to them, "You may not like to eat from me in this way, so build a corncrib, put me inside and fasten the door. Don't disturb me, but keep me there for four days, and at the end of the fourth day you can let me out."

They did so, and while she was there they heard a great rumbling like distant thunder, but they did not know what it meant. On the fourth day they opened the door as directed and she came out. Then they found that the crib was well stocked with corn. There was corn for making bread, hard flint corn for making sofki, and other kinds. She instructed them how to plant grains of corn from what she had produced. They did so, the corn grow and reproduced and they have had corn ever since. (Told by Jackson Lewis.)

The corn came from the woman, four days, (not seven) was used more in prayers and ceremony, where seven's role is to impart special meaning to a story. Four's use in this way is somewhat peculiar, and unique. Also, the sound of great distant thunder was heard, but “they didn't know what this meant.” Remember the Thunder Boys?

Creek Corn II

An old woman was living in a certain place. One time, when it was raining, she found a little blood in the water, laid it aside carefully and covered it up. Some time afterwards she removed the cover and found a male baby under it. She started to raise him, and when he was old enough to talk he called her his grandmother.

When the child was 6 or 7 years old his "grandmother" made a bow and arrows for him and he began going out hunting. The first time he came back from the hunt he said to her, "What is the thing which jumps on the ground and goes flopping along?" "It is a grasshopper," she said. "Go and kill it and bring it to me," and he did so.

The next time he came in from hunting he said, "What was the thing I saw flying from tree to tree?" "It is a bird. Go and kill it and bring it to me to eat."

Next time he returned from hunting he said, "What is the shiny thing with long logs and slender body which I saw run away?" "That is a turkey," she said. "Go and kill it and bring it to me. It is good to eat."

Next time he said, "What is the thing with a woolly tail which I saw climbing a tree?" "It is a squirrel. It is good to eat," she said, so he killed it and brought it in.

The next time he said, "What is the thing with long legs, short body and tail, a blackish nose and long ears?" "It is a deer. Go and kill it and bring it in. It is good to eat." This is how he found out the names of all these creatures.

The next time he returned from hunting he said, "I saw something with big feet, a big body sloping forward, and big round ears but looking as if it had no tail. What is it?" "It is a bear," she replied. "Go out and kill it and bring it in, for it is good to eat." And so he did.

The next time he said, "I saw a big thing which has long hair halfway down the shoulders but nowhere else except at the end of the tail. It had its head close to the ground and when it raised it I saw that it had short horns and big eyes. What is it?" "That must be a bison," she said. "Go and kill it and bring it in. It is good to eat." So he killed it and brought it in.

After that he stopped questioning his grandmother regarding the animals because he had learned about all of them, and he could now hunt by himself and so make his living. He went out hunting all of the time. The old woman warned him, however, not to go to a big mountain which they could see in the distance.

The old woman provided corn and beans for them but did not tell him where she got them and after a while he became curious. One time when she was out of corn and beans and he was about to go hunting she told him that she would cook sofki and blue dumplings against his return. He started off but instead of going hunting slipped back to the house and peeked through a crack. Then he saw his grandmother place a riddle on the floor, stand with one foot on each side of it and scratch the front of one of her thighs, whereupon corn poured down into the riddle. When she scratched the other thigh beans poured into the riddle. In that way the orphan learned how she obtained the corn and beans.

Afterwards the orphan went off hunting, but when he came back he would not touch the food. His grandmother asked him if he was in pain or if anything else was the matter with him, urging him to eat. When she could not persuade him, she said, "You must have been spying upon me and have learned how I get the corn and beans. If you do not want to eat the food I prepare, you must go away beyond the mountain which I forbade you to pass."

Then she told him to bring her some live jays and some live rattlesnakes with which she made a kind of headdress, and she also made a flute for him. As he walked along wearing the headdress and blowing upon the flute the birds would sing and the snakes shake their rattles.

Then his grandmother said to him, "Now, all is ready for you start along on this trail, but before you leave lock me up in this log cabin and set it on fire. After you have been gone for some time come back to look at this place, for here you were raised." She had provided in advance that he was to marry the first girl whom he encountered.

The orphan did as his grandmother had directed, and when he reached the other side of the mountain he came upon numbers of people playing ball. When they saw him all were pleased with his headdress of jays and rattlesnakes and stopped to look at him. Rabbit was among these people, and when he saw how all were attracted by the orphan he wanted to be like him, so he persuaded the orphan to let him travel along in company.

Before they had gone far they came to a sheet of water, and Rabbit said, "There are many turtles here. Let us go down into the water and get a lot of them." The youth agreed and Rabbit said, "When I shout 'all ready' we will dive in." But, at the appointed word, instead of diving into the water, Rabbit went to where his companion's headdress and flute were lying and prepared to run off with them.

Before he could get away, however, the youth came out and called, "Why are you doing that?" "It is so pretty that I was just looking at it. When I say 'Ready' let us dive again." The youth did as had been agreed, but Rabbit jumped out of the water, seized the headdress and flute and ran off with them.

The youth collected many turtles and started on carrying them. Presently he came to a lot of people who liked him as well as those he had met before he lost his headdress and flute and they treated him well.

After he had spent some time among them he traveled on until he came to a house. He put his turtles into a hole in the ground and then approached the house. He found a young woman living there whom he married.

Then he said to his mother-in-law, "There are some turtles outside in a hole in the ground. Bring them and cook them for us." So she went to the cavity and found it full of turtles which she brought back with her.

After they had finished eating, someone came to them and said that Rabbit had been arrested for stealing the youth's property. The youth went to the place and as soon as he came up the jays and the rattlesnakes, who had been absolutely silent while they were in Rabbit's possession, began to make a noise, the jays to sing and the snakes to rattle.

He put on his headdress once more, took his flute, and started home, the birds and snakes singing and rattling for joy at being restored to him. The people who held Rabbit threw him down among a lot of dogs but the dogs were asleep and he ran off. The dogs awoke at once and began smelling around but they could not catch him.

After the youth had gotten home he said to his wife, "Let us go down to the creek. I want to swim. By crossing four times I can poison all of the fish there." His wife told him to do so and, as he was able to accomplish everything which he undertook, he performed this feat also. He killed all of the fish in that stream. Then he told his wife to call all of the townspeople, and they came down in a crowd and had a great meal off of fish.

After the youth and his wife had gotten home the former said that since he was feeling happy she must wash her head and comb her hair and part it in the middle. When she had done so, he told her to go into the house and stand perfectly still in a window looking out. Thereupon he seized an ax and struck her in the parting, splitting her into two women who looked just alike.

When Rabbit heard what the other man had done, he wanted to imitate him, and said to his wife, "Let us go down to the creek. I want to swim and when I cross four times the fish will come to the surface." "Well, go and do so," she said. So Rabbit swam across four times. When he dived he struck a minnow and stunned it, so that when he came out he found it mulling about as if it had been poisoned. He told his wife to call all of her people down to get fish. She did so, but, finding only one minnow lying at the edge of the water, they became angry with Rabbit and went home.
As soon as Rabbit and his wife returned from the creek, Rabbit said, "Wash your head, part your hair and stand in the window." She did this; he struck her on the parting with an ax and killed her.

Some time later the youth said to his wife, "Let us go over to the place where I grew up, for I want to see it." They went there, and when they had arrived found that all sorts of Indian corn and beans had grown up in it. That was where the corn came from. So the corn was a person, that old woman, and if it is not treated well it will become angry. If one does not "lay it by," i. e., heap up the soil about it in cultivation, it calls for its underskirt. The laying by of the corn is the underskirt of old lady corn.

This story is full of interesting themes, and a new twist. Here the boy springs from the animal blood dropped into the water. The woman teaches him to hunt. We are introduced to the practice of putting the turtles into a hole in the ground. I'm not familiar with this tradition, and suspect that the turtles were just a circumstance that set-up the rabbits opportunity for theft, and the story teller continued to weave them into the tale. Sort of a story within a story at the behest of children listeners who interrupted the tale to question the fate of the turtles he'd mentioned previously)

We see the number four used prescriptively in a ceremony. The trickster rabbit's vanity is present, which leads him to mischief and he is rebuffed by the spirit world that endows the boy. Remember the headdress did the rabbit no good, and the boy didn't even really need it, it's powers stayed with him after the rabbit stole it from him.

But what of parting his wife in two? Perhaps it's just additional proof of his magical abilities, and a trap/consequence for the rabbit's vanity.

Creek Corn III

In early days the Indians lived in camps, and when they got tired of one place they moved off to another. The men would go out hunting and the women would go to dig mud potatoes. One time, while they were living this way, each clan encamped by itself, an old woman came to one of the camps and said, "I would like to warm myself on the other side of your fire." They said they had no place for her and added "Maybe they will give you a place at the next camp." But the, people at the next camp said the same thing, and so it was with all of them until she came to the last, which was the Alligator camp. There they said to her "Why, there is plenty of room here. You can stay here."

Next morning the men started out hunting and the women went for potatoes, leaving the children at home. Now this woman was Corn itself and, while they were away, she made hominy out of herself and fed the children with it. When the grown people came home the children said "My, this woman had plenty of food. She fed us all while you were gone." Then the leading man said "Tell her to have plenty of food and I will eat when I come back." So the children told her, and she made blue dumplings and all kinds of foods made from corn. The children said "Why, she shelled it off from those sores," but he answered "All right, I will be hungry and eat it."

When he returned he feasted with the old woman and thought the new food good. Then she told him to build two cribs with an entry between them, and she said "At night, just at dark, put me at the door of one and push me in, and come right away." He did so and could hear a roaring that night. Next morning, when he went to the cribs, they were both filled with corn. It was in this way that flour corn and flint corn originated. The same old woman also told the man not to drop the corn around or waste it.

One time some people were living in a certain place, and they noticed that the dripping from the eaves of the house (I do not know whether this was during a rainstorm or not) were red. So they picked up some old pieces of pottery which had been dripped upon (called paskī') and put them under the bed. During that night they heard something under the bed crying like a child, so they drew out what they had placed there and found it was a baby.

The old woman who found him took care of him and nursed him until he grew up. When he got to be, about four feet tall, she made a bow and arrows for him, and he wandered about shooting. A long way off from where they lived was some rising ground, and the boy was told never to go to that and look beyond it.

When the boy went out hunting for the first time he came in and said to the old woman, "Some things with blue beads came running." "Those were turkeys," she said; "We can eat them. Kill them. They are game." The next time he came in he said, "I saw some things with white tails." "We eat those. They are good," said the old woman. When he got back with these various things he would find the old woman with white dumplings and other corn foods, and he wondered how she got them. One time he came back and, instead of entering the house, peeked through a crack. Then he saw the old woman shake her body, and when she shook it the grain poured out of her.

By and by the young man went over to the rising ground which he had been warned not to cross and looked over. On the other side he saw people playing ball. When he came back the old woman offered him some food but he would not eat and she said, "You scorn me, then." He had seen men and women on the other side of the hill, and he did not care for her any more. Then the old woman told him to find a rattlesnake and a blue jay. Out of these she made him a fife (flute).
That was to be an ornament for the top of his head. Then she told him to kill the trees all about to make a field. "When you get through," she said, "take me and drag me all around over that place and burn me up, and after three months come over and look at me."

The boy did as the old woman had told him, and afterwards he put on the headdress she had made for him and crossed the rising ground again. There he met a Rabbit who made friends with him. They went on together and presently they came to a pond where there were turtles, and Rabbit said, "Let us go in and get some turtles." So they got ready, and when Rabbit said "Dive" they dived together under water. Rabbit, however, instead of remaining down there getting turtles, came out right away, seized the youth's headdress and ran away with it. Meanwhile the youth collected a number of turtles which he tied to a cord and brought ashore.

He found that Rabbit had disappeared with his headdress, but he took the turtles he had caught and went along until he came to a house. Putting his turtles into a hole which had been dug near by he went to the door and said to the old woman who lived there, "You had better make a fire and cook those turtles, and send round to invite all of your neighbors." She did so and had a feast. After the feast all met at the square ground.

When Rabbit came there wearing his red coat (?) and headdress, the rattlesnake and jay called out, "The rumor is that Pasakola has stolen that man's cap." He struck them with his flute to make them stop, but they kept on calling just the same and trying to get to their true master, so the people took them away and gave them to him.

After that the youth took the old woman's daughter as his wife. One day he went down to the river with her and washed his head in the stream, and all of the fish floated up intoxicated. Then he said to his wife, "You had better tell your mother to come down and cook this fish." So the old woman went down to the creek and found lots of big fish there, and she told the young men to go all around the edge of the town and notify everybody to come to the feast. All did so. By and by the youth told his wife to comb her hair in the center, and when she had done it he seated her on the doorstep, took an ax, and with one blow cut her in two so cleverly that he made two women out of her.

After that Rabbit thought that he could do the same things. So he went down to the creek and washed his head and told his wife (who was sister to the wife of the other man) to tell her mother to go down and get the big fish there. She went down, but there was nothing there. Then Rabbit had his wife comb and part her hair, seated her on the doorstep and struck her on the head, killing her instantly.

By and by the youth recalled what the first old woman had told him about going back to see where he had dragged her about, and he did so. He found the whole place covered with red silk corn (probably yellow corn). Wormseed and cornfield beans were also growing in this field. So he used the wormseed as a "cold bath" (medicine) before he ate the corn and the beans, and that is why they now take it before eating corn in husking time. (Told by Big Jack of Hilibi.)

Here again we see common themes. Note that the other story had “distant blue mountains” and in this one it's “rising ground” he should not cross. Which mountains they are referring to in these stories is unclear. Generally, the Creeks lived south and east of the Appalachians, with their relatives/neighbors the Cherokee inhabiting the mountain range and the land just east of there.

To the Cherokee, over the mountains is to the west toward the Darkening land, but to the Creeks, it would depend where you were from, generally, they'd be to the northeast. In central Alabama and Georgia, the ground rises towards the distant mountains, which can't be seen -pegging this perpective to to the plains. Again we have the vain rabbit trickster, although the red coat was a surprise. Red was a popular color to these tribes, it's dye easy to make from local resources. It was dressy, and also used as body paint by fighters.

Origin of Corn Stories I

2009-11-10T12:45:00.000-08:00

This is actually a Cherokee story, but I wanted to tell it first, and after hearing the Creek traditions, hopefully the reader will appreciate the nuances between stories, the the stories teller, and the person recording them.

Do the stories fit with other traditions? How do they relate to their neighbors traditions? How do those relate to the traditions of more distant tribe's? Lets start with a fairly elaborate, sophisticated story about the origin of Corn and Game. Here we have two stories closely connected, and with rich detail. Both are important stories in Cherokee tradition, and include common elements found in other Cherokee stories. By this we can verify certain traditions, and possibly pass some judgments about others. More stories are needed before we can draw definite conclusions, so I'll leave that to others.

When I was a boy this is what the old men told me they had heard when they were boys.

Long years ago, soon after the world was made, a hunter and his wife lived at Pilot knob with their only child, a little boy. The father's name was Kana'tï (The Lucky Hunter), and his wife was called Selu (Corn). No matter when Kana'tï went into the wood, he never failed to bring back a load of game, which his wife. would cut up and prepare, washing off the blood from the meat in the river near the house.

The little boy used to play down by the river every day, and one morning the old people thought they heard laughing and talking in the bushes as though there were two children there. When the boy came home at night his parents asked him who had been playing with him all day. "He comes out of the water," said the boy, "and he calls himself my elder brother. He says his mother was cruel to him and threw him into the river." Then they knew that the strange boy had sprung from the blood of the game which Selu had washed off at the river's edge.

Every day when the little boy went out to play the other would join him, but as he always went back again into the water before the old people had a chance to see him. At last one evening Kana'tï said to his son, "Tomorrow, when the other boy comes to play, get him to wrestle with you, and when you have your arms around him hold on to him and call for us." The boy promised to do as he was told, so the next day as soon as his playmate appeared he challenged him to a wrestling match.

The other agreed at once, but as soon as they had their arms around each other, Kana'tï's boy began to scream for his father. The old folks at once came running down, and as soon as the Wild Boy saw them he struggled to free himself and cried out, "Let me go; you threw me away!" but his brother held on until the parents reached the spot, when they seized the Wild Boy and took him home with them. They kept him in the house until they had tamed him, but he was always wild and artful in his disposition, and was the leader of his brother in every mischief.

It was not long until the old people discovered that he had magic powers, and they called him I'näge-utäsûñ'hï (He-who-grew-up-wild).

Whenever Kana'tï went into the mountains he always brought back a fat buck or doe, or maybe a couple of turkeys. One day the Wild Boy said to his brother, "I wonder where our father gets all that game; let's follow him next time and find out." A few days afterward Kana'tï took a bow and some feathers in his hand and started off toward the west.

The boys waited a little while and then went after him, keeping out of sight until they saw him go into a swamp where there were a great many of the small reeds that hunters use to make arrow shafts. Then the Wild Boy changed himself into a puff of bird's down, which the wind took up and carried until it alighted upon Kana'tï's shoulder just as he entered the swamp, but Kana'tï' knew nothing about it.

The old man cut reeds, fitted the feathers to them and made some arrows, and the Wild Boy--in his other shape--thought, "I wonder what those things are for?" When Kana'tï had his arrows finished he came out of the swamp and went on again. The wind blew the down from his shoulder, and it fell in the woods, when the Wild Boy took his right shape again and went back and told his brother what he had seen.

Keeping out of sight of their father, they followed him up the mountain until he stopped at a certain place and lifted a large rock. At once there ran out a buck, which Kana'tï shot, and then lifting it upon his back he started for home again. "Oho!" exclaimed the boys, "he keeps all the deer shut up in that hole, and whenever he wants meat he just lets one out and kills it with those things he made in the swamp." They hurried and reached home before their father, who had the heavy deer to carry, and he never knew that they had followed.

A few days later the boys went back to the swamp, cut some reeds, and made seven arrows and then started up the mountain to where their father kept the game. When they got to the place, they raised the rock and a deer came running out. Just as they drew back to shoot it, another came out, and then another and another, until the boys got confused and forgot what they were about.

In those days all the deer had their tails hanging down like other animals, but as a buck was running past the Wild Boy struck its tail with his arrow so that it pointed upward. The boys thought this good sport, and when the next one ran past the Wild Boy struck its tail so that it stood straight up, and his brother struck the next one so hard with his arrow that the deer's tail was almost curled over his back. The deer carries his tail this way ever since.

The deer came running past until the last one had come out of the hole and escaped into the forest. Then came droves of raccoons, rabbits, and all the other four-footed animals-all but the bear, because there was no bear then. Last came great flocks of turkeys, pigeons, and partridges that darkened the air like a cloud and made such a noise with their wings that Kana'tï, sitting at home, heard the sound like distant thunder on the mountains and said to himself, "My bad boys have got into trouble; I must go and see what they are doing."

So he went up the mountain, and when he came to the place where he kept the game he found the two boys standing by the rock, and all the birds and animals were gone. Kana'tï was furious, but without saying a word he went down into the cave and kicked the covers off four jars in one corner, when out swarmed bedbugs, fleas, lice, and gnats, and got all over the boys. They screamed with pain and fright and tried to beat off the insects, but the thousands of vermin crawled over them and bit and stung them until both dropped down nearly dead.

Kana'tï stood looking on until he thought they had been punished enough, when he knocked off the vermin and made the boys a talk. "Now, you rascals," said he, "you have always had plenty to eat and never had to work for it. Whenever you were hungry all I had to do was to come up here and get a deer or a turkey and bring it home for your mother to cook; but now you have let out all the animals, and after this when you want a deer to eat you will have to hunt all over the woods for it, and then maybe not find one. Go home now to your mother, while I see if I can find something to eat for supper."

When the boys got home again they were very tired and hungry and asked their mother for something to eat. "There is no meat," said Selu, "but wait a little while and I'll get you something." So she took a basket and started out to the storehouse. This storehouse was built upon poles high up from the ground, to keep it out of the reach of animals, and there was a ladder to climb up by, and one door, but no other opening.

Every day when Selu got ready to cook the dinner she would go out to the storehouse with a basket and bring it back full of corn and beans. The boys had never been inside the storehouse, so wondered where all the corn and beans could come from, as the house was not a very large one; so as soon as Selu went out of the door the Wild Boy said to his brother, "Let's go and see what she does."

They ran around and climbed up at the back of the storehouse and pulled out a piece of clay from between the logs, so that they could look in. There they saw Selu standing in the middle of the room with the basket in front of her on the floor. Leaning over the basket, she rubbed her stomach--so--and the basket was half full of corn. Then she rubbed under her armpits--so--and the basket was full to the top with beans.

The boys looked at each other and said, "This will never do; our mother is a witch. If we eat any of that it will poison us. We must kill her." When the boys came back into the house, she knew their thoughts before they spoke. "So you are going to kill me?" said Selu. "Yes," said the boys, "you are a witch." "Well," said their mother, "when you have killed me, clear a large piece of ground in front of the house and drag my body seven times around the circle. Then drag me seven times over the ground inside the circle, and stay up all night and watch, and in the morning you will have plenty of corn."

The boys killed her with their clubs, and cut off her head and put it up on the roof of the house with her face turned to the west, and told her to look for her husband. Then they set to work to clear the ground in front of the house, but instead of clearing the whole piece they cleared only seven little spots.

This is why corn now grows only in a few places instead of over the whole world. They dragged the body of Selu around the circle, and wherever her blood fell on the ground the corn sprang up. But instead of dragging her body seven times across the ground they dragged it over only twice, which is the reason the Indians still work their crop but twice.

The two brothers sat up and watched their corn all night, and in the morning it was full grown and ripe. When Kana'tï came home at last, he looked around, but could not see Selu anywhere, and asked the boys where was their mother. "She was a witch, and we killed her," said the boys; "there is her head up there on top of the house." When he saw his wife's head on the roof, he was very angry, and said, "I won't stay with you any longer; I am going to the Wolf people."

So he started off, but before he had gone far the Wild Boy changed himself again to a tuft of down, which fell on Kana'tï's shoulder. When Kana'tï reached the settlement of the Wolf people, they were holding a council in the townhouse. He went in and sat down with the tuft of bird's down on his shoulder, but he never noticed it. When the Wolf chief asked him his business, he said: "I have two bad boys at home, and I want you to go in seven days from now and play ball against them."

Although Kana'tï spoke as though he wanted them to play a game of ball, the Wolves knew that he meant for them to go and kill the two boys. They promised to go. Then the bird's down blew off from Kana'tï's shoulder, and the smoke carried it up through the hole in the roof of the townhouse. When it came down on the ground outside, the Wild Boy took his right shape again and went home and told his brother all that he had heard in the townhouse. But when Kana'tï left the Wolf people, he did not return home, but went on farther.

The boys then began to get ready for the Wolves, and the Wild Boy--the magician--told his brother what to do. They ran around the house in a wide circle until they had made a trail all around it excepting on the side from which the Wolves would come, where they left a small open space. Then they made four large bundles of arrows and placed them at four different points on the outside of the circle, after which they hid themselves in the woods and waited for the Wolves.
In a day or two a whole party of Wolves came and surrounded the house to kill the boys. The Wolves did not notice the trail around the house, because they came in where the boys had left the opening, but the moment they went inside the circle the trail changed to a high brush fence and shut them in. Then the boys on the outside took their arrows and began shooting them down, and as the Wolves could not jump over the fence they were all killed, excepting a few that escaped through the opening into a great swamp close by.

The boys ran around the swamp, and a circle of fire sprang up in their tracks and set fire to the grass and bushes and burned up nearly all the other wolves. Only two or three got away, and from these have come all the wolves that are now in the world.

Soon afterward some strangers from a distance, who had heard that the brothers had a wonderful grain from which they made bread, came to ask for some, for none but Selu and her family had ever known corn before. The boys gave them seven grains of corn, which they told them to plant the next night on their way home, sitting up all night to watch the corn, which would have seven ripe ears in the morning. These they were to plant the next night and watch in the same way, and so on every night until they reached home, when they would have corn enough to supply the whole people.

The strangers lived seven days' journey away. They took the seven grains and watched all through the darkness until morning, when they saw seven tall stalks, each stalk bearing a ripened ear. They gathered the ears and went on their way. The next night they planted all their corn, and guarded it as before until daybreak, when they found an abundant increase. But the way was long and the sun was hot, and the people grew tired.

On the last night before reaching home they fell asleep, and in the morning the corn they had planted had not even sprouted. They brought with them to their settlement what corn they had left and planted it, and with care and attention were able to raise a crop. But ever since the corn must be watched and tended through half the year, which before would grow and ripen in a night.

As Kana'tï did not return, the boys at last concluded to go and find him. The Wild Boy took a gaming wheel and rolled it toward the Darkening land (west to the Cherokee). In a little while the wheel came rolling back, and the boys knew their father was not there. He rolled it to the south and, to the north, and each time the wheel came back to him, and they knew their father was not there. Then he rolled it toward the Sunland (East), and it did not return. "Our father is there," said the Wild Boy, "let us go and find him."

So the two brothers set off toward the east, and after traveling a long time they came upon Kana'tï walking along with a little dog by his side. "You bad boys," said their father, "have you come here? "Yes," they answered, "we always accomplish what we start out to do--we are men." "This dog overtook me four days ago," then said Kana'tï, but the boys knew that the dog was the wheel which they had sent after him to find him. "Well," said Kana'tï, "as you have found me, we may as well travel together, but I shall take the lead."

Soon they came to a swamp, and Kana'tï told them there was something dangerous there and they must keep away from it. He went on ahead, but as soon as he was out of sight the Wild Boy said to his brother, "Come and let us see what is in the swamp." They went in together, and in the middle of the swamp they found a large panther asleep.

The Wild Boy got out an arrow and shot the panther in the side of the head. The panther turned his head and the other boy shot him on that side. He turned his head away again and the two brothers shot together--tust, tust, tust! But the panther was not hurt by the arrows and paid no more attention to the boys. They came out of the swamp and soon overtook Kana'tï, waiting for them. "Did you find it?" asked Kana'tï. "Yes," said the boys, "we found it, but it never hurt us. We are men." Kana'tï was surprised, but said nothing, and they went on again.

After a while he turned to them and said, "Now you must be careful. We are coming to a tribe called the Anäda'dûñtäskï. ("Roasters," i.e., cannibals), and if they get you they will put you into a pot and feast on you." Then he went on ahead. Soon the boys came to a tree which had been struck by lightning, and the Wild Boy directed his brother to gather some of the splinters from the tree and told him what to do with them.

In a little while they came to the settlement of the cannibals, who, as soon as they saw the boys, came running out, crying, "Good, here are two nice fat strangers. Now we'll have a grand feast!" They caught the boys and dragged them into the townhouse, and sent word to all the people of the settlement to come to the feast. They made up a great fire, put water into a large pot and set it to boiling, and then seized the Wild Boy and put him down into it.

His brother was not in the least frightened and made no attempt to escape, but quietly knelt down and began putting the splinters into the fire, as if to make it burn better. When the cannibals thought the meat was about ready they lifted the pot from the fire, and that instant a blinding light filled the townhouse, and the lightning began to dart from one side to the other, striking down the cannibals until not one of them was left alive. Then the lightning went up through the smokehole, and the next moment there were the two boys standing outside the townhouse as though nothing had happened.

They went on and soon met Kana'tï, who seemed much surprised to see them, and said, "What! are you here again?" "O, yes, we never give up. We are great men!" "What did the cannibals do to you?" "We met them and they brought us to their townhouse, but they never hurt us." Kana'tï said nothing more, and they went on. He soon got out of sight of the boys, but they kept on until they came to the end of the world, where the sun comes out.

The sky was just coming down when they got there, but they waited until it went up again, and then they went through and climbed up on the other side. There they found Kana'tï and Selu sitting together. The old folk received them kindly and were glad to see them, telling them they might stay there a while, but then they must go to live where the sun goes down. The boys stayed with their parents seven days and then went on toward the Darkening land, where they are now. We call them Anisga'ya Tsunsdi' (The Little Men), and when they talk to each other we hear low rolling thunder in the west.

After Kana'tï's boys had let the deer out from the cave where their father used to keep them, the hunters tramped about in the woods for a long time without finding any game, so that the people were very hungry. At last they heard that the Thunder Boys were now living in the far west, beyond the sun door, and that if they were sent for they could bring back the game. So they sent messengers for them, and the boys came and sat down in the middle of the townhouse and began to sing.

At the first song there was a roaring sound like a strong wind in the northwest, and it grew louder and nearer as the boys sang on, until at the seventh song a whole herd of deer, led by a large buck, came out from the woods. The boys had told the people to be ready with their bows and arrows, and when the song was ended and all the deer were close around the townhouse, the hunters shot into them and killed as many as they needed before the herd could get back into the timber.

Then the Thunder Boys went back to the Darkening land, but before they left they taught the people the seven songs with which to call up the deer. It all happened so long ago that the songs are now forgotten--all but two, which the hunters still sing whenever they go after deer.

Once again we see the magical properties of the number seven. It figures prominently throughout the tale, calling attention to the magical significance of communicating with the spirit realm, and how certain practices must be observed. The use of the number seven tells the listener that “this is important.”

Note that in early times, corn was magical, and grew overnight. All early plants and animals, including man, had supernatural abilities, the animals being “adawehi's “ or medicine animals.

Also, mans failure to pass a test of endurance ordered by a magical person results in a price being extolled, corn no longer grows over night.

Corn also comes from the body of a women. Often from her menstruation droplets of blood. Here she rubs here belly and squats, as though giving birth to the corn. We also see people and animals communicating with thoughts alone.

I believe this story to predate the Creek stories recorded by Swanton and Tuggles, but that doesn't mean The Cherokee is more original. It could be Swanton & Tuggles just asked the wrong people. Jackson Lewis was supposedly a great shaman, but Stephen King is a great story teller too. Would he remember the Beatrix Potter stories?

What if an Ethnographer asked you to tell the story of Peter Rabbit? The Cherokee versions come from great story tellers, and were told to James Mooney. Tuggles worked for the Creek Nation, not the Smithsonian, and his work disappeared for a hundred years, and was then released privately in a book. I don't know how genuine the published work is. Mooney's has been at the Smithsonian all along. Swanton's stories were recorded years later, giving the oral traditions decades to evolve, and each version draws from what appears to be a common source – the Cherokee.

Creek Stories

2009-11-08T22:47:00.000-08:00

The nice thing about having your own blog, is writing about whatever you want. I'm going to lighten up on politics for awhile, and tell a few stories.

The Creeks.

Before 1700, the Creek territory spanned from the Carolina Piedmont in the east, to Louisiana in the west, lying south-southwest of the Cherokee and Iroquois tribes. What became known as the Creek Nation actually consisted of many tribes, with some tribes entering the alliance and others leaving -their connections with the Creeks being political, social, and economic. These conditions changed as Europeans moved onto the continent, and began exerting pressure on the tribes, initially from English to the North, and then French and Spanish from the South.

The first permanent white settlement on the southern gulf coast was at Redstick (also known as 27-mile bluff,) along the Mobile river just North of what is now Mobile, Alabama, my home. It may be of some interest to the reader that I once worked for a company that owned the land where the original fort was supposedly located. Little archaeological evidence remains, and there is even a dispute as to where the actual fort was located. An overgrown, early 19th century graveyard is there, amidst a dense stand of tall pines and water oaks. A quiet spot in the woods, off a narrow two-lane road, along the Mobile river in rural Alabama just 20 miles north of a thriving city, unknown to passers by.

The first white colonists in Alabama came to the shores of Mobile Bay in 1559 under the leadership of Tistan de Luna. He and one-thousand settlers, after landing at Mobile Bay, moved on to Pensacola Bay, and eventually returned to Alabama to take over the Indian town of Nanipacna, basically by running off anyone who opposed them. Only later, after a close call by Desoto (it is unknown whether he sailed into Mobile Bay), Pierre LeMoyne Seur D'Iberville established the french settlement of Mobile in 1702. The first settlement previously described was ill-suited for a settlement due to river flooding, so they moved further south about 20 miles, where the City of Mobile, Alabama now stands.

Throughout this time the French fooled the Creek into establishing lucrative trading partnerships - lucrative to the French, or so they thought. By marrying the daughters of important tribal leaders, the French ingratiated themselves into Creek culture, bringing the tribes diseases like smallpox and social problems like alcoholism. What's worse, the squabbling Europeans bent on conquest of their New World, drug the Creeks into one conflict after another, culminating in the Creek victory at Ft. Mims (now called a massacre) and the Creek Wars (Also known as the French & Indian War), which ultimately led to their destruction.

The parallel between the strategy employed by Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and that employed by the Europeans against the Creeks is eerie. It is interesting to read the accounts of this war, because by the time it began, most of the Creek participants had English names!

The French sold Mobile to England as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1763. Spain took Mobile from England in 1780. And in 1813 Mobile becomes part of the U.S. as part of the "West Florida Controversy". That title wasn't established until 1810 when a Spanish revolt was crushed, and the U.S. garrisoned troops here, settling the matter once and for all.

Throughout these events, all sides tried to win support of the tribes to do their fighting for them, while they reaped the real rewards of their victories. Later, they'd be destroyed or removed permanently to the west by Andrew Jackson. By the time of the battle at Ft. Mims, so many Creeks had inter-married, most with English speakers coming down the rivers from the north, that many of their fighters had English names. In less than 100 years, the Creek "Nation" had changed dramatically.

What I want to do now is present a few select Creek stories, collected by ethnographers around 1870. I think they're wonderful stories, and closely parallel the folktales and myths of their neighbors, the Cherokee. It is important to remember that these stories were collected by a white man nearly 100 years after most of the events described above.

The methods of collecting these stories, and the credibility of some of the ethnographers, must be weighed when considering them in their cultural context. I'm not including versions later described by Creek writers. Indeed, there may be some controversy in the manner in which I tell them.

Creek stories are divided into summer and winter, night and day. Tradition dictates that one must tell winter stories in the summertime, and summer stories only in winter. One must tell daytime stories at night, and nighttime stories by day. The reason for this being the spirits in the story might overhear you and be offended. Bad things can come of this.

So how am I to tell a nighttime story at night? Should I not tell the story? I'm going to go out on a limb, and trust that the Creek conjurers simply didn't envision Internet blogs, and they would have approved. After all, unless you read them aloud, the spirits won't hear you.

Tsalagi Plant Lore - Pt. II

2009-11-06T16:28:00.000-08:00

Continued from Pt. I

The laurel, in its two varieties, large and small Rhododendron and Kalmia, or "ivy", is much used for spoons and combs, on account of its close grain, as also in medicine, but is never burned, as it is believed that this would bring on cold weather, and would furthermore destroy the medicinal virtues of the whole species. The reason given is that the leaves, when burning, make a hissing sound suggestive of winter winds and falling snow.

When the doctor is making up a compound in which any part of the laurel is an ingredient, great precautions are taken to prevent any of the leaves or twigs being swept into the fire, as this would render the decoction worthless.

Sassafras is not used as fuel among the Cherokee, as also among their white neighbors, perhaps for the practical reason that it is apt to pop out of the fire when heated and might thus set the house on fire. It's leaves are dried and ground for seasoning food, and the bark covering on it's roots is boiled to make a tea.

Pounded walnut bark is thrown into small streams to stupefy the fish, so that they may be easily dipped out in baskets as they float on the surface of the water. Should a pregnant woman wade into the stream at the time, its effect is nullified, unless she has first taken the precaution to tie a strip of the bark about her toe.

A fire of post-oak and the wood of the telûn'lätï or summer grape (Vitis æstivalis) is believed to bring a spell of warm weather even in the coldest winter season.

Mysterious properties attach to the wood of a tree which has been struck by lightning, especially when the tree itself still lives, and such wood enters largely into the secret compounds of the conjurers. An ordinary person of the laity will not touch it, for fear of having cracks come upon his hands and feet, nor is it burned for fuel, for fear that lye made from the ashes will cause consumption.

In preparing ballplayers, for the contest, the medicine-man sometimes burns splinters of it to coal, which he gives to the players to paint themselves with in order that they may be able to strike their opponents with all the force of a thunderbolt. Bark or wood from a tree struck by lightning, but still green, is beaten up and put into the water in which seeds are soaked before planting, to insure a good crop, but, on the other and, any lightning-struck wood thrown into the field will cause the crop to wither, and it is believed to have a bad effect even to go into the field immediately after having been near such a tree.

Among all vegetables the one which holds first place in the household economy and ceremonial observance of the tribe is selu, "corn," invoked in the sacred formulas under the name of Agawe'la, "The Old Woman," in allusion to its mythic origin from the blood of an old woman killed by her disobedient sons, "Kana'tï and Selu".

In former times the annual thanksgiving ceremony of the Green-corn dance, preliminary to eating the first new corn, was the most solemn tribal function, a propitiation and expiation for the sins of the past year, an amnesty for public criminals, and a prayer for happiness and prosperity for the year to come. Only those who had properly prepared themselves by prayer, fasting, and purification were allowed to take part in this ceremony, and no one dared to taste the new corn until then.

Seven ears from the last year's crop were always put carefully aside, in order to attract the corn until the new crop was ripened and it was time for the dance, when they were eaten with the rest. In eating the first new corn after the Green Corn dance, care was observed not to blow upon it to cool it, for fear of causing a wind storm to beat down the standing crop in the field.

Much ceremony accompanied the planting and tending of the crop. Seven grains, the sacred number, were put into each hill, and these were not afterward thinned out. After the last working of the crop, the priest and an assistant, generally the owner of the field, went into the field and built a small enclosure (detsänûñ'lï) in the center. Then entering it, they seated themselves upon the ground, with heads bent down, and while the assistant kept perfect silence the priest, with rattle in band, sang songs of invocation to the spirit of the corn.

Soon, according to the orthodox belief, a loud rustling would be heard outside, which they would know was caused by the "Old Woman" bringing the corn into the field, but neither must look up until the song was finished. This ceremony was repeated on four successive nights, after which no one entered the field for seven more nights, when the priest himself went in, and, if all the sacred regulations had been properly observed, was rewarded by finding young ears upon the stalks.

The corn ceremonies could be performed by the owner of the field himself, provided he was willing to pay a sufficient fee to the priest in order to learn the songs and ritual. Care was always taken to keep a clean trail from the field to the house, so that the corn might be encouraged to stay at home and not go wandering elsewhere. Most of these customs have now fallen into disuse excepting among the old people, by many of whom they are still religiously observed.

Another curious ceremony, of which even the memory is now almost forgotten, was enacted after the first working of the corn, when the owner or priest stood in succession at each of the four corners of the field and wept and wailed loudly. Even the priests are now unable to give a reason for this performance, which may have been a lament for the bloody death of Selu, as the women of Byblos were wont to weep for Adonis.

Next to corn, the bean (tuya) is the most important food plant of the Cherokee and other southern aboriginals, with whom it is probably native, but there does not appear to be much special ceremony or folklore in connection with it. Beans which crack open in cooking are sometimes rubbed by mothers on the lips of their children in order to make them look smiling and good-tempered. The association of ideas seems to be the same as that which in Ireland causes a fat mealy potato, which cracks open in boiling, to be called a "laughing" potato.

Melons and squashes must not be counted or examined too closely,while still on the vine, or they will cease to thrive; neither must one step over the vine, or it will wither before the fruit ripens. One who has eaten a May-apple must not come near the vines under any circumstances, as this plant withers and dries up very quickly, and its presence would make the melons wither in the same way.

Tobacco was used as a sacred incense or as the guarantee of a solemn oath in nearly every important function--in binding the warrior to take up the hatchet against the enemy, in ratifying the treaty of peace, in confirming sales or other engagements, in seeking omens for the hunter, in driving away witches or evil spirits, and in regular medical practice. It was either smoked in the pipe or sprinkled upon the fire, never rolled into cigarettes, as among the tribes of the Southwest, neither was it ever smoked for the mere pleasure of the sensation.

Of late years white neighbors have taught the Cherokees to chew it, but the habit is not aboriginal. It is called tsâlû, a name which has lost its meaning in the Cherokee language, but is explained from the cognate Tuscarora, in which charhû', "tobacco," can still be analyzed as "fire to hold in the mouth," showing that the use is as old as the knowledge of the plant.

The tobacco originally in use among the Cherokee, Iroquois, and other eastern tribes was not the common tobacco of commerce (Nicotiana tabacum), which has been introduced from the West Indies, but the Nicotiana rustica, or wild tobacco now distinguished by the Cherokee as tsâl-agäyûñ'lï, "old tobacco," and by the Iroquois as "real tobacco."

Its various uses in ritual and medicine are better described under other headings. The cardinal flower (Lobelia), mullein (Verbascum thapsus), and one or two related species are called "like tobacco," on account of their general resemblance to it in appearance, but they were never used in the same way.

[ Mullein was smoked by the Cherokee, but it wouldn't have been used in ceremony]

The Catawaba, Delaware, and Cherokee made a syrup from the leaves to soothe and relieve coughs. Mullein tea was also used to relieve pain, especially that of arthritis, as well as other painful conditions. The Cherokee treated swollen glands by applying the scalded leaves. Mullein was also smoked in a pipe, and is an ingredient in many alternative smoking mixes marketed today.

The poisonous wild parsnip (Peucedanum) bears an unpleasant reputation on account of its frequent use in evil spells, especially those intended to destroy the life of the victim. In one of these conjurations seven pieces of the root are laid upon one hand and rubbed gently with the other, the omen being taken from the position of the pieces when the hand is removed.

It is said also that poisoners mix it secretly with the food of their intended victim, when, if he eats, he soon becomes drowsy, and unless kept in motion until the effect wears off, falls asleep never to wake again.

Suicides are said to eat it to procure death.

Before starting on a journey a small piece of the root is sometimes chewed and blown upon the body to prevent sickness, but the remedy is almost as bad as the disease, for the snakes are said to resent the offensive smell by biting the one who carries it. In spite of its poisonous qualities, a decoction of the root is much used for steaming patients in the sweat bath, the idea seeming to be that the smell drives away the disease spirits.

The poison oak or poison ivy (Rhus radicans), so abundant in the damp eastern forests, is feared as much by Cherokees as by whites. When obliged to approach it or work in its vicinity, the Cherokee strives to conciliate it by addressing it as "My friend" (hi'gïnaliï). If poisoned by it, he rubs upon the affected part the beaten flesh of a crawfish.

One variety of brier (Smilax) is called di`nû'skï, "the breeder," from a belief that a thorn of it, if allowed to remain in the flesh, will breed others in a day or two.

Ginseng, which is sold in large quantities to the local traders, as well as used in the native medical practice, is called âtalï-gûlï', "the mountain climber," but is addressed by the priests as Yûñwï Usdi', "Little Man," or Yûñwï Usdi'ga Ada'wehi'yu, "Little Man, Most Powerful Magician," the Cherokee sacred term, like the Chinese name, having its origin from the frequent resemblance of the root in shape to the body of a man.

The beliefs and ceremonies in connection with its gathering and preparation are very numerous. The doctor speaks constantly of it as of a sentient being, and it is believed to be able to make itself invisible to those unworthy to gather it.

In hunting ginseng, the first three plants found are passed by. The fourth is taken, after a preliminary prayer, in which the doctor addresses it as the "Great Ada'wehï," and humbly asks permission to take a small piece of its flesh.

On digging it from the ground, he drops into the hole a bead and covers it over, leaving it there by way of payment to the plant spirit. After that he takes them as they come without further ceremony.

The catgut or devil's shoestring (Tephrosia) is called distai'yï, "they are tough," in allusion to its stringy roots, from which Cherokee women prepare a decoction with which to wash their hair in order to impart to it the strength and toughness of the plant, while a preparation of the leaves is used by ballplayers to wash themselves in order to toughen their limbs.

To enable them to spring quickly to their feet if thrown to the ground, ball players bathe their limbs also with a decoction of the small rush (Juncus enuis) which they say, always recovers its erect position, no matter how often trampled down.

The white seeds of the viper's bugloss (Echium vulgare) were formerly used in many important ceremonies of which the purpose was to look into the future, but have now been superseded by the ordinary glass beads of the traders.

The culver root (Leptandra) is used in love conjurations, the omen being taken from the motion of the root when held in the hand.

The campion (Silene stellata), locally known as "rattle snake's master," is called ganidawâ'skï, "it disjoints itself," because the dried stalk is said to break off by joints, beginning at the top. As among the white mountaineers, the juice is held to be a sovereign remedy for snake bites, and it is even believed that the deadliest snake will flee from one who carries a small portion of the root in his mouth.

Almost all varieties of burs, from the Spanish needle tip to the cocklebur and Jimsonweed, are classed together under the generic name of u'nistilûñ'istï, which may be freely rendered as "stickers." From their habit of holding fast to whatever object they may happen to touch, they are believed to have an occult power for improving the memory and inducing stability of character.

Very soon after a child is born, one of the smaller species, preferably the Lespedeza repens, is beaten up and a portion is put into a bowl of water taken from a fall or cataract, where the stream makes a constant noise. This is given to the child to drink on four successive days, with the intention of making him quick to learn and retain in memory anything once heard. The noise of the cataract from which the water is taken is believed to be the voice of Yûñwï Gûnahi'ta, the "Long Man," or river god, teaching lessons which the child may understand, while the stream itself is revered for its power to seize and hold anything cast upon its surface.

A somewhat similar ceremony is sometimes used for adults, but in this case the matter is altogether more difficult, as there are tabus for four or seven days, and the mind must be kept fixed upon the purpose of the rite throughout the whole period, while if the subject so far forgets himself as to lose his temper in that time he will remain of a quarrelsome disposition forever after.

A flowering vine, known as nuniyu'stï, "potato-like," which grows in cultivated fields, and has a tuberous root somewhat resembling a potato, is used in hunting conjurations. The bruised root, from which a milky juice oozes, is rubbed upon the deer bleat, a`wï'-ahyeli'skï with which the hunter imitates the bleating of the fawn, under the idea that the doe, hearing it, will think that her offspring desires to suck, and will therefore come the sooner.

The putty-root (Adam-and-Eve, Aplectrum hiemale), which is of an oily, mucilaginous nature, is carried by the deer hunter, who, on shooting a deer, puts a small piece of the chewed root into the wound, expecting as a necessary result to find the animal unusually fat when skinned.
Infants which seem to pine and grow thin are bathed with a decoction of the same root in order to fatten them.

The root of the plant known as Venus' flytrap (Dionæa), which has the remarkable property of catching and digesting insects which alight upon it, is chewed by the fisherman and spit upon the bait that no fish may escape him, and the plant is tied upon the fish trap or the same purpose.

The root of a plant called unatlûñwe' hitû, "having spirals," is used in conjurations designed to predispose strangers in favor of the subject. The priest "takes it to water"--i.e., says certain prayers over it while standing close to the running stream, then chews a small piece and rubs and blows it upon the body and arms of the patient, who is supposed to be about to start upon a journey, or to take part in a council, with the result that all who meet him or listen to his words are at once pleased with his manner and appearance, and disposed to give every assistance to his projects.

Maybe this is what Barack Obama used. :)

Tsalagi Plant Lore - Pt. I

2009-11-06T16:11:00.000-08:00

The Cherokee have always been an agricultural people and their old country is a region of luxuriant flora, with tall trees and tangled undergrowth on the slopes and ridges, and myriad bright-tinted blossoms and sweet wild fruits along the running streams.

The vegetable kingdom consequently holds a far more important place in the mythology and ceremony of the Cherokee than it does among the aboriginals of the treeless plains and arid sage deserts of the West. Many beliefs and customs in this connection revolve around the practice of medicine, as expounded by the priests and doctors in every settlement.

In general it is held that the plant world is friendly to the human species, and constantly at the willing service of the doctors to counteract the jealous hostility of the animals. (see the origins of disease and medicine) The sacred formulas contain many curious instructions for the gathering and preparation of the medicinal roots and barks, which are selected chiefly in accordance with the theory of correspondences. If you learn nothing else about native american mythology, learn correspondence. Understanding this is essential to understanding the mythology and medicine of primitive people throughout the world. The behaviors and names of plants correspond to their appearances or role in myth.

The Cherokee are close observers, and some of their plant names are particularly apt. Thus the mistletoe, which never grows alone, but is found always with its roots fixed in the bark of some supporting tree or shrub from which it draws its sustenance, is called by a name which signifies "for it is married" (uda'`lï).

The violet is still called by a plural name, dinda'skwate'skï, "they pull each other's heads off," showing that the Cherokee children have discovered a game not unknown among our own.

The bear-grass (Eryngium), with its long, slender leaves like diminutive blades of corn, is called sälikwâ'yï, "greensnake," and the larger grass known as Job's tears, on account of its glossy, rounded grains, which the Cherokee children use for necklaces, is called sel-utsï' "the mother of corn."

The black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia) of our children is the "deer-eye" (a`wï'-aktä') of the Cherokee, and our lady-slipper (Cypripedium) is their "partridge moccasin" (gügwë'-ulasu'la).

The May-apple (Podophyllum), with its umbrella-shaped top, is called u'niskwetu'`gï, meaning "it wears a hat," while the white puff fall fungus is näkwïsï'-usdi' "the little star," and the common rock lichen bears the musical, if rather unpoetic, name of utsäle'ta, "pot scrapings."

Some plants are named from their real or supposed place in the animal economy, as the wild rose, tsist-uni'gistï, "the rabbits eat it"--referring to the seed berries--and the shield fern (Aspidum), yân-utse'stû, "the bear lies on it."

Others, again, are named from their domestic or ceremonial uses, as the fleabane (Erigeron canadense), called atsil'-sûñ`tï, "fire maker," because its dried stalk was anciently employed in producing fire by friction, and the bugle weed (Lycopus virginicus), known as aniwani'skï, "talkers," because the chewed root, given to children to swallow, or rubbed upon their lips, is supposed to endow them with the gift of eloquence.

Some few, in addition to the ordinary term in use among the common people, have a sacred or symbolic name, used only by the priests and doctors in the prayer formulas. Thus ginseng is known to the laity â'talï-gûlï', the mountain climber," but is addressed in the formulas as Yûñwï Usdi'.

One or two plant names have their origin in myths, as, for instance, that of Prosartes lanuginosa, which bears the curious name of walâs'-unûl'stï, "frogs fight with it," from a story that in the long ago--hïlahi'yu--two quarrelsome frogs once fought a duel, using its stalks as lances.

The division of trees into evergreen and deciduous is accounted for by a myth, related elsewhere, according to which the loss of their leaves in winter time is a punishment visited upon the latter for their failure to stay awake when the great spirit tested them.

With the Cherokee, as with nearly all other tribes east and west, the cedar is held sacred above other trees. The reasons for this reverence are easily found in its ever-living green, its balsamic fragrance, and the beautiful color of its fine-grained wood, unwarping and practically undecaying. The small green twigs are thrown upon the fire as incense in certain ceremonies, particularly to counteract the effect of asgina dreams, as it is believed that the anisgi'na or malevolent ghosts can not endure the smell; but the wood itself is considered too sacred to be used as fuel.

In the war dance, the scalp trophies, stretched on small hoops, were hung upon a cedar sapling trimmed and decorated for the occasion. According to a myth the red color comes originally from the blood of a wicked magician, whose severed head was hung at the top of a tall cedar. The story is now almost forgotten, but it was probably nearly identical with one still existing among the Yuchi, former neighbors of the Cherokee.

According to the Yuchi myth, a malevolent magician disturbed the daily course of the sun until at last two brave warriors sought him out and killed him in his cave. They cut off his head and brought it home with them to show to the people, but it continued still alive. To make it die they were advised to tie it in the topmost branches of a tree. This they did, trying one tree after another, but each morning the head was found at the foot of the tree and still alive.

At last they tied it in a cedar, and there the head remained until it was dead. While the blood slowly trickling down along the trunk gave the wood its red color, and henceforth the cedar was a "medicine" tree.

The linn or basswood (Tilia) is believed never to be struck by lightning. and the hunter caught in one of the frequent thunderstorms of the southern mountains always seeks its shelter. From its stringy bark are twisted the hunting belts worn about the waist.

Sour wood (Oxydendrum) is used by the hunters for barbecue sticks to roast meat before the fire, on account of the acid flavor of the wood, which they believe to be thus communicated to the meat. Spoons and combs are also carved from the wood, but it is never burned, from all idea that lye made from the ashes will bring sickness to those who use it in preparing their food. It is said also that if one should sleep beside a fire containing sour wood sticks, the sour wood "will barbecue him." which may possibly mean that he will have hot or feverish pains thereafter.

Continued in Tsalagi Plant Lore - Pt. II

Too funny

2009-11-02T07:41:00.000-08:00

In this video, The Onion parodies the emotional crash of Obama supporters following the election, when they no longer had anything to do all day but talk about Obama. It's very funny, but embedding it causes the page to load slowly.

The Onion Video

Moral Relativism - L'Amours "Old West"

2008-03-27T12:22:00.000-07:00

Louis L'Amour published his first novel in 1961. This was just before the truth of historical Aboriginal-European interactions began to appear in the American conscience. L'Amour was aware of this trend, and it's evident in his novels. Throughout the sixties L'Amour added sidebar narration to his novels in what I suspect was an attempt to dissuade hate-mail, or to provide moral justification for his characters' views of the "Indians." This is repeated in almost every story.

It falls way short for a couple of reasons. His generalizations about Native Americans may have been typical for the period in which his characters live, but they would not have been shared by anyone who traveled with and or lived among them, a history many of his characters share. There is a "Tarzan-like" theme running throughout these novels. Captured by the Indians, he lives with them for several years, learning their ways, and ultimately becomes a leader or warrior. The moral is that a white man, when placed among wild savages, will not only persevere, but will excel in the community. What would all those jabbering natives do about evil poachers or treasure seekers without Tarzan to lead them. They were plagued by lions, elephants, and rhinoceros's until Tarzan came along and learned to communicate with them through his yodeling call.

19th century beliefs and Darwinism are alive and well today in popular fiction, and L'Amour was no exception. The belief that the white man is simply more evolved than the other races, and therefore superior, runs rampant throughout fiction and movies. Hollywood has become more sensitive, if not more aware. Dances With Wolves treated "Indians" as real people, yet Kevin Costner's wisdom and superiority were evident.

Another recurring theme in L'Amours novels is moral relativism. "Sure the white man took from the Indians, but the Indians took it from other Indians before that." Therefore it's not any different, and the white Europeans weren't doing anything the Indians wouldn't have done. This is probably the best argument L'Amour makes when it comes to Native Americans. Cruelty and greed were not invented by Europeans. Humans will be humans despite aspirations to the contrary. If there is one positive thing you can say about L'Amours depiction of Native Americans, they are usually his friends or at least competent enemies. In most cases he treats them as equals. In some ways, the measure of a man can judged by the competence of his enemies.

Magic & Advanced Technology

2008-03-27T10:42:00.000-07:00

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - Arthur C. Clark

There is a lot of truth to that statement. Primitive cultures who make first contact with western medicine men are usually awed. Their shaman are challenged, and the interaction threatens to unravel the fabric of their culture. Christianity is more resilient in this regard because it places mankind in the center of the metaphysical universe. Judaism and Islam share this view to an extent, as long as the family or community isn't threatened by the technology.

Western people know that having one child every twelve months isn't a good idea. It isn't healthy for the children or the mother. In Islam, it is a sign of wealth and power. Teaching women about birth control for the sake of their family is akin to teaching women to be "barren." It is an affront to the husband and the husbands family.

A primitive person can quickly grasp the advantage of steel, weapons, and radio's or cellphones. But imagine what their first impression must have been like. This doesn't mean that everything we don't understand is due to advanced technology. It means that we're apt to attribute magical properties or processes to things we do not understand. Whether we will ever understand the origins of the universe, physics, or other cosmic processes is beyond me. However, I will resist the temptation to attribute that which I can't comprehend to magic.

Folktales of Cherokee Origin

2008-02-27T12:23:00.000-08:00

Many American folktales have their origins in the stories and mythology of the First Peoples. The Uncle Remus stories of Brer' rabbit are all Cherokee stories. Here is a familar tale that almost anyone raised in the U.S. will immediately recognize.

How the Terrapin Beat the Rabbit

The Rabbit was a great runner, and everybody knew it. No one thought the Terrapin anything but a slow traveler, but he was a great warrior and very boastful, and the two were always disputing about their speed. At last they agreed to decide the matter by a race. They fixed the day and the starting place and arranged to run across four mountain ridges, and the one who came in first at the end was to be the winner.

The Rabbit felt so sure of it that he said to the Terrapin, "You know you can't run. You can never win the race, so I'll give you the first ridge and then you'll have only three to cross while I go over four."

The Terrapin said that would he all right, but that night when he went home to his family he sent for his Terrapin friends and told them he wanted their help. He said he knew he could not outrun the Rabbit, but he wanted to stop the Rabbit's boasting. He explained his plan to his friends and they agreed to help him.

When the day came all the animals were there to see the race. The Rabbit was with them, but the Terrapin was gone ahead toward the first ridge, as they had arranged, and they could hardly see him on account of the long grass. The word was given and the Rabbit started off with long jumps up the mountain, expecting to win the race before the Terrapin could get down the other side. But before he got up the mountain he saw the Terrapin go over the ridge ahead of him. He ran on, and when he reached the top he looked all around, but could not see the Terrapin on account of the long grass. He kept on down the mountain and began to climb the second ridge, but when he looked up again there was the Terrapin just going over the top. Now he was surprised and made his longest jumps to catch up, but when he got to the top there was the Terrapin away in front going over the third ridge. The Rabbit was getting tired now and nearly out of breath, but he kept on down the mountain and up the other ridge until he got to the top just in time to see the Terrapin cross the fourth ridge and thus win the race.

The Rabbit could not make another jump, but fell over on the ground, crying mï, mï, mï, mï, as the Rabbit does ever since when he is too tired to run any more. The race was given to the Terrapin and all the animals wondered how he could win against the Rabbit, but he kept still and never told. It was easy enough, however, because all the Terrapin's friends looked just alike, and he had simply posted one near the top of each ridge to wait until the Rabbit came in sight and then climb over and hide in the long grass. When the Rabbit came on he could not find the Terrapin and so thought the Terrapin was ahead, and if he had met one of the other terrapins he would have thought it the same one because they looked so much alike. The real Terrapin had posted himself on the fourth ridge, so as to come in at the end of the race and be ready to answer questions if the animals suspected anything.

Because the Rabbit had to lie down and lose the race the conjurer now, when preparing his young men for the ball play, boils a lot of rabbit hamstrings into a soup, and sends some one at night to pour it across the path along which the other players are to come in the morning, so that they may become tired in the same way and lose the game. It is not always easy to do this, because the other party is expecting it and has watchers ahead to prevent it.

Sprituality - The Scam

2007-03-08T14:09:00.000-08:00

There never seems to be any shortage of people looking for answers to lifes most basic questions. It seems like there is almost a church-of-the-week mentality present in modern society. Many people are unsatisfied with the church of their upbringing, and this leads them to explore alternatives.

I've come across a number of religious websites purporting to be the embodiment of Native American spirituality. I'm going to go out on a pretty strong limb here and say that ALL of these websites are bogus. I suppose there might be one somewhere that actually teaches something worthwhile, but that doesn't mean they are in any way authentic

One of the core concepts I see frequently is that of the 'Great Spirit'. This seems to be a Hollywood or literary idea based on one or two Native American myths. There are multiple myths from Native American lore that refer to a 'Great Spirit'. When the Indians didn't have a specific being to attribute some event to, they might use whatever would fit in the story, and a Great Spirit was sometimes cited as the great force that caused something to happen.

The Great Spirit of legend isn't consistent, even within a people. The Cherokee have a creation myth that doesn't involve a great spirit. He is referred to in the myth about the origin of the sun. Thus, the Great Spirit to the Cherokee is something in a myth, a story character, and is not considered the great monotheistic supreme being that other religions revolve around.

Each nation of indigenous peoples had their own myths, and by and large most of them had nothing to do with the meaning of life or life after death. American Indians were concerned with the here and now. Prayers were said to make a corn crop or hunt successful. Prayers might be offered to appease or trick various spirit animals who are suspected in causing a sickeness. Native Americans had no unified concept of a supreme being, and any church who has perverted these terms and concepts has done so to create a religion out of thin air.

Internet 'Medicine Men' are charlatans. Native Americans figured out pretty quick that the charms of their medicine men were worthless when dealing with invaders. Over the years, they've figured out that the charms used to cure snakebites, consumption, and other diseases don't work either.

I'm not going to say that charms, spells, and prayers don't work. I'm just saying that if they do, it isn't because Native American medicine men knew some secret that everyone else doesn't. If you send someone money to join prayer circle where you learn all about the 'Great Spirit', don't be surprised if it leaves you feeling no different than a Catholic Mass.

Ghosts that drive cars

2007-03-08T07:11:00.000-08:00

In popular fiction, mysterious forces and aliens can drive cars. Christine was a car possessed by an jealous omnipotent demon spirit that could either observe all rules of the road or run people down with screeching tires and a howling engine. In another movie a mysterious force takes over all of the cars and trucks in a small western town. They stalk the streets, running over victims as they dash from one building to the next. The largest of the trucks and heavy equipment could easily demolish the buildings and crush the humans inside, but they don't seem to realize this.

Killer robots and people from the future are skilled vehicle operators. They easily handle any unattended motorcycle, car, or bulldozer, with or without the keys. This is a feat I cannot match. I've operated every type of mechanical contraption there is except for a jet airplane or helicopter. That includes small submersible submarines. I cannot leap on any vehicle, start it like McGyver, and instantly take off in hot pursuit while wielding deadly blows with its buckets, booms, and spinning blades.

Mysterious forces, aliens, and time travelers all share this ability to some degree but not consistently. A ghost from the past can usually disable a vehicle or elevator, but their control skills are rudimentary. Usually they wrest control from the victim at some crucial point, such as near a cliff or loaded tanker truck.

Forces, powers, or people from the future usually display more knowledge of technology, understandable but hardly sufficient grounds to qualify them as stunt drivers. Chances are, unless you've ever driven a 1947 Chevrolet pick-up truck, you wouldn't know how to start one. I had one back in 1976. The starter was a button on floor. In later years, a similar floor button was used as a headlight dimmer switch. That was replaced with steering column light dimmers in the 1980's. Even the most mechanically inclined '20 something' would have trouble operating a vehicle only 50 years old. We have people now that can't drive manual shifts.

In fiction these situations provide certain elements needed for the fable. It's interesting to note when first-hand accounts of poltergeist activity relies on such dubious premises. I've seen several stories on television lately that dramatize paranormal experiences. It's always a family of 'skeptics' haunted by ghostly presences. How would a ghost from the 18^th century know anything about electricity, circuit breakers, fuses, network cables or telephone wires? If I can't operate a front-end loader without someone to show me what all of those levers do, then how could a space alien or a killer robot from the future?

A good idea

2007-02-27T19:59:00.000-08:00

A good idea. Three simple words that have a variety of connotations. When someones idea for fixing something fails, they might shrug their shoulders and say "Well, it was a good idea". Anyone aiding them in the effort usually agrees, and the handymen go on to try something else. In this manner good ideas are failures, and may be remembered fondly, or at least in a more favorable light.

When someone has a good idea, it may compel others to act. Good ideas bring progress. They also litter our past like refuse cast out along a highway. There are graveyards along that highway, and the winds whip and blow at the stone.

American Indians in Children's Literature

2007-02-27T16:56:00.000-08:00

American Indians in Children's Literature: "Some Thoughts On Teaching About Native Americans by John A. Duerk"

The heritage that never was

2007-02-27T15:53:00.000-08:00

The mythology of the eastern tribes is as much as part of early American history as the story of pilgrims, the colonists, and the war for independence. Yet, the story told in history books is seriously flawed. That it omits crucial events in the founding period is not the only historical inaccuracy. The hopes, desires, beliefs and deeds of the colonists have been spun to provide a convenient history of noble origins where in fact, none exists.

America was not founded on principles of religious tolerance and a love of freedom. Quite the opposite. America was founded by intolerant religious fanatics who fled England to start a cult colony beyond the reach of English law. It was well known that this new land was inhabited by other people, but that didn't deter the colonists. They viewed the native inhabitants as savages, less than human, who didn't understand the English concept of land ownership. To the colonists, wild unimproved land in the new world was theirs for the taking. Both the Separatists and Puritans were rigid fundamentalists who came here fully intending to take the land away from its Native inhabitants and establish a new nation, their “Holy Kingdom.” The Plymouth colonists were never concerned with “freedom of religion” for anyone but themselves.

As for the myth that the colonists "found corn" or that natives "shared" the food source with the colonists what really happened was this:

Just a few days after landing, a party of about 16 settlers led by Captain Myles Standish followed a Nauset trail and came upon an iron kettle and a cache of Indian corn buried in the sand. They made off with the corn and returned a few days later with reinforcements. This larger group “found” a larger store of corn, about ten bushels, and took it. They also “found” several graves, and, according to Mourt’s Relation, “brought sundry of the prettiest things away” from a child’s grave and then covered up the corpse. They also “found” two Indian dwellings and “some of the best things we took away with us.” [1]

There is no record that restitution was ever made for the stolen corn, and the Wampanoag did not soon forget the colonists’ ransacking of Indian graves.[1]

It is important to know the true history so that our children draw the proper lessons and conclusions. Hiding the ugly truth is a crime against history, and prevents any legitimate discourse or understanding of what our principles are, or where they came from. We have visited these errors on ourselves and others by denying it. Paul Saffo writes;

In a strange and ironic twist of history, we inflict on ourselves the same wrenching change visited on other cultures as they came into contact with western culture and its innovations over the past few centuries. And our reaction today is little different from how many of those unsuspecting cultures responded. We engage in the “Ghost Dance,” a painful and contradictory accommodation that at once reaches back to grasp disappearing cultural norms while simultaneously rejecting and embracing disruptive alien novelties." [2]

The great lie tells us a lot about ourselves. The truth about the founding of America isn't noble, it's a horror story that once begun, lasted until the early 1900's. One could argue that the denial of these deeds has led to a near constant exploitation of the First Peoples. Our desire to have a heritage that supports our ethnocentric beliefs destroys any hope we have of comprehending our true place in world history.

Conservative religious groups, fearing the growth of secularism, cite this false history and heritage as evidence their ideology is the "true purpose" of our nation and the foundation on which our society is built. The truth is that our society is based on systematic cruelty and genocide. Instead of whitewashing this period in history with fantasies of the "first thanksgiving" we should be willing to examine our heritage with a critical eye, and consider what it means for our future.

In Remembrance Of The People, A Cherokees thoughts on the founding of America.

[1] Deconstructing the Myths of “The First Thanksgiving” by Judy Dow (Abenaki) and Beverly Slapin
[2] The Ghost Dances, Paul Saffo, UC Berkley Alumni Association Newsletter, Sept 2005

Something beyond life

2007-02-27T12:10:00.000-08:00

The belief in some higher level of consciousness or spirituality that humans attain upon death fulfills some psychic need. This belief is found in nearly all cultures throughout the world. The ceremonies and funerary practices that accompany death are designed to express each cultures belief in the "hereafter".

Spirits and ghosts represent our belief in a separate dimension to which we transcend upon death. The mysterious forces that make floors squeak and cause us to see apparitions in shadow, are compelling for the reason that as terrifying as it would be, we would all love to see a ghost.

A ghost would confirm everything. A ghost means there is someplace to go to when we die. According to folklore, to keep from wandering the earth for an eternity and haunting succeeding generations, we must live our lives according to certain principles, and avoid certain traps.

A review of the reasons cited for hauntings might give us a glimpse into this morality play. We find jilted lovers, Romeo & Juliet pairings, dead children, and a host of other familiar themes. We see the consequence of someone who chooses a lonely vigil rather than to remarry someone else. She paces up and down on a windswept sea-side outcropping of land waiting for her fiance to return from the sea. The moral is: If your husband goes out for groceries and hasn't come back in a couple of years, maybe you need to move on with your life.

Ghosts are here to stay, and our best defense against them is to understand where they really come from.

Some interesting ghost stories here:

Headless Ghosts I have Known

James Mooney

2007-02-27T08:31:00.000-08:00

Much that is known of the life of the Cherokee is owed to James Mooney (1861-1921.) It is through the efforts of Mooney that we know anything of the the mythology, shamanistic practices, and spirituality of the first people of the Appalachian region.

James Mooney was born in Richmond Indiana in 1861. He worked as a newsman in his hometown before moving to Washington DC. In Washington, his fascination with North American Indian culture resulted in a job with the Bureau of American Ethnology where he remained for his lifetime, studying the mythology of the Cherokee, Kiowa, and Sioux tribes. He lived with the Cherokee for years, and established a relationship that gave him unprecedented access to Cherokee "Medicine" practices.

It must be noted that virtually all of Moody's descriptions of Cherokee myth are in his own voice. Someone told him the story, and he put it in words that a white person would understand. We hear the Tsalagi's own voice in several transcriptions of sacred texts prepared by translators. Many of these are available online. Mooney is all we have of Cherokee life in the late 1800's, and many of my posts come directly from those texts.

Other Mooney celebrated publications concerned the "Ghost Dance" phenomena that swept through the native nations of the west around 1891. For a critical analysis of Mooney's photographs and illustrations of the Ghost Dance, read Reading Photographs:Imaging and Imagining the Ghost Dance: James Mooney's Illustrations and Photographs, 1891-1893 Thomas W. Kavanagh . It is interesting to note that the fears stirred by the Ghost Dance in 1891 amongst whites lead to the murder of Sitting Bull and the massacre at Wounded Knee.

References:

The Ghost Dances, by Paul Saffo, California Alumni Association Issue Sept/Oct 2005, UC Berkely Alumni

Reading Photographs:Imaging and Imagining the Ghost Dance:
James Mooney's Illustrations and Photographs, 1891-1893 Thomas W. Kavanagh

Sacred Texts - Native American - Southeastern - Cherokee, sacred-texts.com

Archives, Manuscripts, Photographs catalogue, SIRIS - Smithsonian Institution Research Information System, Smithsonian Institute

To frighten or redirect a storm . . .

2007-02-27T07:00:00.000-08:00

HIA' UNÁLE (ATEST'YÏ)

Yuhahi', yuhahi', yuhahi', yuhahi', yuhahi',Yuhahi', yuhahi', yuhahi', yuhahi', yuhahi'--Yû!

Sgë! Ha-nâ'gwa hïnahûn'ski tayï'. Ha-tâ'sti-gwû gûnska'ihû. Tsûtali'i-gwati'na halu'`nï. Kû'nigwati'na dula'ska galû'nlati-gwû witu'ktï. Wigûnyasë'hïsï. Â'talï tsugû'nyï wite'tsatanû'nûnsï' nûnnâhï tsane'lagï de'gatsana'wadise'stï. Kûnstû' dutsasû'nï atû'nwasûtë'hahï' tsûtûneli'sestï. Sgë!

Translation.

THIS IS TO FRIGHTEN A STORM.

Yuhahi', yuhahi', yuhahi', yuhahi', yuhahi',Yuhahi', yuhahi', yuhahi', yuhahi', yuhahi'--Yû!

Listen! O now you are coming in rut. Ha! I am exceedingly afraid of you. But yet you are only tracking your wife. Her footprints can be seen there directed upward toward the heavens. I have pointed them out for you. Let your paths stretch out along the tree tops (?) on the lofty mountains (and) you shall have them (the paths) lying down without being disturbed, Let (your path) as you go along be where the waving branches meet. Listen!

Explanation.

This formula, from A`yû'ninï's book, is for driving away, or "frightening" a storm, which threatens to injure the growing corn. The first part is a meaningless song, which is sung in a low tone in the peculiar style of most of the sacred songs. The storm, which is not directly named, is then addressed and declared to be coming on in a fearful manner on the track of his wife, like an animal in the rutting season. The shaman points out her tracks directed toward the upper regions and begs the storm spirit to follow her along the waving tree tops of the lofty mountains, where he shall be undisturbed.

The shaman stands facing the approaching storm with one hand stretched out toward it. After repeating the song and prayer he gently blows in the direction toward which he wishes it to go, waving his hand in the same direction as though pushing away the storm. A part of the storm is usually sent into the upper regions of the atmosphere. If standing at the edge of the field, he holds a blade of corn in one hand while repeating the ceremony.

THE SACRED FORMULAS OF THE CHEROKEES, James Mooney, 7th Annual report, Bureau of American Ethnology. [1891]

Fantasy Prone Personalities

2007-02-26T18:36:00.000-08:00

People who report ghosts, UFO sightings or abductions, and occult phenomena all share one thing in common. Fantasy Proneness is a personality trait that includes such features as having a rich fantasy life, showing high hypnotic susceptibility, claiming psychic abilities and healing powers, reporting out-of-body experiences and vivid or "waking" dreams, having apparitional experiences and religious visions, and exhibiting automatic writing. Studies have shown that in the alien abduction crowd, a high degree of fantasy proneness exists in almost all cases.

A mild degree of fantasy proneness must exist in people who believe these stories. People want to believe them for at least two closely related reasons:

1. Belief in life after death, or in post-death existence of some form.
2. Belief in a universe that extends out beyond our experience to where great powers lie.

If you believe in ghosts of any form, then you have your proof of life after death. You know there must be something "on the other side " if ghost stories are true. Ghosts answer one of our most basic questions.

Aliens and abductions indicate a greater universe beyond our comprehension, if not our imaginations. If Aliens are true, then there must be something beyond what we know of the universe and life.

Keep this in mind when you're watching your next television dramatization. Listen closely to the testimony from the claimants and any principle witnesses. You'll see a similarity in their beliefs, fears, and imaginations.

Resources:

Skeptical Inquirer http://www.csicop.org/si/9605/mack.html

Snake Bites

2007-02-26T17:27:00.000-08:00

HIÂ' I'NATÛ YUNISKÛ'LTSA ADANÛ'NWÂTÎ.

1. Dûnu'wa, dûnu'wa, dûnu'wa, dûnu'wa, dûnu'wa, dûnu'wa (song).

Sgë! Ha-Walâ'sï-gwû tsûnlû'ntani'ga.

2. Dayuha, dayuha, dayuha, dayuha dayuha (song).

Sgë! Ha-Usugï-gwû tsûn-lûn'-tani'ga.

(Degâ'sisisgû'nï).--Kanâgi'ta nâyâ'ga hiä' dilentisg'ûnï. Ta'lï igû'n-kw?ta`tï, ûlë' talinë' tsutanû'nna nasgwû' tâ'lï igû'nkw?ta`tï'. Tsâ'la aganû'nlieskâï' tsâ'la yikani'gûngû'âï' watsi'la-gwû ganûnli'yëtï uniskûl`tsû'nï. Nû'`kï nagade'stisgâï' aganûnli'esgûnï. Akskû'nï gades-t'a`tï, nûû`kï nagade' sta hûntsatasgâ'ï. Hiä-`nû' i'natû akti'sï udestâ'ï yigû'n`ka, naski-`nû' tsagadû'lägisgâ'ï iyu'stï gatgû'ni.

English Translation.

THIS IS TO TREAT THEM IF THEY ARE BITTEN BY A SNAKE.

1. Dûnu'wa, dûnu'wa, dûnu'wa, dûnu'wa, dûnu'wa, dûnu'wa. (sung softly)

Listen! Ha! It is only a common frog which has passed by and put it (the intruder) into you.
2. Dayuha', dayuha, dayuha, dayuha, dayuha.

Listen! Ha! It is only an Us'`gï which has passed by and put it into you.

(Prescription.)--Now this at the beginning is a song. One should say it twice and also say the second line twice.

Rub tobacco (juice) on the bite for some time, or if there be no tobacco just rub on saliva once. In rubbing it on, one must go around four times. Go around toward the left and blow four times in a circle. This is because in lying down the snake always coils to the right and this is just the same as uncoiling it.

Explanation.

This is also from the manuscript book of Gahuni, deceased, so that no explanation could be obtained from the writer. The formula consists of a song of two verses, each followed by a short recitation. The whole is repeated, according to the directions, so as to make four verses or songs; four, as already stated, being the sacred number running through most of these formulas. Four blowing's and four circuits in the rubbing are also specified.

The words used in the songs are sometimes composed of unmeaning syllables, but in this case dûnuwa and dayuha seem to have a meaning, although neither the interpreter nor the shaman consulted could explain them, which may be because the words have become altered in the song, as frequently happens.

Dûnu'wa appears to be an old verb, meaning "it has penetrated," probably referring to the tooth of the reptile. These medicine songs are always sung in a low plaintive tone, somewhat resembling a lullaby. Usu'`gï also is without explanation, but is probably the name of some small reptile.

As in this case the cause of the trouble is evident, the Indians have no theory to account for it. It may be remarked, however, that when one dreams of being bitten, the same treatment and ceremonies must be used as for the actual bite; otherwise, although perhaps years afterward, a similar inflammation will appear on the spot indicated in the dream, and will be followed by the same fatal consequences.

The rattlesnake is regarded as a supernatural being or ada'wehi, whose favor must be propitiated, and great pains are taken not to offend him. In consonance with this idea it is never said among the people that a person has been bitten by a snake, but that he has been "scratched by a brier." In the same way, when an eagle has been shot for a ceremonial dance, it is announced that "a snowbird has been killed," the purpose being to deceive the rattlesnake or eagle spirits which might be listening

The assertion that it is "only a common frog" or" only an Usu'?gï brings out another characteristic idea of these formulas. Whenever the ailment is of a serious character, or, according to the Cherokee theory, whenever it is due to the influence of some powerful disease spirit the doctor always endeavors to throw contempt upon the intruder, and convince it of his own superior power by asserting the sickness to be the work of some inferior being, just as a white physician might encourage a patient far gone with consumption by telling him that the, illness was only a slight cold.

Sometimes there is a regular scale of depreciation, the doctor first ascribing the disease to a rabbit or groundhog or some other weak animal, then in succeeding paragraphs mentioning other still less important animals and finally declaring it to be the work of a mouse, a small fish, or some other insignificant creature. In this instance an ailment caused by the rattlesnake, the most dreaded of the animal spirits, is ascribed to a frog, one of the least importance.

In applying the remedy the song is probably sung while rubbing the tobacco juice around the wound. Then the short recitation is repeated and the doctor blows four times in a circle about the spot. The whole ceremony is repeated four times. The curious directions for uncoiling the snake have parallels in European folk medicine.

THE SACRED FORMULAS OF THE CHEROKEES, James Mooney, 7th Annual report, Bureau of American Ethnology. [1891]

Renewed hope for Afghanistan

2007-02-26T08:50:00.000-08:00

Britain is sending 1,400 more troops to Afghanistan, bringing their total contingent to 7,700, more than they have serving in Iraq. This increased committment is psychological boost to our other NATO allies.

I've been reading some "doom & gloom" articles regarding Afghanistan, but this morning I've found reason for hope.

NATO's Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Saturday he thinks the back of the insurgency in Afghanistan will be “broken” and that the country will be on the road to a long-term peace by 2009.

The Taliban have been making comebacks throughout the Pashtun tribal belt, culminating in a spring 2006 offensive where the Taliban attempted to retake Kandahar. They lost, and got their butts kicked right back to the border of Pakistan, where they have sought refuge.

NATO commanders have expressed confidence they are able to defeat any Taliban military effort in the coming months. But they have complained that, in the past, battlefield successes were not followed up by reconstruction aid to help rebuild regions devastated by the fighting.
Earlier this month, the EU Commission proposed a new $780 million package for Afghanistan to focus on health, justice and rural development over the next four years.

This is good news. Someone in the world is stepping forward to take care of the things the US military cannot. Our military can roll over anyone in the world, seize their ground and hold it. They cannot transform the society they find there into something it isn't or never has been.
It takes a lot of money and work from smart, compassionate, and pragmatic allies to make that effort a success.

There won't be any need for NATO in the future if the alliance can't handle the funding issues of its member states. In the past, funding for material transfers as been sort of a lottery where the winner actually loses. Depending on the rotation position, deployments may be paid for in entirety by Luxembourg, Belgium, or some other small country. Nato needs to work it out such that deployments are paid for by all of the members of the alliance in a fair manner.

The Bear Man

2007-02-25T22:11:00.000-08:00

A man went hunting in the mountains and came across a black bear, which he wounded with an arrow. The bear turned and started to run the other way, and the hunter followed, shooting one arrow after another into it without bringing it down. Now, this was a medicine bear, and could talk or read the thoughts of people without their saying a word. At last he stopped and pulled the arrows out of his side and gave them to the man, saying, "It is of no use for you to shoot at me, for you can not kill me. Come to my house and let us live together." The hunter thought to himself, "He may kill me;" but the bear read his thoughts and said, "No, I won't hurt you." The man thought again, "How can I get anything to eat?" but the bear knew his thoughts, and said, "There shall be plenty." So the hunter went with the bear.

They went on together until they came to a hole in the side of the mountain, and the bear said, "This is not where I live, but there is going to be a council here and we will see what they do." They went in, and the hole widened as they went, until they came to a large cave like a townhouse. It was full of bears--old bears, young bears, and cubs, white bears, black bears, and brown bears--and a large white bear was the chief. They sat down in a corner, but soon the bears scented the hunter and began to ask, "What is it that smells bad?" The chief said, "Don't talk so. It is only a stranger come to see us. Let him alone."

Food was getting scarce in the mountains, and the council was to decide what to do about it. They had Sent out messengers all over, and while they were talking two bears came in and reported that they had found a country in the low grounds where there were so many chestnuts and acorns that mast was knee deep.

Then they were all pleased, and got ready for a dance, and the dance leader was the one we call Kalâs'-gûnähi'ta, "Long Hams," a great black bear that is always lean. After the dance the bears noticed the hunter's bow and arrows, and one said, "This is what men use to kill us. Let us see if we can manage them, and maybe we can fight man with his own weapons."

So they took the bow and arrows from the hunter to try them. They fitted the arrow and drew back the string, but when they let go it caught in their long claws and the arrows dropped to the ground. They saw that they could not use the bow and arrows and gave them back to the man.

When the dance and the council were over, they began to go home, excepting the White Bear chief, who lived there, and at last the hunter and the bear went out together. They went on until they came to another hole in the side of the mountain, when the bear said, "This is where I live," and they went in. By this time the hunter was very hungry and was wondering how he could get something to eat.

The other knew his thoughts, and sitting up on his hind legs he rubbed his stomach with his forepaws--so--and at once he had both paws full of chestnuts and gave them to the man. He rubbed his stomach again--so--and had his paws full of huckleberries, and gave them to the man. He rubbed again--so--and gave the man both paws full of blackberries. He rubbed again--so--and had his paws full of acorns, but the man said that he could not eat them, and that he had enough already.

The hunter lived in the cave with the bear all winter, until long hair like that of a bear began to grow all over his body and he began to act like a bear; but he still walked like a man. One day in early spring the bear said to him, "Your people down in the settlement are getting ready for a grand hunt in these mountains, and they will come to this cave and kill me and take these clothes from me"--he meant his skin--" but they will not hurt you and will take you home with them."

The bear knew what the people were doing down in the settlement just as he always knew what the man was thinking about. Some days passed and the bear said again, "This is the day when the Topknots will come to kill me, but the Split-noses will come first and find us. When they have killed me they will drag me outside the cave and take off my clothes and cut me in pieces. You must cover the blood with leaves, and when they are taking you away look back after you have gone a piece and you will see something."

Soon they heard the hunters coming up the mountain, and then the dogs found the cave and began to bark. The hunters came and looked inside and saw the bear and killed him with their arrows. Then they dragged him outside the cave and skinned the body and cut it in quarters to carry home. The dogs kept on barking until the hunters thought there must be another bear in the cave. They looked in again and saw the man away at the farther end.

At first they thought it was another bear on account of his long hair, but they soon saw it was the hunter who had been lost the year before, so they went in and brought him out. Then each hunter took a load of the bear meat and they started home again, bringing the man and the skin with them. Before they left the man piled leaves over the spot where they had cut up the bear, and when they had gone a little way he looked behind and saw the bear rise up out of the leaves, shake himself, and go back into the woods.

When they came near the settlement the man told the hunters that he must be shut up where no one could see him, without anything to eat or drink for seven days and nights, until the bear nature had left him and he became like a man again. So they shut him up alone in a house and tried to keep very still about it, but the news got out and his wife heard of it.

She came for her husband, but the people would not let her near him; but she came every day and begged so hard that at last after four or five days they let her have him. She took him home with her, but in a short time he died, because he still had a bear's nature and could not live like a man. If they had kept him shut up and fasting until the end of the seven days he would have become a man again and would have lived.

People must not go against their nature. "Medicine" animals, those possessing magical properties cannot be killed before their time. A hunter who kills one only kills the physical manifestation of the animal. The animals spirit can then spring forth from their blood droplets with a complete new physical body. They can read a human thoughts, and communicate with humans through human language.

Humans that adopt the ways of animals will change into animals, and will die when moving from animal spirit realm to the physical world, or vice versa unless the proper ceremony (fasting for 7 days) is followed.

Origin of Bears (Yanu) - Tsalagi

2007-02-25T21:50:00.000-08:00

Long ago there was a Cherokee clan called the Ani'-Tsâ'gûhï, and in one family of this clan was a boy who used to leave home and be gone all day in the mountains. After a while he went more often and stayed longer, until at last he would not eat in the house at all, but started off at daybreak and did not come back until night.

His parents scolded, but that did no good, and the boy, still went every day until they noticed that long brown hair was beginning to grow out all over his body. Then they wondered and asked him why it was that he wanted to be so much in the woods that he would not even eat at home. Said the boy, "I find plenty to eat there, and it is better than the corn and beans we have in the settlements, and pretty soon I am going into the woods to stay all the time."

His parents were worried and begged him not to leave them, but he said, "It is better there than here, and you see I am beginning to be different already, so that I can not live here any longer. If you will come with me, there is plenty for all of us and you will never have to work for it; but if you want to come you must first fast seven days."

The father and mother talked it over and then told the headmen of the clan. They held a council about the matter and after everything had been said they decided: "Here we must work hard and have not always enough. There he says there is always plenty without work. We will go with him." So they fasted seven days, and on the seventh morning all the Ani'-Tsâ'gûhï left the settlement and started for the mountains as the boy led the way.

When the people of the other towns heard of it they were very sorry and sent their headmen to persuade the Ani'-Tsâ'gûhï to stay at home and not go into the woods to live. The messengers found them already on the way, and were surprised to notice that their bodies were beginning to be covered with hair like that of animals, because for seven days they had not taken human food and their nature was changing.

The Ani'-Tsâ'gûhï would not come back, but said, "We are going where there is always plenty to eat. Hereafter we shall be called yânû (bears), and when you yourselves are hungry come into the woods and call us and we shall come to give you our own flesh. You need not be afraid to kill us, for we shall live always."

Then they taught the messengers the songs with which to call them, and the bear hunters have these songs still. When they had finished the songs the Ani'-Tsâ'gûhï started on again and the messengers turned back to the settlements, but after going a little way they looked back and saw a drove of bears going into the woods.

First Bear Song

He-e! Ani'-Tsâ'gûhï, Ani'-Tsâ'gûhï, akwandu'li e'lanti' ginûn'ti, Ani'-Tsâ'gûhï, Ani'-Tsâ'gûhï, akwandu'li e'lanti' ginûn'ti--Yû!

In English:

Hey! The Ani'-Tsâ'gûhï, the Ani'-Tsâ'gûhï, I want to lay them low on the ground, The Ani'-Tsâ'gûhï, the Ani'-Tsâ'gûhï, I want to lay them low on the ground,--Yû!

The bear hunter starts out each morning fasting and does not eat until near evening. He sings this song as he leaves camp, and again the next morning, but never twice the same day.

Second Bear Song

This song also is sung by the bear hunter, in order to attract the bears, while on his way from the camp to the place where he expects to hunt during the day. The melody is simple and plaintive.

He-e! Hayuya'haniwä', hayuya'haniwä', hayuya'haniwä', hayuya'haniwä', Tsistuyi' nehandu'yanû', Tsistuyi' nehandu'yanû'--Yoho-o! He-e!

Hayuya'haniwä', hayuya'haniwä', hayuya'haniwä', hayuya'haniwä', Kuwâhi' nehandu'yanû', Kuwâhi' nehandu'yanû',--Yoho-o!He-e!

Hayuya'haniwä', hayuya'haniwä', hayuya'haniwä', hayuya'haniwä', Uyâhye' nehandu'yanû', Uyâhye' nehandu'yanû',--Yoho-o!He-e!

Hayuya'haniwä', hayuya'haniwä', hayuya'haniwä', hayuya'haniwä', Gâte'gwâ' nehandu'yanû', Gâte'gwâ' nehandu'yanû',--Yoho-o!

(Recited) Ûlë-`nû' asëhï' tadeyâ'statakûhï' gûñ'näge astû' tsïkï'

In English:

He! Hayuya'haniwä' (four times), In Tsistu'yï you were conceived (two times)--Yoho!He! Hayuya'haniwä' (four times), In Kuwâ'hï you were conceived (two times)--Yoho!He! Hayuya'haniwä' (four times), In Uyâ'hye you were conceived (two times)--Yoho!He! Hayuya'haniwä' (four times), In Gâte'gwâ you were conceived (two times)--Yoho!

And now surely we and the good black things, the best of all, shall see each other.

Tsistu'yï, Kuwâ'hï, Uyâ'`yë, and Gâte'kwâhï are four mountains, in each of which the bears have a townhouse and hold a dance before going into their dens for the winter. The first three named are high peaks in the Smoky Mountains, on the Tennessee line, in the neighborhood of Clingman's Dome and Mount Guyot. The fourth is southeast of Franklin, North Carolina, toward the South Carolina line, and may be identical with Fodderstack Mountain. In Kuwahi dwells the great bear chief and doctor, in whose magic bath the wounded bears are restored to health. They are said to originate or be conceived in the mountains named, because these are their headquarters. The "good black things" referred to in the recitation are the bears.

The Underground Panthers

2007-02-25T21:36:00.000-08:00

A hunter was in the woods one day in winter when suddenly he saw a panther coming toward him and at once prepared to defend himself. The panther continued to approach, and the hunter was just about to shoot when the animal spoke, and at once it seemed to the man as if there was no difference between them, and they were both of the same nature. The panther asked him where he was going, and the man said that he was looking for a deer. "Well," said the panther, "we are getting ready for a Green-corn dance, and there are seven of us out after a buck, so we may as well hunt together."

The hunter agreed and they went on together. They started up one deer and another, but the panther made no sign, and said only "Those are too small; we want something better." So the hunter did not shoot, and they went on. They started up another deer, a larger one, and the panther sprang upon it and tore its throat, and finally killed it after a hard struggle. The hunter got out his knife to skin it, but the panther said the skin was too much torn to be used and they must try again. They started up another large deer, and this the panther killed without trouble, and then, wrapping his tail around it, threw it across his back. "Now, come to our townhouse," he said to the hunter.

The panther led the way, carrying the captured deer upon his back, up a little stream branch until they came to the head spring, when it seemed as if a door opened in the side of the hill and they went in. Now the hunter found himself in front of a large townhouse, with the finest detsänûñ'lï he had ever seen, and the trees around were green, and the air was warm, as in summer. There was a great company there getting ready for the dance, and they were all panthers, but somehow it all seemed natural to the hunter.

After a while the others who had been out came in with the deer they had taken, and the dance began. The hunter danced several rounds, and then said it was growing late and he must be getting home. So the panthers opened the door and he went out, and at once found himself alone in the woods again, and it was winter and very cold, with snow on the ground and on all the trees.

When he reached the settlement he found a party just starting out to search for him. They asked him where he had been so long, and he told them the story, and then he found that he had been in the panther townhouse several days instead of only a very short time, as he had thought. He died within seven days after his return, because he had already begun to take on the panther nature, and so could not live again with men. If he had stayed with the panthers he would have lived.

Like the number 4, the number 7 is a special number with magic properties. Whenever Tsalagi use numbers in the telling of a story, 7 is the number used to attach magical or mysterious importance to events, as 4 is often used by conjurers or shaman. This is nearly identical to the Bear Man story, except the hunter doesn't maintain his fast for 7 days, because his wife was weak.

People must not go against nature. Men who try to adopt the nature of animals, are no longer men. Medicine animals can talk to humans, who perceive them as speaking in their own languagge. When a human is among the magic animals of myth, he loses track of time, and what seems like only one day is actually several to the people of the physical world.

Atagâ'hï - The enchanted lake - Tsalagi

2007-02-25T21:16:00.000-08:00

Westward from the headwaters of Oconaluftee river, in the wildest depths of the, Great Smoky mountains, which form the line between North Carolina and Tennessee, is the enchanted lake of Atagâ'hï, "Gall place." Although all the Cherokee know that it is there, no one has ever seen it, for the way is so difficult that only the animals know how to reach it.

Should a stray hunter come near the place he would know of it by the whirring sound of the thousands of wild ducks flying about the lake, but on reaching the spot he would find only a dry flat, without bird or animal or blade of grass, unless he had first sharpened his spiritual vision by prayer and fasting and an all-night vigil.

Because it is not seen, some people think the lake has dried up long ago, but this is not true. To one who had kept watch and fast through the night it would appear at daybreak as a wide-extending but shallow sheet of purple water, fed by springs spouting from the high cliffs around. In the water are all kinds of fish and reptiles, and swimming upon the surface or flying overhead are great flocks of ducks and pigeons, while all about the shores are bear tracks crossing in every direction.

It is the medicine lake of the birds and animals, and whenever a bear is wounded by the hunters he makes his way through the woods to this lake and plunges into the water, and when he comes out upon the other side his wounds are healed. For this reason the animals keep the lake invisible to the hunter.

THE SACRED FORMULAS OF THE CHEROKEES, James Mooney, 7th Annual report, Bureau of American Ethnology. [1891]

The four-footed tribes

2007-02-25T16:06:00.000-08:00

In Tsalagi mythology there is no essential difference between humans and animals. In the primeval period they seem to be completely undifferentiated, and we find all creatures alike living and working together in harmony and mutual helpfulness until man, by his aggressiveness and disregard for the rights of the others, provokes their hostility and insects, birds, fishes, reptiles, and four-footed beasts join forces against him (see post, "Origin of Disease and Medicine.")

Henceforth their lives are apart, but the difference is always one of degree only. The animals, like the people, are organized into settlements and have their elders, townhouses, councils and ball games, and the same hereafter in the Darkening land of Us'ûñhi'yï.

Man is still the paramount power, and hunts and slaughters the others as his own needs compel, but is obliged to satisfy the animal tribes in every instance, very much as a murder is atoned for according to the custom of "covering the bones of the dead" with presents for the bereaved relatives.

This pardon to the hunter is made easier through a peculiar doctrine of reincarnation, according to which, as explained by the shamans, there is assigned to every animal a definite life term which can not be curtailed by violent means.

If it is killed before the expiration of the allotted time the death is only temporary and the body is immediately resurrected in its proper shape from the blood drops, and the animal continues its existence until the end of the predestined period, when the body is finally dissolved and the liberated spirit goes to join its kindred shades in the Darkening land called Us'ûñhi'yï

This idea appears in the story of the bear man and in the belief concerning the Little Deer. Death is thus but a temporary accident and the killing a minor crime. By some priests it is held that there are seven successive reanimations before the final end.

Certain supernatural personages, Kana'tï and Tsul`kälû' (see the myths), have dominion over the animals, and are therefore regarded as the distinctive gods of the hunter. Kana'tï at one time kept the game animals, as well as the pestiferous insects, shut up in a cave under ground, from which they were released by his undutiful sons.

The primeval animals, (the actors in the animal myths and the predecessors of the existing species,) are believed to have been much larger, stronger, and more clever than their successors of the present day. In these myths we find the aboriginal explanation of certain peculiarities of form, color, or habit, and the various animals are always consistently represented as acting in accordance with their well-known characteristics.

First and most prominent in the animal myths is the Rabbit (Tsistu), who figures always as a trickster and deceiver, generally malicious, but often beaten at his own game by those whom he had intended to victimize. The connection of the rabbit with the dawn god and the relation of the aboriginal myths to the stories current among the southern negroes are well known.

Ball players while in training are forbidden to eat the flesh of the rabbit, because this animal so easily becomes confused in running. On the other hand, their spies seek opportunity to strew along the path which must be taken by their rivals a soup made of rabbit hamstrings, with the purpose of rendering them timid.

In a ball game between the birds and the four-footed animals (see story) the Bat, which took sides with the birds, is said to have won the victory for his party by his superior dodging abilities. For this reason the wings or sometimes the stuffed skin of the bat are tied to the implements used in the game to insure success for the players.

According to the same myth the Flying Squirrel (Tewa) also aided in securing the victory, and hence both these animals are still invoked by the ball player. The meat of the common gray squirrel (sälâ'lï) is forbidden to rheumatic patients, on account of the squirrel's habit of assuming a cramped position when eating.

The stripes upon the back of the ground squirrel (kiyu`ga, or 'chipmunk') are the mark of scratches made by the angry animals at a memorable council in which he took it upon himself to say a good word for their archenemy, Man (see "Origin of Disease and Medicine").

The buffalo, the largest game animal of America, was hunted in the southern Allegheny region until almost the close of the last century, the particular species being probably that known in the West as the wood or mountain buffalo. The name in use among the principal gulf tribes was practically the same -- Cherokee, yûñsû'; Hichitee, ya'nasi; Creek, yëna'sa; Choctaw, yanash.

Although the flesh of the buffalo was eaten, its skin dressed for blankets and bed coverings, its long hair woven into belts, and its horns carved into spoons, it is yet strangely absent from Cherokee folklore. So far as is known it is mentioned in but a single one of the sacred formulas, in which a person under treatment for rheumatism is forbidden to eat the meat, touch the skin, or use a spoon made from the horn of the buffalo.

The elk is known, probably by report, under the name of a`wï e'gwa, "great deer", but there is no myth or folklore in connection with it. The deer, a`wï', which is still common in the mountains, was the principal dependence of the Cherokee hunter, and is consequently prominent in myth, folklore, and ceremony. One of the seven gentes of the tribe is named from it (Ani'-Kawï', "Deer People").

Rheumatism is usually ascribed to the work of revengeful deer ghosts, which the hunter has neglected to placate, while on the other hand the aid of the deer is invoked against frostbite, as its feet are believed to be immune from injury by frost. The wolf, the fox, and the opossum are also invoked for this purpose, and for the same reason.

When the redroot (Ceanothus americanus) puts forth its leaves the people say the young fawns are then in the mountains. On killing a deer the hunter always cuts out the hamstring from the hind quarter and throws it away, for fear that if he ate it he would thereafter tire easily in traveling.

The powerful chief of the deer tribe is the A`wï' Usdi', or "Little Deer," who is invisible to all except the greatest masters of the hunting secrets, and can be wounded only by the hunter who has supplemented years of occult study with frequent fasts and lonely vigils. The Little Deer keeps constant protecting watch over his subjects, and sees well to it that not one is ever killed in wantonness. When a deer is shot by the hunter the Little Deer knows it at once and is instantly at the spot. Bending low his head he asks of the blood stains upon the ground if they have heard--i.e., if the hunter has asked pardon for the life that he has taken.

If the correct prayer has been made, all is well, because the necessary sacrifice has been atoned for; but if otherwise, the Little Deer tracks the hunter to his house by the blood drops along the trail, and, unseen and unsuspected, puts into his body the spirit of rheumatism that shall rack him with aches and pains from that time henceforth.

As seen at rare intervals, (perhaps once in a long lifetime,) the Little Deer is pure white and about the size of a small dog, has branching antlers, and is always in company with a large herd of deer. Even though shot by the master hunter, he comes to life again, being immortal, but the fortunate huntsman who can thus make prize of his antlers has in them an unfailing talisman that brings him success in the chase forever after. The smallest portion of one of those horns of the Little Deer, when properly consecrated, attracts the deer to the hunter, and when exposed from the wrapping dazes them so that they forget to run and thus become an easy prey.

Like the Ulûñsû'tî stone, it is a dangerous prize when not treated with proper respect, and must be kept in a secret place away from the house to guard against sacrilegious handling.
Somewhat similar talismanic power attached to the down from the young antler of the deer when properly consecrated. So firm was the belief that it had influence over "anything about a deer" that eighty and a hundred years ago even white traders used to bargain with the Indians for such charms in order to increase their store of deerskins by drawing the trade to themselves.

The faith in the existence of the miraculous Little Deer is almost as strong and universal to-day among the older Cherokee as is the belief in a future life.

The bears (yânû) are transformed Cherokee of the old clan of the Ani'-Tsâ'gûhï (see story, "Origin of the Bear"). Their chief is the White Bear, who lives at Kuwâ'hï, "Mulberry place," one of the high peaks of the Great Smoky mountains, near to the enchanted lake of Atagâ'hï, to which the wounded bears go to be cured of their hurts. Under Kuwâ'hï and each of three other peaks in the same mountain region the bears have townhouses, where they congregate and hold dances every fall before retiring to their dens for the winter.

Being really human, they can talk if they only would, and once a mother bear was heard singing to her cub in words which the hunter understood. There is one variety known as kalâs'-gûnâhi'ta, "long hams," described as a large black bear with long legs and small feet, which is always lean, and which the hunter does not care to shoot, possibly on account of its leanness. It is believed that new-born cubs are hairless, like mice.

The wolf (wa'`ya) is revered as the hunter and watchdog of Kana'tï, and the largest gens in the tribe bears the name of Ani'-wa'`ya, "Wolf people." The ordinary Cherokee will never kill one if he can possibly avoid it, but will let the animal go by unharmed, believing that the kindred of a slain wolf will surely revenge his death, and that the weapon with which the deed is done will be rendered worthless for further shooting until cleaned and exercised by a medicine man. Certain persons, however, having knowledge of the proper atonement rites, may kill wolves with impunity, and are hired for this purpose by others who have suffered from raids upon their fish traps or their stock.

Like the eagle killer (see "The Bird Tribes"), the professional wolf killer, after killing one of these animals, addresses to it a prayer in which he seeks to turn aside the vengeance of the tribe by laying the burden of blame upon the people of some other settlement. He then unscrews the barrel of his gun and inserts into it seven small sourwood rods heated over the fire, and allows it to remain thus overnight in the running stream; in the morning the rods are taken out and the barrel is thoroughly dried and cleaned.

The dog (gi`lï'), although as much a part of Indian life among the Cherokee as in other tribes, hardly appears in folklore. One myth makes him responsible for the milky way; another represents him as driving the wolf from the comfortable house fire and taking the place for himself. He figures also in connection with the deluge.

The anatomical peculiarities of the opossum, of both sexes, are the subject of much curious speculation among the aboriginals, many of whom believe that its young are produced without any help from the male. It occurs in one or two of the minor myths.

The odor of the skunk (dïlä') is believed to keep off contagious diseases, and the scent bag is therefore taken out and hung over the doorway, a small hole being pierced in it in order that the contents may ooze out upon the timbers. At times, as in the smallpox epidemic of 1866, the entire body of the animal was thus hung up, and in some cases, as an additional safeguard, the meat was cooked and eaten and the oil rubbed over the skin of the person. The underlying idea is that the fetid smell repels the disease spirit, and upon the same principle the buzzard, which is so evidently superior to carrion smells, is held to be powerful against the same diseases.

The beaver (dâ'yï), by reason of its well-known gnawing ability, against which even the hardest wood is not proof, is invoked on behalf of young children just getting their permanent teeth. According to the little formula which is familiar to nearly every mother in the tribe, when the loosened milk tooth is pulled out or drops out of itself, the child runs with it around the house, repeating four times, "Dâ'yï, skïntä' (Beaver, put a new tooth into my jaw)" after which he throws the tooth upon the roof of the house.

In a characteristic song formula to prevent frostbite the traveler, before starting out on a cold winter morning, rubs his feet in the ashes of the fire and sings a song of four verses, by means of which, according to the aboriginal idea, he acquires in turn the cold-defying powers of the wolf, deer, fox, and opossum, four animals whose feet, it is held, are never frostbitten. After each verse he imitates the cry and the action of the animal. The words used are archaic in form and may be rendered "I become a real wolf," etc.

The song runs:

Tsûñ'wa'`ya-ya' (repeated four times), wa + a! (prolonged howl). (Imitates a wolf pawing the ground with his feet.)

Tsûñ'-ka'wi-ye' (repeated four times), sauh! sauh! sauh! sauh! (Imitates call and jumping of a deer.)

Tsûñ'-tsu'`la-ya' (repeated four times), gaih! gaih! gaih! gaih! (Imitates barking and scratching of a fox.)

Tsûñ'-sï'kwa-ya' (repeated four times), kï +. (Imitates the cry of an opossum when cornered, and throws his head back as that animal does when feigning death.)

Throughout Tsalagi mythology we see that animals, plants, and people are all related. Proper balance between these people is essential. Anything that throws the balance off must be atoned.

Origin of disease and medicine - Tsalagi

2007-02-25T12:12:00.000-08:00

In the old days the beasts, birds, fishes, insects, and plants could all talk, and they and the people lived together in peace and friendship. But as time went on the people increased so rapidly that their settlements spread over the whole earth, and the poor animals found themselves beginning to be cramped for room. This was bad enough, but to make it worse Man invented bows, knives, blowguns, spears, and hooks, and began to slaughter the larger animals, birds, and fishes for their flesh or their skins, while the smaller creatures, such as the frogs and worms, were crushed and trodden upon without thought, out of pure carelessness or contempt. So the animals resolved to consult upon measures for their common safety.

The Bears were the first to meet in council in their townhouse under Kuwâ'hï mountain, the "Mulberry place," and the old White Bear chief presided. After each in turn had complained of the way in which Man killed their friends, ate their flesh, and used their skins for his own purposes, it was decided to begin war at once against him. Some one asked what weapons Man used to destroy them. "Bows and arrows, of course, cried all the Bears in chorus. "And what are they made of?" was the next question. "The bow of wood, and the string of our entrails," replied one of the Bears.

It was then proposed that they make a bow and some arrows and see if they, could not use the same weapons against Man himself. So one Bear got a nice piece of locust wood and another sacrificed himself for the good of the rest in order to furnish a piece of his entrails for the string. But when everything was ready and the first Bear stepped up to make the trial, it was found that in letting the arrow fly after drawing back the bow, his long claws caught the string and spoiled the shot.

This was annoying, but some one suggested that they might trim his claws, which was accordingly done, and on a second trial it was found that the arrow went straight to the mark. But here the chief, the old White Bear, objected, saying it was necessary that they should have long claws in order to be able to climb trees. "One of us has already died to furnish the bowstring, and if we now cut off our claws we must all starve together. It is better to trust to the teeth and claws that nature gave us, for it is plain that man's weapons were not intended for us."

No one could think of any better plan, so the old chief dismissed the council and the Bears dispersed to the woods and thickets without having concerted any way to prevent the increase of the human race. Had the result of the council been otherwise, we should now be at war with the Bears, but as it is, the hunter does not even ask the Bear's pardon when he kills one.

The Deer next held a council under their chief, the Little Deer, and after some talk decided to send rheumatism to every hunter who should kill one of them unless he took care to ask their pardon for the offense. They sent notice of their decision to the nearest settlement of Indians and told them at the same time what to do when necessity forced them to kill one of the Deer tribe.

Now, whenever the hunter shoots a Deer, the Little Deer, who is swift as the wind and can not be wounded, runs quickly up to the spot and, bending over the blood-stains, asks the spirit of the Deer if it has heard the prayer of the hunter for pardon. If the reply be "Yes," all is well, and the Little Deer goes on his way; but if the reply be "No," he follows on the trail of the hunter, guided by the drops of blood on the ground, until he arrives at his cabin in the settlement, when the Little Deer enters invisibly and strikes the hunter with rheumatism, so that he becomes at once a helpless cripple. No hunter who has regard for his health ever fails to ask pardon of the Deer for killing it, although some hunters who have not learned the prayer may try to turn aside the Little Deer from his pursuit by building a fire behind them in the trail.

Next came the Fishes and Reptiles, who had their own complaints against Man. They held their council together and determined to make their victims dream of snakes twining about them in slimy folds and blowing foul breath in their faces, or to make them dream of eating raw or decaying fish, so that they would lose appetite, sicken, and die. This is why people dream about snakes and fish.

Finally the Birds, Insects, and smaller animals came together for the same purpose, and the Grubworm was chief of the council. It was decided that each in turn should give an opinion, and then they would vote on the question as to whether or not Man was guilty. Seven votes should be enough to condemn him. One after another denounced Man's cruelty and injustice toward the other animals and voted in favor of his death.

The Frog spoke first, saying: "We must do something to check the increase of the race, or people will become so numerous that we shall be crowded from off the earth. See how they have kicked me about because I'm ugly, as they say, until my back is covered with sores;" and here he showed the spots on his skin.

Next came the Bird--no one remembers now which one it was--who condemned Man "because he burns my feet off," meaning the way in which the hunter barbecues birds by impaling them on a stick set over the fire, so that their feathers and tender feet are singed off. Others followed in the same strain.

The Ground-squirrel alone ventured to say a good word for Man, who seldom hurt him because he was so small, but this made the others so angry that they fell upon the Ground-squirrel and tore him with their claws, and the stripes are on his back to this day.

They began then to devise and name so many new diseases, one after another, that had not their invention at last failed them, no one of the human race would have been able to survive. The Grubworm grew constantly more pleased as the name of each disease was called off, until at last they reached the end of the list, when some one proposed to make menstruation sometimes fatal to women.

On this he rose-up in his place and cried: "Wadâñ'! [Thanks!] I'm glad some more of them will die, for they are getting so thick that they tread on me." The thought fairly made him shake with joy, so that he fell over backward and could not get on his feet again, but had to wriggle off on his back, as the Grub-worm has done ever since.

When the Plants, who were friendly to Man, heard what had been done by the animals, they determined to defeat the latter's evil designs. Each Tree, Shrub, and Herb, down even to the Grasses and Mosses, agreed to furnish a cure for some one of the diseases named, and each said: "I shall appear to help Man when he calls upon me in his need." Thus came medicine; and the plants, every one of which has its use if we only knew it, furnish the remedy to counteract the evil wrought by the revengeful animals. Even weeds were made for some good purpose, which we must find out for ourselves. When the doctor does not know what medicine to use for a sick man the spirit of the plant tells him.

All people are connected. Animal people, plant people, and human people all share a common heritage. A long time ago, they all spoke the same language. Human people lost their ability to talk to animals because they were greedy, and killed animals to sell their furs and skins for money. In this, we see the recurring theme of balance. It is not good to kill too many animals because it upsets the balance of nature.

Sister Sun & Brother Moon - Tsalagi

2007-02-25T11:48:00.000-08:00

The Sun was a young woman and lived in the East, while her brother, the Moon. lived in the West. The girl had a lover who used to come every month in the dark of the moon to court her. He would come at night, and leave before daylight, and although she talked with him she could not see his face in the dark, and he would not tell her his name, until she was wondering all the time who it could be.

At last she hit upon a plan to find out, so the next time he came, as they were sitting together in the dark of the âsi, she slyly dipped her hand into the cinders and ashes of the fireplace and rubbed it over his face, saying, "Your face is cold; you must have suffered from the wind," and pretending to be very sorry for him, but he did not know that she had ashes on her hand. After a while he left her and went away again.

The next night when the Moon came up in the sky his face was covered with spots, and then his sister knew he was the one who had been coming to see her. He was so much ashamed to have her know it that he kept as far away as he could at the other end of the sky all the night.

Ever since he tries to keep a long way behind the Sun, and when he does sometimes have to come near her in the west he makes himself as thin as a ribbon so that he can hardly be seen.

Incest is shameful. Anyone who commits incest will be publicly marked, shamed, and prevented from ever being with their family,

Who are the Aniyunwiya or Tsalagi?

2007-02-23T21:49:00.000-08:00

Aniyunwiya means "the principle people", or the primary people. They were one of the largest tribes in North America, and the only tribe to develop a written language. Their neighbors the Creeks, called them the "Tsa-la-gi" which means "people of another language".

The Europeans had trouble saying Tsa-la-gi and it became Che-ro-kee . It is similar to the way "Acadien" pronounced correctly in french, sounds like "A cah jen", and over time became "a Cajun".

Balance

2007-02-23T18:37:00.000-08:00

The issue of balance permeates Tsalagi myth and ritual. Many Tsalagi medicinal therapies are based on restoring balance between the sick person and the animal and spirit world. Anything that shifts the balance one way or another must be corrected. The world hangs in the balance of four spider silk ropes.

When animals or people are killed it upsets the balance of nature. The taking of most animals is usually pardoned through prayer. One must ask forgiveness for taking the animal, and explain that the animal was taken only that the offender or his family might eat. Killing animals unecessarily or for profit is immoral, and causes disharmony in the world.

When someone is murdered, the murders family should step forward and confess responsibilty, and offer one of their own as a sacrifice. It is important for the family members to do this immediately. The balance must be quickly restored.

If someone is killed by an outsider, it's preferable to seek justice from the offenders tribe but it isn't absolutely necessary. Any outsider will do if the murderer is unknown for some reason.
What matters is that the balance be maintained between the victims family, tribe, and the outside world.

Creation IIa - Aniyunwiya

2007-02-23T17:09:00.000-08:00

The earth is a great island floating in a sea of water, and suspended at each of the four cardinal points by a cord hanging down from the sky vault, which is of solid rock. When the world grows old and worn out, the people will die and the cords will break and let the earth sink down into the ocean, and all will be water again.

When all was water, the animals were above in Gälûñ'lätï, beyond the arch; but it was very much crowded, and they were wanting more room. They wondered what was below the water, and at last Dâyuni'sï, "Beaver's Grandchild," the little Water-beetle, offered to go and see if it could learn.

It darted in every direction over the surface of the water, but could find no firm place to rest. Then it dived to the bottom and came up with some soft mud, which began to grow and spread on every side until it became the island which we call the earth. It was afterward fastened to the sky with four cords, but no one remembers who did this...

When the animals and plants were first made, and we do not know by whom, they were told to watch and keep awake for seven nights, just as young men now fast and keep awake when they pray to their medicine. They tried to do this, and nearly all were awake through the first night, but the next night several dropped off to sleep, and the third night others were asleep, and then others, until, on the seventh night, of all the animals only the owl, the panther, and one or two more were still awake.

To these were given the power to see and to go about in the dark, and to make prey of the birds and animals which must sleep at night. Of the trees only the cedar, the pine, the spruce, the holly, and the laurel were awake to the end, and to them it was given to be always green and to be greatest for medicine, but to the others it was said: "Because you have not endured to the end you shall lose your hair every winter."

Men came after the animals and plants. At first there were only a brother and sister until he struck her with a fish and told her to multiply, and so it was. In seven days a child was born to her, and thereafter every seven days another, and they increased very fast until there was danger that the world could not keep them. Then it was made that a woman should have only one child in a year, and it has been so ever since.

Balance must be maintained for the ropes to hold. The number of months it takes a woman bear a child is designed to maintain the balance of human people on the earth. Power comes to those who do not break the creators laws.

Creation II - Aniyunwiya

2007-02-23T15:41:00.000-08:00

At first there was darkness and cold, vast and endless, stretching out in all directions. Beneath the great stone arch of the sky there was a dizzying drop. One by one tiny creatures began to awake and one by one they realized that they were cold, thirsty and very crowded.

The first creature to awake said, "I smell water, I am a water beetle," and with that it jumped from the great stone arch of the sky. Much later there was a splash. The next creature to awake, said, "I can spin silk, I am a spider." And so it went as each creature awoke and realized what he or she was.

Not long after, a voice was heard from far beneath the great stone arch of the sky. It was the water beetle, who said, "Underneath the water there is something soft, yet strong enough to hold us, with room enough for everyone. Throw down some rope, so that we might pull it up."

The spider began to make some very strong ropes. The ropes were thrown down and the water beetle took them and swam beneath the waters. She fastened them to the four corners of the great slab of mud beneath the water.

They began to pull and haul at the ropes until the great slab of mud rose above the water. When they had finished, all the creatures scrambled down the ropes to get to this new place.

When they reached the bottom, they drank their fill. Some creatures, realizing that they were fish, swam away. Others flew away, and still others, realizing that they were frogs sank happily into the mud.

There the land hung and it hangs there to this day. If the ropes break the land will sink once more beneath the waters.

In this story the world is suspended in a precarious place. It is somewhat reassuring that the sky is sold rock, but the world could slide off into the water if balance is not maintained.

Creation I -Aniyunwiya

2007-02-23T14:53:00.000-08:00

Long ago, in the beginning of time, the earth was all water. There was no land. All the animals, lived up in the sky on the clouds, waiting for the land to dry. For a long time they would send one animal after the other to find land but they could not.

One day they sent the water beetle. The water beetle dove into the water, grabbed a handful of mud at the bottom, brought it up and placed it on top of the water, and it started to dry, started to build land. He brought more and more until a great land was made, but it was still too wet for the animals.

They sent grandfather buzzard to dry it with his wings but the land was so soft that his wings beat it into mountains, and that's why the land has mountains and valleys in it today. The land finally dried and the animals went there to live.

They had no light. People and animals would bump into each other in the dark, and eat whatever did not eat them first. So they called to the Creator and asked for light.

He brought them the sun. He he placed the sun close to the ground, and it was too hot for the animals. The animals joined together and pushed and pushed, till they got it high enough that it would not burn all of them, but it was still so hot that the crawfish was baked. That's why, if you look at him today, he is red from the sun being too close.

Finally, they got the sun far enough out so it would not burn and we would have night. And Grandfather told them, "Now that I have done this for you, I ask that all animal people, and the plant people stay awake for seven days and seven nights." This is why today, when a warrior goes to cross his manhood, he fasts and sweats for seven days.

All the animals and all the plants fell asleep except for some. The owl stayed awake, and that's why he has vision to hunt at night now. The plants, the Douglas fir, the cedar, the pine, and a few others stayed awake for seven nights and for seven days. That's why only these, among all the plants, are allowed to stay green all the year round. The other trees and plants fell asleep and so must sleep part of every year.

In this story the world is much safer than a world suspended by ropes of spiders thread, but the question of balance is missing.