The generic name for snake is inadu. They are all regarded as inaduwehi, “supernaturals,” having an intimate connection with the rain and the thunder gods, and possessing a certain influence over the other animals and plant tribes. It is said that the snakes, the deer, and the ginseng act as allies, so that an injury to one is avenged by the others. The feeling toward snakes is one mingled with fear and reverence, and every precaution is taken to avoid the killing or offending one, especially the rattlesnake. He who kills a snake will soon see others; and should he kill a second one, so many will come around him, whichever way he may turn, that he will become dazed at the sight of their glistening eyes and darting tongues, and will go wandering about like a crazy man, unable to find his way out of the woods.

To guard against this misfortune there are certain prayers which the initiated say in order that a snake may not cross their path, and on meeting the first one of the season the hunter humbly begs of him, “Let us not see each other this summer.” Certain smells, as that of the wild parsnip, and certain songs, as those of the Unikawi or town-house dance, are offensive to the snakes and make them angry. For this reason the Unikawi dance is held only late in the fall, after they have retired to their dens for the winter.

When one dreams of being bitten by a snake he must be treated the same as for the actual bite, because it is the snake ghost that has bitten him; otherwise the place will swell and ulcerate in the same way, even though it be years afterwards. For fear of offending them, even in speaking, it is never said that a man has been bitten by a snake, but only that he has been “scratched by a briar.” Most of the beliefs and customs in this connection have more special reference to the rattlesnake.

The rattlesnake is called utsanati, which may be rendered, “he has a bell,” alluding to the rattles. According to their myths the rattlesnake was once a man, and was transformed to his present shape that he might save the human race from extermination by the Sun, a mission which he accomplished successfully after others had failed.

By the old men he is also spoken of as “The Thunder’s Necklace,” and to kill one is to destroy one of the most prized ornaments of the Thunder-god. In one of the formulas addressed to the Little Men, the sons of the Thunder, they are implored to take the disease snake to themselves, because, “It is just what you adorn yourselves with.”

For obvious reasons the rattlesnake is regarded as the chief of the tribe and is feared and respected accordingly. Few Cherokee will venture to kill one except under absolute necessity, and even then the crime must be atoned for by asking pardon of the snake ghost, either through the mediation of a priest or in person according to a set formula.

Otherwise, the relatives of the dead snake will send one of their number to track up the offender and bite him, so that he will die. The only thing of which it is said that the rattlesnake is afraid is the plant known as campion, or “rattlesnake’s master” (Silene Stella), which is used by doctors to counteract the effect of the bite, and it is believed that a snake will flee in terror from the hunter who carries a small piece of the root about his person.

Notwithstanding the fear of the rattlesnake, his rattles, teeth, flesh and oil are greatly prized for occult or medical uses, the snake being killed for this purpose by certain priests who know the necessary rites and formulas for obtaining pardon.

Long ago—hilahiyu—when the Sun became angry at the people on earth, and sent a sickness to destroy them, the Little Men changed a man into a monster snake, as large as the trunk of a tree, with horns, which they called the Uktena, “The Keen-eyed,” and sent him to kill her. He failed to do the work, and the Rattlesnake had to be sent instead, which made the Uktena so jealous and angry that the people were afraid of him and had him taken to Galunlati, to stay with the other dangerous things. He left others behind him, though, nearly as large and dangerous as himself, and they hide now in the deep pools in the river and about lonely passes in the high mountains, the places which the Cherokee call, “Where the Uktena stays.”

Those who know say that the Uktena with its horns on its head has a bright blazing crest like a diamond upon its forehead, and scales glittering like sparks of fire upon its body. It has rings or spots along its whole length, and cannot be wounded except by shooting in the seventh spot from the head because under this spot are its heart and its life.

The blazing spot is called Ulunsuti, “Transparent,” and he who can win it may become the greatest wonder-worker of the tribe, but it is worth a man’s life to attempt it, for whoever is seen by the Uktena is so dazed by the bright light that he runs toward the snake instead of trying to escape. Even to see the Uktena asleep is death, not to the hunter himself, but to his family. Of all the daring warriors who have started out in search of Ulunsu’ti only Agan-uni-tsi ever came back successful.

The East Cherokee still keeps the one that he bought. It is like a transparent crystal, nearly the shape of a cartridge bullet, with blood-red streaks running thru the center from top to bottom. The owner keeps it wrapped in a whole deerskin, inside an earthen vessel, hidden away in a secret cave in the mountains.

Every seven days he feeds it with the blood of small game, rubbing the blood all over the crystal as soon as the animal has been killed. Twice a year it must have the blood of a deer or some other large animal. Should he forget to feed it at the proper time it would come out of the cave at night in a shape of fire and fly thru the air to slake its thirst with the life blood of the conjurer or some of his people.

He may save himself from this danger by telling it, when he puts it away, that he will not need it again for a long time. It will then go quietly to sleep and feel no hunger until it is again brought out to be consulted. Then it must be fed again on blood before it is used. No white man must ever see it, and no person but the owner will venture near it for fear of sudden death.

Even the conjurer who keeps it is afraid of it, and changes its hiding place every once in a while so that it cannot learn the way out. When he dies it will be buried with him. Otherwise, it will come out of its cave, like a blazing star, to search for his grave, night after night for seven years, when, if still not able to find him, it will go back to sleep forever where he has placed it.

Whoever owns the Ulunsuti is sure of success in hunting, love, rain-making and every other business, but its great use is in life prophecy. When it is consulted for this purpose the future is seen mirrored in the clear crystal as a tree is reflected in the quiet stream below, and the conjurer knows whether the sick man will recover, whether the warrior will return from the battle, or whether the youth will live to be old.

In one of their battles with the Showano, who are all magicians, the Cherokee captured a great medicine-man, whose name was Agan-uni-tsi, “The Ground-Hog’s Mother.” They had tied him ready for the torture when he begged for his life, and engaged, if they spared him, to find for them the great wonder-worker, the Ulunsuti. Now, the Ulunsuti is like a blazing star set in the forehead of the great Uktena serpent, and the medicine-man who could possess it might do marvelous things, but everyone knew that this could not be, because it was certain death to meet the Uktena. They warned him of all this, but he only answered that his medicine was strong and that he was not afraid. So they gave him his life on that condition and he began the search.

The Uktena used to lie in wait in lonely places to surprise its victims, and especially haunted the dark passes of the Great Smoky Mountains. Knowing this, the magician went first to a gap in the range on the far northern border of the Cherokee country. He searched there and found a monster blacksnake, larger than had ever been known before, but it was not what he was looking for, and he laughed at it as something too small for notice.

Coming southward to the next gap he found there a moccasin snake, the largest ever seen, but when the people wondered he said it was nothing. In the next gap he found a green snake and called the people to see it, (the pretty salikwaya), but when they found an immense greensnake coiled up in the path they ran away in fear.

Coming on to Utawa-gun-ti, the Bald mountain, he found there a great diyahali (lizard) basking, but, although it was large and terrible to look at, it was not what he was looking for and he paid no attention to it. Going still further south to Walasi-yi, the Frog place, he found a great frog squatting in the gap but when the people who came to see it were frightened like the others and ran away from the monster he mocked at them for being afraid of a frog and went on to the next gap.

He went on to Duni-skwa-lgun-yi, the Gap of the Forked Antler, and to the enchanted lake of Atagahi, and at each he found monstrous reptiles, but he said they were nothing.

He thought that the Uktena might be hiding in the deep water at Tlanusiyi, the Leech place, on Hiwassee, where other strange things had been seen before, and going there he dived far down under the surface. He saw turtles and water snakes, and two immense sun-perches rushed at him and retreated again, but that was all.

Other places he tried, going always southward, and at last on Gahuti mountain he found the Uktena asleep.

Turning without noise, he ran swiftly down the mountainside as far as he could go with one long breath, nearly to the bottom of the slope. Then he stopped and piled up a lot of pine-cones, and inside of it he dug a deep trench. Then he set fire to the cones and came back again up the mountain.

The Uktena was still asleep, and, putting an arrow to his bow, Agan-uni-tsi shot and sent the arrow through its heart, which was under the seventh spot from the serpent’s head.

The great snake raised his head, with the diamond in front flashing fire, and came straight at his enemy, but the magician, turning quickly, ran at full speed down the mountain, cleared the circle of fire and the trench at one bound, and lay down on the ground inside. The Uktena tried to follow, but the arrow was thru his heart, and in another moment he rolled over in his death struggle, spitting poison over all the mountainside. The poison drops could not pass the circle of fire, but only hissed and sputtered in the blaze, and the magician on the inside was untouched except by one small drop which struck upon his head as he lay close to the ground; but he did not know it. The blood, too, as poisonous as the froth, poured from the Uktena’s wound and down the slope in a stream, but it ran into the trench and left him unharmed.

The dying monster rolled over and over down the mountain, breaking down large trees in its path until it reached the bottom. Then Agan-uni-tsi called every bird in all the woods to come to the feast, and so many came that when they were done not even the bones were left. After seven days he went by night to the spot.

The body and the bones of the snake were gone, all eaten by the birds, but he saw a bright light shining in the darkness, and going over to it he found, resting on a low-hanging branch, where a raven had dropped it, the diamond from the head of Uktena. He wrapped it up carefully and took it with him, and from that time he became the greatest medicine-man in the whole tribe.

When he came down again to the settlement the people noticed a small snake hanging from his head where the single drop of poison from the Uktena had struck him; but so long as he lived he himself never knew that it was there.

Where the blood of the Uktena had filled the trench a lake formed afterwards, and the water was black and in this water the women used to dye the cane splits for their baskets.

Two brothers went hunting together, and when they came to a good camping place in the mountains they made a fire, and while one gathered bark to put up a shelter, the other started up the creek to look for a deer. Soon he heard a noise on the top of the ridge as if two animals were fighting. He hurried thru the brush to see what it might be, and when he came to the spot he found a great Uktena coiled around a man and choking him to death. The man was fighting for his life, and called out to the hunter, “Help me, nephew; he is your enemy as well as mine.” The hunter took good aim, and, drawing the arrow to the head, sent it thru the body of the Uktena, so that the blood spouted from the hole. The snake loosed its coils with a snapping noise, and went tumbling down the ridge into the valley, tearing up the earth like a water-spout as it rolled.

The stranger stood up, and it was the Asgaya Gigagei, the Red Man of the Lightning. He said to the hunter: “You have helped me, and now I will reward you, and give you a medicine so that you can always find game.” They waited until it was dark, and then went down the ridge to where the dead Uktena had rolled, but by this time the birds and the insects had eaten the body and only the bones were left.

In one place were flashes of light coming up from the ground, and on digging here, just under the surface, the Red Man found a scale of the Uktena. Next he went over to the tree that had been struck by lightning, and gathering a handful of splinters he made a fire and burned the scale of the Uktena to a coal. He wrapped this in a piece of deerskin and gave it to the hunter, saying: “As long as you keep this you can always kill game.”

Then he told the hunter that when he went back to camp he must hang up the medicine on a tree outside, because it was very strong and dangerous. He told him also that when he went into the cabin he would find his brother lying inside nearly dead on account of the presence of the Uktena scale, but he must take a small piece of cane, which the Red Man gave him, and scrape a little of it into water and give it to his brother to drink, and he would be well again.

Then the Red Man was gone, and the hunter could not see where he went. He returned to camp alone, and found his brother very sick, but soon cured him with the medicine from the cane, and that day and the next, and every day after, he found game whenever he went for it.

A man living down in Georgia came to visit some relatives at Hickory-log. He was a great hunter, and after resting for some days, got ready to go into the mountains. His friends warned him not to go toward the north, as in that direction, near a certain large uprooted tree, there lived a dangerous monster Uksuhi snake.

It kept constant watch, and whenever it could spring upon an unwary hunter it would coil about him and crush out his life in its folds, and then drag the dead body down the mountainside into a deep hole in Hiwassee river. He listened quietly to the warning, but all they said only made him the more anxious to see such a monster, so, without saying anything of his intentions, he left the settlement and took his way directly up the mountain toward the north.

Soon he came to the fallen tree and climbed upon the trunk, and there, sure enough, on the other side was the great Uksuhi stretched out in the grass, with its head raised, but looking the other way.

It was as large as a common trunk of a tree, and at the sight of this terrible monster the hunter became so much frightened that he made haste to get down from the log and started to run; but the great snake had heard him approach, and the noise as he started to make his escape, whereupon it turned quickly and pursued him.

Up the ridge the hunter ran, the snake close behind him, then down the other side toward the river, but with all his running the Uksuhi gained rapidly, and just as he reached the low ground it caught up with him and wrapped around him, pinning one arm down by his side, but leaving the other free. Now, it gave him a terrible squeeze that almost broke his ribs, and then began to drag him along toward the water. With his free hand the hunter began to clutch at the bushes as they passed, but the snake turned his head and blew its sickening breath into his face, until he had to let go his hold.

Again and again this happened, and all the time they were getting nearer and nearer to a deep hole in the river, when, almost at the last moment, a lucky thought came into the hunter’s mind. He was sweating all over from his run across the mountain, and suddenly remembered to have heard that snakes cannot bear the smell of perspiration. Putting his free hand into his bosom he worked it around under his armpit until it was covered with perspiration. Then withdrawing it, he grasped at a bush until the snake turned its head, when he quickly slapped his sweaty hand on its nose. The Uksuhi gave one gasp almost as if it had been wounded, loosened its coil, and glided swiftly away thru the bushes, leaving the hunter, bruised but not disabled, to make his way home to the Hickory-log.

There was once a great serpent, called the Ustutli, that made its haunt upon Cohutta mountain. It was called the Ustutli or “foot” snake, because it did not glide like other snakes, but had feet at each end of its body, and moved by strides or jerks, like a great measuring worm.

These feet were three-cornered and flat and could hold to the ground like suckers. It had no legs, but would raise itself up on its hind feet, with its snaky head high in the air until it found a good place to take a fresh hold; then it would bend down and grip its front feet to the ground while it drew its body up from behind.

It could cross rivers and deep ravines by throwing its head across, and getting a grip with its front feet, and then swing its body over. Wherever its footprints were found there was danger.

It used to bleat like a young fawn, and when the hunter heard a fawn bleat in the woods he never looked for it, but hurried away in the other direction. Up the mountain or down, nothing could escape the Ustutli’s pursuit, but along the side of the ridge it could not go, because the great weight of its swinging head broke its hold on the ground when it moved sideways.

It came to pass after awhile that not a hunter about Cohutta would venture near the mountain for dread of the Ustutli.

At last a man from one of the northern settlements came down to visit some relatives in that neighborhood. When he arrived they made a feast for him, but only had corn and beans, and excused themselves for having no meat because the hunters were afraid to go into the mountains. He asked the reason, and when they told him he said he would go himself tomorrow and either bring in a deer or find the Ustutli. They tried to dissuade him from it, but as he insisted upon going they warned him that if a fawn bleated in the thicket he must run at once and if the snake came after him he must not try to run down the mountain, but along the side of the ridge.

In the morning he started out, and went directly to the mountain. Working his way thru the bushes at the base, he suddenly heard a fawn bleat in front. He guessed at once that it was the Ustutli, but he had made up his mind to see it, so he did not turn back, but went straight forward, and there, sure enough, was the monster, with its great head in the air, as high as the pine branches, looking in every direction to discover a deer, or maybe a man, for breakfast. It saw him and came at him at once, moving in jerky strides, every one the length of a tree trunk, holding its scaly head high above the bushes and bleating as it came. The hunter was so badly frightened that he lost his wits entirely and started to run directly up the mountain.

The great snake came after him, gaining half its length on him every time it took a fresh grip with its fore feet, and would have caught the hunter before he reached the top of the ridge, but that he suddenly remembered the warning and changed his course to run along the side of the mountain. At once the snake began to lose ground, for every time it raised itself up the weight of its body threw it out of a straight line and made it fall a little lower down the side of the ridge. It tried to recover itself, but now the hunter gained and kept on until he turned the end of the ridge and left the snake out of sight. Then he cautiously climbed to the top and looked over and saw the Ustutli still slowly working its way toward the summit.

He went down to the base of the mountain, opened his fire pouch, and set fire to the grass and leaves. Soon the fire ran all around the mountain and began to climb upward.

When the great serpent smelled the smoke and saw the flames coming, it forgot all about the hunter and turned to make all speed for a high cliff near the summit. It reached the rock and got upon it, but the fire followed and caught the dead pines about the base of the cliff until the heat made the Ustutli’s scales crack.

Taking a close grip of the rock with its hind feet, it raised its body and put forth all its strength in an effort to spring across the wall of fire that surrounded it, but the smoke choked it and its hold loosened and it fell among the blazing pine trunks and lay there until it was burned to ashes.

At Nundayeli, the wildest spot in Nantahala river, (in what is now Macon County, North Carolina), where the overhanging cliff is highest and the river far below, there lived in the old time a great snake called the Uwtsunta (or bouncer), because it moved by jerks like a measuring worm, with only one part of its body on the ground at a time. It stayed generally on the east side, where the sun came first in the morning, and used to cross by reaching over from the highest point of the cliff until it could get a grip on the other side, when it would pull over the rest of its body.

It was so immense that when it was thus stretched across, its shadow darkened the whole valley below.

For a long time the people did not know it was there, but when at last they found out that such a monster inhabited the country, they were afraid to live in the valley, so that it was deserted long before the Indians were removed from the country.

There was a boy who used to go bird hunting every day, and all the birds he brought home to give to his grandmother, who was very fond of him. This made the rest of the family jealous, and they treated him in such fashion that at last one day he told his grandmother he would leave them all, but that she must not grieve for him.

Next morning he refused to eat any breakfast, but went off hungry to the woods and was gone all day. In the evening he returned, bringing with him a pair of deer horns, and went directly to the hothouse (Asi), where his grandmother was waiting for him. He told the old woman that he must be alone that night, so she got up and went into the house where the others were.

At early daybreak she came again to the hothouse and looked in, and there she saw an immense Uktena that filled the Asi, with horns on its head, but still with two human legs instead of a snake’s tail.

It was all that was left of her boy. He spoke to her and told her to leave him, and she went away again from the door. When the sun was well up, the Uktena began slowly to crawl out, but it was full noon before it was all out of the Asi. It made a terrible hissing noise as it came out, and all the people ran from it.

It crawled on thru the settlement, leaving a broad trail in the ground behind it, until it came to a deep bend in the river, where it plunged in and went under the water.

The grandmother grieved much for the boy, until the others of the family got angry and told her that she thought so much of him that she ought to go and stay with him. So she left them and went along the trail made by the Uktena to the river and walked directly into the water and disappeared. Once after that a man fishing near the place saw her sitting on a large rock in the river, looking just as she had always looked, but as soon as she caught sight of him she jumped into the water and was gone.

Two hunters, both for some reason under a tabu against the meat of a squirrel or turkey, had gone into the woods together. When evening came, they found a good camping place and lighted a fire to prepare their supper. One of them had killed several squirrels during the day, and now got ready to broil them over the fire.

His companion warned him that if he broke the tabu and ate squirrel meat he would become a snake, but the other laughed and said that was only a conjurer’s story. He went on with the preparation, and when the squirrels were roasted made his supper of them and then lay down by the fire to sleep.

Late that night his companion was aroused by groaning, and on looking around he found the other lying on the ground rolling and twisting in agony, and with the lower part of his body already changed to the body and tail of a large watersnake. The man was still able to speak and call loudly for help, but his companion could do nothing, but only sit by and try to comfort him while he watched the arms sink into his body and the skin take on a scaly change that mounted gradually toward the neck, until at last even the head was a serpent’s head and the great snake crawled away from the fire and down the bank into the river, and was never seen again.

One day in the olden times, when we could still talk with other creatures, while some children were playing about the house, their mother inside heard them scream. Running outside she found that a rattlesnake had crawled from the grass, and taking up a stick she killed it. The father was out hunting in the mountains, and that evening when coming home after dark thru the gap, he heard a strange wailing sound. Looking about he found that he had come into the midst of a whole company of rattlesnakes, all of which had their mouths open and seemed to be crying. He asked them the reason of their trouble, and they told him that his own wife had that day killed their chief, the Yellow Rattlesnake, and they were just now about to send the Black Rattlesnake to take revenge.

The hunter said he was very sorry, but they told him that if he spoke the truth that he must be ready to make satisfaction and give his wife as a sacrifice for the life of their chief. Not knowing what might happen otherwise, he consented. They then told him that the Black Rattlesnake would go home with him and coil up just outside the door in the dark. He must go inside, where he would find his wife awaiting him, and ask her to get him a fresh drink of water from the spring. That was all. He went home and knew that the Black Rattlesnake was following. It was night when he arrived and very dark, but he found his wife waiting with his supper ready. He sat down and asked for a drink of water. She handed him a gourd full from the jar, but he said he wanted it fresh from the spring, so she took a bowl and went out of the door. The next moment he heard a cry, and going out he found that the Black Rattlesnake had bitten her and that she was already dying.

He stayed with her until she was dead, when the Black Rattlesnake came out from the grass again and said his tribe was now satisfied.

He then taught the hunter a prayer song, and said, “When you meet any of us hereafter sing this song and we will not hurt you; but if by accident one of us should bite one of your tribe, then sing this song over him and he will recover.” And the Cherokee have kept this song and sing it until this day.

On the north bank of Little Tennessee river, in a bend below the mouth of Citico creek, in Blount County, Tennessee, is a high cliff hanging over the water, and about half way up the face of the rock is a cave with two openings. The rock projects outward above the cave, so that the mouth cannot be seen from above, and it seems impossible to reach the cave either from above or below.

There are white streaks in the rock from the cave down to the water. The Cherokee call it Tlanuwai (the place of the Great Mythic Hawk).

In the old time, away back soon after the creation, a pair of Tlanuwas had their nest in this cave. They were immense birds, larger than any that live now, and very strong and savage.

They were forever flying up and down the river, and used to come into the settlements and carry off dogs and even young children playing near the houses. No one could reach the nest to kill them, and when the people tried to shoot them the arrows only glanced off and were seized and carried away in the talons of the Tlanuwas.

At last the people went to a great medicine man, who promised to help them. Some were afraid that if he failed to kill the Tlanuwas they would take revenge on the people, but the medicine man said he could fix that. He made a long rope of linn bark, just as the Cherokee still do, with loops in it for his feet, and had the people let him down from the top of the cliff at a time when he knew that the old birds were away.

When he came opposite the mouth of the cave he still could not reach it, because the rocks above hung over, so he swung himself backward and forward several times until the rope swung near enough for him to pull himself into the cave with a hooked stick that he carried, which he managed to fasten in some bushes growing at the entrance.

In the nest he found four young ones, and on the floor of the cave were the bones of all sorts of animals and children that had been carried there by the hawks. He pulled the young ones out of the nest and threw them over the cliff into the deep water below, where a great Uktena serpent that lived there finished them.

Just then he saw the two old ones coming, and had hardly time to climb up again to the top of the rock before they reached the nest.

When they found the nest empty they were furious, and circled round and round in the air until they saw the snake put its head from the water. Then they darted straight downward, and while one seized the snake in his talons and flew far up in the sky with it, his mate struck at it and bit off piece after piece until nothing was left. They were so high up that when the pieces fell they made holes in the rocks, which are still to be seen there, at the place which we call, “Where the Tlanuwa cut it up,” opposite the mouth of Citico. Then the two hawks circled up and up until they went out of sight, and they have never been seen any more.

A hunter out in the woods one day saw a Tlanuwa overhead and tried to hide from it, but the great bird had already seen him, and, sweeping down, struck its claws into his hunting pack, and carried him far up into the air. As it flew, the Tlanuwa, which was a mother-bird, spoke and told the hunter that he need not be afraid, as she would not hurt him, but only wanted him to stay awhile with her young ones to guard them until they were old enough to leave the nest.

At last they alighted at the mouth of a cave in the face of a steep cliff. Inside, the water was dripping from the roof, and at the farther end was a nest of sticks in which were two young birds.

The old Tlanuwa set the hunter down and then flew away, returning soon with a fresh-killed deer, which it tore to pieces, giving the first piece to the hunter and then feeding the two young hawks.

The hunter stayed in the cave for many days until the young birds were nearly grown, and every day the old mother bird would fly away from the nest and return in the evening with a deer or a bear, of which she always gave the first piece to the hunter. He grew very anxious to see his home again, but the Tlanuwa kept telling him not to be uneasy, but to wait a little while longer. At last he made up his mind to escape from the cave and finally studied out the plan.

The next morning, after the great hawk had gone, he dragged one of the young birds to the mouth of the cave and tied himself to one of its legs with a strap from his hunting pack. Then with the flat side of the tomahawk he struck it several times on the head until it was dazed and helpless, then pushed the bird and himself together off the shelf of rock into the air. They fell far, far down toward the earth, but the air from below held up the bird’s wings, so that it was almost as if they were flying. As the Tlanuwa revived it tried to fly upward toward the nest, but the hunter struck it again with his hatchet until it was dazed and dropped again.

At last they came down in the top of a poplar tree, when the hunter cut the strap from the leg of the bird and let it fly away, first pulling out a feather from its wing. He climbed down from the tree and went home to the settlement, but when he looked in his pack for the feather, he found that he only had a stone, for the Great Mythic Hawk had power to turn many objects into whatever it pleased.

Long, long ago, there lived in the mountains a terrible ogress, a woman monster, whose food was human livers. She could take on any shape that she pleased, or that suited her purpose, but in her right form she looked very much like an old woman, excepting that her whole body was covered with a skin as hard as a rock, that no weapon could wound or penetrate, and that on her right hand she had a long, stony finger of bone, like an awl or spear-head, with which she stabbed everyone to whom she could get near enough. On account of this fact she was called Utlunta, “Spear Finger,” and on account of her stony skin she was sometimes called Nunyunuwi, “Stone-dress.”

There was another stone-clothed monster that killed people, but that is a different story.

Spear-finger had such power over stone that she could easily lift and carry immense rocks, and could cement them together by merely striking one against another. To get over the rough country more easily she undertook to build a great bridge through the air from Nunyutlugunyi, the “Tree Rock,” on Hiwassee, over to Sanigilagi (Whiteside Mountain, in Jackson County, North Carolina,) on the Blue Ridge, and had it well started from the top of “Tree rock” when the lightning struck it and scattered the fragments along the whole ridge, where the pieces can still be seen by those who go there.

She used to range all over the mountains about the heads of the streams and in the dark passes of Nantahala, always hungry and looking for victims. Her favorite haunt on the Tennessee side of the Great Smoky Mountains was about the gap on the trail where Chilhowee Mountains come down to the river.

Sometimes the old woman would approach along the trail where the children were picking strawberries or playing near the village, and would say to them coaxingly, “Come, my grand children, come to your granny and let granny dress your hair.” When some little girl ran up and laid her head in the old woman’s lap to be petted and combed, the old witch would gently run her fingers thru the child’s hair until it went to sleep, when she would stab the little one thru the heart or back of the neck with the long awl finger, which she had kept hidden under her robe. Then she would take out the liver and eat it. She would enter the house by taking the appearance of one of the family who happened to have gone out for a short time, and would watch her chance to stab some one with her long finger and take out his liver. She could stab him without being noticed, and often the victim did not even know it himself at the time—for it left no wound and caused no pain—but went on about his own affairs, until all at once he felt weak and began to pine away, and was always sure to die, because Spear-finger had taken his liver.

When the Cherokee went out in the fall, according to their custom, to burn leaves off from the mountains in order to get the chestnuts on the ground, they were never safe, for the old witch was always on the lookout, and as soon as she saw the smoke rise she knew there were Indians there and she would sneak up and try to surprise one alone. So as well as they could they would try to keep together, and were very cautious of allowing any stranger to approach the camp. But if one went to the spring for a drink, they never knew but it might be the liver-eater that came back and sat with them. At last a great council was held to devise some means to get rid of the old witch before she should destroy everybody. The people came from all around to Nikwasi, (mound now near Franklin, N. C.) and after much talking it was decided that the best way to secure her demise would be to trap her in a pitfall where all the warriors could attack her at once. So they dug a deep pitfall across the path and covered it over with earth and grass as if the ground had never been disturbed. Then they kindled a large fire of brush near the trail and hid themselves in the laurels, because they knew that she would come as soon as she saw the smoke.

Sure enough they soon saw an old woman coming along the trail. She looked very much like an old woman that they knew in the village, and although several of the wiser men wanted to shoot at her, the others interfered, because they did not want to hurt one of their own people. The old woman came slowly along the trail, with one hand under her blanket, until she stepped upon the pitfall and tumbled through the brush top into the deep hole below. Then, at once, she showed her true nature, and instead of the old feeble woman there was the terrible Utlunta with her stony skin, and her sharp awl finger reaching out in every direction for some one to stab.

The hunters rushed out from the thicket and surrounded the pit, but shoot as true and as often as they could, the arrows struck the stony mail of the witch only to be broken and fall useless at her feet, while she taunted them and tried to climb out of the pit to get at them. They kept out of her way, but were only wasting their arrows when a small bird, Utsugi, the titmous, perched on a tree overhead and began to sing, “un, un, un.” They thought it was saying unqhu, heart, meaning that they should aim at the heart of the stone witch. They directed their arrows where the heart should be, but the arrows only glanced off with the flint heads broken.

Then they caught the Utsugi and cut off its tongue, so that ever since its tongue is short and everybody knows that it is a liar.

When the hunters let it go, it flew straight up into the sky until it was out of sight, and it never came back any more, and the titmouse that we know now is only an image of the other.

They kept up the fight without result until another bird, little Tsikilili, the chickadee, flew down from a tree and alighted upon the witch’s right hand. The warriors took this as a sign that they must aim there, and they were right, for her heart was on the inside of her hand, which she kept doubled up into a fist, this same awl-hand with which she had stabbed so many people. Now she was frightened in earnest, and began to rush furiously at them with her long awl finger, and to jump about in the pit to dodge the arrows, until at last an arrow struck her just where the awl finger joined her wrist and she fell down dead. Ever since then the Tsikilili is known as a truth-teller, and when a man is away on a journey, if this bird comes and perches near the house and chirps its song, his friends know that he will soon reach his home in safety, and his friends will greet him upon his arrival.

This is what the old men used to tell us when we were boys. Once when all the people of the settlement were out in the mountains on a great hunt, one man who had gone ahead climbed to the top of a high ridge and found a large river on the other side.

While he was looking across he saw an old man walking about on the opposite ridge, with a cane that seemed to be made of some bright, shining rock. The hunter watched and saw that every little while the old man would point his cane in a certain direction, then draw it back and smell the end of it. At last he pointed it in the direction of the hunter’s camp on the other side of the mountain, and this time when he drew back the staff he sniffed it several times as if it smelled very good, and then started along the ridge straight for the camp. He moved very slowly, with the help of the cane, until he reached the end of the ridge, when he threw the cane out into the air and it became a bridge of shining rock stretching across the river.

After he had crossed over upon the bridge it became a cane again and the old man picked it up and started over the mountain toward the camp. The hunter was frightened, and felt sure that it meant mischief, so he hurried on down the mountain and took the shortest trail back to the camp to get there before the old man. When he got there and told his story the medicine-man said the old man was a wicked cannibal monster called Nunyunuwi, “Dressed in Stone,” who lived in the Nantahala mountains, and was always going about thru the forest looking for some hunter that he might kill and eat him.

It was very hard to escape from him, because his cane guided him as a dog, and it was nearly as hard to kill him, for his body was entirely covered with a skin of solid rock. If he came he would kill and eat them all, and there was only one way to save their lives.

He could not bear to look upon a woman, and if they could bring to the path seven married women, that the sight of them would kill him, and they would rid themselves of him. So they ran swiftly and brought quickly as many women as they could find, and placed them along the trail, and when the old man came, he saw one woman standing near the trail and the very sight of her made him sick and he cried out, “Yu, my grandchild, I hate the sight of woman!” He hurried past her and in a moment he saw the second woman standing as he had seen the other, and he cried out again, “Yu! my child; I hate the tribe of women, and he hurried past her, and he continued along the trail until he came to the seventh, and by this time he had become so much enraged that he fell down almost dead. Then the medicine-man drove seven sourwood switches through his body and pinned him to the ground, and when night came they piled great logs over him and set fire to them, and all the people gathered around to see. Nunyunuwi was a great adawehi and knew many secrets, and now as the fire came close to him he began to talk, and told them the medicine for all kinds of sickness. At midnight he began to sing, and sang the hunting songs for calling up the bear and deer and all the animals of the woods and mountains.

As the blaze grew hotter his voice sank lower and lower, until at last when the daylight came, the logs were a heap of white ashes and the voice was still. Then the medicine-man told them to rake off the ashes, and where the body had lain they found only a large lump of wadi paint and a magic Ulunsuti stone. He kept the stone for himself, and calling the people around him he painted them on the face and breast with the red wadi, and whatever each person prayed for while the painting was being done, whether for hunting success, for working skill, or for long life—that gift was his.

In the old days there was a great fish called the Dakwa, which lived in the Tennessee river where Toco creek comes in at Dakwai, the “Dakwa place,” above the mouth of Tellico, and which was so large that it could easily swallow a man. Once a canoe filled with warriors was crossing over from the town on the other side of the river, when the Dakwa suddenly rose up under the boat and threw them all into the air. As they came down it swallowed one with a single snap of its jaws and dived with him to the bottom of the river.

As soon as the hunter came to his senses he found that he had not been hurt, but it was so hot and close inside the Dakwa that he was nearly smothered. As he groped around in the dark his hand struck a lot of mussel shells which the fish had swallowed, and taking one of these for a knife he began to cut his way out, until soon the fish grew uneasy at the scraping inside his stomach and came up to the top of the water for air. He kept on cutting until the fish was in such pain that it swam this way and that across the stream and thrashed the water into foam with its tail. Finally the hole was so large that he could look out, and found that the fish was resting in shallow water near the shore. The Dakwa soon became so sick from the wound that it vomited the hunter out of its mouth, and he with the others made their escape to Tellico, but the juices in the stomach of the fish made the hair fall from the head of the hunter so that he was bald ever after that.

(This is the scene of the myth upon which the story of Occoneechee is founded.)

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 Atagahi, “Gall place.”

Although all of 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 wings of thousands of wild ducks and pigeons 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 the lake is not seen, some people think that the lake is dried up long ago, but this is not true. To one that had kept watch and fasted all the night it would appear at daybreak as a wide-extending, but shallow sheet of pure 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 shore 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 hunter he makes his way thru the woods to this lake and plunges into the water, and when he comes out upon the other side his wounds are healed, and for this reason the animals keep the lake invisible to the hunter.

The North went traveling, and after going far and meeting many different tribes he finally fell in love with the daughter of the South and wanted to marry her. The girl was willing, but her parents objected and said, “Ever since you came the weather has been cold, and if you stay here we will all freeze to death.” The North pleaded hard, and said if they would let him have their daughter, he would take her back to his own country, so at last they consented.

They were married and he took his bride back to his own country, and when they arrived there she found the people all living in ice houses. The next day, when the sun rose, the houses began to leak, and as it climbed higher the houses began to melt, and it grew warmer and warmer, until finally the people came to the young husband and told him he must send his wife home again, or the weather would get so warm that the whole settlement would be melted. He loved his wife and so held out as long as he could, but as the sun grew hotter the people were more urgent, and at last he had to send her home to her parents, but they agreed that she might return once a year for a short season, but that she should never come to live in the North again, for as she was reared in the South, that her whole nature was warm and that she was unfit to dwell in the North.

Once when the people were burning the woods in the fall, and the blaze set fire to a poplar tree, which continued to burn until the fire went down into the roots and burned a great hole in the ground. It burned, and burned, and the hole grew constantly larger, until the people became frightened and were afraid that it would burn the whole world. They tried to put out the fire, but it had gone too deep, and they did not know what to do. At last some one said there was a man living in a house of ice far in the north who could put out the fire, so messengers were sent, and after traveling a long distance they came to the ice house and found the Ice Man at home. He was a little fellow with long hair hanging down to the ground in two plaits. The messengers told him their errand and he at once said, “O yes, I can help you,” and began to unplait his hair.

When it was once all unbraided he took it up in one hand and struck it once across the other hand, and the messengers felt the wind blow against their cheeks. A second time he struck his hair across his hand, and a light rain began to fall. The third time he struck his hair across his open hand there was sleet mixed with the rain drops, and when he struck the fourth time great hailstones fell upon the ground, as if they had come out from the ends of the hair. “Go back now,” said the Ice Man, “and I shall be there tomorrow.”

So the messengers returned to their people, whom they found still gathered helplessly about the great burning pit. The next day while they were all gathered about the fire, there came a wind from the north, and they were afraid, for they knew that it came from the Ice Man. But the wind only made the fire blaze higher. The light rain began to fall, but the drops seemed only to make the fire hotter. Then the shower turned to a heavy rain, with sleet and hail that killed the blaze and made clouds of smoke and steam rise from the red coals. The people fled to their homes for shelter, and the storm rose to a whirlwind that drove the rain into every burning crevice and piled great hailstones over the embers, until the fire was dead and even the smoke ceased. When at last it was all over, and the people returned, they found a lake where the burning pit had been, and from below the water came a sound as of embers still crackling.

A hunter had been tramping over the mountains all day long without finding any game, and when the sun went down, he built a fire in a hollow stump, swallowed a few mouthfuls of corn gruel and lay down to sleep, tired out and completely discouraged.

About the middle of the night he dreamed and seemed to hear the sound of beautiful singing, which continued until near daybreak, and then appeared to die away in the upper air.

All the next day he hunted, with the same poor success, and at night made his lonely camp in the woods. He slept, and the same strange dream came again, but so vividly that it seemed to him like an actual happening. Rousing himself before daylight, he still heard the same song, and feeling sure now that it was real, he went in the direction of the sound and found that it came from a single green stalk of corn (selu).

The plant spoke to him, and told him to cut off some of its roots and take them to his home in the settlement, and the next morning to chew them and “go to water” before anyone else was awake, and then to go out again into the woods, and he would kill many deer, and from that time on would always be successful in the hunt.

The corn plant continued to talk, teaching him hunting secrets and telling him to be always generous with the game he took, until it was noon and the sun was high, when it suddenly took the form of a woman and rose gracefully into the air and was gone from sight, leaving the hunter alone in the woods. He returned home and told his story, and all the people knew that he had seen Selu, the wife of Kanati. He did as the spirit had directed, and from that time was noted as the most successful of all the hunters in the settlement.

The Nunnehi or Immortals, the “People who live everywhere,” were a race of spirit people who lived in the highlands of the old Cherokee country and had a great many town-houses, and especially on the tops of the bald mountains, the high peaks where no timber grows.

They had large town-houses on Pilot Knob, and in Nik-Wasi mound, in what is now Macon County, North Carolina, and another in Blood Mountain, and at the head of Nottely river in Georgia. They were invisible excepting when they wanted to be seen, and they looked and spoke just like other Indians. They were very fond of music and dancing, and hunters in the mountains would often hear the dance songs and the drum-beating in some invisible town-house, but when they went toward the sound it would shift about and they would hear it behind them or away in some other direction, so that they could never find the place where the dance was.

They were a friendly people, too, and often brought lost wanderers to their town-houses under the mountains, and cared for them there until they were rested, and guided them back to their homes. There was a man who lived in Nottely town who had been with the Nunnehi, when he was a boy about twelve years old, and this is the story he tells.

One day, when he was playing near the river, shooting at a mark with his bow and arrows, until he became tired, and started to build a fish-trap in the water. While he was piling up the rocks in two long walls, a man came and stood on the bank and asked him what he was doing. The man said, “Well, that is pretty hard work, and you ought to come and rest awhile; come and take a walk up the river.”

The boy said, “No”; that he was going home to dinner soon. “Come right up to my house,” said the stranger, “and I’ll give you a good dinner there, and will bring you home again in the morning.”

So the boy went with him up the river until they came to a house, when they went in, and the man’s wife and the other people there were very glad to see him, and gave him a fine dinner, and were very kind to him.

While they were eating, another boy that the boy knew very well came in and spoke to him, so that he felt very much at home.

After dinner he played with the other children, and slept there that night, and in the morning, after breakfast, the man got ready to take him home. They went down a path that had a cornfield on one side and a peach orchard on the other, until they came to another trail, and the man said, “Go along this trail across that ridge and you will come to the river road that will bring you straight to your home, and now I’ll go back to the house.”

So the man went back to the house, and the boy went on along the trail, but when he had gone a little distance he looked back, and there was no cornfield or orchard or fence or house; nothing but trees on the mountainside. He thought it rather queer, but somehow he was not frightened, and went on until he came to the river trail in sight of his house. There were a great many people standing about talking, and when they saw him they ran toward him shouting, “Here he is! He is not drowned or killed in the mountains!” They told him that they had been hunting him ever since yesterday noon, and asked him where he had been. He told them the story of what had happened, and they said there is no house there, and it was the Nunnehi that had you with them.

Once four Nunnehi women came to dance at Nottely town, and danced half of the night with the young men there, and nobody knew that they were Nunnehi, but thought them visitors from another settlement. About midnight they left to go home, and some men who had come out from the town-house to cool off watched to see which way they went. They saw the women go down the trail to the river ford, but just as they came to the water they disappeared, although it was a plain trail, with no place where they could hide. Then the watchers knew that they were Nunnehi. At another time a man was crossing over from Nottely to Hemptown, in Georgia, and heard a drum and the songs of dancers in the hills on one side of the trail. He rode to see who could be dancing in such a place, but when he reached the spot the drum and the songs were behind him, and he was so frightened that he hurried back to the trail and rode all the way to Hemptown as hard as he could to tell the story. He was a truthful man and they believed him.

A long time ago a man got lost in the mountains near the head of Oconaluftee river, and it was very cold and his friends thought that he must be frozen to death, but he was taken to a cave by the Nunnehi and given something to eat, and when the weather was more pleasant they conducted him to the main trail and sent him on home to the neighbors in the valley below.

Long ago, before the Cherokee were driven from their homes in 1838, the people on Valley river and Hiwassee heard voices of invisible spirits calling them from the skies, and warning them of wars and misfortunes which the future held in store, and inviting them to come and live with the Nunnehi, the Immortals, in their homes under the mountains and under the waters. For days the voice hung in the air, and the people listened until they heard the voice say, “If you would live with us, gather every one in your town-house and fast there seven days, and no one must raise a shout or a warwhoop in all that time. Do this and we will come and you shall see us and we shall take you to live with us.”

The people were afraid of the evils that were to come, and they knew that the Immortals of the mountains and of the waters were happy forever, so they counciled in their town-house and decided to go with them. Those of Anisgayayitown came all together into their town-house and prayed and fasted for six days. On the seventh day there was a sound from the distant mountains, and it came nearer and grew louder until a roar of thunder was all about the town-house and they felt the ground shake all around them. Now they were frightened, and despite the warning some of them screamed out.

The Nunnehi, who had already lifted up the town-house with its mound to carry it away, were startled by the sound and let a part of it fall to the ground, where we now see the mound Setsi.

They steadied themselves again and bore the rest of the town-house, with all the people in it, to the top of Tsudayelunyi, near the head of Cheowa, where we can still see it, changed long ago to solid rock, but the people are invisible and immortal.

Long ago a powerful unknown tribe invaded the country from the southeast, killing people and destroying settlements wherever they went. No leader could stand against them, and in a little while they had wasted all the lower settlements and advanced into the mountains. The warriors of the old town of Nikwasi, on the head of Little Tennessee, gathered their wives and their children into the town-house and kept scouts constantly on the lookout for the presence of danger.

One morning, just before the break of day, the spies saw the enemy approaching and at once gave the alarm. The Nikwasi men seized their arms and rushed out to meet the attack, but after a long, hard fight they found themselves overpowered and began to retreat, when suddenly a stranger stood among them and shouted to the chief to call off his men and he himself would drive the enemy back. From the dress and the language of the stranger the Nikwasi people thought him a chief who had come with reinforcements from Overhill settlements in Tennessee. They fell back along the trail, and as they came near the town-house they saw a great company of warriors coming out from the side of the mound as from an open doorway.

Then they knew that their friends were the Nunnehi, the Immortals, although no one had ever heard that they lived under Nikwasi mound. The Nunnehi poured out by hundreds, armed and painted for the fight, and the most curious part of it all was that they became invisible as soon as they were fairly outside of the settlement, so that although the enemy saw the glancing arrow or the rushing tomahawk, and felt the stroke, he could not see who sent it.

Before such an invisible foe the invaders had to retreat, going first south along the ridge to where joins the main ridge, which separates Tah-kee-os-tee (French Broad) from the Tuckaseigee, and then turning with it to the northeast. As they retreated they tried to shield themselves behind rocks and trees, but the Nunnehi arrows went around them and killed them from the other side, and they could find no hiding place.

All along the ridge they fell, until when they reached the head of Tuckaseigee not more than half a dozen were left alive, and in their despair they sat down and cried out for mercy. The Nunnehi chief told them that they deserved their punishment for attacking a peaceful tribe, and he spared their lives and told them to go home and tell their people. It was the custom of the Indians to spare some to carry the news of battle and defeat. Then the Nunnehi went back to the mound, and have been there ever since.

They are there now, for when a strong army of Federal troops came to surprise a handful of Confederates in the last war, they saw so many soldiers guarding the town that they were afraid and went away without making an attack.

Long ago, while the people still lived in the old town of Kanasta, on Tah-kee-os-tee, (French Broad) two strangers, who looked in no way different from the other Cherokee, came into the settlement one day and made their way into the chief’s house.

After the first greetings were over, the chief asked them from what town they came, thinking they were from one of the western settlements, but they said, “We are of your people and our town is close at hand, but you have never seen it. Here you have wars and sickness, with enemies on every side, and after awhile a stronger enemy will come and take your country from you. We are always happy, and we have come to invite you to live with us in our town over there,” and they pointed toward Tsuwatelda (Pilot Knob). “We do not live forever, and do not always find game when we go for it, for game belongs to Tsulkalu, who lives in Tsunegunyi, but we have peace always and do not think of danger. We go now, but if your people will live with us, let them fast seven days and we will come then and take them.”

Then they went away toward the west. The chief called the people together into the town-house, and they held a council over the matter and decided at last to go with the strangers. They got all of their property ready for moving, and then went again into the town-house and began their fast. They fasted six days and on the morning of the seventh, before yet the sun was high, they saw a great company coming along the trail from the west, led by the two men who had stopped with the chief. They seemed just like Cherokee from another settlement, and after a friendly meeting they took up a part of the goods to be carried, and the two parties started back together for Tsuwatelda.

There was one man visiting at Kanasta, and he went along with them. When they came to the mountain the two guides led the way into a cave, which opened out like a great door in the side of the rock. Inside they found an open country and a town, with houses ranged in two long rows from east to west. The mountain people lived in the houses on the south side, and they had made ready the other houses for the newcomers, but even after the people of Kanasta, with their children and their belongings, had moved in, there were still a large number of houses waiting ready for the next who might come. The mountain people told them that there was another town of a different people, above them in another mountain, and still farther above, at the very top, lived the Ani-Hyuntikwalaski (the Thunders).

Now all the people of Kanasta were settled in their new homes, but the man who had only been visiting with them wanted to go back to his own friends. Some of the mountain people wanted to prevent this, but the chief said, “No, let him go if he will, and when he tells his friends they may want to come, too. There is plenty of room for all.” Then he said to the man, “Go back and tell your friends that if they want to come and live with us and always be happy, there is a place here ready and waiting for them. Others of us live in Datsunalasgunyi and in the high mountains all around, and if they would rather go to any of them, it will be all the same. We see you wherever you go, and are with you in all of your dances, but you cannot see us unless you fast. If you want to see us, fast four days, and we will come and talk with you; and then if you want to live with us, fast again seven days, and we will come and take you.” Then the chief led the man through the cave to the outside of the mountain and left him there, but when the man looked back he saw no cave, but only the solid rock. The people of the Lost Settlement were never seen again and they are still living in Tauwatelda. Strange things happen there, so that the Cherokee know that the mountain is haunted and do not like to go near it. Only a few years ago a party of hunters camped there, and as they sat around their fire at supper time they talked of the story and made rough jokes of the people of old Kanasta. That night they were aroused from sleep by a noise as of stones thrown at them from among the trees, but when they searched they could find nobody, and were so frightened that they gathered up their guns and pouches and left the place.

On the southern slope of the ridge, along the trail from Robbinsville to Valley river, in Cherokee County, North Carolina, are the remains of a number of stone cairns. The piles are level now, but fifty years ago the stones were still heaped up in pyramids, to which every Cherokee who passed added a stone. According to the tradition these piles marked the graves of a number of women and children of the tribe who were surprised and killed on the spot by a raiding party of Iroquois shortly before the final peace between the two nations. As soon as the news was brought to the settlement on Hiwassee and Cheowa, a party was made under Taletanigiski, “Hemp-Carrier,” to follow and take vengeance on the enemy.

Among others of the party was the father of the noted chief, Tsunulahunski, or Junaluska, who (Junaluska) died in about the year 1855, who was also the chief and hero of the battle of Horseshoe Bend. For days they followed the trail of the Iroquois across the Great Smoky Mountains, thru forests and over rivers, until finally they tracked them to their very town in the far Seneca country.

On the way they met another war party headed for the south, and the Cherokee killed them all and took their scalps.

When they came near the Seneca town it was almost night, and they heard shouts in the town-house, where the women were dancing over the fresh scalps of the Cherokee. The avengers hid themselves near the spring, and as the dancers came down to drink, the Cherokee silently killed one and another until they had counted as many scalps as had been taken on Cheowa, and still the dancers in the town-house never thought that enemies were near. Then said the Cherokee leader, “We have covered the scalps of our women and children. Shall we go home now like cowards, or shall we raise the warwhoop and let the Seneca know that we are men?” “Let them come if they will,” said the men, and they raised the scalp yell of the Cherokees.

At once there was an answering shout from the town-house, and the dance came to a sudden close. The Seneca swarmed out with ready gun and hatchet, but the nimble Cherokee were off and away. There was a hot pursuit in the darkness, but the Cherokee knew the trails and were light and active runners, and managed to get away with the loss of only one man. The rest got home safely, and the people were so well pleased with Hemp-Carrier’s bravery and success that they gave him seven wives.