Myths of the Cherokee

Long ago, when the world was new, there were seven boys who used to spend all their time down by the townhouse playing the gatayû'stï game, rolling a stone wheel along the ground and sliding a curved stick after it to strike it. Their mothers scolded, but it did no good, so one day they collected some gatayû'stï stones and boiled them in the pot with the corn for dinner.

When the boys came home hungry their mothers dipped out the stones and said, "Since you like the gatayû'stï better than the cornfield, take the stones now for your dinner."

The boys were very angry, and went down to the townhouse, saying, "As our mothers treat us this way, let us go where we shall never trouble them any more."

They began a dance – some say it was the Feather dance-and went round and round the townhouse, praying to the spirits to help them. At last their mothers were afraid something was wrong and went out to look for them. They saw the boys still dancing around the townhouse, and as they watched they noticed that their feet were off the earth, and that with every round they rose higher and higher in the air. They ran to get their children, but it was too late, for then, were already above the roof of the townhouse – all but one, whose mother managed to pull him down with the gatayû'stï pole, but he struck the ground with such force that he sank into it and the earth closed over him.

The other six circled higher and higher until they went up to the sky, where we see them now as the Pleiades, which the Cherokee still call Ani'tsutsä (The Boys). The people grieved long after them, but the mother whose boy had gone into the ground came every morning and every evening to cry over the spot until the earth was damp with her tears. At last a little green shoot sprouted up and grew day by day until it became the tall tree that we call now the pine, and the pine is of the same nature as the stars and holds in itself the same bright light.

This myth is well known in the tribe, and was told in nearly the same form by Swimmer, Ta′gwadihĭ′ and Suyeta. The Feather dance, also called the Eagle dance, is one of the old favorites, and is the same as the ancient Calumet dance of the northern tribes. For a description of the gatayû′stĭ game, see note to number 3, “Kana′ti and Selu.” In a variant recorded by Stansbury Hagar (MS Stellar Legends of the Cherokee) the boys spend their time shooting at cornstalks.

According to Squier (Serpent Symbol, p. 69), probably on the authority of the Payne manuscript, “The Cherokees paid a kind of veneration to the morning star, and also to the seven stars, with which they have connected a variety of legends, all of which, no doubt, are allegorical, although their significance is now unknown.”

The corresponding Iroquois myth below, as given by Mrs Erminnie Smith in her Myths of the Iroquois (Second Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnology, p. 80), is practically the same so far as it goes, and the myth was probably once common over a wide area in the East:

“Seven little Indian boys were once accustomed to bring at eve their corn and beans to a little mound, upon the top of which, after their feast, the sweetest of their singers would sit and sing for his mates who danced around the mound. On one occasion they resolved on a more sumptuous feast, and each was to contribute towards a savory soup. But the parents refused them the needed supplies, and they met for a feastless dance. Their heads and hearts grew lighter as they flew around the mound, until suddenly the whole company whirled off into the air. The inconsolable parents called in vain for them to return, but it was too late. Higher and higher they arose, whirling around their singer, until, transformed into bright stars, they took their places in the firmament, where, as the Pleiades, they are dancing still, the brightness of the singer having been dimmed, however, on account of his desire to return to earth.”

In an Eskimo tale a hunter was pursued by enemies, and as he ran he gradually rose from the ground and finally reached the sky, where he was turned into a star (Kroeber, Tales of the Smith Sound Eskimo, in Journal of American Folk-Lore). This transformation of human beings into stars and constellations is one of the most common incidents of primitive myth.