Myths of the Cherokee

Some people in the south had a corn mill, in which they pounded the corn into meal, and several mornings when they came to fill it they noticed that some of the meal had been stolen during the night. They examined the ground and found the tracks of a dog, so the next night they watched, and when the dog came from the north and began to eat the meal out of the bowl they sprang out and whipped him. He ran off howling to his home in the north, with the meal dropping from his mouth as he ran, and leaving behind a white trail where now we see the Milky Way, which the Cherokee call to this day Gi`lï'-utsûñ'stänûñ'yï, "Where the dog ran."

This story, in slightly different forms, is well known among the Cherokee east and west. The generic word for mill is dista′stĭ, including also the self-acting pound-mill or ûlskwûlte′gĭ. In the original version the mill was probably a wooden mortar, such as was commonly used by the Cherokee and other eastern and southern tribes.

In a variant recorded in the Hagar Cherokee manuscript there are two hunters, one living in the north and hunting big game, while the other lives in the south and hunts small game. The former, discovering the latter’s wife grinding corn, seizes her and carries her far away across the sky to his home in the north. Her dog, after eating what meal is left, follows the pair across the sky, the meal falling from his mouth as he runs, making the Milky Way.

With the Kiowa, Cheyenne, and other plains tribes the Milky Way is the dusty track along which the Buffalo and the Horse once ran a race across the sky.