Myths of the Cherokee

A long time ago a man had a dog, which began to go down to the river every day and look at the water and howl.

At last the man was angry and scolded the dog, which then spoke to him and said: "Very soon there is going to be a great freshet and the water will come so high that everybody will be drowned; but if you will make a raft to get upon when the rain comes you can be saved, but you must first throw me into the water."

The man did not believe it, and the dog said, "If you want a sign that I speak the truth, look at the back of my neck."

He looked and saw that the dog's neck had the skin worn off so that the bones stuck out.

Then he believed the dog, and began to build a raft. Soon the rain came and he took his family, with plenty of provisions and they all got upon it. It rained for a long time, and the water rose until the mountains were covered and all the people in the world were drowned. Then the rain stopped and the waters went down again, until at last it was safe to come off the raft. Now there was no one alive but the man and his family, but one day they heard a sound of dancing and shouting on the other side of the ridge. The man climbed to the top and looked over; everything was still, but all along the valley he saw great piles of bones of the people who had been drowned, and then he knew that the ghosts had been dancing.

This story is given by Schoolcraft in his Notes on the Iroquois, page 358, as having been obtained in 1846 from the Cherokee chief, Stand Watie. It was obtained by the author in nearly the same form in 1890 from James Wafford, of Indian Territory, who had heard it from his grandmother nearly eighty years before. The incident of the dancing skeletons is not given by Schoolcraft, and seems to indicate a lost sequel to the story. Haywood (Nat. and Aborig. Hist. Tenn., p. 161) mentions the Cherokee deluge myth and conjectures that the petroglyphs at Track Rock gap in Georgia may have some reference to it. The versions given by the missionaries Buttrick and Washburn are simply the Bible narrative as told by the Indians. Washburn’s informant, however, accounted for the phenomenon by an upheaval and tilting of the earth, so that the waters for a time overflowed the inhabited parts (Reminiscences, pp. 196–197). In a variant related by Hagar (MS Stellar Legends of the Cherokee) a star with fiery tail falls from heaven and becomes a man with long hair, who warns the people of the coming deluge.

It is not in place here to enter into a discussion of the meaning and universality of the deluge myth, for an explanation of which the reader is referred to Bouton’s Bible Myths and Bible Folklore. [1] Suffice it to say that such a myth appears to have existed with every people and in every age. Among the American tribes with which it was found Brinton enumerates the Athapascan, Algonquian, Iroquois, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Caddo, Natchez, Dakota, Apache, Navaho, Mandan, Pueblo, Aztec, Mixtec, Zapotec, Tlascalan, Michoacan, Toltec, Maya, Quiche, Haitian, Darien, Popayan, Muysca, Quichua, Tupinamba, Achagua, Auraucanian, “and doubtless others.” [2] It is found also along the Northwest coast, was known about Albemarle sound, and, as has been said, was probably common to all the tribes.

In one Creek version the warning is given by wolves; in another by cranes (see Bouton, cited above).

[1] J. W. Bouton, Bible Myths and their Parallels in Other Religions; 2d ed., New York, 1883; Bible Folklore, A Study in Comparative Mythology; New York, 1884.

[2] The Myths of the New World, A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America; 3d ed., Philadelphia, 1896.