Myths of the Cherokee

The Wildcat once caught the Rabbit and was about to kill him, when the Rabbit begged for his life, saying: "I'm so small I would make only a mouthful for you, but if you let me go I'll show you where you can get a whole drove of Turkeys."

So the Wildcat let him up and went with him to where the Turkeys were.

When they came near the place the Rabbit said to the Wildcat, "Now, you must do just as I say. Lie down as if you were dead and don't move, even if I kick you, but when I give, the word jump up and catch the large stone there." The Wildcat agreed and stretched out as if dead, while the Rabbit gathered some rotten wood and crumbled it over his eyes and nose to make them look flyblown, so that the Turkeys would think he had been dead some time.

Then the Rabbit went over to the Turkeys and said, in a sociable way, "Here, I've found our old enemy, the Wildcat, lying dead in the trail. Let's have a dance over him."

The Turkeys were very doubtful, but finally went with him to where the Wildcat was lying in the road as if dead. Now, the Rabbit had a good voice and was a great dance leader, so he said, "I'll lead the song and you dance around him."

The Turkeys thought that fine, so the Rabbit took a stick to beat time and began to sing: "Gälägi'na hasuyak', Gälägi'na hasuyak' (pick out the Gobbler, pick out the Gobbler)."

"Why do you say that?" said the old Turkey.

"O, that's all right," said the Rabbit, "that's just the way he does, and we sing about it."

He started the song again and the Turkeys began to dance around the Wildcat. When they had gone around several times the Rabbit said, "Now go up and hit him, as we do in the war dance."

So the Turkeys, thinking the Wildcat surely dead, crowded in close around him and the old gobbler kicked him. Then the Rabbit drummed hard and sang his loudest, "Pick out the Gobbler, pick out the Gobbler," and the Wildcat jumped up and caught the Gobbler.

This story was heard from John Ax and David Blythe (east) and from Wafford and Boudinot (west). The version given below, doctored to suit the white man’s idea, appears without signature in the Cherokee Advocate of December 18, 1845:

“There was once a flock of wild turkeys feeding in a valley. As they fed they heard a voice singing. They soon discovered that the musician was a hare, and the burden of his song was that he had a secret in his breast which he would on no account divulge. The curiosity of the turkeys was excited, and they entreated the hare to tell them the secret. This he finally consented to do if they would procure for him the king’s daughter for his wife and go with him and dance around their enemy. They engaged to do all, and the hare led them to where a wildcat lay apparently dead. The hare prevailed upon them to close their eyes as they danced. The wildcat meanwhile silently arose and killed several of them before the rest found out what a snare they had been caught in. By this artifice on the part of the wildcat, seconded by the hare, the former had a sumptuous repast.”

This, with its variants, is one of the most widespread of the animal myths. The same story told by the Cherokee, identical even to the song, is given in the Creek collection of Tuggle, with the addition that the Rabbit’s tail is afterward bitten off by the enraged Turkeys. In another Creek version, evidently a later invention, the Raccoon plays a similar trick upon the Deer for the benefit of the Panther. The Kiowa of the southern plains tell how the hungry trickster, Sinti, entices a number of prairie dogs to come near him, under pretense of teaching them a new dance, and then kills all but one, while they are dancing around him, according to instruction, with their eyes shut. With the Omaha the Rabbit himself captures the Turkeys while they dance around, with closed eyes, to his singing (Dorsey, “The Rabbit and the Turkeys,” and “Ictinike, the Turkeys, Turtle, and Elk,” in Contributions to North American Ethnology, VI). The same stratagem, with only a change of names, recurs in another Omaha story, “The Raccoon and the Crabs,” of the same collection, and in a Cheyenne story of White-man (A. L. Kroeber, Cheyenne Tales, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, July, 1900), and in the Jicarilla story of “The Fox and the Wildcat” (Russell, Myths of the Jicarilla, ibid., October, 1898). The Southern negro version, which lacks the important song and dance feature, is given by Harris in his story of “Brother Rabbit and Mr Wildcat.” [1]

[1] J. C. Harris, Nights with Uncle Remus: Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation; Boston, 1883.