Myths of the Cherokee

In the old days Täwi'skälä (Flint) lived up in the mountains, and all the animals hated him because he had helped to kill so many of them. They used to get together to talk over means to put him out of the way, but everybody was afraid to venture near his house until the Rabbit, who was the boldest leader among them, offered to go after Flint and try to kill him. They told him where to find him, and the Rabbit set out and at last came to Flint's house.

Flint was standing at his door when the Rabbit came up and said, sneeringly, "Siyu'! Hello! Are you the fellow they call Flint?"

"Yes; that's what they call me," answered Flint.

"Is this where you live?"

"Yes; this is where I live."

All this time the Rabbit was looking about the place trying to study out some plan to take Flint off his guard. He had expected Flint to invite him into the house, so he waited a little while, but when Flint made no move, he said, "Well, my name is Rabbit; I've heard a good deal about you, so I came to invite you to come and see me."

Flint wanted to know where the Rabbit's house was, and he told him it was down in the broom-grass field near the river. So Flint promised to make him a visit in a few days. "Why not come now and have supper with me?" said the Rabbit, and after a little coaxing Flint agreed and the two started down the mountain together.

When they came near the Rabbit's hole the Rabbit said, "There is my house, but in summer I generally stay outside here where it is cooler." So he made a fire, and they had their supper on the grass. When it was over, Flint stretched out to rest and the Rabbit got some heavy sticks and his knife and cut out a mallet and wedge. Flint looked up and asked what that was for.

"Oh," said the Rabbit, "I like to be doing something, and they may come handy."

So Flint lay down again, and pretty soon he was sound asleep. The Rabbit spoke to him once or twice to make sure, but there was no answer. Then he came over to Flint and with one good blow of the mallet he drove the sharp stake into his body and ran with all his might for his own hole; but before he reached it there was a loud explosion, and pieces of flint flew all about. That is why we find flint in so many places now. One piece struck the Rabbit from behind and cut him just as he dived into his hole. He sat listening until everything seemed quiet again. Then he put his head out to look around, but just at that moment another piece fell and struck him on the lip and split it, as we still see it.

This story was told in slightly different form by John Ax and Swimmer (east) and was confirmed by Wafford (west). Although among the Cherokee it has degenerated to a mere humorous tale for the amusement of a winter evening, it was originally a principal part of the great cosmogonic myth common to probably all the Iroquoian and Algonquian tribes, and of which we find traces also in the mythologies of the Aztec and the Maya. Among the northern Algonquian tribes “the West was typified as a flint stone, and the twin brother of Michabo, the Great Rabbit. The feud between them was bitter, and the contest long and dreadful.... At last Michabo mastered his fellow twin and broke him into pieces. He scattered the fragments over the earth....” Among the Iroquoian tribes, cognate with the Cherokee, the name is variously Tăwiskaroñ, Tăwiskară, and sometimes Ohaa, all of which are names both for flint and for hail or ice. Tăwiskară is the evil-working god, in perpetual conflict with his twin brother Yoskeha, the beneficent god, by whom he is finally overpowered, when the blood that drops from his wounds is changed into flint stones. Brinton sees in the Great Rabbit and the Flint the opposing forces of day and night, light and darkness, locally personified as East and West, while in the twin gods of the Iroquois Hewitt sees the conflicting agents of heat and cold, summer and winter. Both conceptions are identical in the final analysis. Hewitt derives the Iroquois name from a root denoting “hail, ice, glass”; in Cherokee we have tăwiskalûñ′ĭ, tăwi′skălă, “flint,” tăwi′skă, “smooth,” une′stălûñ, “ice.” (See Brinton, American Hero Myths, pp. 48, 56, 61; Hewitt, The Cosmogonic Gods of the Iroquois, in Proc. Am. Ass. Adv. Sci., XLIV, 1895.)

In one of the Cherokee sacred formulas collected by the author occurs the expression: “The terrible Flint is coming. He has his paths laid down in this direction. He is shaking the red switches threateningly. Let us run toward the Sun land.”

Siyu′ – This word, abbreviated from âsiyu′, “good,” is the regular Cherokee salutation. With probably all the tribes the common salutation is simply the word “good,” and in the sign language of the plains the gesture conveying that meaning is used in the same way. The ordinary good-bye is usually some equivalent of “I go now.”