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Myths of the Cherokee

Some, say that the mounds were built by another people. Others say they were built by the ancestors of the old Ani'-Kïtu'hwagï for townhouse foundations, so that the townhouses would be safe when freshets came. The townhouse was always built on the level bottom lands by the river in order that the people might have smooth ground for their dances and ballplays and might be able to go down to water during the dance.

[1. Haywood, Nat. and Aborig. Hist. Tenn., p. 239.]

When they were ready to build the mound they began by laying a circle of stones on the surface of the ground. Next they made a fire in the center of the circle and put near it the body of some prominent chief or priest who had lately died – some say seven chief men from the different clans – together with an Ulûñsû'tï stone, an uktena scale or horn, a feather from the right wing of an eagle or great tlä'nuwä, which lived in those days, and beads of seven colors, red, white, black, blue, purple, yellow, and gray-blue. The priest then conjured all these with disease, so that, if ever an enemy invaded the country, even though he should burn and destroy the town and the townhouse, he would never live to return home.

The mound was then built up with earth, which the women brought in baskets, and as they piled it above the stones, the bodies of their great men, and the sacred things, they left an open place at the fire in the center and let down a hollow cedar trunk, with the bark on, which fitted around the fire and protected it from the earth. This cedar log was cut long enough to reach nearly to the surface inside the townhouse when everything was done. The earth was piled up around it, and the whole mound was finished off smoothly, and then the townhouse was built upon it. One man, called the fire keeper, stayed always in the townhouse to feed and tend the fire. When there was to be a dance or a council he pushed long stalks of the ihyâ'ga weed, which some call atsil'-sûn'tï, "the fire maker" (Erigeron canadense, or fleabane), down through the opening in the cedar log to the fire at the bottom. He left the ends of the stalks sticking out and piled lichens and punk around, after which he prayed, and as he prayed the fire climbed up along the stalks until it caught the punk. Then he put on wood, and by the time the dancers were ready there was a large fire blazing in the townhouse. After the dance he covered the hole over again with ashes, but the fire was always smoldering below. Just before the Green-corn dance, in the old times, every fire in the settlement was extinguished and all the people came and got new fire from the townhouse. This was called atsi'la gälûñkw`ti'yu "the honored or sacred fire." Sometimes when the fire in a house went out, the woman came to the fire keeper, who made a new fire by rubbing an ihyâ'ga stalk against the under side of a hard dry fungus that grows upon locust trees.

Some say this everlasting fire was only in the larger mounds at Nïkwäsï', Kïtu'hwa, and a few other towns, and that when the new fire was thus drawn up for the Green-corn dance it was distributed from them to the other settlements. The fire burns yet at the bottom of these great mounds, and when the Cherokee soldiers were camped near Kïtu'hwa during the civil war they saw smoke still rising from the mound.

The Cherokee once had a wooden box, nearly square and wrapped up in buckskin, in which they kept the most sacred things of their old religion. Upon every important expedition two priests carried it in turn and watched over it in camp so that nothing could come near to disturb it. The Delawares captured it more than a hundred years ago, and after that the old religion was neglected and trouble came to the Nation. They had also a great peace pipe, carved from white stone, with seven stem-holes, so that seven men could sit around and smoke from it at once at their peace councils. In the old town of Keowee they had a drum of stone, cut in the shape of a turtle, which was hung up inside the townhouse and used at all the town dances. The other towns of the Lower Cherokee used to borrow it, too, for their own dances.

All the old things are gone now and the Indians are different.

Comments:

[1] What is here said concerning the mounds, based chiefly upon Swimmer’s recital, is given solely as a matter of popular belief, shaped by tribal custom and ritual. The question of fact is for the archeologist to decide. The Indian statement is of value, however, in showing the supposed requirements for the solemn consecration of an important work.

A note by John Howard Payne upon the sacred square of the Creeks, as observed by him in 1835, just before his visit to the Cherokee, may throw further light on the problem: “In the center of this outer square was a very high circular mound. This, it seems, was formed from the earth accumulated yearly by removing the surface of the sacred square thither. At every Green-corn festival the sacred square is strewn with soil yet untrodden; the soil of the year preceding being taken away, but preserved as above explained. No stranger’s foot is allowed to press the new earth of the sacred square until its consecration is complete” (Letter of 1835 in Continental Monthly, New York, 1862, p. 19). See note on the sacred fire.

Conjured with disease – The practice of conjuring certain favorite spots in order to render them fatal to an invading enemy was common to many if not to all tribes. One of the most terrible battles of the Creek war was fought upon the “Holy ground,” so called because it was believed by the Indians that in consequence of the mystic rites which had been performed there for that purpose by their prophets, no white troops could set foot upon it and live.

The sacred fire – The method described for producing fire and keeping it constantly smoldering in the townhouse appears to have been that actually in use in ancient times, as indicated by the name given to the plant (atsil′-sûñtĭ), and corroborated by the unanimous testimony of the old people. All the older East Cherokee believe that the ancient fire still burns within the mounds at Franklin and Bryson City, and those men who were stationed for a time near the latter place while in the Confederate service, during the Civil war, assert that they frequently saw the smoke rising from the adjacent mound.

The missionary Buttrick, from old Cherokee authority, says: “They were obliged to make new fire for sacred purposes by rubbing two pieces of dry wood together, with a certain weed, called golden rod, dry, between them.... When their enemies destroyed the house in which this holy fire was kept, it was said the fire settled down into the earth, where it still lives, though unknown to the people. The place where they lost this holy fire is somewhere in one of the Carolinas” (Antiquities, p. 9).

The general accuracy of Swimmer’s account is strikingly confirmed by the description of the New-fire ceremony given more than half a century before by John Howard Payne, the poet, who had gone among the Cherokee to study their ethnology and was engaged in that work when arrested, together with John Ross, by the Georgia guard in 1835. He makes the kindling of the new fire a part of the annual spring festival. At that time, says Payne, “the altar in the center of the national heptagon [i.e. townhouse] was repaired. It was constructed of a conical shape, of fresh earth. A circle was drawn around the top to receive the fire of sacrifice. Upon this was laid, ready for use, the inner bark of seven different kinds of trees. This bark was carefully chosen from the east side of the trees, and was clear and free from blemish.” After some days of preliminary purification, sacrifice, and other ceremonial performances, the day appointed for the kindling of the new fire arrived.

“Early in the morning the seven persons who were commissioned to kindle the fire commenced their operations. One was the official fire-maker; the remaining six his assistants. A hearth was carefully cleared and prepared. A round hole being made in a block of wood, a small quantity of dry golden-rod weed was placed in it. A stick, the end of which just fitted the opening, was whirled rapidly until the weed took fire. The flame was then kindled on the hearth and thence taken to every house by the women, who collectively waited for that purpose. The old fires having been everywhere extinguished, and the hearths cleansed, new fires were lighted throughout the country, and a sacrifice was made in each one of them of the first meat killed afterwards by those to whom they respectively belonged.” – Payne MS, quoted in Squier, Serpent Symbol, pp. 116–118.

Similar ceremonies were common to many tribes, particularly the southern tribes and the Pueblos, in connection with the annual kindling of the sacred new fire. See Adair, History of the American Indians; Hawkins, Sketch of the Creek Country, quoted by Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend; Bartram, Travels; Fewkes, The New-fire Ceremony at Walpi, in American Anthropologist for January, 1900; Squier, Serpent Symbol. Going beyond our own boundaries it may be said briefly that fire worship was probably as ancient as ritual itself and well-nigh as universal.

Wooden box – The sacred ark of the Cherokee is described by Adair (History of the American Indians, pp. 161–162), and its capture by the Delawares is mentioned by Washburn (Reminiscences, pp. 191, 221), who states that to its loss the old priests of the tribe ascribed the later degeneracy of their people. They refused to tell him the contents of the ark. On this subject Adair says:

“A gentleman who was at the Ohio in the year 1756 assured me he saw a stranger there very importunate to view the inside of the Cheerake ark, which was covered with a drest deerskin and placed on a couple of short blocks. An Indian centinel watched it, armed with a hiccory bow and brass-pointed barbed arrows; and he was faithful to his trust, for finding the stranger obtruding to pollute the supposed sacred vehicle, he drew an arrow to the head, and would have shot him through the body had he not suddenly withdrawn. The interpreter, when asked by the gentleman what it contained, told him there was nothing in it but a bundle of conjuring traps. This shews what conjurers our common interpreters are, and how much the learned world have really profited by their informations.”

Such tribal palladiums or “medicines,” upon which the existence and prosperity of the tribe are supposed to depend, are still preserved among the plains Indians, the sacred receptacle in each case being confided to the keeping of a priest appointed for the purpose, who alone is privileged to undo the wrappings or expose the contents. Among these tribal “medicines” may be mentioned the sacred arrows of the Cheyenne, the “flat pipe” of the Arapaho, the great shell of the Omaha, and the taime image of the Kiowa (see reference in the author’s Ghost-dance Religion and Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians).

White peace pipe – This statement concerning the ancient seven-stem peace pipe carved from white stone is given on the authority of Swimmer, who said that the stone was procured from a quarry near the present town of Knoxville, Tennessee. A certain district of western North Carolina has recently acquired an unenviable reputation for the manufacture of spurious “Indian pipes,” ostensibly taken from the mounds, carved from soapstone and having from three to half a dozen stem-holes encircling the bowl.

Turtle drum – This statement is on the authority of Wafford, who had talked with men who claimed to have known those who had seen the drum. He was not positive as to the town, but thought it was Keowee. It is believed that the drum was hidden by the Indians, in anticipation of their speedy return, when the country was invaded by Williamson in 1776, but as the country was never recovered by the Cherokee the drum was lost.

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