Historical Traditions
88. FIRST CONTACT WITH WHITES
There are a few stories concerning the first contact of the Cherokee with whites and negroes. They are very modern and have little value as myths, but throw some light upon the Indian estimate of the different races.
One story relates how the first whites came from the east and tried to enter into friendly relations, but the Indians would have nothing to do with them for a long time. At last the whites left a jug of whisky and a dipper near a spring frequented by the Indians. The Indians came along, tasted the liquor, which they had never known before, and liked it so well that they ended by all getting comfortably drunk. While they were in this happy frame of mind some white men came up, and this time the Indians shook hands with them and they have been friends after a fashion ever since. This may possibly be a Cherokee adaptation of the story of Hudson’s first landing on the island of Manhattan.
At the creation an ulûñsû′tĭ was given to the white man, and a piece of silver to the Indian. But the white man despised the stone and threw it away, while the Indian did the same with the silver. In going about the white man afterward found the silver piece and put it into his pocket and has prized it ever since. The Indian, in like manner, found the ulûñsû′tĭ where the white man had thrown it. He picked it up and has kept it since as his talisman, as money is the talismanic power of the white man. This story is quite general and is probably older than others of its class.
When Sequoya, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, was trying to introduce it among his people, about 1822, some of them opposed it upon the ground that Indians had no business with reading. They said that when the Indian and the white man were created, the Indian, being the elder, was given a book, while the white man received a bow and arrows. Each was instructed to take good care of his gift and make the best use of it, but the Indian was so neglectful of his book that the white man soon stole it from him, leaving the bow in its place, so that books and reading now belong of right to the white man, while the Indian ought to be satisfied to hunt for a living.—Cherokee Advocate, October 26, 1844.
The negro made the first locomotive for a toy and put it on a wooden track and was having great fun with it when a white man came along, watched until he saw how to run it, and then killed the negro and took the locomotive for himself. This, also, although plainly of very recent origin, was heard from several informants.
89. THE IROQUOIS WARS
Long wars were waged between the Cherokee and their remote northern relatives, the Iroquois, with both of whom the recollection, now nearly faded, was a vivid tradition fifty years ago. The (Seneca) Iroquois know the Cherokee as Oyadaʼgeʻoñnoñ, a name rather freely rendered “cave people.” The latter call the Iroquois, or rather their largest and most aggressive tribe, the Seneca, Nûndăwe′gĭ, Ani′-Nûn-dăwe′gĭ, or Ani′-Sĕ′nikă, the first forms being derived from Nûndawa′ga or Nûndawa′-ono, “people of the great hills,” the name by which the Seneca know themselves. According to authorities quoted by Schoolcraft, the Seneca claim to have at one time had a settlement, from which they were afterward driven, at Seneca, South Carolina, known in history as one of the principal towns of the Lower Cherokee.
The league of the Iroquois was probably founded about the middle of the sixteenth century. Before 1680 they had conquered or exterminated all the tribes upon their immediate borders and had turned their arms against the more distant Illinois, Catawba, and Cherokee. According to Iroquois tradition, the Cherokee were the aggressors, having attacked and plundered a Seneca hunting party somewhere in the west, while in another story they are represented as having violated a peace treaty by the murder of the Iroquois delegates. Whatever the cause, the war was taken up by all the tribes of the league.
From the Iroquois country to the Cherokee frontier was considered a five days’ journey for a rapidly traveling war party. As the distance was too great for large expeditions, the war consisted chiefly of a series of individual exploits, a single Cherokee often going hundreds of miles to strike a blow, which was sure to be promptly retaliated by the warriors from the north, the great object of every Iroquois boy being to go against the Cherokee as soon as he was old enough to take the war path. Captives were made on both sides, and probably in about equal numbers, the two parties being too evenly matched for either to gain any permanent advantage, and a compromise was finally made by which the Tennessee river came to be regarded as the boundary between their rival claims, all south of that stream being claimed by the Cherokee, and being acknowledged by the Iroquois, as the limit of their own conquests in that direction. This Indian boundary was recognized by the British government up to the time of the Revolution.
Morgan states that a curious agreement was once made between the two tribes, by which this river was also made the limit of pursuit. If a returning war party of the Cherokee could recross the Tennessee before they were overtaken by the pursuing Iroquois they were as safe from attack as though entrenched behind a stockade. The pursuers, if they chose, might still invade the territory of the enemy, but they passed by the camp of the retreating Cherokee without offering to attack them. A similar agreement existed for a time between the Seneca and the Erie.
The Buffalo dance of the Iroquois is traditionally said to have had its origin in an expedition against the Cherokee. When the warriors on their way to the south reached the Kentucky salt lick they found there a herd of buffalo, and heard them, for the first time, “singing their favorite songs,” i. e., bellowing and snorting. From the bellowing and the movements of the animals were derived the music and action of the dance.
According to Cherokee tradition, as given by the chief Stand Watie, the war was finally brought to an end by the Iroquois, who sent a delegation to the Cherokee to propose a general alliance of the southern and western tribes. The Cherokee accepted the proposition, and in turn sent out invitations to the other tribes, all of which entered into the peace excepting the Osage, of whom it was therefore said that they should be henceforth like a wild fruit on the prairie, at which every bird should pick, and so the Osage have remained ever a predatory tribe without friends or allies. This may be the same treaty described in the story of “The Seneca Peacemakers.” A formal and final peace between the two tribes was arranged through the efforts of the British agent, Sir William Johnson, in 1768.
In 1847 there were still living among the Seneca the grandchildren of Cherokee captives taken in these wars. In 1794 the Seneca pointed out to Colonel Pickering a chief who was a native Cherokee, having been taken when a boy and adopted among the Seneca, who afterward made him chief. This was probably the same man of whom they told Schoolcraft fifty years later. He was a full-blood Cherokee, but had been captured when too young to have any memory of the event. Years afterward, when he had grown to manhood and had become a chief in the tribe, he learned of his foreign origin, and was filled at once with an overpowering longing to go back to the south to find his people and live and die among them. He journeyed to the Cherokee country, but on arriving there found to his great disappointment that the story of his capture had been forgotten in the tribe, and that his relatives, if any were left, failed to recognize him. Being unable to find his kindred, he made only a short visit and returned again to the Seneca.
From James Wafford, of Indian Territory, the author obtained a detailed account of the Iroquois peace embassy referred to by Stand Watie, and of the wampum belt that accompanied it. Wafford’s information concerning the proceedings at Echota was obtained directly from two eyewitnesses—Sequoya, the inventor of the alphabet, and Gatûñ′waʻlĭ, “Hard-mush,” who afterward explained the belt at the great council near Tahlequah seventy years later. Sequoya, at the time of the Echota conference, was a boy living with his mother at Taskigi town a few miles away, while Gatûñ′waʻlĭ was already a young man.
The treaty of peace between the Cherokee and Iroquois, made at Johnson Hall in New York in 1768, appears from the record to have been brought about by the Cherokee, who sent for the purpose a delegation of chiefs, headed by Âgănstâ′ta, “Groundhog-sausage,” of Echota, their great leader in the war of 1760–61 against the English. After the treaty had been concluded the Cherokee delegates invited some of the Iroquois chiefs to go home with them for a visit, but the latter declined on the ground that it was not yet safe, and in fact some of their warriors were at that very time out against the Cherokee, not yet being aware of the peace negotiations. It is probable, therefore, that the Iroquois delegates did not arrive at Echota until some considerable time, perhaps three years, after the formal preliminaries had been concluded in the north.
According to Sequoya’s account, as given to Wafford, there had been a long war between the Cherokee and the northern Indians, who were never able to conquer the Cherokee or break their spirit, until at last the Iroquois were tired of fighting and sent a delegation to make peace. The messengers set out for the south with their wampum belts and peace emblems, but lost their way after passing Tennessee river, perhaps from the necessity of avoiding the main trail, and instead of arriving at Itsâ′tĭ or Echota, the ancient peace town and capital of the Cherokee Nation—situated on Little Tennessee river below Citico creek, in the present Monroe county, Tennessee—they found themselves on the outskirts of Tă′likwă′ or Tellico, on Tellico river, some 10 or 15 miles to the southward.
Fig. 2—Ancient Iroquois wampum belts.[3]
Concealing themselves in the neighborhood, they sent one of their number into the town to announce their coming. As it happened the chief and his family were at work in their cornfield, and his daughter had just gone up to the house for some reason when the Iroquois entered and asked for something to eat. Seeing that he was a stranger, she set out food for him according to the old custom of hospitality. While he was eating her father, the chief, came in to see what was delaying her, and was surprised to find there one of the hereditary enemies of his tribe. By this time the word had gone out that an Iroquois was in the chief’s house, and the men of the town had left their work and seized their guns to kill him, but the chief heard them coming and standing in the doorway kept them off, saying: “This man has come here on a peace mission, and before you kill him you must first kill me.” They finally listened to him, and allowed the messenger to go out and bring his companions to the chief’s house, where they were all taken care of.
When they were well rested after their long journey the chief of Tă′likwă himself went with them to Itsâ′tĭ, the capital, where lived the great chief Âgănstâ′ta, who was now the civil ruler of the Nation. The chiefs of the various towns were summoned and a council was held, at which the speaker for the Iroquois delegation delivered his message and produced the wampum belts and pipes, which they brought as proofs of their mission and had carried all the way in packs upon their backs.
He said that for three years his people had been wanting to make peace. There was a spring of dark, cloudy water in their country, and they had covered it over for one year and then looked, but the water was still cloudy. Again they had covered it over, but when they looked at the end of another year it was still dark and troubled. For another year they had covered the spring, and this time when they looked the water was clear and sparkling. Then they knew the time had come, and they left home with their wampum belts to make peace with their enemies.
The friendly message was accepted by the Cherokee, and the belts and other symbolic peace tokens were delivered over to their keeping. Other belts in turn were probably given to the Iroquois, and after the usual round of feasting and dancing the messengers returned to their people in the north and the long war was at an end.
For nearly a century these symbolic records of the peace with the Iroquois were preserved by the Cherokee, and were carried with them to the western territory when the tribe was finally driven from its old home in 1838. They were then in the keeping of John Ross, principal chief at the time of the removal, and were solemnly produced at a great intertribal council held near Tahlequah, in the Indian Territory, in June, 1843, when they were interpreted by the Cherokee speaker, Gatûñ′waʻlĭ, “Hard-mush,” who had seen them delivered to the chiefs of his tribe at old Itsâ′tĭ seventy years before. Wafford was present on this occasion and describes it.
Holding the belts over his arm while speaking, Hard-mush told of the original treaty with the Iroquois, and explained the meaning of each belt in turn. According to the best of Wafford’s recollection, there was one large belt, to which the smaller belts were fitted. The beads did not seem to be of shell, and may have been of porcelain. There were also red pipes for the warriors, grayish-white pipes for the chiefs who were foremost in making the peace, and some fans or other ornaments of feathers. There were several of the red pipes, resembling the red-stone pipes of the Sioux, but only one, or perhaps two, of the white peace pipes, which may have been only painted, and were much larger than the others. The pipes were passed around the circle at the council, so that each delegate might take a whiff. The objects altogether made a considerable package, which was carefully guarded by the Cherokee keeper. It is thought that they were destroyed in the War of the Rebellion when the house of John Ross, a few miles south of Tahlequah, was burned by the Confederate Cherokee under their general, Stand Watie.
90. HIADEONI, THE SENECA
“Hiadeoni was the father of the late chief Young-king. He was a Seneca warrior, a man of great prowess, dexterity, and swiftness of foot, and had established his reputation for courage and skill on many occasions. He resolved while the Seneca were still living on the Genesee river to make an incursion alone into the country of the Cherokee. He plumed himself with the idea that he could distinguish himself in this daring adventure, and he prepared for it, according to the custom of warriors. They never encumber themselves with baggage. He took nothing but his arms and the meal of a little parched and pounded corn. The forest gave him his meat.
Hiadeoni reached the confines of the Cherokee country in safety and alone. He waited for evening before he entered the precincts of a village. He found the people engaged in a dance. He watched his opportunity, and when one of the dancers went out from the ring into the bushes he dispatched him with his hatchet. In this way he killed two men that night in the skirts of the woods without exciting alarm, and took their scalps and retreated. It was late when he came to a lodge, standing remote from the rest, on his course homeward. Watching here, he saw a young man come out, and killed him as he had done the others, and took his scalp. Looking into the lodge cautiously he saw it empty, and ventured in with the hope of finding some tobacco and ammunition to serve him on his way home.
While thus busied in searching the lodge he heard footsteps at the door, and immediately threw himself on the bed from which the young man had risen, and covered his face, feigning sleep. They proved to be the footsteps of his last victim’s mother. She, supposing him to be her son, whom she had a short time before left lying there, said, “My son, I am going to such a place, and will not be back till morning.” He made a suitable response, and the old woman went out. Insensibly he fell asleep, and knew nothing till morning, when the first thing he heard was the mother’s voice. She, careful for her son, was at the fireplace very early, pulling some roasted squashes out of the ashes, and after putting them out, and telling him she left them for him to eat, she went away. He sprang up instantly and fled; but the early dawn had revealed his inroad, and he was hotly pursued. Light of foot, and having the start, he succeeded in reaching and concealing himself in a remote piece of woods, where he laid till night, and then pursued his way toward the Genesee, which, in due time he reached, bringing his three Cherokee scalps as trophies of his victory and prowess.”—Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, p. 253, 1847.
91. THE TWO MOHAWKS
“In the year 1747 a couple of the Mohawk Indians came against the lower towns of the Cheerake, and so cunningly ambuscaded them through most part of the spring and summer, as to kill above twenty in different attacks before they were discovered by any party of the enraged and dejected people. They had a thorough knowledge of the most convenient ground for their purpose, and were extremely swift and long-winded. Whenever they killed any and got the scalp they made off to the neighboring mountains, and ran over the broad ledges of rocks in contrary courses, as occasion offered, so as the pursuers could by no means trace them. Once, when a large company was in chase of them, they ran round a steep hill at the head of the main eastern branch of Savana river, intercepted, killed, and scalped the hindmost of the party, and then made off between them and Keeowhee. As this was the town to which the company belonged, they hastened home in a close body, as the proper place of security from such enemy wizards. In this manner did those two sprightly, gallant savages perplex and intimidate their foes for the space of four moons in the greatest security, though they often were forced to kill and barbecue what they chiefly lived upon, in the midst of their watchful enemies. Having sufficiently revenged their relations’ blood and gratified their own ambition with an uncommon number of scalps, they resolved to captivate one and run home with him as a proof of their having killed none but the enemies of their country. Accordingly, they approached very near to Keeowhee, about half a mile below the late Fort Prince George. Advancing with the usual caution on such an occasion, one crawled along under the best cover of the place about the distance of a hundred yards ahead, while the other shifted from tree to tree, looking sharply every way. In the evening, however, an old, beloved man discovered them from the top of an adjoining hill, and knew them to be enemies by the cut of their hair, light trim for running, and their postures. He returned to the town and called first at the house of one of our traders and informed him of the affair, enjoining him not to mention it to any, lest the people should set off against them without success before their tracks were to be discovered and he be charged with having deceived them. But, contrary to the true policy of traders among unforgiving savages, that thoughtless member of the Choktah Sphynx Company busied himself, as usual, out of his proper sphere, sent for the headmen, and told them the story. As the Mohawks were allies and not known to molest any of the traders in the paths and woods, he ought to have observed a strict neutrality. The youth of the town, by order of their headmen, carried on their noisy public diversions in their usual manner to prevent their foes from having any suspicion of their danger, while runners were sent from the town to their neighbors to come silently and assist them to secure the prey in its state of security. They came like silent ghosts, concerted their plan of operation, passed over the river at the old trading ford opposite to the late fort, which lay between two contiguous commanding hills, and, proceeding downward over a broad creek, formed a large semicircle from the river bank, while the town seemed to be taking its usual rest. They then closed into a narrower compass, and at last discovered the two brave, unfortunate men lying close under the tops of some fallen young pine trees. The company gave the war signal, and the Mohawks, bounding up, bravely repeated it; but, by their sudden spring from under thick cover, their arms were useless. They made desperate efforts, however, to kill or be killed, as their situation required. One of the Cheerake, the noted half-breed of Istanare [Ustăna′lĭ] town, which lay 2 miles from thence, was at the first onset knocked down and almost killed with his own cutlass, which was wrested from him, though he was the strongest of the whole nation. But they were overpowered by numbers, captivated, and put to the most exquisite tortures of fire, amidst a prodigious crowd of exulting foes.
One of the present Choktah traders, who was on the spot, told me that when they were tied to the stake the younger of the two discovered our traders on a hill near, addressed them in English, and entreated them to redeem their lives. The elder immediately spoke to him, in his own language, to desist. On this, he recollected himself, and became composed like a stoic, manifesting an indifference to life or death, pleasure or pain, according to their standard of martial virtue, and their dying behaviour did not reflect the least dishonor on their former gallant actions. All the pangs of fiery torture served only to refine their manly spirits, and as it was out of the power of the traders to redeem them they, according to our usual custom, retired as soon as the Indians began the diabolical tragedy.”—Adair, American Indians, p. 383, 1775.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY NINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XVII
PHOTOGRAPH BY AUTHOR, 1888
ANNIE AX (SADAYĬ)
92. ESCAPE OF THE SENECA BOYS
Some Seneca warriors were hunting in the woods, and one morning, on starting out for the day, they left two boys behind to take care of the camp. Soon after they had gone, a war party of Cherokee came up, and finding the boys alone took them both and started back to the south, traveling at such a rate that when the hunters returned in the evening they decided that it was of no use to follow them. When the Cherokee reached their own country they gave the boys to an old man, whose sons had been killed by the Seneca. He took the boys and adopted them for his own, and they grew up with him until they were large and strong enough to go hunting for themselves.
But all the time they remembered their own home, and one day the older one said to his brother, “Let’s kill the old man and run away.” “No,” said the other, “we might get lost if we ran away, we are so far from home.” “I remember the way,” said his brother, so they made a plan to escape. A few days later the old man took the boys with him and the three set out together for a hunt in the mountains. When they were well away from the settlement the boys killed the old man, took all the meat and parched corn meal they could easily carry, and started to make their way back to the north, keeping away from the main trail and following the ridge of the mountains. After many days they came to the end of the mountains and found a trail which the older brother knew as the one along which they had been taken when they were first captured. They went on bravely now until they came to a wide clearing with houses at the farther end, and the older brother said, “I believe there is where we used to live.” It was so long ago that they were not quite sure, and besides they were dressed now like Cherokee, so they thought it safer to wait until dark. They saw a river ahead and went down to it and sat behind a large tree to wait. Soon several women came down for water and passed close to the tree without noticing the boys. Said the older brother, “I know those women. One of them is our mother.” They waited until the women had filled their buckets and started to the village, when both ran out to meet them with the Seneca hailing-shout, “Gowe′! Gowe′!” At first the women were frightened and thought it a party of Cherokee, but when they heard their own language they came nearer. Then the mother recognized her two sons, and said, “Let us go back and dance for the dead come to life,” and they were all very glad and went into the village together.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.
93. THE UNSEEN HELPERS
Ganogwioeoñ, a war chief of the Seneca, led a party against the Cherokee. When they came near the first town he left his men outside and went in alone. At the first house he found an old woman and her granddaughter. They did not see him, and he went into the âsĭ and hid himself under some wood. When darkness came on he heard the old woman say, “Maybe Ganogwioeoñ is near; I’ll close the door.” After a while he heard them going to bed. When he thought they were asleep he went into the house. The fire had burned down low, but the girl was still awake and saw him. She was about to scream, when he said, “I am Ganogwioeoñ. If you scream I’ll kill you. If you keep quiet I’ll not hurt you.” They talked together, and he told her that in the morning she must bring the chief’s daughter to him. She promised to do it, and told him where he should wait. Just before daylight he left the house.
In the morning the girl went to the chief’s house and said to his daughter, “Let’s go out together for wood.” The chief’s daughter got ready and went with her, and when they came to the place where Ganogwioeoñ was hiding he sprang out and killed her, but did not hurt the other girl. He pulled off the scalp and gave such a loud scalp yell that all the warriors in the town heard it and came running out after him. He shook the scalp at them and then turned and ran. He killed the first one that came up, but when he tried to shoot the next one the bow broke and the Cherokee got him.
They tied him and carried him to the two women of the tribe who had the power to decide what should be done with him. Each of these women had two snakes tattooed on her lips, with their heads opposite each other, in such a way that when she opened her mouth the two snakes opened their mouths also. They decided to burn the soles of his feet until they were blistered, then to put grains of corn under the skin and to chase him with clubs until they had beaten him to death.
They stripped him and burnt his feet. Then they tied a bark rope around his waist, with an old man to hold the other end, and made him run between two lines of people, and with clubs in their hands. When they gave the word to start Ganogwioeoñ pulled the rope away from the old man and broke through the line and ran until he had left them all out of sight. When night came he crawled into a hollow log. He was naked and unarmed, with his feet in a pitiful condition, and thought he could never get away.
He heard footsteps on the leaves outside and thought his enemies were upon him. The footsteps came up to the log and some one said to another, “This is our friend.” Then the stranger said to Ganogwioeoñ, “You think you are the same as dead; but it is not so. We will take care of you. Stick out your feet.” He put out his feet from the log and felt something licking them. After a while the voice said, “I think we have licked his feet enough. Now we must crawl inside the log and lie on each side of him to keep him warm.” They crawled in beside him. In the morning they crawled out and told him to stick out his feet again. They licked them again and then said to him, “Now we have done all we can do this time. Go on until you come to the place where you made a bark shelter a long time ago, and under the bark you will find something to help you.” Ganogwioeoñ crawled out of the log, but they were gone. His feet were better now and he could walk comfortably. He went on until about noon, when he came to the bark shelter, and under it he found a knife, an awl, and a flint, that his men had hidden there two years before. He took them and started on again.
Toward evening he looked around until he found another hollow tree and crawled into it to sleep. At night he heard the footsteps and voices again. When he put out his feet again, as the strangers told him to do, they licked his feet as before and then crawled in and lay down on each side of him to keep him warm. Still he could not see them. In the morning after they went out they licked his feet again and said to him, “At noon you will find food.” Then they went away.
Ganogwioeoñ crawled out of the tree and went on. At noon he came to a burning log, and near it was a dead bear, which was still warm, as if it had been killed only a short time before. He skinned the bear and found it very fat. He cut up the meat and roasted as much as he could eat or carry. While it was roasting he scraped the skin and rubbed rotten wood dust on it to clean it until he was tired. When night came he lay down to sleep. He heard the steps and the voices again and one said, “Well, our friend is lying down. He has plenty to eat, and it does not seem as if he is going to die. Let us lick his feet again.” When they had finished they said to him, “You need not worry any more now. You will get home all right.” Before it was day they left him.
When morning came he put the bearskin around him like a shirt, with the hair outside, and started on again, taking as much of the meat as he could carry. That night his friends came to him again. They said, “Your feet are well, but you will be cold,” so they lay again on each side of him. Before daylight they left, saying, “About noon you will find something to wear.” He went on and about midday he came to two young bears just killed. He skinned them and dressed the skins, then roasted as much meat as he wanted and lay down to sleep. In the morning he made leggings of the skins, took some of the meat, and started on.
His friends came again the next night and told him that in the morning he would come upon something else to wear. As they said, about noon he found two fawns just killed. He turned the skins and made himself a pair of moccasins, then cut some of the meat, and traveled on until evening, when he made a fire and had supper.
That night again he heard the steps and voices, and one said, “My friend, very soon now you will reach home safely and find your friends all well. Now we will tell you why we have helped you. Whenever you went hunting you always gave the best part of the meat to us and kept only the smallest part for yourself. For that we are thankful and help you. In the morning you will see us and know who we are.”
In the morning when he woke up they were still there—two men as he thought—but after he had said the last words to them and started on, he turned again to look, and one was a white wolf and the other a black wolf. That day he reached home.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.
94. HATCINOÑDOÑ’S ESCAPE FROM THE CHEROKEE
Hatcinoñdoñ was a great warrior, the greatest among the Seneca. Once he led a company against the Cherokee. They traveled until they came to the great ridge on the border of the Cherokee country, and then they knew their enemies were on the lookout on the other side. Hatcinoñdoñ told his men to halt where they were while he went ahead to see what was in front. The enemy discovered and chased him, and he ran into a canebrake, where the canes were in two great patches with a narrow strip of open ground between. They saw him go into the canes, so they set fire to the patch and watched at the open place for him to come out, but before they got around to it he had run across into the second patch and escaped. When the canes had burned down the Cherokee looked for his body in the ashes, but could not find any trace of it, so they went home.
When Hatcinoñdoñ got into the second canebrake he was tired out, so he lay down and fell asleep. At night while he was asleep two men came and took him by the arm, saying: “We have come for you. Somebody has sent for you.” They took him a long way, above the sky vault, until they came to a house. Then they said: “This is where the man lives who sent for you.” He looked, but could see no door. Then a voice from the inside said “Come in,” and something like a door opened of itself. He went in and there sat Hawĕñni′o, the Thunder-god.
Hawĕñni′o said, “I have sent for you and you are here. Are you hungry?” Hatcinoñdoñ thought: “That’s a strange way to talk; that’s not the way I do—I give food.” The Thunder knew his thoughts, so he laughed and said, “I said that only in fun.” He rose and brought half a cake of bread, half of a wild apple, and half a pigeon. Hatcinoñdoñ said, “This is very little to fill me,” but the Thunder replied, “If you eat that, there is more.” He began eating, but, as he ate, everything became whole again, so that he was not able to finish it.
While he was sitting he heard some one running outside, and directly the door was thrown open and the Sun came in, so bright that Hatcinoñdoñ had to hold his head down. The two beings talked together, but the Seneca could not understand a word, and soon the visitor went out again. Then the Thunder said: “That is the one you call the Sun, who watches in the world below. It is night down there now, and he is hurrying to the east. He says there has just been a battle. I love both the Seneca and the Cherokee, and when you get back to your warriors you must tell them to stop fighting and go home.” Again he brought food, half of each kind, and when Hatcinoñdoñ had eaten, the Thunder said, “Now my messengers will take you to your place.”
The door opened again of itself, and Hatcinoñdoñ followed the two Sky People until they brought him to the place where he had slept, and there left him. He found his party and told the warriors what he had seen. They held a council over it and decided to strike the enemy once before going home. Hatcinoñdoñ led them. They met the Cherokee and went home with scalps.
He led another party against the Cherokee, but this time he was taken and carried to the Cherokee town. It was the custom among the Cherokee to let two women say what should be done with captives. They decided that he should be tortured with fire, so he was tied to a tree, and the wood was piled around him. Hatcinoñdoñ gave himself up for lost, when a rain storm came up and the people concluded to wait until it was over. They went away and left him tied to the tree.
Pretty soon an old woman came up to him, and said, “My grandson, you think you are going to die, but you are not. Try to stir your limbs.” He struggled and finally got his limbs free. Then she said, “Now you are free. I have come to repay your kindness. You remember that you once found a frog in the middle of a circle of fire and that you picked it up and put it into the water. I was that frog, and now I help you. I sent the rain storm, and now you must go down to the creek and follow the current.”
When the rain was over the people came back, but Hatcinoñdoñ was gone. They trailed him down to the creek, but he had found a hollow tree lying in the water, with a hole on the upper side through which he could breathe, so he crawled into it and they could not find him. Once two of the Cherokee came and sat on the log and he could hear them talking about him, but they did not know that he was inside. When they were all gone, he came out and kept on down the stream. After dark he came to a place where three hunters had made a fire and gone to sleep for the night. Their hatchets and arms were hung up on a tree. Hatcinoñdoñ was naked. He listened until he was sure the men were asleep, then he took one of their hatchets and killed all three, one after another. He dressed himself in the clothes of one, and put on his belt, with the knife and hatchet. Then he washed himself at the creek and sat down by the fire and cooked his supper. After that he stretched and painted the three scalps and lay down by the fire to sleep. In the morning he took what provision he could carry and traveled in a great circle until he found the road by which he and his warriors had come. He found fresh tracks and followed them until he saw smoke ahead. He listened until he heard men speaking Seneca, and knew that it was his party. Then he gave the Seneca shout—Gowe′!—three times and his friends ran out to meet him. They had been afraid that he was killed, but were glad now that they had waited for him. They went home together. This is their story.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.
95. HEMP-CARRIER
On the southern slope of the ridge, along the trail from Robbinsville to Valley river, in Cherokee county, North Carolina, are the remains of a number of stone cairns. The piles are leveled now, but thirty years ago the stones were still heaped up into pyramids, to which every Cherokee who passed added a stone. According to the tradition these piles marked the graves of a number of women and children of the tribe who were surprised and killed on the spot by a raiding party of the Iroquois shortly before the final peace between the two Nations. As soon as the news was brought to the settlements on Hiwassee and Cheowa a party was made under Tâle′danigi′skĭ, “Hemp-carrier,” to follow and take vengeance on the enemy. Among others of the party was the father of the noted chief Tsunu′lăhûñ′skĭ, or Junaluska, who (Junaluska) died on Cheowa about 1855.
For days they followed the trail of the Iroquois across the Great Smoky mountains, through forests and over rivers, until they finally tracked them to their very town in the far northern Seneca country. On the way they met another war party headed for the south, and the Cherokee killed them all and took their scalps. When they came near the Seneca town it was almost night, and they heard shouts in the townhouse, where the women were dancing over the fresh Cherokee scalps. The avengers hid themselves near the spring, and as the dancers came down to drink the Cherokee silently killed one and another until they had counted as many scalps as had been taken on Cheowa, and still the dancers in the townhouse never thought that enemies were near. Then said the Cherokee leader, “We have covered the scalps of our women and children. Shall we go home now like cowards, or shall we raise the war whoop and let the Seneca know that we are men?” “Let them come, if they will,” said his men; and they raised the scalp yell of the Cherokee. At once there was an answering shout from the townhouse, and the dance came to a sudden stop. The Seneca warriors swarmed out with ready gun and hatchet, but the nimble Cherokee were off and away. There was a hot pursuit in the darkness, but the Cherokee knew the trails and were light and active runners, and managed to get away with the loss of only a single man. The rest got home safely, and the people were so well pleased with Hemp-carrier’s bravery and success that they gave him seven wives.
96. THE SENECA PEACEMAKERS
In the course of the long war with the Cherokee it happened once that eight Seneca determined to undertake a journey to the south to see if they could make a peace with their enemies. On coming near the border of the Cherokee country they met some hunters of that tribe to whom they told their purpose. The latter at once hurried ahead with the news, and when the peacemakers arrived they found themselves well received by the Cherokee chiefs, who called a council to consider the proposition. All but one of the chiefs favored the peace, but he demanded that the eight delegates should first join them in a war party which was just preparing to go against a tribe farther south, probably the Creeks. The Seneca agreed, and set out with the war party for the south; but in the fight which resulted, the Seneca leader, The Owl, was captured. The other seven escaped with the Cherokee.
A council was held in the enemy’s camp, and it was decided that The Owl should be burned at the stake. The wood was gathered and everything made ready, but as they were about to tie him he claimed the warrior’s privilege to sing his death song and strike the post as he recited his warlike deeds. The request pleased his enemies, who put a tomahawk into his hands and told him to begin.
He told first his exploits in the north, and then in the west, giving times and places and the number of scalps taken, until his enemies were so pleased and interested that they forgot the prisoner in the warrior. It was a long story, but at last he came to the battle in which he was taken. He told how many relatives he had killed of the very men around him, and then, striking the post with his tomahawk, “So many of your people have I killed, and so many will I yet kill;” and with that he struck down two men, sprang through the circle of warriors, and was away. It was all so sudden that it was some moments before his enemies could recover from their surprise. Then they seized their weapons and were after him through the woods, but he had had a good start and was running for his life, so that he outran the chase and finally reached the Cherokee camp in safety and rejoined his seven companions.
On this proof of good will the Cherokee then concluded the treaty, and the peacemakers returned to their own country.—Arranged from Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, p. 258.
97. ORIGIN OF THE YONTOÑWISAS DANCE
Two Seneca women who were sisters, with the baby boy of the older one, were in a sugar grove near their home when a war party of Cherokee came upon them and carried them off. When the people of the town learned what had happened, they decided not to go after the enemy for fear they would kill the women, so their made no pursuit.
The Cherokee carried the women with them until they were within one day of the Cherokee towns. The elder sister learned this and made up her mind to try to escape. She had a knife without a handle hidden under her belt, and that night when all lay down to sleep by the fire she kept awake. When they were sleeping soundly, she looked around. She and her sister were tied together, and on each side of them was a Cherokee with the end of the rope under his body on the ground. Taking out her knife, she cut the rope without waking the men, and then rousing her sister quietly she whispered to her to come. They were going to leave the little boy, but he started to cry, so she said, “Let us die together,” and took him up on her back, and the two women hurried away. In a little while they heard an alarm behind them, and knew that their escape was discovered, and then they saw the blazing pine knots waving through the trees where the Cherokee were coming on looking for them. The women knew the Cherokee would hunt for them toward the north, along the trail to the Seneca country, so they made a circuit and went around to the south until they came in sight of a fire and saw a man sitting by a tree, shaking a rattle and singing in a low voice. They found they had come directly back to the enemy’s camp, so the older sister said, “This will never do; we must try again. Let us go straight ahead to that big tree in front, and from that straight on to the next, and the next.” In this way they kept on a straight course until morning. When the sun came up, they took another direction toward home, and at night they rested in the woods.
They traveled all the next day, and at night rested again. In the night a voice spoke to the younger woman, “Is that where you are resting?” and she answered, “Yes.” The voice said again, “Keep on, and you will come out at the spot where you were captured. No harm will come to you. To-morrow you will find food.” She roused her sister and told her what the voice had said.
In the morning they went on and at noon found a buck freshly killed. Near by they found a log on fire, so they roasted some of the meat, had a good meal, and carried away afterwards as much of the meat as they could. They kept on, camping every night, and when the meat was nearly gone they saved the rest for the little boy.
At last one night the voice spoke again to the younger sister and said, “You are on the right road, and to-morrow you will be on the border of the Seneca country. You will find food. That is all.”
In the morning she told her older sister. They started on again and walked until about noon, when they came to a patch of wild potatoes. They dug and found plenty, and as they looked around they saw smoke where there had been a camp fire. They gathered wood, made up the fire, and roasted the potatoes. Then they ate as many as they wanted and carried the rest with them.
They traveled on until the potatoes were almost gone. Then at night the voice came again to the younger woman, saying: “At noon tomorrow you will reach your home, and the first person you will meet will be your uncle. When you get to the town, you must call the people together and tell them all that has happened. You must go to the long house and take off your skirt and carry it on your shoulder. Then you must go inside and go around once, singing, ‘We have come home; we are here.’ This is the Yontoñwisas song, and it shall be for women only. Know now that we are the Hadionyageonoñ, the Sky People, who have watched over you all this time.”
When the girl awoke, she told her sister, and they said, “We must do all this,” and they began to sing as they went along. About noon they heard the sound of chopping, and when they went to the place they found it was their uncle cutting blocks to make spoons. He did not see them until they spoke, and at first could hardly believe that they were living women, because he knew that they had been taken by the Cherokee. He was very glad to see them, and as they walked on to the town they told him all they had been commanded to do by the Sky People. When they arrived at the town, he called all the people together, and they went to the long house. There the two women sang their song and did everything exactly as they had been told to do, and when it was over they said, “This is all,” and sat down. This is the same Yontoñwisas song that is still sung by the women.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.
98. GAʼNA’S ADVENTURES AMONG THE CHEROKEE
Gaʼnaʼ was a Seneca war chief. He called a council and said, “We must go to the Cherokee and see if we can’t agree to be friendly together and live in peace hereafter.” The people consented, and the chief said, “We must go to water first before we start.” So they went, a great party of warriors, far away into the deep forest by the river side. There were no women with them. For ten days they drank medicine every morning to make them vomit and washed and bathed in the river each day.
Then the chief said, “Now we must get the eagle feathers.” They went to the top of a high hill and dug a trench there the length of a man’s body, and put a man into it, with boughs over the top so that he could not be seen, and above that they put the whole body of a deer. Then the people went off out of sight, and said the words to invite Shadaʼge′a, the great eagle that lives in the clouds, to come down.
The man under the brushwood heard a noise, and a common eagle came and ate a little and flew away again. Soon it came back, ate a little more, and flew off in another direction. It told the other birds and they came, but the man scared them away, because he did not want common birds to eat the meat. After a while he heard a great noise coming through the air, and he knew it was Shadaʼge′a, the bird he wanted. Shadaʼge′a is very cautious, and looked around in every direction for some time before he began to eat the meat. As soon as he was eating the man put his hand up cautiously and caught hold of the bird’s tail and held on to it. Shadaʼge′a rose up and flew away, and the man had pulled out one feather. They had to trap a good many eagles in this way, and it was two years before they could get enough feathers to make a full tail, and were ready to start for the Cherokee country.
They were many days on the road, and when they got to the first Cherokee town they found there was a stockade around it so that no enemy could enter. They waited until the gate was open, and then two Seneca dancers went forward, carrying the eagle feathers and shouting the signal yell. When the Cherokee heard the noise they came out and saw the two men singing and dancing, and the chief said, “These men must have come upon some errand.” The Seneca messengers came up and said, “Call a council; we have come to talk on important business.” All turned and went toward the townhouse, the rest of the Seneca following the two who were dancing. The townhouse was crowded, and the Seneca sang and danced until they were tired before they stopped. The Cherokee did not dance.
After the dance the Seneca chief said, “Now I will tell you why we have come so far through the forest to see you. We have thought among ourselves that it is time to stop fighting. Your people and ours are always on the lookout to kill each other, and we think it is time for this to stop. Here is a belt of wampum to show that I speak the truth. If your people are willing to be friendly, take it,” and he held up the belt. The Cherokee chief stepped forward and said, “I will hold it in my hand, and to-morrow we will tell you what we decide.” He then turned and said to the people, “Go home and bring food.” They went and brought so much food that it made a great pile across the house, and all of both tribes ate together, but could not finish it.
Next day they ate together again, and when all were done the Cherokee chief said to the Seneca, “We have decided to be friendly and to bury our weapons, these knives and hatchets, so that no man may take them up again.” The Seneca chief replied, “We are glad you have accepted our offer, and now we have all thrown our weapons in a pile together, and the white wampum hangs between us, and the belt shall be as long as a man and hang down to the ground.”
Then the Cherokee chief said to his people, “Now is the time for any of you that wishes to adopt a relative from among the Seneca to do so.” So some Cherokee women went and picked out one man and said, “You shall be our uncle,” and some more took another for their brother, and so on until only Gaʼnaʼ, the chief, was left, but the Cherokee chief said, “No one must take Gaʼnaʼ, for a young man is here to claim him as his father.” Then the young man came up to Gaʼnaʼ and said, “Father, I am glad to see you. Father, we will go home,” and he led Gaʼnaʼ to his own mother’s house, the house where Gaʼnaʼ had spent the first night. The young man was really his son, and when Gaʼnaʼ came to the house he recognized the woman as his wife who had been carried off long ago by the Cherokee.
While they were there a messenger came from the Seoqgwageono tribe, that lived near the great salt water in the east, to challenge the Cherokee to a ball play. He was dressed in skins which were so long that they touched the ground. He said that his people were already on the way and would arrive in a certain number of days. They came on the appointed day and the next morning began to make the bets with the Cherokee. The Seneca were still there. The strangers bet two very heavy and costly robes, besides other things. They began to play, and the Cherokee lost the game. Then the Seneca said, “We will try this time.” Both sides bet heavily again, and the game began, but after a little running the Seneca carried the ball to their goal and made a point. Before long they made all the points and won the game. Then the bets were doubled, and the Seneca won again. When they won a third game also the Seoqgwageono said, “Let us try a race,” and the Seneca agreed.
The course was level, and the open space was very wide. The Cherokee selected the Seneca runner, and it was agreed that they would run the first race without betting and then make their bets on the second race. They ran the first race, and when they reached the post the Seneca runner was just the measure of his body behind the other. His people asked him if he had done his best, but he said, “No; I have not,” so they made their bets, and the second race—the real race—began. When they got to the middle the Seneca runner said to the other, “Do your best now, for I am going to do mine,” and as he said it he pulled out and left the other far behind and won the race. Then the Seoqgwageono said, “There is one more race yet—the long race,” and they got ready for it, but the Cherokee chief said to his own men, “We have won everything from these people. I think it will be best to let them have one race, for if they lose all, they may make trouble.” They selected a Cherokee to run, and he was beaten, and the Seoqgwageono went home.
In a few days they sent a messenger to challenge the Cherokee to meet them halfway for a battle. When the Cherokee heard this they said to the Seneca, “There are so few of you here that we don’t want to have you killed. It is better for you to go home.” So the Seneca went back to their own country.
Three years later they came again to visit the Cherokee, who told them that the Seoqgwageono had won the battle, and that the chief of the enemy had said afterward, “I should like to fight the Seneca, for I am a double man.” Before long the enemy heard that the Seneca were there and sent them a challenge to come and fight. The Seneca said, “We must try to satisfy them,” so with Cherokee guides they set out for the country of the Seoqgwageono. They went on until they came to an opening in the woods within one day’s journey of the first village. Then they stopped and got ready to send two messengers to notify the enemy, but the Cherokee said, “You must send them so as to arrive about sundown.” They did this, and when the messengers arrived near the town they saw all the people out playing ball.
The two Seneca went around on the other side, and began throwing sumac darts as they approached, so that the others would think they were some of their own men at play. In this way they got near enough to kill a man who was standing alone. They scalped him, and then raising the scalp yell they rushed off through the woods, saying to each other as they ran, “Be strong—Be strong.” Soon they saw the Seoqgwageono coming on horses, but managed to reach a dry creek and to hide under the bank, so that the enemy passed on without seeing them.
The next morning they came out and started on, but the enemy was still on the watch, and before long the two men saw the dust of the horses behind them. The others came up until they were almost upon them and began to shoot arrows at them, but by this time the two Seneca were near the opening where their own friends were hiding, drawn up on each side of the pass. As the pursuers dashed in the two lines of the Seneca closed in and every man of the Seoqgwageono was either killed or taken.
The Seneca went back to the Cherokee country and after about a month they returned to their own homes. Afterward the Cherokee told them, “We hear the Seoqgwageono think you dangerous people. They themselves are conjurers and can tell what other people are going to do, but they cannot tell what the Seneca are going to do. The Seneca medicine is stronger.”—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.
99. THE SHAWANO WARS
Among the most inveterate foes of the Cherokee were the Shawano, known to the Cherokee as Ani′-Sawănu′gĭ, who in ancient times, probably as early as 1680, removed from Savannah (i. e., Shawano) river, in South Carolina, and occupied the Cumberland river region in middle Tennessee and Kentucky, from which they were afterward driven by the superior force of the southern tribes and compelled to take refuge north of the Ohio. On all old maps we find the Cumberland marked as the “river of the Shawano.” Although the two tribes were frequently, and perhaps for long periods, on friendly terms, the ordinary condition was one of chronic warfare, from an early traditional period until the close of the Revolution. This hostile feeling was intensified by the fact that the Shawano were usually the steady allies of the Creeks, the hereditary southern enemies of the Cherokee. In 1749, however, we find a party of Shawano from the north, accompanied by several Cherokee, making an inroad into the Creek country, and afterward taking refuge among the Cherokee, thus involving the latter in a new war with their southern neighbors (Adair, Am. Inds., 276, 1775). The Shawano made themselves respected for their fighting qualities, gaining a reputation for valor which they maintained in their later wars with the whites, while from their sudden attack and fertility of stratagem they came to be regarded as a tribe of magicians. By capture or intermarriage in the old days there is quite an admixture of Shawano blood among the Cherokee.
According to Haywood, an aged Cherokee chief, named the Little Cornplanter (Little Carpenter?), stated in 1772 that the Shawano had removed from the Savannah river a long time before in consequence of a disastrous war with several neighboring tribes, and had settled upon the Cumberland, by permission of his people. A quarrel having afterward arisen between the two tribes, a strong body of Cherokee invaded the territory of the Shawano, and, treacherously attacking them, killed a great number. The Shawano fortified themselves and a long war ensued, which continued until the Chickasaw came to the aid of the Cherokee, when the Shawano were gradually forced to withdraw north of the Ohio.
At the time of their final expulsion, about the year 1710, the boy Charleville was employed at a French post, established for the Shawano trade, which occupied a mound on the south side of Cumberland river, where now is the city of Nashville. For a long time the Shawano had been so hard pressed by their enemies that they had been withdrawing to the north in small parties for several years, until only a few remained behind, and these also now determined to leave the country entirely. In March the trader sent Charleville ahead with several loads of skins, intending himself to follow with the Shawano a few months later. In the meantime the Chickasaw, learning of the intended move, posted themselves on both sides of Cumberland river, above the mouth of Harpeth, with canoes to cut off escape by water, and suddenly attacked the retreating Shawano, killing a large part of them, together with the trader, and taking all their skins, trading goods, and other property. Charleville lived to tell the story nearly seventy years later. As the war was never terminated by any formal treaty of peace, the hostile warriors continued to attack each other whenever they chanced to meet on the rich hunting grounds of Kentucky, until finally, from mutual dread, the region was abandoned by both parties, and continued thus unoccupied until its settlement by the whites.[4]
According to Cherokee tradition, a body of Creeks was already established near the mouth of Hiwassee while the Cherokee still had their main settlements upon the Little Tennessee. The Creeks, being near neighbors, pretended friendship, while at the same time secretly aiding the Shawano. Having discovered the treachery, the Cherokee took advantage of the presence of the Creeks at a great dance at Itsâ′tĭ, or Echota, the ancient Cherokee capital, to fall suddenly upon them and kill nearly the whole party. The consequence was a war, with the final result that the Creeks were defeated and forced to abandon all their settlements on the waters of the Tennessee river.[5]
Haywood says that “Little Cornplanter” had seen Shawano scalps brought into the Cherokee towns. When he was a boy, his father, who was also a chief, had told him how he had once led a party against the Shawano and was returning with several scalps, when, as they were coming through a pass in the mountains, they ran into another party of Cherokee warriors, who, mistaking them for enemies, fired into them and killed several before they discovered their mistake.[6]
Schoolcraft also gives the Cherokee tradition of the war with the Shawano, as obtained indirectly from white informants, but incorrectly makes it occur while the latter tribe still lived upon the Savannah. “The Cherokees prevailed after a long and sanguinary contest and drove the Shawnees north. This event they cherish as one of their proudest achievements. ‘What!’ said an aged Cherokee chief to Mr Barnwell, who had suggested the final preservation of the race by intermarriage with the whites. ‘What! Shall the Cherokees perish! Shall the conquerors of the Shawnees perish! Never!’”[7]
Tribal warfare as a rule consisted of a desultory succession of petty raids, seldom approaching the dignity of a respectable skirmish and hardly worthy of serious consideration except in the final result. The traditions necessarily partake of the same trivial character, being rather anecdotes than narratives of historical events which had dates and names. Lapse of time renders them also constantly more vague.
On the Carolina side the Shawano approach was usually made up the Pigeon river valley, so as to come upon the Cherokee settlements from behind, and small parties were almost constantly lurking about waiting the favorable opportunity to pick up a stray scalp. On one occasion some Cherokee hunters were stretched around the camp fire at night when they heard the cry of a flying squirrel in the woods—tsu-u! tsu-u! tsu-u! Always on the alert for danger, they suspected it might be the enemy’s signal, and all but one hastily left the fire and concealed themselves. That one, however, laughed at their fears and, defiantly throwing some heavy logs on the fire, stretched himself out on his blanket and began to sing. Soon he heard a stealthy step coming through the bushes and gradually approaching the fire, until suddenly an enemy sprang out upon him from the darkness and bore him to the earth. But the Cherokee was watchful, and putting up his hands he seized the other by the arms, and with a mighty effort threw him backward into the fire. The dazed Shawano lay there a moment squirming upon the coals, then bounded to his feet and ran into the woods, howling with pain. There was an answering laugh from his comrades hidden in the bush, but although the Cherokee kept watch for some time the enemy made no further attack, probably led by the very boldness of the hunter to suspect some ambush.
On another occasion a small hunting party in the Smoky mountains heard the gobble of a turkey (in telling the story Swimmer gives a good imitation). Some eager young hunters were for going at once toward the game, but others, more cautious, suspected a ruse and advised a reconnaissance. Accordingly a hunter went around to the back of the ridge, and on coming up from the other side found a man posted in a large tree, making the gobble call to decoy the hunters within reach of a Shawano war party concealed behind some bushes midway between the tree and the camp. Keeping close to the ground, the Cherokee crept up without being discovered until within gunshot, then springing to his feet he shot the man in the tree, and shouting “Kill them all,” rushed upon the enemy, who, thinking that a strong force of Cherokee was upon them, fled down the mountain without attempting to make a stand.
Another tradition of these wars is that concerning Tunâ′ĭ, a great warrior and medicine-man of old Itsâ′tĭ, on the Tennessee. In one hard fight with the Shawano, near the town, he overpowered his man and stabbed him through both arms. Running cords through the holes he tied his prisoner’s arms and brought him thus into Itsâ′tĭ, where he was put to death by the women with such tortures that his courage broke and he begged them to kill him at once.
After retiring to the upper Ohio the Shawano were received into the protection of the Delawares and their allies, and being thus strengthened felt encouraged to renew the war against the Cherokee with increased vigor. The latter, however, proved themselves more than a match for their enemies, pursuing them even to their towns in western Pennsylvania, and accidentally killing there some Delawares who occupied the country jointly with the Shawano. This involved the Cherokee in a war with the powerful Delawares, which continued until brought to an end in 1768 at the request of the Cherokee, who made terms of friendship at the same time with the Iroquois. The Shawano being thus left alone, and being, moreover, roundly condemned by their friends, the Delawares, as the cause of the whole trouble, had no heart to continue the war and were obliged to make final peace.[8]
100. THE RAID ON TĬKWĂLI′TSĬ
The last noted leader of the Shawano raiding parties was a chief known to the Cherokee as Tawa′lĭ-ukwanûñ′tĭ, “Punk-plugged-in,” on account of a red spot on his cheek which looked as though a piece of punk (tawa′lĭ) had been driven into the flesh.
The people of Tĭkwăli′tsĭ town, on Tuckasegee, heard rumors that a war party under this leader had come in from the north and was lurking somewhere in the neighborhood. The Cherokee conjurer, whose name was Ĕtăwa′hă-tsistatla′skĭ, “Dead-wood-lighter,” resorted to his magic arts and found that the Shawano were in ambush along the trail on the north side of the river a short distance above the town. By his advice a party was fitted out to go up on the south side and come in upon the enemy’s rear. A few foolhardy fellows, however, despised his words and boldly went up the trail on the north side until they came to Deep Creek, where the Shawano in hiding at the ford took them “like fish in a trap” and killed nearly all of them.
Their friends on the other side of the river heard the firing, and crossing the river above Deep creek they came in behind the Shawano and attacked them, killing a number and forcing the others to retreat toward the Smoky mountains, with the Cherokee in pursuit. The invaders had with them two Cherokee prisoners who were not able to keep up with the rapid flight, so their captors took them, bound as they were, and threw them over a cliff. An old conjurer of their own party finding himself unable to keep up deliberately sat down against a tree near the same spot to wait for death. The pursuers coming up split his head with a hatchet and threw his body over the same cliff, which takes its name from this circumstance. The Shawano continued to retreat, with the Cherokee close behind them, until they crossed the main ridge at the gap just below Clingman’s dome. Here the Cherokee gave up the pursuit and returned to their homes.
101. THE LAST SHAWANO INVASION
Perhaps a year after the raid upon Tĭkwăli′tsĭ, the Shawano again, under the same leader, came down upon the exposed settlement of Kanuga, on Pigeon river, and carried off a woman and two children whom they found gathering berries near the town. Without waiting to make an attack they hastily retreated with their prisoners. The people of Kanuga sent for aid to the other settlements farther south, and a strong party was quickly raised to pursue the enemy and recover the captives. By this time, however, the Shawano had had several days’ start and it was necessary for the Cherokee to take a shorter course across the mountains to overtake them. A noted conjurer named Kâ′lanû, “The Raven,” of Hiwassee town, was called upon to discover by his magic arts what direction the Shawano had taken and how far they had already gone. Calling the chiefs together he told them to fill the pipe and smoke and he would return with the information before the pipe was smoked out. They sat down in a circle around the fire and lighted the pipe, while he went out into the woods. Soon they heard the cry of an owl, and after some interval they heard it again, and the next moment the conjurer walked out from the trees before yet the first smoke was finished.
He reported that he had trailed the Shawano to their camp and that they were seven days ahead. The Cherokee at once followed as The Raven guided, and reached the place in seven days and found all the marks of a camp, but the enemy was already gone. Again and once again the conjurer went ahead in his own mysterious fashion to spy out the country, and they followed as he pointed the way. On returning the third time he reported that their enemies had halted beside the great river (the Ohio), and soon afterward he came in with the news that they were crossing it. The Cherokee hurried on to the river, but by this time the Shawano were on the other side. The pursuers hunted up and down until they found a favorable spot in the stream, and then waiting until it was dark they prepared to cross, using logs as rafts and tacking with the current, and managed it so well that they were over long before daylight without alarming the enemy.
The trail was now fresh, and following it they soon came upon the camp, which was asleep and all unguarded, the Shawano, thinking themselves now safe in their own country, having neglected to post sentinels. Rushing in with their knives and tomahawks, the Cherokee fell upon their sleeping foe and killed a number of them before the others could wake and seize their arms to defend themselves. Then there was a short, desperate encounter, but the Shawano were taken at a disadvantage, their leader himself being among the first killed, and in a few moments they broke and ran, every man for himself, to escape as best he could. The Cherokee released the captives, whom they found tied to trees, and after taking the scalps from the dead Shawano, with their guns and other equipments, returned to their own country.
102. THE FALSE WARRIORS OF CHILHOWEE
Some warriors of Chilhowee town, on Little Tennessee, organized a war party, as they said, to go against the Shawano. They started off north along the great war trail, but when they came to Pigeon river they changed their course, and instead of going on toward the Shawano country they went up the river and came in at the back of Cowee, one of the Middle settlements of their own tribe. Here they concealed themselves near the path until a party of three or four unsuspecting townspeople came by, when they rushed out and killed them, took their scalps and a gun belonging to a man named Gûñskăli′skĭ, and then hurriedly made their way home by the same roundabout route to Chilhowee, where they showed the fresh scalps and the gun, and told how they had met the Shawano in the north and defeated them without losing a man.
According to custom, preparations were made at once for a great scalp dance to celebrate the victory over the Shawano. The dance was held in the townhouse and all the people of the settlement were there and looked on, while the women danced with the scalps and the gun, and the returned warriors boasted of their deeds. As it happened, among those looking on was a visitor from Cowee, a gunstocker, who took particular notice of the gun and knew it at once as one he had repaired at home for Gûñskăli′skĭ. He said nothing, but wondered much how it had come into possession of the Shawano.
The scalp dance ended, and according to custom a second dance was appointed to be held seven days later, to give the other warriors also a chance to boast of their own war deeds. The gunstocker, whose, name was Gûlsadihĭ′, returned home to Cowee, and there heard for the first time how a Shawano war party had surprised some of the town people, killed several, and taken their scalps and a gun. He understood it all then, and told the chief that the mischief had been done, not by a hostile tribe, but by the false men of Chilhowee. It seemed too much to believe, and the chief said it could not be possible, until the gunstocker declared that he had recognized the gun as one he had himself repaired for the man who had been killed. At last they were convinced that his story was true, and all Cowee was eager for revenge.
It was decided to send ten of their bravest warriors, under the leadership of the gunstocker, to the next dance at Chilhowee, there to take their own method of reprisal. Volunteers offered at once for the service. They set out at the proper time and arrived at Chilhowee on the night the dance was to begin. As they crossed the stream below the town they met a woman coming for water and took their first revenge by killing her. Men, women, and children were gathered in the townhouse, but the Cowee men concealed themselves outside and waited.
In this dance it was customary for each warrior in turn to tell the story of some deed against the enemy, putting his words into a song which he first whispered to the drummer, who then sang with him, drumming all the while. Usually it is serious business, but occasionally, for a joke, a man will act the clown or sing of some extravagant performance that is so clearly impossible that all the people laugh. One man after another stepped into the ring and sang of what he had done against the enemies of his tribe. At last one of the late war party rose from his seat, and after a whisper to the drummer began to sing of how they had gone to Cowee and taken scalps and the gun, which he carried as he danced. The chief and the people, who knew nothing of the treacherous act, laughed heartily at what they thought was a great joke.
But now the gunstocker, who had been waiting outside with the Cowee men, stripped off his breechcloth and rushed naked into the townhouse. Bending down to the drummer—who was one of the traitors, but failed to recognize Gûlsadihĭ′—he gave him the words, and then straightening up he began to sing, “Hi! Ask who has done this!” while he danced around the circle, making insulting gestures toward everyone there. The song was quick and the drummer beat very fast.
He made one round and bent down again to the drummer, then straightened up and sang, “Yu! I have killed a pregnant woman at the ford and thrown her body into the river!” Several men started with surprise, but the chief said, “He is only joking; go on with the dance,” and the drummer beat rapidly.
Another round and he bent down again to the drummer and then began to sing, “We thought our enemies were from the north, but we have followed them and they are here!” Now the drummer knew at last what it all meant and he drummed very slowly, and the people grew uneasy. Then, without waiting on the drummer, Gûlsadihĭ′ sang, “Cowee will have a ball play with you!”—and everyone knew this was a challenge to battle—and then fiercely: “But if you want to fight now my men are ready to die here!”
With that he waved his hand and left the townhouse. The dancers looked at each other uneasily and some of them rose to go. The chief, who could not understand it, urged them to go on with the dance, but it was of no avail. They left the townhouse, and as they went out they met the Cowee men standing with their guns ready and their hatchets in their belts. Neither party said anything, because they were still on friendly ground, but everyone knew that trouble was ahead.
The Cowee men returned home and organized a strong party of warriors from their own and all the neighboring Middle settlements to go and take vengeance on Chilhowee and on Kuwâ′hĭ, just below, which had also been concerned in the raid. They went down the Tennessee and crossed over the mountains, but when they came on the other side they found that their enemies had abandoned their homes and fled for refuge to the remoter settlements or to the hostile Shawano in the north.
103. COWEE TOWN
Cowee′, properly Kawi′yĭ, abbreviated Kawi′, was the name of two Cherokee settlements, one of which existed in 1755 on a branch of Keowee river, in upper South Carolina, while the other and more important was on Little Tennessee river, at the mouth of Cowee creek, about 10 miles below the present Franklin, in North Carolina. It was destroyed by the Americans in 1876, when it contained about a hundred houses, but was rebuilt and continued to be occupied until the cession of 1819. The name can not be translated, but may possibly mean “the place of the Deer clan” (Ani′-Kawĭ′). It was one of the oldest and largest of the Cherokee towns, and when Wafford visited it as a boy he found the trail leading to it worn so deep in places that, although on horseback, he could touch the ground with his feet on each side.
There is a story, told by Wafford as a fact, of a Shawano who had been a prisoner there, but had escaped to his people in the north, and after the peace between the two tribes wandered back into the neighborhood on a hunting trip. While standing on a hill overlooking the valley he saw several Cherokee on an opposite hill, and called out to them, “Do you still own Cowee?” They shouted in reply, “Yes; we own it yet.” Back came the answer from the Shawano, who wanted to encourage them not to sell any more of their lands, “Well, it’s the best town of the Cherokee. It’s a good country; hold on to it.”
104. THE EASTERN TRIBES
Besides the Iroquois and Shawano, the Cherokee remember also the Delawares, Tuscarora, Catawba, and Cheraw as tribes to the east or north with which they formerly had relations.
The Cherokee call the Delawares Anakwan′ʻkĭ, in the singular Akwan′ʻkĭ, a derivative formed according to usual Cherokee phonetic modification from Wapanaq′kĭ, “Easterners,” the generic name by which the Delawares and their nearest kindred call themselves.
In the most ancient tradition of the Delawares the Cherokee are called Talega, Tallige, Tallige-wi, etc.[9] In later Delaware tradition they are called Kĭtu′hwa, and again we find the two tribes at war, for which their neighbors are held responsible. According to the Delaware account, the Iroquois, in one of their forays to the south, killed a Cherokee in the woods and purposely left a Delaware war club near the body to make it appear that the work had been done by men of that tribe. The Cherokee found the body and the club, and naturally supposing that the murder had been committed by the Delawares, they suddenly attacked the latter, the result being a long and bloody war between the two tribes.[10] At this time, i. e., about the end of the seventeenth century, it appears that a part at least of the Cherokee lived on the waters of the Upper Ohio, where the Delawares made continual inroads upon them, finally driving them from the region and seizing it for themselves about the year 1708.[11] A century ago the Delawares used to tell how their warriors would sometimes mingle in disguise with the Cherokee at their night dances until the opportunity came to strike a sudden blow and be off before their enemies recovered from the surprise.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY NINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XVIII
PHOTOGRAPH By AUTHOR, 1888
WALINI′, A CHEROKEE WOMAN
Later there seems to have been peace until war was again brought on by the action of the Shawano, who had taken refuge with the Delawares, after having been driven from their old home on Cumberland river by the Cherokee. Feeling secure in their new alliance, the Shawano renewed their raids upon the Cherokee, who retaliated by pursuing them into the Delaware country, where they killed several Delawares by mistake. This inflamed the latter people, already excited by the sight of Cherokee scalps and prisoners brought back through their country by the Iroquois, and another war was the result, which lasted until the Cherokee, tired of fighting so many enemies, voluntarily made overtures for peace in 1768, saluting the Delawares as Grandfather, an honorary title accorded them by all the Algonquian tribes. The Delawares then reprimanded the Shawano, as the cause of the trouble, and advised them to keep quiet, which, as they were now left to fight their battles alone, they were glad enough to do. At the same time the Cherokee made peace with the Iroquois, and the long war with the northern tribes came to an end. The friendly feeling thus established was emphasized in 1779, when the Cherokee sent a message of condolence upon the death of the Delaware chief White-eyes.[12]
The Tuscarora, formerly the ruling tribe of eastern North Carolina, are still remembered under the name Ani′-Skălâ′lĭ, and are thus mentioned in the Feather dance of the Cherokee, in which some of the actors are supposed to be visiting strangers from other tribes.
As the majority of the Tuscarora fled from Carolina to the Iroquois country about 1713, in consequence of their disastrous war with the whites, their memory has nearly faded from the recollection of the southern Indians. From the scanty light which history throws upon their mutual relations, the two tribes seem to have been almost constantly at war with each other. When at one time the Cherokee, having already made peace with some other of their neighbors, were urged by the whites to make peace also with the Tuscarora, they refused, on the ground that, as they could not live without war, it was better to let matters stand as they were than to make peace with the Tuscarora and be obliged immediately to look about for new enemies with whom to fight. For some years before the outbreak of the Tuscarora war in 1711 the Cherokee had ceased their inroads upon this tribe, and it was therefore supposed that they were more busily engaged with some other people west of the mountains, these being probably the Shawano, whom they drove out of Tennessee about this time.[13] In the war of 1711–1713 the Cherokee assisted the whites against the Tuscarora. In 1731 the Cherokee again threatened to make war upon the remnant of that tribe still residing in North Carolina and the colonial government was compelled to interfere.[14]
The Cheraw or Sara, ranging at different periods from upper South Carolina to the southern frontier of Virginia, are also remembered under the name of Ani′-Suwa′lĭ, or Ani′-Suwa′la, which agrees with the Spanish form Xuala of De Soto’s chronicle, and Suala, or Sualy, of Lederer. The Cherokee remember them as having lived east of the Blue ridge, the trail to their country leading across the gap at the head of Swannanoa river, east from Asheville. The name of the stream and gap is a corruption of the Cherokee Suwa′lĭ-Nûñnâ′hĭ, “Suwa′li trail.” Being a very warlike tribe, they were finally so reduced by conflicts with the colonial governments and the Iroquois that they were obliged to incorporate with the Catawba, among whom they still maintained their distinct language as late as 1743.[15]
The Catawba are known to the Cherokee as Ani′ta′gwa, singular Ata′gwa, or Ta′gwa, the Cherokee attempt at the name by which they are most commonly known. They were the immediate neighbors of the Cherokee on the east and southeast, having their principal settlements on the river of their name, just within the limits of South Carolina, and holding the leading place among all the tribes east of the Cherokee country with the exception of the Tuscarora. On the first settlement of South Carolina there were estimated to be about 7,000 persons in the tribe, but their decline was rapid, and by war and disease their number had been reduced in 1775 to barely 500, including the incorporated remnants of the Cheraw and several smaller tribes. There are now, perhaps, 100 still remaining on a small reservation near the site of their ancient towns. Some local names in the old Cherokee territory seem to indicate the former presence of Catawba, although there is no tradition of any Catawba settlement within those limits. Among such names may be mentioned Toccoa creek, in northeastern Georgia, and Toccoa river, in north-central Georgia, both names being derived from the Cherokee Tagwâ′hĭ, “Catawba place.” An old Cherokee personal name is Ta′gwădihĭ′, “Catawba-killer.”
The two tribes were hereditary enemies, and the feeling between them is nearly as bitter to-day as it was a hundred years ago. Perhaps the only case on record of their acting together was in the war of 1711–13, when they cooperated with the colonists against the Tuscarora. The Cherokee, according to the late Colonel Thomas, claim to have formerly occupied all the country about the head of the Catawba river, to below the present Morganton, until the game became scarce, when they retired to the west of the Blue ridge, and afterward “loaned” the eastern territory to the Catawba. This agrees pretty well with a Catawba tradition recorded in Schoolcraft, according to which the Catawba—who are incorrectly represented as comparatively recent immigrants from the north—on arriving at Catawba river found their progress disputed by the Cherokee, who claimed original ownership of the country. A battle was fought, with incredible loss on both sides, but with no decisive result, although the advantage was with the Catawba, on account of their having guns, while their opponents had only Indian weapons. Preparations were under way to renew the fight when the Cherokee offered to recognize the river as the boundary, allowing the Catawba to settle anywhere to the east. The overture was accepted and an agreement was finally made by which the Catawba were to occupy the country east of that river and the Cherokee the country west of Broad river, with the region between the two streams to remain as neutral territory. Stone piles were heaped up on the battlefield to commemorate the treaty, and the Broad river was henceforth called Eswau Huppeday (Line river), by the Catawba, the country eastward to Catawba river being left unoccupied.[16] The fact that one party had guns would bring this event within the early historic period.
The Catawba assisted the whites against the Cherokee in the war of 1760 and in the later Revolutionary struggle. About 100 warriors, nearly the whole fighting strength of the tribe, took part in the first-mentioned war, several being killed, and a smaller number accompanied Williamson’s force in 1776.[17] At the battle fought under Williamson near the present site of Franklin, North Carolina, the Cherokee, according to the tradition related by Wafford, mistook the Catawba allies of the troops for some of their own warriors, and were fighting for some time under this impression before they noticed that the Catawba wore deer tails in their hair so that the whites might not make the same mistake. In this engagement, which was one of the bloodiest Indian encounters of the Revolution, the Cherokee claim that they had actually defeated the troops and their Catawba allies, when their own ammunition gave out and they were consequently forced to retire. The Cherokee leader was a noted war chief named Tsanĭ (John).
About 1840 nearly the whole Catawba tribe moved up from South Carolina and joined the eastern band of Cherokee, but in consequence of tribal jealousies they remained but a short time, and afterward returned to their former home, as is related elsewhere.
Other tribal names (of doubtful authority) are Ani′-Sa′nĭ and Ani′-Sawahâ′nĭ, belonging to people said to have lived toward the north; both names are perhaps intended for the Shawano or Shawnee, properly Ani′-Sawănu′gĭ. The Ani′-Gilĭ′ are said to have been neighbors of the Anin′tsĭ or Natchez; the name may possibly be a Cherokee form for Congaree.
105. THE SOUTHERN AND WESTERN TRIBES
The nearest neighbors of the Cherokee to the south were the Creeks or Muscogee, who found mixed confederacy holding central and southern Georgia and Alabama. They were known to the Cherokee as Ani′-Ku′sa or Ani′-Gu′sa. from Kusa, the principal town of the Upper Creeks, which was situated on Coosa river, southwest from the present Talladega, Alabama. The Lower Creeks, residing chiefly on Chattahoochee river, were formerly always distinguished as Ani-Kawi′ta, from Kawita or Coweta, their ancient capital, on the west side of the river, in Alabama, nearly opposite the present Columbus, Georgia. In number the Creeks were nearly equal to the Cherokee, but differed in being a confederacy of cognate or incorporated tribes, of which the Muscogee proper was the principal. The Cherokee were called by them Tsal-gal′gi or Tsûlgûl′gi, a plural derivative from Tsa′lăgĭ′, the proper name of the tribe.
The ordinary condition between the two tribes was one of hostility, with occasional intervals of good will. History, tradition, and linguistic evidence combine to show that the Creeks at one time occupied almost the whole of northern Georgia and Alabama, extending a considerable distance into Tennessee and perhaps North Carolina, and were dispossessed by the Cherokee pressing upon them from the north and northeast. This conquest was accomplished chiefly during the first half of the eighteenth century, and culminated with the decisive engagement of Tali′wă about 1755. In most of their early negotiations with the Government the Creeks demanded that the lands of the various tribes be regarded as common property, and that only the boundary between the Indians and the whites be considered. Failing in that, they claimed as theirs the whole region of the Chattahoochee and Coosa, north to the dividing ridge between those streams and the Tennessee, or even beyond to the Tennessee itself, and asserted that any Cherokee settlements within those limits were only by their own permission. In 1783 they claimed the Savannah river as the eastern boundary between themselves and the Cherokee, and asserted their own exclusive right of sale over all the territory between that river and the Oconee. On the other hand the Cherokee as stoutly claimed all to a point some 70 miles south of the present city of Atlanta, on the ground of having driven the Creeks out of it in three successive wars, and asserted that their right had been admitted by the Creeks themselves in a council held to decide the question between the two tribes before the Revolution. By mutual agreement, about 1816, members of either tribe were allowed to settle within the territory claimed by the other. The line as finally established through the mediation of the colonial and Federal governments ran from the mouth of Broad river on Savannah nearly due west across Georgia, passing about 10 miles north of Atlanta, to Coosa river in Alabama, and thence northwest to strike the west line of Alabama about 20 miles south of the Tennessee.[18]
Among the names which remain to show the former presence of Creeks north of this boundary are the following: Coweeta, a small creek entering the Little Tennessee above Franklin. North Carolina; Tomatola (Cherokee. Tama′ʻlĭ), a former town site on Valley river, near Murphy, North Carolina, the name being that of a former Creek town on Chattahoochee: Tomotley (Cherokee, Tama′ʻlĭ), a ford at another town site on Little Tennessee, above Tellico mouth, in Tennessee: Coosa (Cherokee, Kusă′), an upper creek of Nottely river, in Union county, Georgia: Chattooga (Cherokee, Tsatu′gĭ), a river in northwest Georgia: Chattooga (Cherokee, Tsatu′gĭ), another river, a head-stream of Savannah: Chattahoochee river (Creek, Chatu-huchi, “pictured rocks”); Coosawatee (Cherokee, Ku′să-weti′yĭ, “Old Creek place”), a river in northwestern Georgia; Tali′wă, the Cherokee form of a Creek name for a place on an upper branch of Etowah river in Georgia, probably from the Creek ta′lua or ita′lua, “town”; Euharlee (Cherokee, Yuha′lĭ, said by the Cherokee to be from Yufala or Eufaula, the name of several Creek towns), a creek flowing into lower Etowah river; Suwanee (Cherokee, Suwaʻnĭ) a small creek on upper Chattahoochee, the site of a former Cherokee town with a name which the Cherokee say is Creek. Several other names within the same territory are said by the Cherokee to be of foreign origin, although perhaps not Creek, and may be from the Taskigi language.
According to Cherokee tradition as given to Haywood nearly eighty years ago the country about the mouth of Hiwassee river, in Tennessee, was held by the Creeks, while the Cherokee still had their main settlements farther to the north, on the Little Tennessee. In the Shawano war, about the year 1700, the Creeks pretended friendship for the Cherokee while secretly helping their enemies, the Shawano. The Cherokee discovered the treachery, and took occasion, when a party of Creeks was visiting a dance at Itsâ′tĭ (Echota), the Cherokee capital, to fall upon them and massacre nearly every man. The consequence was a war between the two tribes, with the final result that the Creeks were forced to abandon all their settlements upon the waters of the Tennessee, and to withdraw south to the Coosa and the neighborhood of the “Creek path,” an old trading trail from South Carolina, which crossed at the junction of the Oostanaula and Etowah rivers, where now is the city of Rome, Georgia, and struck the Tennessee at the present Guntersville, Alabama.
As an incident of this war the same tradition relates how the Cherokee once approached a large Creek settlement “at the island on the Creek path,” in Tennessee river, opposite Guntersville, and, concealing their main force, sent a small party ahead to decoy the Creeks to an engagement. The Creek warriors at once crossed over in their canoes to the attack, when the Cherokee suddenly rose up from their ambush, and surrounded the Creeks and defeated them after a desperate battle. Then, taking the captured canoes, they went over to the island and destroyed all that was there. The great leader of the Cherokee in this war was a chief named Bullhead, renowned in tradition for his bravery and skill in strategy.[19] At about the same time, according to Wafford, the Cherokee claim to have driven the Creeks and Shawano from a settlement which they occupied jointly near Savannah, Georgia.
There was a tradition among the few old traders still living in upper Georgia in 1890 that a large tract in that part of the State had been won by the Cherokee from the Creeks in a ballplay.[20] There are no Indians now living in that region to substantiate the story. As originally told it may have had a veiled meaning, as among the Cherokee the expression “to play a ball game” is frequently used figuratively to denote fighting a battle. There seems to be no good ground for Bartram’s statement that the Cherokee had been dispossessed by the Creeks of the region between the Savannah and the Ocmulgee, in southwestern Georgia, within the historic period.[21] The territory is south of any traditional Cherokee claim, and the statement is at variance with what we know through history. He probably had in mind the Uchee, who did actually occupy that country until incorporated with the Creeks.
The victory was not always on one side, however, for Adair states that toward the end of the last war between the two tribes the Creeks, having easily defeated the Cherokee in an engagement, contemptuously sent against them a number of women and boys. According to this writer, the “true and sole cause” of this last war was the killing of some adopted relatives of the Creeks in 1749 by a party of northern Shawano, who had been guided and afterward sheltered by the Cherokee. The war, which he represents as a losing game for the Cherokee, was finally brought to an end through the efforts of the governor of South Carolina, with the unfortunate result to the English that the Creeks encouraged the Cherokee in the war of 1760 and rendered them very essential help in the way of men and ammunition.[22]
The battle of Tali′wă, which decided in favor of the Cherokee the long war between themselves and the Creeks, was fought about 1755 or a few years later at a spot on Mountain creek or Long-swamp creek, which enters Etowah river above Canton, Georgia, near where the old trail crossed the river about Long-swamp town. All our information concerning it is traditional, obtained from James Wafford, who heard the story when a boy, about the year 1815, from an old trader named Brian Ward, who had witnessed the battle sixty years before. According to his account, it was probably the hardest battle ever fought between the two tribes, about five hundred Cherokee and twice that number of Creek warriors being engaged. The Cherokee were at first overmatched and fell back, but rallied again and returned to the attack, driving the Creeks from cover so that they broke and ran. The victory was complete and decisive, and the defeated tribe immediately afterward abandoned the whole upper portion of Georgia and the adjacent part of Alabama to the conquerors. Before this battle the Creeks had been accustomed to shift about a good deal from place to place, but thereafter they confined themselves more closely to fixed home locations. It was in consequence of this defeat that they abandoned their town on Nottely river, below Coosa creek, near the present Blairsville, Georgia, their old fields being at once occupied by Cherokee, who moved over from their settlements on the head of Savannah river. As has been already stated, a peace was made about 1759, just in time to enable the Creeks to assist the Cherokee in their war with South Carolina. We hear little more concerning the relations of the two tribes until the Creek war of 1813–14, described in detail elsewhere; after this their histories drift apart.
The Yuchi or Uchee, called Ani′-Yu′tsĭ by the Cherokee, were a tribe of distinct linguistic stock and of considerable importance in early days; their territory bordered Savannah river on both sides immediately below the Cherokee country, and extended some distance westward into Georgia, where it adjoined that of the Creeks. They were gradually dispossessed by the whites, and were incorporated with the Creeks about the year 1740, but retain their separate identity and language to this day, their town being now the largest in the Creek Nation in Indian Territory.
According to the testimony of a Cherokee mixed-blood named Gansĕ′ʻtĭ or Rattling-gourd, who was born on Hiwassee river in 1820 and came west with his people in 1838, a number of Yuchi lived, before the Removal, scattered among the Cherokee near the present Cleveland, Tennessee, and on Chickamauga, Cohutta, and Pinelog creeks in the adjacent section of Georgia. They had no separate settlements, but spoke their own language, which he described as “hard and grunting.” Some of them spoke also Cherokee and Creek. They had probably drifted north from the Creek country before a boundary had been fixed between the tribes. When Tahlequah was established as the capital of the Cherokee Nation in the West in 1839 a few Yuchi were found already settled at the spot, being supposed to have removed from the East with some Creeks after the chief McIntosh was killed in 1825. They perished in the smallpox epidemic which ravaged the frontier in 1840, and their graves were still pointed out at Tahlequah in 1891. Shortly before the outbreak of the Civil war there was a large and prosperous Yuchi settlement on Cimarron river, in what was afterward the Cherokee strip.
Ramsey states that “a small tribe of Uchees” once occupied the country near the mouth of the Hiwassee, and was nearly exterminated in a desperate battle with the Cherokee at the Uchee Old Fields, in Rhea (now Meigs) county, Tennessee, the few survivors retreating to Florida, where they joined the Seminoles.[23] There seems to be no other authority for the statement.
Another broken tribe incorporated in part with the Creeks and in part with the Cherokee was that of the Na′ʻtsĭ, or Natchez, who originally occupied the territory around the site of the present town of Natchez in southern Mississippi, and exercised a leading influence over all the tribes of the region. In consequence of a disastrous war with the French in 1729–31 the tribe was disrupted, some taking refuge with the Chickasaw, others with the Creeks, either then or later, while others, in 1736, applied to the government of South Carolina for permission to settle on the Savannah river. The request was evidently granted, and we find the “Nachee” mentioned as one of the tribes living with the Catawba in 1743, but retaining their distinct language. In consequence of having killed some of the Catawba in a drunken quarrel they were forced to leave this region, and seem to have soon afterward joined the Cherokee, as we find them twice mentioned in connection with that tribe in 1755. This appears to be the last reference to them in the South Carolina records.[24]
Just here the Cherokee tradition takes them up, under the name of Anin′tsĭ, abbreviated from Ani′-Na′ʻtsĭ, the plural of Na′ʻtsĭ. From a chance coincidence with the word for pine tree, naʻtsĭ′, some English speaking Indians have rendered this name as “Pine Indians.” The Cherokee generally agree that the Natchez came to them from South Carolina, though some say that they came from the Creek country. It is probable that the first refugees were from Carolina and were joined later by others from the Creeks and the Chickasaw. Bienville states, in 1742, that some of them had gone to the Cherokee directly from the Chickasaw when they found the latter too hard pressed by the French to be able to care for them.[25] They seem to have been regarded by the Cherokee as a race of wizards and conjurers, a view which was probably due in part to their peculiar religious rites and in part to the interest which belonged to them as the remnant of an extirpated tribe. Although we have no direct knowledge on the subject, there is every reason to suppose that the two tribes had had communication with each other long before the period of the Natchez war.
According to the statement of James Wafford, who was born in 1806 near the site of Clarkesville, Ga., when this region was still Indian country, the “Notchees” had their town on the north bank of Hiwassee, just above Peachtree creek, on the spot where a Baptist mission was established by the Rev. Evan Jones in 1821, a few miles above the present Murphy, Cherokee county, North Carolina. On his mother’s side he had himself a strain of Natchez blood. His grandmother had told him that when she was a young woman, perhaps about 1755, she once had occasion to go to this town on some business, which she was obliged to transact through an interpreter, as the Natchez had been there so short a time that only one or two spoke any Cherokee. They were all in the one town, which the Cherokee called Gwalʻgâ′hĭ, “Frog place,” but he was unable to say whether or not it had a townhouse. In 1824, as one of the census takers for the Cherokee Nation, he went over the same section and found the Natchez then living jointly with the Cherokee in a town called Gûʻlăni′yĭ at the junction of Brasstown and Gumlog creeks, tributary to Hiwassee, some 6 miles southeast of their former location and close to the Georgia line. The removal may have been due to the recent establishment of the mission at the old place. It was a large settlement, made up about equally from the two tribes, but by this time the Natchez were not distinguishable in dress or general appearance from the others, and nearly all spoke broken Cherokee, while still retaining their own language. As most of the Indians had come under Christian influences so far as to have quit dancing, there was no townhouse. Harry Smith, who was born about 1820, father of the late chief of the East Cherokee, also remembers them as living on Hiwassee and calling themselves Na′ʻtsĭ.
Gansĕ′ʻtĭ, already mentioned, states that when he was a boy the Natchez were scattered among the Cherokee settlements along the upper part of Hiwassee, extending down into Tennessee. They had then no separate townhouses. Some of them, at least, had come up from the Creeks, and spoke Creek and Cherokee, as well as their own language, which he could not understand, although familiar with both of the others. They were great dance leaders, which agrees with their traditional reputation for ceremonial and secret knowledge. They went west with the Cherokee at the final removal of the tribe to Indian Territory in 1838. In 1890 there was a small settlement on Illinois river a few miles south of Tahlequah, Cherokee Nation, several persons in which still spoke their own language. Some of these may have come with the Creeks, as by an agreement between Creeks and Cherokee about the time of the Removal it had been arranged that citizens of either tribe living within the boundaries claimed by the other might remain without question if they so elected. There are still several persons claiming Natchez descent among the East Cherokee, but the last one said to have been of full Natchez blood, an old woman named Alkĭnĭ′, died about 1895. She was noted for her peculiarities, especially for a drawling tone, said to have been characteristic of her people, as old men remembered them years ago.
Haywood, the historian of Tennessee, says that a remnant of the Natchez lived within the present limits of the State as late as 1750, and were even then numerous. He refers to those with the Cherokee, and tells a curious story, which seems somehow to have escaped the notice of other writers. According to his statement, a portion of the Natchez, who had been parceled out as slaves among the French in the vicinity of their old homes after the downfall of their tribe, took advantage of the withdrawal of the troops to the north, in 1758, to rise and massacre their masters and make their escape to the neighboring tribes. On the return of the troops after the fall of Fort Du Quesne they found the settlement at Natchez destroyed and their Indian slaves fled. Some time afterward a French deserter seeking an asylum among the Cherokee, having made his way to the Great Island town, on the Tennessee, just below the mouth of Tellico river, was surprised to find there some of the same Natchez whom he had formerly driven as slaves. He lost no time in getting away from the place to find safer quarters among the mountain towns. Notchy creek, a lower affluent of Tellico, in Monroe county, Tennessee, probably takes its name from these refugees. Haywood states also that, although incorporated with the Cherokee, they continued for a long time a separate people, not marrying or mixing with other tribes, and having their own chiefs and holding their own councils; but in 1823 hardly anything was left of them but the name.[26]
Another refugee tribe incorporated partly with the Cherokee and partly with the Creeks was that of the Taskigi, who at an early period had a large town of the same name on the south side of the Little Tennessee, just above the mouth of Tellico, in Monroe county, Tennessee. Sequoya, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, lived here in his boyhood, about the time of the Revolution. The land was sold in 1819. There was another settlement of the name, and perhaps once occupied by the same people, on the north bank of Tennessee river, in a bend just below Chattanooga, Tennessee, on land sold also in 1819. Still another may have existed at one time on Tuskegee creek, on the south bank of Little Tennessee river, north of Robbinsville, in Graham county, North Carolina, on land which was occupied until the Removal in 1838. Taskigi town of the Creek country was on Coosa river, near the junction with the Tallapoosa, some distance above the present Montgomery, Alabama. We find Tasquiqui mentioned as a town in the Creek country visited by the Spanish captain, Juan Pardo, in 1567. The name is evidently the same, though we can not be sure that the location was identical with that of the later town.
Who or what the Taskigi were is uncertain and can probably never be known, but they were neither Cherokee nor Muscogee proper. It would seem most probable that they were of Muskhogean affinity, but they may have been an immigrant tribe from another section, or may even have constituted a distinct linguistic stock, representing all that was left of an ancient people whose occupation of the country antedated the coming of the Cherokee and the Creeks. The name may be derived from taska or tasha′ya, meaning “warrior” in several of the Muskhogean dialects. It is not a Cherokee word, and Cherokee informants state positively that the Taskigi were a foreign people, with distinct language and customs. They were not Creeks, Natchez, Uchee, or Shawano, with all of whom the Cherokee were well acquainted under other names. In the townhouse of their settlement at the mouth of Tellico they had an upright pole, from the top of which hung their protecting “medicine,” the image of a human figure cut from a cedar log. For this reason the Cherokee in derision sometimes called the place Atsĭnă′-kʻtaûñ, “Hanging-cedar place.” Before the sale of the land in 1819 they were so nearly extinct that the Cherokee had moved in and occupied the ground.
Adair, in 1775, mentions the Tae-keo-ge (sic—a double misprint) as one of several broken tribes which the Creeks had “artfully decoyed” to incorporate with them in order to strengthen themselves against hostile attempts. Milfort, about 1780, states that the Taskigi on Coosa river were a foreign people who had been driven by wars to seek an asylum among the Creeks, being encouraged thereto by the kind reception accorded to another fugitive tribe. Their request was granted by the confederacy, and they were given lands upon which they built their town. He puts this event shortly before the incorporation of the Yuchi, which would make it early in the eighteenth century. In 1799, according to Hawkins, the town had but 35 warriors, “had lost its ancient language,” and spoke Creek. There is still a “white” or peace town named Taskigi in the Creek Nation in Indian Territory.[27]
The nearest neighbors of the Cherokee on the west, after the expulsion of the Shawano, were the Chickasaw, known to the Cherokee as Ani′-Tsĭ′ksû, whose territory lay chiefly between the Mississippi and the Tennessee, in what is now western Kentucky and Tennessee and the extreme northern portion of Mississippi. By virtue, however, of conquest from the Shawano or of ancient occupancy they claimed a large additional territory to the east of this, including all upon the waters of Duck river and Elk creek. This claim was disputed by the Cherokee. According to Haywood, the two tribes had been friends and allies in the expulsion of the Shawano, but afterward, shortly before the year 1769, the Cherokee, apparently for no sufficient reason, picked a quarrel with the Chickasaw and attacked them in their town at the place afterward known as the Chickasaw Old Fields, on the north side of Tennessee river, some twenty miles below the present Guntersville, Alabama. The Chickasaw defended themselves so well that the assailants were signally defeated and compelled to retreat to their own country.[28] It appears, however, that the Chickasaw, deeming this settlement too remote from their principal towns, abandoned it after the battle. Although peace was afterward made between the two tribes their rival claim continued to be a subject of dispute throughout the treaty period.
The Choctaw, a loose confederacy of tribes formerly occupying southern Mississippi and the adjacent coast region, are called Ani′-Tsa′ʻta by the Cherokee, who appear to have had but little communication with them, probably because the intermediate territory was held by the Creeks, who were generally at war with one or the other. In 1708 we find mention of a powerful expedition by the Cherokee, Creeks, and Catawba against the Choctaw living about Mobile bay.[29]
Of the Indians west of the Mississippi those best known to the Cherokee were the Ani′-Wasa′sĭ, or Osage, a powerful predatory tribe formerly holding most of the country between the Missouri and Arkansas rivers, and extending from the Mississippi far out into the plains. The Cherokee name is a derivative from Wasash′, the name by which the Osage call themselves.[30] The relations of the two tribes seem to have been almost constantly hostile from the time when the Osage refused to join in the general Indian peace concluded in 1768 (see “The Iroquois Wars”) up to 1822, when the Government interfered to compel an end of the bloodshed. The bitterness was largely due to the fact that ever since the first Cherokee treaty with the United States, made at Hopewell, South Carolina, in 1785, small bodies of Cherokee, resenting the constant encroachments of the whites, had been removing beyond the Mississippi to form new settlements within the territory claimed by the Osage, where in 1817 they already numbered between two and three thousand persons. As showing how new is our growth as a nation, it is interesting to note that Wafford, when a boy, attended near the site of the present Clarkesville, Georgia, almost on Savannah river, a Cherokee scalp dance, at which the women danced over some Osage scalps sent by their relatives in the west as trophies of a recent victory.
Other old Cherokee names for western tribes which can not be identified are Tayûñ′ksĭ, the untranslatable name of a tribe described simply as living in the West; Tsuniya′tigă, “Naked people,” described as living in the far West; Gûn′-tsuskwa′ʻlĭ, “Short-arrows,” who lived in the far West, and were small, but great fighters; Yûñ′wini′giskĭ, “Man-eaters,” a hostile tribe west or north, possibly the cannibal Atakapa or Tonkawa, of Louisiana or Texas. Their relations with the tribes with which they have become acquainted since the removal to Indian Territory do not come within the scope of this paper.
106. THE GIANTS FROM THE WEST
James Wafford, of the western Cherokee, who was born in Georgia in 1806, says that his grandmother, who must have been born about the middle of the last century, told him that she had heard from the old people that long before her time a party of giants had come once to visit the Cherokee. They were nearly twice as tall as common men, and had their eyes set slanting in their heads, so that the Cherokee called them Tsunil′ kălû′, “The Slant-eyed people,” because they looked like the giant hunter Tsulʻkălû′ (see the story). They said that these giants lived very far away in the direction in which the sun goes down. The Cherokee received them as friends, and they stayed some time, and then returned to their home in the west. The story may be a distorted historical tradition.
107. THE LOST CHEROKEE
When the first lands were sold by the Cherokee, in 1721, a part of the tribe bitterly opposed the sale, saying that if the Indians once consented to give up any of their territory the whites would never be satisfied, but would soon want a little more, and a little again, until at last there would be none left for the Indians. Finding all they could say not enough to prevent the treaty, they determined to leave their old homes forever and go far into the West, beyond the Great river, where the white men could never follow them. They gave no heed to the entreaties of their friends, but began preparations for the long march, until the others, finding that they could not prevent their going, set to work and did their best to fit them out with pack horses loaded with bread, dried venison, and other supplies.
When all was ready they started, under the direction of their chief. A company of picked men was sent with them to help them in crossing the Great river, and every night until they reached it runners were sent back to the tribe, and out from the tribe to the marching band, to carry messages and keep each party posted as to how the other was getting along. At last they came to the Mississippi, and crossed it by the help of those warriors who had been sent with them. These then returned to the tribe, while the others kept on to the west. All communication was now at an end. No more was heard of the wanderers, and in time the story of the lost Cherokee was forgotten or remembered only as an old tale.
Still the white man pressed upon the Cherokee and one piece of land after another was sold, until as years went on the dispossessed people began to turn their faces toward the west as their final resting place, and small bands of hunters crossed the Mississippi to learn what might be beyond. One of these parties pushed on across the plains and there at the foot of the great mountains—the Rockies—they found a tribe speaking the old Cherokee language and living still as the Cherokee had lived before they had ever known the white man or his ways.
108. THE MASSACRE OF THE ANI′-KUTA′NĬ
Among other perishing traditions is that relating to the Ani′-Kuta′nĭ or Ani′-Kwăta′nĭ, concerning whom the modern Cherokee know so little that their very identity is now a matter of dispute, a few holding that they were an ancient people who preceded the Cherokee and built the mounds, while others, with more authority, claim that they were a clan or society in the tribe and were destroyed long ago by pestilence or other calamity. Fortunately, we are not left to depend entirely upon surmise in the matter, as the tradition was noted by Haywood some seventy years ago, and by another writer some forty years later, while the connected story could still be obtained from competent authorities. From the various statements it would seem that the Ani′-Kuta′nĭ were a priestly clan, having hereditary supervision of all religious ceremonies among the Cherokee, until, in consequence of having abused their sacred privileges, they were attacked and completely exterminated by the rest of the tribe, leaving the priestly functions to be assumed thereafter by individual doctors and conjurers.
Haywood says, without giving name or details, “The Cherokees are addicted to conjuration to ascertain whether a sick person will recover. This custom arose after the destruction of their priests. Tradition states that such persons lived among their ancestors and were deemed superior to others, and were extirpated long ago, in consequence of the misconduct of one of the priests, who attempted to take the wife of a man who was the brother of the leading chief of the nation.”[31]
A more detailed statement, on the authority of Chief John Ross and Dr J. B. Evans, is given in 1866 by a writer who speaks of the massacre as having occurred about a century before, although from the dimness of the tradition it is evident that it must have been much earlier:
“The facts, though few, are interesting. The order was hereditary; in this respect peculiar, for among Indians seldom, and among the Cherokees never, does power pertain to any family as a matter of right. Yet the family of the Nicotani—for it seems to have been a family or clan—enjoyed this privilege. The power that they exercised was not, however, political, nor does it appear that chiefs were elected from among them.
“The Nicotani were a mystical, religious body, of whom the people stood in great awe, and seem to have been somewhat like the Brahmins of India. By what means they attained their ascendancy, or how long it was maintained, can never be ascertained. Their extinction by massacre is nearly all that can be discovered concerning them. They became haughty, insolent, overbearing, and licentious to an intolerable degree. Relying on their hereditary privileges and the strange awe which they inspired, they did not hesitate by fraud or violence to rend asunder the tender relations of husband and wife when a beautiful woman excited their passions. The people long brooded in silence over the oppressions and outrages of this high caste, whom they deeply hated but greatly feared. At length a daring young man, a member of an influential family, organized a conspiracy among the people for the massacre of the priesthood. The immediate provocation was the abduction of the wife of the young leader of the conspiracy. His wife was remarkable for her beauty, and was forcibly abducted and violated by one of the Nicotani while he was absent on the chase. On his return he found no difficulty in exciting in others the resentment which he himself experienced. So many had suffered in the same way, so many feared that they might be made to suffer, that nothing was wanted but a leader. A leader appearing in the person of the young brave whom we have named, the people rose under his direction and killed every Nicotani, young and old. Thus perished a hereditary secret society, since which time no hereditary privileges have been tolerated among the Cherokees.”[32]
109. THE WAR MEDICINE
Some warriors had medicine to change their shape as they pleased, so that they could escape from their enemies. Once one of these medicine warriors who had been away from home came back and found a strong party of the enemy attacking the settlement while nearly all the men were off on a hunt. The town was on the other side of the river, but his grandmother was there, so he made up his mind to save her. Going down the stream a little way, he hunted until he found a mussel shell. With his medicine he changed this to a canoe, in which he crossed over to his grandmother’s house, and found her sitting there, waiting for the enemy to come and kill her. Again he made medicine and put her into a small gourd which he fastened to his belt. Then climbing a tree he changed himself to a swamp woodcock, and with one cry he spread his wings and flew across to the other side of the river, where both took their natural shape again and made their way through the woods to another settlement.
There was another great Cherokee warrior, named Dasiʻgiya′gĭ, or Shoe-boots, as the whites called him, who lived on Hightower creek, in Georgia. He was so strong that it was said he could throw a corn mortar over a house, and with his magic power could clear a river at one jump. His war medicine was an uktena scale and a very large turtle shell which he got from the Shawano. In the Creek war he put this scale into water and bathed his body with the water, and also burned a piece of the turtle shell and drew a black line around his men with the coal, and he was never wounded and never had a man killed.
Some great warriors had a medicine by the aid of which they could dive under the ground as under water, come up among the enemy to kill and scalp one, then dive under the ground again and come up among their friends.
Some war captains knew how to put their lives up in the tree tops during a fight, so that even if they were struck by the enemy they could not be killed. Once, in a battle with the Shawano, the Cherokee leader stood directly in front of the enemy and let the whole party shoot at him, but was not hurt until the Shawano captain, who knew this war medicine himself, ordered his men to shoot into the branches above the head of the other. They did this and the Cherokee leader fell dead.
110. INCIDENTS OF PERSONAL HEROISM
In the Cherokee war of 1760 when small bodies of the enemy, according to Haywood, were pushing their inroads eastward almost to Salisbury, a party of six or eight warriors was discovered, watched, and followed until they were seen to enter a deserted cabin to pass the night. The alarm was given, and shortly before daylight the whites surrounded the house, posting themselves behind the fodder stack and some outbuildings so as to command both the door and the wide chimney top. They then began to throw fire upon the roof to drive out the Indians, when, as the blaze caught the dry shingles, and death either by fire or bullet seemed certain, one of the besieged warriors called to his companions that it was better that one should be a sacrifice than that all should die, and that if they would follow his directions he would save them, but die himself. He proposed to sally out alone to draw the fire of the besiegers, while his friends stood ready to make for the woods as soon as the guns of the whites were empty. They agreed, and the door was opened, when he suddenly rushed forth, dodging and running in a zigzag course, so that every gun was emptied at him before he fell dead, covered with wounds. While the whites were reloading, the other warriors ran out and succeeded in reaching the woods before the besiegers could recover from their surprise. The historian adds, “How greatly it is to be regretted that the name of this hero is not known to the writer, that it might be recorded with this specimen of Cherokee bravery and patriotism, firmness and presence of mind in the hour of danger.”[33]
More than once women seem to have shown the courage of warriors when the occasion demanded. At the beginning of the last century there was still living among the Cherokee a woman who had killed her husband’s slayer in one of the Revolutionary engagements. For this deed she was treated with so much consideration that she was permitted to join the warriors in the war dance, carrying her gun and tomahawk. The Wahnenauhi manuscript has a tradition of an attack upon a Cherokee town and the killing of the chief by a hostile war party. His wife, whose name was Cuhtahlatah (Gatûñ′lătĭ, “Wild-hemp”?), on seeing her husband fall, snatched up his tomahawk, shouting, “Kill! Kill!” and rushed upon the enemy with such fury that the retreating Cherokee rallied and renewed the battle with so great courage as to gain a complete victory. This may be a different statement of the same incident.
In Rutherford’s expedition against the Cherokee, in 1776, the Indians made a stand near Waya gap, in the Nantahala mountains, and a hard-fought engagement took place, with a loss to the Americans of nineteen men, although the enemy was finally driven from the ground. After the main body had retreated, an Indian was seen looking out from behind a tree, and was at once shot and killed by the soldiers, who, on going to the spot, found that it was a woman, painted and striped like a warrior and armed with bow and arrows. She had already been shot through the thigh, and had therefore been unable to flee with the rest.
111. THE MOUNDS AND THE CONSTANT FIRE: THE OLD SACRED THINGS
Some say that the mounds were built by another people. Others say they were built by the ancestors of the old Ani′-Kĭtu′hwagĭ 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.
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′tĭ stone, an uktena scale or horn, a feather from the right wing of an eagle or great tlă′nuwă, 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′-sûñ′tĭ, “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 gălûñkwʼti′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 Nĭkwăsĭ′, Kĭtu′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 Kĭtu′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.