They have many of them a good uncultivated genius, are fond of speaking well, as that paves the way to power in their councils; and I doubt not but the reader will find some beauties in the harangues I have given him, which I assure him are entirely genuine. Their language is not unpleasant, but vastly aspirated, and the accents so many and various, you would often imagine them singing in their common discourse. As the ideas of the Cherokees are so few, I cannot say much for the copiousness of their language.
They seldom turn their eyes on the person they speak of, or address themselves to, and are always suspicious when people’s eyes are fixed upon them. They speak so low, except in council, that they are often obliged to repeat what they were saying; yet should a person talk to any of them above their common pitch, they would immediately ask him, if he thought they were deaf?
They have likewise a sort of loose poetry, as the war-songs, love-songs, &c. Of the latter many contain no more than that the young man loves the young woman, and will be uneasy, according to their own expression, if he does not obtain her. Of the former I shall present the following specimen, without the original in Cherokee, on account of the expletive syllables, merely introduced for the music, and not the sense, just like the toldederols of many old English songs.
A Translation of the WAR-SONG.
Caw waw noo dee, &c.
Where’er the earth’s enlighten’d by the sun,
Moon shines by night, grass grows, or waters run,
Be’t known that we are going, like men, afar,
In hostile fields to wage destructive war;
Like men we go, to meet our country’s foes,