The little Wren is the messenger of the birds, and pries into everything. She gets up early in the morning and goes round to every house in the settlement to get news for the bird council. When a new baby is born she finds out whether it is a boy or girl and reports to the council. If it is a boy the birds sing in mournful chorus: “Alas! the whistle of the arrow! my shins will burn,” because the birds know that when the boy grows older he will hunt them with his blowgun and arrows and roast them on a stick.
But if the baby is a girl, they are glad and sing: “Thanks! the sound of the pestle! At her home I shall surely be able to scratch where she sweeps,” because they know that after a while they will be able to pick up stray grains where she beats the corn into meal.
When the Cricket hears that a girl is born, it also is glad, and says, “Thanks, I shall sing in the house where she lives.” But if it is a boy the Cricket laments: “Gwe-he! He will shoot me! He will shoot me! He will shoot me!” because boys make little bows to shoot crickets and grasshoppers.
When inquiring as to the sex of the new arrival the Cherokee asks, “Is it a bow or a (meal) sifter?” or, “Is it ballsticks or bread?”
120. THE RAVEN MOCKER
Of all the Cherokee wizards or witches the most dreaded is the Raven Mocker (Kâ′lanû Ahyeli′skĭ), the one that robs the dying man of life. They are of either sex and there is no sure way to know one, though they usually look withered and old, because they have added so many lives to their own.
At night, when some one is sick or dying in the settlement, the Raven Mocker goes to the place to take the life. He flies through the air in fiery shape, with arms outstretched like wings, and sparks trailing behind, and a rushing sound like the noise of a strong wind. Every little while as he flies he makes a cry like the cry of a raven when it “dives” in the air—not like the common raven cry—and those who hear are afraid, because they know that some man’s life will soon go out. When the Raven Mocker comes to the house he finds others of his kind waiting there, and unless there is a doctor on guard who knows how to drive them away they go inside, all invisible, and frighten and torment the sick man until they kill him. Sometimes to do this they even lift him from the bed and throw him on the floor, but his friends who are with him think he is only struggling for breath.
After the witches kill him they take out his heart and eat it, and so add to their own lives as many days or years as they have taken from his. No one in the room can see them, and there is no scar where they take out the heart, but yet there is no heart left in the body. Only one who has the right medicine can recognize a Raven Mocker, and if such a man stays in the room with the sick person these witches are afraid to come in, and retreat as soon as they see him, because when one of them is recognized in his right shape he must die within seven days. There was once a man named Gûñskăli′skĭ, who had this medicine and used to hunt for Raven Mockers, and killed several. When the friends of a dying person know that there is no more hope they always try to have one of these medicine men stay in the house and watch the body until it is buried, because after burial the witches do not steal the heart.
The other witches are jealous of the Raven Mockers and afraid to come into the same house with one. Once a man who had the witch medicine was watching by a sick man and saw these other witches outside trying to get in. All at once they heard a Raven Mocker cry overhead and the others scattered “like a flock of pigeons when the hawk swoops.” When at last a Raven Mocker dies these other witches sometimes take revenge by digging up the body and abusing it.
The following is told on the reservation as an actual happening: