Frogtown: A creek at the head of Chestatee river, north of Dahlonega, in Lumpkin county. The Cherokee name is Walâsi′yĭ, “Frog place.” The name was originally applied to a mountain to the northeast (Rock mountain?), from a tradition that a hunter had once seen there a frog as large as a house. The Indian settlement along the creek bore the same name.
Hiwassee: A river having its source in Towns county, of northern Georgia, and flowing northwestward to join the Tennessee. The correct Cherokee form, applied to two former settlements on the stream, is Ayuhwa′sĭ (meaning “A savanna”). Although there is no especial Cherokee story connected with the name, White (Historical Collections of Georgia, p. 660) makes it the subject of a long pseudo-myth, in which Hiwassee, rendered “The Pretty Fawn,” is the beautiful daughter of a Catawba chief, and is wooed, and at last won, by a young Cherokee warrior named Notley, “The Daring Horseman,” who finally becomes the head chief of the Cherokee and succeeds in making perpetual peace between the two tribes. The story sounds very pretty, but is a pure invention.
Nacoochee: A village on the site of a former Cherokee settlement, in a beautiful and fertile valley of the same name at the head of Chattahoochee river, in White county. The Cherokee form is Naguʻtsĭ′, but the word has no meaning in that language and seems to be of foreign, perhaps Creek, origin. About 2 miles above the village, on the east bank of the river, is a large mound. White (Historical Collections of Georgia, p. 486) quotes a fictitious legend, according to which Nacoochee, “The Evening Star,” was a beautiful Indian princess, who unfortunately fell in love with a chieftain of a hostile tribe and was killed, together with her lover, while fleeing from the vengeance of an angry father. The two were buried in the same grave and the mound was raised over the spot. The only grain of truth in the story is that the name has a slight resemblance to năkwĭsĭ′, the Cherokee word for “star.”
Nottely: A river rising in Union county and flowing northwestward into Hiwassee. The Cherokee form is Na′dûʻlĭ′, applied to a former settlement on the west side of the river, in Cherokee county, North Carolina, about a mile from the Georgia line. Although suggestive of naʻtûʻlĭ, “spicewood,” it is a different word and has no meaning in the Cherokee language, being apparently of foreign, perhaps Creek, origin. For a pseudo-myth connected with the name, see the preceding note on Hiwassee.
Talking Rock: A creek in upper Georgia flowing northward to join Coosawatee river. The Indian settlements upon it were considered as belonging to Sanderstown, on the lower part of the creek, the townhouse being located about a mile above the present Talking Rock station on the west side of the railroad. The name is a translation of the Cherokee Nûñyû′-gûñwani′skĭ, “Rock that talks,” and refers, according to one informant, to an echo rock somewhere upon the stream below the present railroad station. An old-time trader among the Cherokee in Georgia says that the name was applied to a rock at which the Indians formerly held their councils, but the etymology of the word is against this derivation.
Tallulah: A river in Rabun county, northeastern Georgia, which flows into the Tugaloo, and has a beautiful fall about 2 miles above its mouth. The Cherokee form is Tălulŭ′ (Tărurĭ′ in the lower Cherokee dialect), the name of an ancient settlement some distance above the falls, as also of a creek and district at the head of Cheowa river, in Graham county, North Carolina. The name can not be translated. A magazine writer has rendered it “The Terrible,” for which there is no authority. Schoolcraft, on the authority of a Cherokee lady, renders it “There lies your child,” derived from a story of a child having been carried over the falls. The name, however, was not applied to the falls, but to a district on the stream above, as well as to another in North Carolina. The error arises from the fact that a word of somewhat similar sound denotes “having children” or “being pregnant,” used in speaking of a woman. One informant derives it from tălulŭ′, the cry of a certain species of frog known as dulusĭ, which is found in that neighborhood, but not upon the reservation, and which was formerly eaten as food. A possible derivation is from a′tălulû′, “unfinished, premature, unsuccessful.” The fall was called Ugûñ′yĭ, a name of which the meaning is lost, and which was applied also to a locality on Little Tennessee river near Franklin, North Carolina. For a myth localized at Tallulah falls, see [number 84], “The Man who Married the Thunder’s Sister.”
In this connection Lanman gives the following story, which, notwithstanding its white man’s dress, appears to be based upon a genuine Cherokee tradition of the Nûñnĕ′hĭ:
During my stay at the Falls of Tallulah I made every effort to obtain an Indian legend or two connected with them, and it was my good fortune to hear one which has never yet been printed. It was originally obtained by the white man who first discovered the falls from the Cherokees, who lived in the region at the time. It is in substance as follows: Many generations ago it so happened that several famous hunters, who had wandered from the West toward what is now the Savannah river, in search of game, never returned to their camping grounds. In process of time the curiosity as well as the fears of the nation were excited, and an effort was made to ascertain the cause of their singular disappearance, whereupon a party of medicine men were deputed to make a pilgrimage toward the great river. They were absent a whole moon, and, on returning to their friends, they reported that they had discovered a dreadful fissure in an unknown part of the country, through which a mountain torrent took its way with a deafening noise. They said that it was an exceedingly wild place, and that its inhabitants were a species of little men and women, who dwelt in the crevices of the rocks and in grottoes under the waterfalls. They had attempted by every artifice in their power to hold a council with the little people, but all in vain; and, from the shrieks they frequently uttered, the medicine men knew that they were the enemies of the Indian race, and, therefore, it was concluded in the nation at large that the long-lost hunters had been decoyed to their death in the dreadful gorge, which they called Tallulah. In view of this little legend, it is worthy of remark that the Cherokee nation, previous to their departure for the distant West, always avoided the Falls of Tallulah, and were seldom found hunting or fishing in their vicinity.[34]
Toccoa: (1) A creek flowing into Tugaloo river, in Habersham county, with a fall upon its upper course, near the village of the same name. (2) A river in upper Georgia, flowing northwestward into Hiwassee. The correct Cherokee form applied to the former settlement on both streams is Tagwâ′hĭ, “Catawba place,” implying the former presence of Indians of that tribe. The lands about Toccoa falls were sold by the Cherokee in 1783 and were owned at one time by Wafford’s grandfather. According to Wafford, there was a tradition that when the whites first visited the place they saw, as they thought, an Indian woman walking beneath the surface of the water under the falls, and on looking again a moment after they saw her sitting upon an overhanging rock 200 feet in the air, with her feet dangling over. Said Wafford, “She must have been one of the Nûñnĕ′hĭ.”
Track Rock gap: A gap about 5 miles east of Blairsville, in Union county, on the ridge separating Brasstown creek from the waters of Nottely river. The micaceous soapstone rocks on both sides of the trail are covered with petroglyphs, from which the gap takes its name. The Cherokee call the place Datsu′nalâsgûñ′yĭ, “Where there are tracks,” or Degayelûñ′hă, “Printed (Branded) place.” The carvings are of many and various patterns, some of them resembling human or animal footprints, while others are squares, crosses, circles, “bird tracks,” etc., disposed without any apparent order. On the authority of a Doctor Stevenson, writing in 1834, White (Historical Collections of Georgia, p. 658, 1855), and after him Jones (Antiquities of the Southern Indians, 1873), give a misleading and greatly exaggerated account of these carvings, without having taken the trouble to investigate for themselves, although the spot is easily accessible. No effort, either state or local, is made to preserve the pictographs from destruction, and many of the finest have been cut out from the rock and carried off by vandals, Stevenson himself being among the number, by his own confession. The illustration (plate XX) is from a rough sketch made by the author in 1890.