[22.] The Rabbit and the Possum after a wife (p. [273]): This specimen of Indian humor was obtained at different times from Swimmer, John Ax, Suyeta (east), and Wafford (west), and is well known in the tribe. Wafford, in telling the story, remarked that the Rabbit was the chief’s runner, and according to custom was always well entertained wherever he went.
[23.] The Rabbit dines the Bear (p. [273]): This favorite story with the Cherokee east and west is another of the animal myths of wide distribution, being found with almost every tribe from Maine to the Pacific. Beans and peas in several varieties were indigenous among the agricultural tribes.
In the Creek version, in the Tuggle manuscript, “The Bear invited the Rabbit to dinner. When he came the Bear called his wife and said, ‘Have peas for dinner: the Rabbit loves peas.’ ‘But there is no grease,’ said the Bear’s wife, ‘to cook them with.’ ‘O,’ said the Bear, ‘that’s no trouble, bring me a knife.’ So she brought the knife and the Bear took it and split between his toes, while the Rabbit looked on in wonder. ‘No grease between my toes! Well, I know where there is some,’ so he cut a gash in his side and out, ran the grease. His wife took it and cooked the peas and they had a fine dinner and vowed always to be good friends,” etc. The wounded Rabbit is put under the care of the Buzzard, who winds up by eating his patient.
In the Passamaquoddy version, “The Rabbit’s Adventure with Mooin, the Bear,” the Bear cuts a slice from his foot and puts it into the pot. The Rabbit invites the Bear to dinner and attempts to do the same thing, but comes to grief.[38] In a Jicarilla myth a somewhat similar incident is related of the Fox (Coyote?) and the Prairie-dog (Russell, Myths of the Jicarilla, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, October, 1898). In a British Columbian myth, nearly the same thing happens when the Coyote undertakes to return the hospitality of the Black Bear (Teit, Thompson River Indian Traditions, p. 40).
[24.] The Rabbit escapes from the wolves (p. [274]): This story was obtained from James Wafford, in Indian Territory. Compare [number 19], “How the Wildcat Caught the Gobbler.”
[25.] Flint visits the Rabbit (p. [274]): This story was told in slightly different form by John Ax and Swimmer (east) and was confirmed by Wafford (west). Although among the Cherokee it has degenerated to a mere humorous tale for the amusement of a winter evening, it was originally a principal part of the great cosmogonic myth common to probably all the Iroquoian and Algonquian tribes, and of which we find traces also in the mythologies of the Aztec and the Maya. Among the northern Algonquian tribes “the West was typified as a flint stone, and the twin brother of Michabo, the Great Rabbit. The feud between them was bitter, and the contest long and dreadful.... At last Michabo mastered his fellow twin and broke him into pieces. He scattered the fragments over the earth....” Among the Iroquoian tribes, cognate with the Cherokee, the name is variously Tăwiskaroñ, Tăwiskară, and sometimes Ohaa, all of which are names both for flint and for hail or ice. Tăwiskară is the evil-working god, in perpetual conflict with his twin brother Yoskeha, the beneficent god, by whom he is finally overpowered, when the blood that drops from his wounds is changed into flint stones. Brinton sees in the Great Rabbit and the Flint the opposing forces of day and night, light and darkness, locally personified as East and West, while in the twin gods of the Iroquois Hewitt sees the conflicting agents of heat and cold, summer and winter. Both conceptions are identical in the final analysis. Hewitt derives the Iroquois name from a root denoting “hail, ice, glass”; in Cherokee we have tăwiskalûñ′ĭ, tăwi′skălă, “flint,” tăwi′skă, “smooth,” une′stălûñ, “ice.” (See Brinton, American Hero Myths, pp. 48, 56, 61; Hewitt, The Cosmogonic Gods of the Iroquois, in Proc. Am. Ass. Adv. Sci., XLIV, 1895.)
In one of the Cherokee sacred formulas collected by the author occurs the expression: “The terrible Flint is coming. He has his paths laid down in this direction. He is shaking the red switches threateningly. Let us run toward the Sun land.”
Siyu′—This word, abbreviated from âsiyu′, “good,” is the regular Cherokee salutation. With probably all the tribes the common salutation is simply the word “good,” and in the sign language of the plains the gesture conveying that meaning is used in the same way. The ordinary good-bye is usually some equivalent of “I go now.”
[26.] How the Deer got his horns (p. [275]): This story was heard from Swimmer, Suyeta, and others, and is well known in the tribe.
In a parallel Pawnee myth, “How the Deer Lost His Gall,” the Deer and Antelope wager their galls in a race, which the Antelope wins, but in sympathy takes off his own dewclaws and gives them to the Deer. In the Blackfoot variant the Deer and the Antelope run two races. The first, which is over the prairie, the Antelope wins and takes the Deer’s gall, while in the second, which the Deer stipulates shall be run through the timber, the Deer wins and takes the Antelope’s dewclaws (Grinnell, Pawnee Hero Tales, pp. 204, 205).