[61.] The Bullfrog lover (p. [310]): The first amusing little tale was heard from several story-tellers. The warning words are sometimes given differently, but always in a deep, gruff, singing tone, which makes a very fair imitation of a bullfrog’s note. The other stories were told by Tsĕsa′ni (Jessan) and confirmed by Swimmer.
In a Creek variant of the first story, in the Tuggle collection, it is a pretty girl, who is obdurate until her lover, the Rabbit, conceals himself in the same way near the spring, with a blowgun for a trumpet, and frightens her into consent by singing out: “The girl who stays single will die, will die, will die.”
[62.] The Katydid’s warning (p. [311]): Told by Swimmer and James Blythe.
[63.] Ûñtsaiyĭ′, the Gambler (p. [311]): This story was obtained from Swimmer and John Ax (east), and confirmed also by James Wafford (west), who remembered, however, only the main points of the pursuit and final capture at Kâgûñ′yĭ. The two versions corresponded very closely, excepting that Ax sends the boy to the Sunset land to play against his brothers, while Swimmer brings them to meet him at their father’s house. In the Ax version, also, the gambler flees directly to the west, and as often as the brothers shoot at him with their arrows the thunder rolls and the lightning flashes, but he escapes by sinking into the earth, which opens for him, to reappear in another form somewhere else. Swimmer makes the Little People help in the chase. In Cherokee figure an invitation to a ball contest is a challenge to battle. Thunder is always personified in the plural, Ani′-Hyûñ′tikwălâ′skĭ, “The Thunderers.” The father and the two older sons seem to be Kana′tĭ and the Thunder Boys (see [number 3], “Kana′tĭ and Selu”), although neither informant would positively assert this, while the boy hero, who has no other name, is said to be the lightning. Nothing is told of his after career.
Ûñtsaiyĭ′—In this name (sometimes E′tsaiyĭ′ or Tsaiyĭ′) the first syllable is almost silent and the vowels are prolonged to imitate the ringing sound produced by striking a thin sheet of metal. The word is now translated “brass,” and is applied to any object made of that metal. The mythic gambler, who has his counterpart in the mythologies of many tribes, is the traditional inventor of the wheel-and-stick game, so popular among the southern and eastern Indians, and variously known as gatayûstĭ, chenco, or chûnki (see note under [number 3], “Kana′tĭ and Selu”). He lived on the south side of Tennessee river, at Ûñ′tiguhĭ′.
Ûñ′tiguhĭ′ or The Suck—The noted and dangerous rapid known to the whites as “The Suck” and to the Cherokee as Ûñ′tiguhĭ′, “Pot in the water,” is in Tennessee river, near the entrance of Suck creek, about 8 miles below Chattanooga, at a point where the river gathers its whole force into a contracted channel to break through the Cumberland mountain. The popular name, Whirl, or Suck, dates back at least to 1780, the upper portion being known at the same time as “The boiling pot” (Donelson diary, in Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 71),[41] a close paraphrase of the Indian name. In the days of pioneer settlement it was a most dangerous menace to navigation, but some of the most serious obstacles in the channel have now been removed by blasting and other means. The Cherokee name and legend were probably suggested by the appearance of the rapids at the spot. Close to where Ûñtsaiyĭ′ lived, according to the Indian account, may still be seen the large flat rock upon which he was accustomed to play the gatayûstĭ game with all who accepted his challenge, the lines and grooves worn by the rolling of the wheels being still plainly marked, and the stone wheels themselves now firmly attached to the surface of the rock. A similarly grooved or striped rock, where also, it is said, Ûñtsaiyĭ′ used to roll his wheel, is reported to be on the north side of Hiwassee, just below Calhoun, Tennessee.
The Suck is thus described by a traveler in 1818, while the whole was still Indian country and Chattanooga was yet undreamed of:
“And here, I cannot forbear pausing a moment to call your attention to the grand and picturesque scenery which opens to the view of the admiring spectator. The country is still possessed by the aborigines, and the hand of civilization has done but little to soften the wild aspect of nature. The Tennessee river, having concentrated into one mass the numerous streams it has received in its course of three or four hundred miles, glides through an extended valley with a rapid and overwhelming current, half a mile in width. At this place, a group of mountains stand ready to dispute its progress. First, the ‘Lookout,’ an independent range, commencing thirty miles below, presents, opposite the river’s course, its bold and rocky termination of two thousand feet. Around its brow is a pallisade [sic] of naked rocks, from seventy to one hundred feet. The river flows upon its base, and instantly twines to the right. Passing on for six miles farther it turns again, and is met by the side of the Rackoon mountain. Collecting its strength into a channel of seventy yards, it severs the mountain, and rushes tumultuously through the rocky defile, wafting the trembling navigator at the rate of a mile in two or three minutes. The passage is called ‘The Suck.’ The summit of the Lookout mountain overlooks the whole country. And to those who can be delighted with the view of an interminable forest, penetrated by the windings of a bold river, interspersed with hundreds of verdant prairies, and broken by many ridges and mountains, furnishes in the month of May, a landscape, which yields to few others, in extent, variety or beauty.”—Rev. Elias Cornelius, in (Silliman’s) American Journal of Science, I, p. 223, 1818.
Bet even his life—The Indian was a passionate gambler and there was absolutely no limit to the risks which he was willing to take, even to the loss of liberty, if not of life. Says Lawson (History of Carolina, p. 287): “They game very much and often strip one another of all they have in the world; and what is more, I have known several of them play themselves away, so that they have remained the winners’ servants till their relations or themselves could pay the money to redeem them.”
His skin was clean—The idea of purification or cleansing through the efficacy of the sweat-bath is very common in Indian myth and ceremonial. In an Omaha story given by Dorsey the hero has been transformed, by witchcraft, into a mangy dog. He builds a sweat lodge, goes into it as a dog and sweats himself until, on his command, the people take off the blankets, when “Behold, he was not a dog; he was a very handsome man” (“Adventures of Hingpe-agce,” in Contributions to North American Ethnology, VI, p. 175).