The sacred fire—The method described for producing fire and keeping it constantly smoldering in the townhouse appears to have been that actually in use in ancient times, as indicated by the name given to the plant (atsil′-sûñtĭ), and corroborated by the unanimous testimony of the old people. All the older East Cherokee believe that the ancient fire still burns within the mounds at Franklin and Bryson City, and those men who were stationed for a time near the latter place while in the Confederate service, during the Civil war, assert that they frequently saw the smoke rising from the adjacent mound.
The missionary Buttrick, from old Cherokee authority, says: “They were obliged to make new fire for sacred purposes by rubbing two pieces of dry wood together, with a certain weed, called golden rod, dry, between them.... When their enemies destroyed the house in which this holy fire was kept, it was said the fire settled down into the earth, where it still lives, though unknown to the people. The place where they lost this holy fire is somewhere in one of the Carolinas” (Antiquities, p. 9).
The general accuracy of Swimmer’s account is strikingly confirmed by the description of the New-fire ceremony given more than half a century before by John Howard Payne, the poet, who had gone among the Cherokee to study their ethnology and was engaged in that work when arrested, together with John Ross, by the Georgia guard in 1835. He makes the kindling of the new fire a part of the annual spring festival. At that time, says Payne, “the altar in the center of the national heptagon [i.e. townhouse] was repaired. It was constructed of a conical shape, of fresh earth. A circle was drawn around the top to receive the fire of sacrifice. Upon this was laid, ready for use, the inner bark of seven different kinds of trees. This bark was carefully chosen from the east side of the trees, and was clear and free from blemish.” After some days of preliminary purification, sacrifice, and other ceremonial performances, the day appointed for the kindling of the new fire arrived.
“Early in the morning the seven persons who were commissioned to kindle the fire commenced their operations. One was the official fire-maker; the remaining six his assistants. A hearth was carefully cleared and prepared. A round hole being made in a block of wood, a small quantity of dry golden-rod weed was placed in it. A stick, the end of which just fitted the opening, was whirled rapidly until the weed took fire. The flame was then kindled on the hearth and thence taken to every house by the women, who collectively waited for that purpose. The old fires having been everywhere extinguished, and the hearths cleansed, new fires were lighted throughout the country, and a sacrifice was made in each one of them of the first meat killed afterwards by those to whom they respectively belonged.”—Payne MS, quoted in Squier, Serpent Symbol, pp. 116–118.
Similar ceremonies were common to many tribes, particularly the southern tribes and the Pueblos, in connection with the annual kindling of the sacred new fire. See Adair, History of the American Indians; Hawkins, Sketch of the Creek Country, quoted by Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend; Bartram, Travels; Fewkes, The New-fire Ceremony at Walpi, in American Anthropologist for January, 1900; Squier, Serpent Symbol. Going beyond our own boundaries it may be said briefly that fire worship was probably as ancient as ritual itself and well-nigh as universal.
Wooden box—The sacred ark of the Cherokee is described by Adair (History of the American Indians, pp. 161–162), and its capture by the Delawares is mentioned by Washburn (Reminiscences, pp. 191, 221), who states that to its loss the old priests of the tribe ascribed the later degeneracy of their people. They refused to tell him the contents of the ark. On this subject Adair says:
“A gentleman who was at the Ohio in the year 1756 assured me he saw a stranger there very importunate to view the inside of the Cheerake ark, which was covered with a drest deerskin and placed on a couple of short blocks. An Indian centinel watched it, armed with a hiccory bow and brass-pointed barbed arrows; and he was faithful to his trust, for finding the stranger obtruding to pollute the supposed sacred vehicle, he drew an arrow to the head, and would have shot him through the body had he not suddenly withdrawn. The interpreter, when asked by the gentleman what it contained, told him there was nothing in it but a bundle of conjuring traps. This shews what conjurers our common interpreters are, and how much the learned world have really profited by their informations.”
Such tribal palladiums or “medicines,” upon which the existence and prosperity of the tribe are supposed to depend, are still preserved among the plains Indians, the sacred receptacle in each case being confided to the keeping of a priest appointed for the purpose, who alone is privileged to undo the wrappings or expose the contents. Among these tribal “medicines” may be mentioned the sacred arrows of the Cheyenne, the “flat pipe” of the Arapaho, the great shell of the Omaha, and the taime image of the Kiowa (see reference in the author’s Ghost-dance Religion and Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians).
White peace pipe—This statement concerning the ancient seven-stem peace pipe carved from white stone is given on the authority of Swimmer, who said that the stone was procured from a quarry near the present town of Knoxville, Tennessee. A certain district of western North Carolina has recently acquired an unenviable reputation for the manufacture of spurious “Indian pipes,” ostensibly taken from the mounds, carved from soapstone and having from three to half a dozen stem-holes encircling the bowl.
Turtle drum—This statement is on the authority of Wafford, who had talked with men who claimed to have known those who had seen the drum. He was not positive as to the town, but thought it was Keowee. It is believed that the drum was hidden by the Indians, in anticipation of their speedy return, when the country was invaded by Williamson in 1776, but as the country was never recovered by the Cherokee the drum was lost.