Agan-uni-tsi’s Search for the Uktena.
In one of their battles with the Showano, who are all magicians, the Cherokee captured a great medicine-man, whose name was Agan-uni-tsi, “The Ground-Hog’s Mother.” They had tied him ready for the torture when he begged for his life, and engaged, if they spared him, to find for them the great wonder-worker, the Ulunsuti. Now, the Ulunsuti is like a blazing star set in the forehead of the great Uktena serpent, and the medicine-man who could possess it might do marvelous things, but everyone knew that this could not be, because it was certain death to meet the Uktena. They warned him of all this, but he only answered that his medicine was strong and that he was not afraid. So they gave him his life on that condition and he began the search.
The Uktena used to lie in wait in lonely places to surprise its victims, and especially haunted the dark passes of the Great Smoky Mountains. Knowing this, the magician went first to a gap in the range on the far northern border of the Cherokee country. He searched there and found a monster blacksnake, larger than had ever been known before, but it was not what he was looking for, and he laughed at it as something too small for notice.
Coming southward to the next gap he found there a moccasin snake, the largest ever seen, but when the people wondered he said it was nothing. In the next gap he found a green snake and called the people to see it, (the pretty salikwaya), but when they found an immense greensnake coiled up in the path they ran away in fear.
Coming on to Utawa-gun-ti, the Bald mountain, he found there a great diyahali (lizard) basking, but, although it was large and terrible to look at, it was not what he was looking for and he paid no attention to it. Going still further south to Walasi-yi, the Frog place, he found a great frog squatting in the gap but when the people who came to see it were frightened like the others and ran away from the monster he mocked at them for being afraid of a frog and went on to the next gap.
He went on to Duni-skwa-lgun-yi, the Gap of the Forked Antler, and to the enchanted lake of Atagahi, and at each he found monstrous reptiles, but he said they were nothing.
He thought that the Uktena might be hiding in the deep water at Tlanusiyi, the Leech place, on Hiwassee, where other strange things had been seen before, and going there he dived far down under the surface. He saw turtles and water snakes, and two immense sun-perches rushed at him and retreated again, but that was all.
Other places he tried, going always southward, and at last on Gahuti mountain he found the Uktena asleep.
Turning without noise, he ran swiftly down the mountainside as far as he could go with one long breath, nearly to the bottom of the slope. Then he stopped and piled up a lot of pine-cones, and inside of it he dug a deep trench. Then he set fire to the cones and came back again up the mountain.
The Uktena was still asleep, and, putting an arrow to his bow, Agan-uni-tsi shot and sent the arrow through its heart, which was under the seventh spot from the serpent’s head.