When the Cherokee went out in the fall, according to their custom, to burn leaves off from the mountains in order to get the chestnuts on the ground, they were never safe, for the old witch was always on the lookout, and as soon as she saw the smoke rise she knew there were Indians there and she would sneak up and try to surprise one alone. So as well as they could they would try to keep together, and were very cautious of allowing any stranger to approach the camp. But if one went to the spring for a drink, they never knew but it might be the liver-eater that came back and sat with them. At last a great council was held to devise some means to get rid of the old witch before she should destroy everybody. The people came from all around to Nikwasi, (mound now near Franklin, N. C.) and after much talking it was decided that the best way to secure her demise would be to trap her in a pitfall where all the warriors could attack her at once. So they dug a deep pitfall across the path and covered it over with earth and grass as if the ground had never been disturbed. Then they kindled a large fire of brush near the trail and hid themselves in the laurels, because they knew that she would come as soon as she saw the smoke.
Sure enough they soon saw an old woman coming along the trail. She looked very much like an old woman that they knew in the village, and although several of the wiser men wanted to shoot at her, the others interfered, because they did not want to hurt one of their own people. The old woman came slowly along the trail, with one hand under her blanket, until she stepped upon the pitfall and tumbled through the brush top into the deep hole below. Then, at once, she showed her true nature, and instead of the old feeble woman there was the terrible Utlunta with her stony skin, and her sharp awl finger reaching out in every direction for some one to stab.
The hunters rushed out from the thicket and surrounded the pit, but shoot as true and as often as they could, the arrows struck the stony mail of the witch only to be broken and fall useless at her feet, while she taunted them and tried to climb out of the pit to get at them. They kept out of her way, but were only wasting their arrows when a small bird, Utsugi, the titmous, perched on a tree overhead and began to sing, “un, un, un.” They thought it was saying unqhu, heart, meaning that they should aim at the heart of the stone witch. They directed their arrows where the heart should be, but the arrows only glanced off with the flint heads broken.
Then they caught the Utsugi and cut off its tongue, so that ever since its tongue is short and everybody knows that it is a liar.
When the hunters let it go, it flew straight up into the sky until it was out of sight, and it never came back any more, and the titmouse that we know now is only an image of the other.
They kept up the fight without result until another bird, little Tsikilili, the chickadee, flew down from a tree and alighted upon the witch’s right hand. The warriors took this as a sign that they must aim there, and they were right, for her heart was on the inside of her hand, which she kept doubled up into a fist, this same awl-hand with which she had stabbed so many people. Now she was frightened in earnest, and began to rush furiously at them with her long awl finger, and to jump about in the pit to dodge the arrows, until at last an arrow struck her just where the awl finger joined her wrist and she fell down dead. Ever since then the Tsikilili is known as a truth-teller, and when a man is away on a journey, if this bird comes and perches near the house and chirps its song, his friends know that he will soon reach his home in safety, and his friends will greet him upon his arrival.
MYTH TWENTY-NINE.
Nunyunuwi, the Stone Man.
This is what the old men used to tell us when we were boys. Once when all the people of the settlement were out in the mountains on a great hunt, one man who had gone ahead climbed to the top of a high ridge and found a large river on the other side.