182 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 196 



over her people to have a decided Christian bias. Although she was 

 actually but a couple of generations removed from the full flower of 

 the old culture, much of it must have seemed to her as remote as does 

 Beowulf to a citizen of present-day London. 



And yet, some things of much significance to us she actually saw 

 with her own eyes; her report on Cherokee dress and coiffure, for 

 example, is quite valuable. The myths that she retells, despite much 

 probable loss of details, have the ring of the authenticity of the family 

 fireside of her grandparents. Cherokee curing rites she doubtlessly 

 witnessed, even if she was unable to interpret them fullj^ 



The information that Wahnenauhi has to give us on Lowrey and 

 Sequoyah is not extensive, but nevertheless priceless. If we had been 

 fortunate enough for there to have been competent guidance of the au- 

 thor in preparing her sketch, much data of enormous value might have 

 been saved from limbo. For example, she could have filled in some of 

 the disturbing gaps in our record of Sequoyah (pi. 3). She could have 

 settled for us the question of his parentage; she could have completed 

 the picture of his personal appearance. The glimpses of her grand- 

 father are valuable ; but we would also have deeply appreciated a word- 

 picture of John Ross (pi. 4), whom she doubtlessly knew, and of Stand 

 Watie, under whose command her husband fought in the Civil War. 

 Wahnenauhi could have supplied us with fascinating details of planta- 

 tion life in the Cherokee Nation, of the routine at the Cherokee Female 

 Seminary, of the personality of Rev. Samuel A. Worcester, and of the 

 impact of the Civil War upon her people. 



Wahnenauhi's verbiage is replete with young ladies' finishing 

 school posturing. The spirit of Scott and Tennyson pervades her 

 pages. Such would be unworthy of comment in a document penned 

 in Baltimore or Charleston at the time of Wahnenauhi's writing; 

 what is intriguing is the fact that a scant few miles from her desk her 

 tribesmen were "going to the water" with the same frequency, the 

 same earnestness, and for the same purposes as they did in prehistoric 

 times. Neither they nor Wahnenauhi could enter, nor did they want 

 to enter, into the respective worlds of each other; yet, they were 

 indissolubly bound together by the only ties that Cherokees ever 

 understood, or still understand — a fierce loyalty to common ancestry. 



In the negotiations over purchase of the manuscript, Maj. J. W. 

 Powell, at that time director of the Bureau of Ethnology (the word 

 "American" was not in the title in those days), ^^^:ote on November 

 14, 1S89: "You will thus understand that its value to the Bureau is 

 comparatively small." In view of its being much consulted since its 

 acquisition. Major Powell somewhat underestimated it. But its 

 true value lies not in what it purports to be — a contribution to Chero- 

 kee history and ethnology: rather, it is one of the most valuable rec- 



