No.^Tir" ^^^" EASTERN CHEROKEE GROUPS — KUPFERER 297 



these night birds and a subsequent hunt in which we all participated. 

 Lizzie said: 



One time one came and sat right on the roof about 4 o'clock. I got a stick and 

 hit it. I said another one is coming, and sure enough the next night another one 

 came and I killed it too. You are supposed to ask who they are. A person in 

 Birdtown died and one in Soco; they could have been them. 



I mentioned the whippoorwill hunting to an Indian doctor. He 

 nodded and remarked, "It might be a witch. The Bible said that 

 there will be more and more witches." "Where in the Bible?" 



1 inquired. "In Rome, some of those chapters." An elderly woman 

 said in regard to witches that after Mrs. Panther died, she bled for 



2 days. "Her son said she was a witch, and I think so too." I 

 mentioned the night birds to her. She said, "They [the people in 

 Soco] think they be witches, but I don't know. They aren't up here. 

 I killed one once, next year my husband died." (I leave it up to the 

 reader to judge the implications of this remark.) The same informant 

 later made the statement that there are brownies. "There is one in 

 this house [gesturing toward her own] and one in that one over 

 there .... You don't see them unless something bad going to 

 happen. They like a sign." In response to a question about 

 brownies, a Soco resident said she didn't have one in her house now, 

 but where she had lived formerly there were some. "They stay out 

 in the woods, mostly around the rhododendron slicks." She related 

 the following story: 



There was a woman once who was in the woods and put her little girl down, and 

 when she came back she couldn't find her. She looked and then she saw her 

 with a brownie. That brownie was feeding her crawfish. When he held it in 

 his hand it turned red just like it had been cooked. The brownie told the little 

 girl her momma was looking for her. That woman told about it . . . and soon 

 she and the little girl died .... They didn't last long. That's what happened 

 when they told about it. 



Foxes are also thought to be omens. Two brothers of a younger 

 Indian woman heard the bark of a fox on several occasions. Follow- 

 ing each incident something tragic occurred. On the first occasion 

 the wife of one of them died ; after the next, the small baby of the other 

 died. Their sister said, "Neither of them even likes to talk about a 

 fox now, and I believe it, too." A cross-check on the distribution of 

 this belief led an informant in another section of the reservation to say : 



Well, I've heard them [other folks] say so . . . but I don't know whether I 

 believe that or not. We have too many foxes around here. You kin see them 

 most any time. Course they haven't come right into the yard and barked. 

 Maybe I think if they do that, somebody going to die. 



There is a similarity between the reactions to the possible dangers 

 of whippoorwills and the faith in the portentous quality of the fox. 



