No^lor* ^^^' EASTERN CHEROKEE FOLKTALES — KILPATRICK 397 



The boy went back to his father, who sent the i:gh(i)tschinvda- 

 gwale:ga ('it rolls excrement') ^^ with him to look for Vtsa:yi. The 

 beetle flew against the forehead of the old woman, and it rang out: 

 "Tsayi: !" 



The lightning struck, but it missed the old woman, and she escaped. 



Vtsa:yi changed himself into all sorts of objects and animals as he 

 fled toward the west, but every time he transformed himself, the beetle 

 unmasked him, and lightning struck at him. Yet upon each occasion 

 Vtsa:yi escaped, and there was but a hole in the ground where light- 

 ning had struck.^^ 



Finally Vtsa:yi was caught, and put into the great water. A grape- 

 vine grew from his navel and sent out its tendrils onto a tree that grew 

 on the bank of the ocean. 



Vtsa:yi called upon beavers to cut the vine. They came, and began 

 to gnaw at it; but the vine shook, and crows came and frightened the 

 beavers away. 



And so Vtsa:yi remains until now. Agi:se:gwa ('large female 

 [animal]')^^ is the name given to Vtsa:yi as he lies there.^° 



11.— NOTES ON STONECLAD 



One of his hands was sharp, and made of stone. 



He transformed himself into different shapes. Sometimes he was 

 an old woman, a grandmother. 



He had to go through seven gaps. The people got seven women 

 who were menstruating, had them strip off their clothes, and with 

 their legs wide open, lie at the seventh gap. 



When Stoneclad came by, he said, "My! What pretty girls all of 



you are 



He was pleased to see them ; but he began to spit blood unceasingly. 



He told the people to make a fire of i:deha ^^ in order to burn him. 



He sang the songs for them. 



He told them that after he was burned, they were to pick up the 

 fragments of stone remaining, and that if they did this, they would 

 never forget the songs that he had taught them. 



2' Tumblebug. Olbrechts' note: "This beetle has greenish scales and comes out about June. On its head 

 it has a spot like brass. That is where he struck Brass." 



29 Olbrechts' note: "Morgan's grandmother, when she came back from out West had seen the holes where 

 lightning had struck." 



M A colloquialism for a male who is afraid to enter an athletic contest or who repudiates a debt incurred 

 in gambling. 



'0 There is a lengthy example of this story in Mooney (1900, pp. 311-315), and Gilbert (1943, p. 302) states 

 that he collected a version of it. The Koasati myth called "Thunder and LalgatonShona" in Swanton 

 (1929, p. 184) has many points of similarity to it. 



" Basswood, or llmetree (Tilia americana L.) 



747-014—66 26 



