No.^80r" ^^^' EASTERN CHEROKEE FOLKTALES — KILPATRICK 419 



"Brother," he said, "your wife does not treat us right. Whenever 

 you go out to hunt, she never gives us anything to eat. One of these 

 days we'll treat her in a way that she won't Uke." 



The man was very angry and told the Little Dog, "Do to her what- 

 ever you feel like doing! Shame on her for treating you that way!" 



Soon afterward the man went off again to hunt. The dogs spoke 

 to one another about what they would do. 



The woman was a great magician. She kept what they call urenda ^^ 

 in a small bag. This was filled with roots and bark. 



The dogs knew where the woman had hidden this bag, and they got 

 it. They thought that it was meat, but when they saw that it was 

 not, they put it back. But they had smelled the roots in it, and had 

 become magical. 



The next morning they watched the woman closely whUe she was 

 at breakfast. She ate choice meat, but again she did not give them 

 any of it. (She had noticed that the bag was torn, but she thought 

 that rats had torn it.) 



As she was eating, she bit her finger instead of meat. She thought 

 that the blood from the bite tasted good, so she sucked it all out of 

 her finger. Then she bit another of her fingers, and then another 

 one. Then she bit her toe. Then she cut off a piece of her breast and 

 ate it. 



By the next day she had become completely insane. 



She had a little daughter who told her not to do what she was 

 doing, eating her own flesh in that manner, but the woman cut her 

 daughter to pieces and ate her. 



Then the dogs became afraid, and ran away to where the hunter 

 was coming. 



The Little Dog said, "Brother, your wife has become a maneater. 

 Don't go that way toward your home. Let us all go the other way." 



They all ran the other way, but the woman discovered them, and 

 pursued them. 



They came to a lake. The man made something hke a raft, or a 

 canoe, and they all got upon it and went to the center of the water. 

 But the woman jumped into the lake and swam toward them, and 

 overtook them. Then the man pushed her away, and she was 

 drowned. 



«3 Olbrechts notes that this term was that employed by the father of Will West Long, the storyteller, and 

 suspects its having been borrowed from the Iroquois. Hewitt (1910) defines the word as "The Iroquois 

 name of the Active force, principle, or magic power which was assumed by the inchoate reasoning of primitive 

 man to be inherent In every body and being of nature and in every personified attribute, property, or 

 activity, belonging to each of these and conceived to be the active cause or force, or dynamic energy, in- 

 volved In every operation or phenomenon of nature, in any manner affecting or controlling the welfare 

 of man." 



