MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE 



By Jamks Mooney 



I— INTRODUCTION 



The mvth.s given in this paper are part of a large bod}* of material 

 collected among the Cherokee, chiefly in successive field seasons from 

 lSb7 to IS'MK inclusive, and comprising more or less extensive notes, 

 together with original Cherokee manuscripts, relating to the history, 

 archeology, geographic nomenclature, personal names, botany, medi- 

 cine, arts, home life, religion, songs, ceremonies, and language of the 

 tribe. It is intended that this material shall appear from time to 

 time in a series of papers which, when finally brought together, shall 

 constitute a monograph upon the Cherokee Indians. This paper may 

 be considered the first of the series, all that has hitherto appeared 

 being a short paper upon the sacred formulas of the tribe, published 

 in the Seventh Anruial Report of the Bureau in 1891 and containing a 

 .synopsis of the Cherokee medico-religious theorv, with twenty-eight 

 specimens selected from a body of about six hundred ritual formulas 

 written down in the Cherokee language and alphabet by former 

 doctors of the tribe and constituting altogether the largest body of 

 aboriginal American literature in existence. 



Although the Cherokee are proiialily the largest and most impor- 

 tant tribe in the United States, having their own national government 

 and lumibering at any time in their history from 20.000 to 25.000 per- 

 sons, almost nothing has yet been written of their history or general 

 ethnology, as compared with the literature of such northern tribes as 

 the Delawares, the Iroquois, or the Ojibwa. The difference is due to 

 historical reasons which need not be discussed here. 



It might seem at first thought that the Cherokee, with their civi- 

 lized code of laws, their national press, their schools and .senunaries, 

 are so far advanced along the white man's road as to offer but little 

 inducement for ethnologic study. This is largely true of those in the 

 Indian Territory, with whom the enforced deportation, two generations 

 ago, from ac-customed scenes and surroundings did more at a single 

 .stroke to o})litcrate Indian ideas than could have been accomplished 



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