12 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.an.v.19 



by fifty years of slow development. There remained behind, however, 

 in the heart of the Carolina mountains, a considerable body, outnmn- 

 bering today such well-known western tribes as the Omaha, Pawnee, 

 Comanche, and Kiowa, and it is among these, the old conservative 

 Kitu'hwa element, that the ancient things have been preserved. Moun- 

 taineers guard well the past, and in the secluded forests of Nantahala and 

 Oconaluftee, faraway from the main-traveled road of modern progress, 

 the Cherokee priest still treasures the legends and repeats the mystic 

 rituals handed down from his ancestors. There is change indeed in 

 dress and outward seeming, but the heart of the Indian is still his own. 



For this and other reasons much the greater portion of the material 

 herein contained has been procured among the East Cherokee living 

 upon the Qualla reservation in western North Carolina and in various 

 detached settlements between the reservation and the Tennessee line. 

 This has been supplemented with information obtained in the Cherokee 

 Nation in Indian Territory, chiefly from old men and women who 

 had emigrated from what is now Tennessee and Georgia, and who 

 consequently had a better local knowledge of these sections, as well as 

 of the history of the western Nation, than is possessed by their kindred 

 in Carolina. The historical matter and the parallels are, of course, 

 collated chiefly from printed sources, but the myths proper, with Ijut 

 few exceptions, are from original investigation. 



The historical sketch must be understood as distinctly a sketch, not 

 a detailed narrative, for which there is not space in the present paper. 

 The Cherokee have made deep impress upon the history of the southern 

 states, and no more has been attempted here than to give the leading 

 facts in connected sequence. As the histoiy of the Nation after the 

 removal to the West and the reorganization in Indian Territory pre- 

 sents but few points of ethnologic interest, it has been but briefly 

 treated. On the other hand the aflairs of the eastern band have been 

 discussed at some length, for the reason that so little concerning this 

 remnant is to be found in print. 



One of the chief purposes of ethnologic study is to trace the 

 development of human thought under varying conditions of race and 

 envirotmient, the result showing always that primitive man is essen- 

 tially the same in every part of the world. With this object in view 

 a considerable space has been devoted to parallels drawn almost entirely 

 from Indian tribes of the United States and British America. For 

 the southern countries there is but little trustworthj' material, and to 

 extend the inquiry to the eastern continent and the islands of the sea 

 would be to invite an endless task. 



The author desires to return thanks for many favors from the 

 Library of Congress, the Geological Surve}', and the Smithsonian 

 Institution, and for much courteous assistance and friendly suggestion 

 from the oflicers and statt' of the Bureau of American Ethnology; and 



