MOONF.V] ORIOIN OF TIIK MYTHS 235 



myth oiin travol as far as a rodstoiu' pipe or a string of waiiipuin. It 

 was customary, as it still is to a liiiiiti'd extent in thc^ West, for largo 

 pai'tics. sometimes even a whole band or village, to make long visits 

 to oth(>r tribes, dancing, feasting, trading, and exchanging stories with 

 their friends for weeks or months at a time, with the expi!ctation that 

 their hosts would return the visit within the next sunnner. Regular 

 trade routes crossed the continent from east to west and from north to 

 south, and when the subject has been fully investigated it will be found 

 that this intertribal commerce was as constant and well recognized a 

 part of Indian life as is our own railroad traffic today. The verv 

 existence of a trade jargon or a sign language is proof of intcrtril)al 

 relations over wide areas. Their political alliances also were often 

 far-reaching, for Pontiac welded into a warlike confederacy all the 

 tribes from the Atlantic border to the head of the Mississippi, while 

 the emissaries of the Shawano prophet carried the story of his rev- 

 elations throughout the whole region from the Florida coast to the 

 Saskatchewan. 



In view of these facts it is as useless to attempt to trace the origin 

 of every mj-th as to claim a Cherokee authorship for them all. From 

 what we know of the character of the Shawano, their tendency toward 

 the ceremonial and the mystic, and their close relations with the 

 Cherokee, it may be inferred that some of the myths originated with 

 that tribe. We should naturally' expect also to find close correspond- 

 ence with the myths of the Creeks and other southern tribes within 

 the former area of the Mobilian trade language. The localization at 

 home of all the more important myths indicates a long residence in 

 the country. As the majority of tho.se here given belong to the half 

 dozen counties still familiar to the East Cherokee, we ma}' guess how 

 many attached to the ancient territory of the tribe are now irrecov- 

 erably lost. 



Contact with the white race seems to have produced very little 

 impression on the tribal mythology, and not more than three or four 

 stories current among the Cherokee can be assigned to a Caucasian 

 source. These have not been reproduced here, for the reason that 

 they are plainly P^uropean, and the author has chosen not to follow the 

 example of some collectors who have assumed that every tale told in an 

 Indina language is necessarily an Indian storj'. Scores recoi'dcd in col- 

 lections from the North and West are nothing more than variants from 

 the celebrated Hausmiirchen, as t(^ld by French ti-appcrsand voyageurs 

 to their Indian campmates and halfbi'eed children. It might pei-haps 

 be thought that missionary influence would be evident in the genesis 

 tradition, but such is not the case. The Bible story kills the Indian 

 tradition, and there is no amalgamation. It is hardly necessary to say 

 that stories of a irreat lish which swallows a man and of a great flood 



