256 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKKE [kth.ann.19 



ri':id\' their l)ow.s and arrows, their parched corn and extra moccasins, 

 and started out toward the east. At first they met tribe.s they Ivnew. 

 then they came to tribes they had only heard about, and at last to 

 others of which thej' had never heard. 



There was a tribe of root eaters and another of acorn eaters, with 

 great piles of acorn shells near their houses. In one tribe they found 

 a sick man dying, and were told it was the custom there when a man 

 died to bury his wife in the same grave with him. They waited until 

 he was dead, when they saw his friends lower the bodj' into a great 

 pit, so deep and dark that from the top they could not see the bottom. 

 Then a rope was tied around the woman's body, together with a bun- 

 dle of pine knots, a lighted pine knot was put into her hand, and she 

 was lowered into the pit to die there in the darkness after the last pine 

 knot was burned. 



The" 3'oung men traveled on until they came at last to the sunrise 

 place where the sky reaches down to the ground. They found that the 

 sky was an arch or vault of solid rock hung above the earth and was 

 always swinging up and down, so that when it went ^.ip there was an 

 open place like a door between the sky and ground, and when it swung 

 back the door was shut. The Sun came out of this door from the east 

 and climbed along on the inside of the arch. It had a human ligure, but 

 was too bright for them to see clearly and too hot to come very near. 

 They waited until the Sun had come out and then tried to get through 

 while the door was still open, but just as the first one was in the door- 

 way the rock came down and crushed him. The other six were afraid 

 to try it, and as they were now at the end of the world they turned 

 around and started back again, bvit they had traveled so far that they 

 were old men when they reached home. 



8. THE MOON AND THE THUNDERS. 



The Sun was a young woman and lived in the East, while her brother, 

 the Moon, lived in the West. The girl had a lover who used to come 

 every month in the dark of the moon to court her. He would come 

 at night, and leave before daylight, and although she talked with him 

 she could not see his face in the dark, and he would not tell her his 

 name, until she was wondering all the time who it could be. At last 

 she hit upon a plan to find out. so the next time he came, as they were 

 sitting together in the dark of the asi, she slyly dipped her hand into 

 the cinders and ashes of the fireplace and rubbed it over his face, say- 

 ing, "Your face is cold; you must have sufl'ered from the wind," 

 and pretending to l)e very sorry for him, but he did not know that 

 she had ashes on her hand. After a while he left her and went away 

 again. 



The next night when the Moon came up in the sky his face was cov- 

 ered with spots, and then his sister knew he was the one who had been 



