320 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [ETH.ASN.ia 



So they asked among all the women, and found seven who were sick 

 in that way, and with one of them it had just begun. By the order of 

 the medicine-man they stripped themselves and stood along the path 

 where the old man would come. Soon they heard Nun'yunu'wi 

 coming through the woods, feeling his way with his stone cane. He 

 came along the trail to where the lirst woman was standing, and as 

 soon as he saw her he started and cried out: " Yh! my grandchild; 

 you are in a very bad state! " He hurried past her, but in a moment 

 he met the next woman, and cried out again: "Yu! my child; you 

 are in a terrible way," and hurried past her, but now he was vomiting 

 blood. He hurried on and met the third and the fourth and the fifth 

 woman, but with each one that he saw his step grew weaker until 

 when he came to the last one, with whom the sickness had just begun, 

 the blood poured from his mouth and he fell down on the trail. 



Theii the medicine-man drove seven sourwood stakes through his 

 body and piimed him to the ground, and when night came they piled 

 great logs over him and set fire to them, and all the people gathered 

 around to see. Nuii'yunu'wi was a great ada'wehi and knew many 

 secrets, and now as the fire came close to him he began to talk, and 

 told them the medicine for all kinds of sickness. At midnight he 

 began to sing, and sang the hunting songs for calling up the bear and 

 the deer and all the animals of the woods and mountains. As the 

 blaze grew hotter his voice sank low and lower, until at last when 

 daylight came, the logs were a heap of white ashes and the voice 

 was still. 



Then the medicine-man told them to rake ofi' the ashes, and where 

 the body had lain they found only a large lump of red wa'di paint and 

 a magic u'lunsii'ti stone. He kept the stone for himself, and calling 

 the people around him he painted them, on face and breast, with 

 the red wa'di, and whatever each person prayed for while the painting- 

 was being done — whether for hunthig success, for working skill, or 

 for a long life — that gift was his. 



68. THE HUNTER IN THE DAKWA' 



In the old days there was a great fish called the Dakwa', which 

 lived in Tennessee river where Toco ci-eek comes iu at Uakwa'i, the 

 ' ' DiXkwa' place," above the mouth of Tellico, and which was so large that 

 it could easil}^ swallow a man. Once a canoe filled with warriors was 

 crossing over from the town to the other side of the river, when the 

 Dakwa' suddenly rose up under the boat and threw them all into the 

 air. As they came down it swallowed one with a single snap of its 

 jaws and dived with him to the bottom of the river. As soon as the 

 hunter came to his senses he found that he had not been hurt, but it 

 was so hot and close inside the Dslkwa' that he was nearly smothered. 

 As he groped around iu the dark his hand struck a lot of mussel shells 



