» 



MOONEY] tJNTIGUHl' • 847 



\\ hell at last In- laiiic to himst'lf aj);!!!) lie was staiuliiii;- witli his feet 

 in the water and hotli hands grasping a laurel bush that grew out from 

 the l)ank. and there was no trace of the cave or the Thunder People, 

 V)iit he was ah)ne in tlie forest. He made his way out and tinally 

 reached his own settlement, but found then that he had l)een gone .so 

 very long that ail tiie people liad tiiouglit liiin dead, althougii to him 

 it seemed only th(> day after the dance. His friends questioned him 

 closely, and, foigettmg the warning, he told the story; t)ut in seven 

 days he died, for no oin; can come hack from tlie underworld and 

 tell it and live. 



85. THE HAUNTED WHIRLPOOL 



At the mouth of Suck cri-ek, on the Tennessee, about N miles hcjow 

 Chattanooga, is a .series of dangerous whirlpools, known as "' 'i'lic Suck," 

 and noted among the (^herokee as the place where Untsaivi', the 

 gambler, lived long ago (see the story). They call it Uii'tiguhi'. •" Pot- 

 in-the-water,"' on account of the appearance of the surging, tumbling 

 water, suggesting a l)oi!ing pot. They assert that in the old times the 

 whirlpools were intermittent in character, and the canoemen att(>mpt- 

 ing to pass the spot used to hug the bank, keeping constantly on the 

 alert for signs of a coming eru])ti<)n, and when they saw the water 

 begin to revolve more rapidly would stop and wait until it became 

 quiet again before attempting to proceed. 



It happened once that two men, going down the river in a canoe, as 

 thej' came near this place; saw th»> water circling rapidly ahead of them. 

 They pulled up to the bank to wait until it became smooth again, but 

 the whirlpool seemed to approach witli wider and wider circles, until 

 they were drawn into the vortex. They were thrown out of the <'anoe 

 and carried down under the water, where one man was seized by a 

 great tish and was never seen again. The other was taken round and 

 round d(»wn to the very lowest center of the whirlpool, when another 

 circle caught him and bore him outward and upward until he was 

 finally thrown up again to the surface and floated out into the siiallow 

 water, whence he made his escape to shore. He told afterwards that 

 when he reached the narrowest circle of the maelstrom the water 

 seemed to open below him and he could look down as througli the 

 roof beams of a house, and there on the bottom of the river he had 

 seen a great company of people, who looked up and beckoned to him 

 to join them, Init as they put up their hands to seize him the swift 

 current caught him and took him out of their i-each. 



86. YAHULA 



Yahoola creek, w liich Hows by Dahlonega. in l^umpkin county. Geor- 

 gia, is called Yahulsi'i (Yahida place) by the Cherokees, and this is the 

 storv of the name: 



