354 



MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE 



[ETH. ANN. 19 



nessee river. porlmj)s from the necessity of moidino- the intiiii trail, 

 and instead of arri\int!: at Itsa'ti or Eeliota. the aneient peace town 

 and capital of the Chert>kee Nation -sitiiate(i on Little Tennessee river 

 below Citico creek, in the j^'esent .Monroe county. Tennessee — thc}^ 



found themselves on the outskirts of Ta'likwa' or Tellico, on Tellico 

 river, some lo or 15 miles to the southward. 



Concealing- themselves in the neighborhood, they sent one of their 

 number into the town to announce their coming. As it happened the 



1 "The Onondagas retain the custody of the wampums of the Five Nations, and the keeper of the 

 wampxinis, Thomas Webster, of the Snipe trihe, a consistent, thorough pagan, is their interpreter. 

 Notwithstanding the claims made that the wampums can be read as a governing code of law. it is 

 evident that they are simply monumental reminders of preserved traditions, without any literal 

 details whatever. 



"The first [of this] group from left to right, represents a convention of the Six Nations at the adop- 

 tion of the Tuscaroras into the league; the second, the Five Nations, upon seven strands, illustrates a 

 treaty with seven Canadian tribes before the year 1600; the third signifies the guarded approach of 

 strangers to the councils of the Five Nations (a guarded gate, with a long, white path leading to the 

 inner gate, where the Five Nations are grouped, with the Onondagas in the center and a safe council 

 house behind all;; the fourth represents a treaty when but four of the Six Nations were represented, 

 and the fifth embodies the pledge of seven Canadian christianized nations to abandon their crooked 

 ways and keep an honest peace (having a cross for each tribe, and ^vith a zigzag line below, to indi- 

 cate that their ways had been crooked but would ever after be as sacred as the cross). Above this 

 group is another, claiming to bear date about 1608. when Champlain joined the Algonquins against 

 theIroquois."—Carrington, in Six Nations of New York. Extra Bulletin. Eleventh Census, pp. 3^-34,1892. 



