402 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [f.th.ann.19 



who hear iire afraid, because they know that some inairs life will soon 

 go out. When the Raven Mocker comes to the house he finds others 

 of his kind waiting there, and unless there is a doctor on guard who 

 knows how to drive them away they go inside all invisil)le, and 

 frighten and torment the sick man until they kill liini. Sometimes to 

 do this they even lift him from the l)ed and throw him on the floor, 

 l)ut his friends who are with him think he is only struggling for 

 breath. 



After the witcnes kill him they take out his heart and eat it, and so 

 add to their own lives as many days or years as they have taken from 

 his. No one in the room can see them, and there is no scar ■where they 

 take out the heart, Init yet there is no heart left in the liody. Only 

 one who has the right medicine can recognize a Raven Mocker, and if 

 such a man stays in the room with the sick person these witches are 

 afraid to come in. and retreat as soon as they see him, because when 

 one of them is recognized in his right shape he must die within seven 

 days. There was once a man named Guiiskali'ski, who had this medi- 

 cine and used to hunt for Raven Mockers, and killed several. When 

 the friends of a dying person know that there is no moi'e hope they 

 always try to have one of these medicine men stay in the house and 

 watch the bodj- until it is liuried, because after burial the witches do 

 not steal the heart. 



The other witches are jealous of the Raven Mockers and afraid to 

 come into the same house wath one. Once a man who had the witch 

 medicine was watciiing by a sick man and saw these other witches out- 

 side trjnng to get in. All at once they heard a Raven Mocker cry 

 overhead and the others scattered "like a llock of pigeons when the 

 hawk swoops." When at last a Raven Mocker dies these other witches 

 sometimes take revenge by digging up the body and abusing it. 



The following is told on the reservation as an actual happening: 



A young man had })ecn out on a hunting trip and was on his way 

 home when night came on while he was still a long distance from the 

 settlement. He knew of a house not far off the trail where an old man 

 and his wife lived, so he turned in that direction to look for a place to 

 sleep until morning. When he got to the house there was nobody in 

 it. He looked into the asi and found no one there either. He thought 

 maybe they had gone after water, and so stretched himself out in the 

 farther corner to sleep. Very soon he heard a raven cry outside, and 

 in a little while afterwards the old man came into the asi and sat down 

 by the fire without noticing the young man, who kept still in the dark 

 corner. Soon there was another raven cry outside, and the old man 

 said to himself, ''Now my wife is coming." and sure enough in a 

 little while the old woman came in and sat down bv her husband. 

 Then the young man knew they were Raven Mockers and he was 

 frightened and kept very quiet. 



