416 MYTHS OF THK CHEROKEE [F.TH.A.sN.ly 



Dead Man's gap: One mile below Tallulah falLs, on the west side of 

 the railroad, in Habersham county. So called from a former reputed 

 Indian gTave, now almost obliterated. Accordini;' to the story, it was 

 the grave of an Indian who was killed here while eloping with a white 

 woman, whom he had stolen from her husband. 



Frogtowk: a creek at the head of Chestatee river, north of Dah- 

 lonega, in Lumpkin count}-. The Cherokee name is Walasi'yi, ''Frog 

 place." The name was originally applied to a mountain to the north- 

 east (Rock mountain ?). from a tradition that a hunter had once seen 

 there a frog as large as a house. The Indian settlement along the 

 creek bore the same name. 



Hiwassee: a river having its source in Towns county, of northern 

 Georgia, and flowing northwestward to join the Tennessee. The cor- 

 rect Cherokee form, applied to two former settlements on the stream, is 

 Ayuhwa'si (meaning "A savanna"). Although there is no especial 

 Cherokee stor}- connected with the name, White (Historical Collections 

 of Georgia, p. 660) makes it the subject of a long pseudo-myth, in 

 which Hiwassee, rendered ''The Pretty Fawn," is the beautiful 

 daughter of a Catawba chief, and is wooed, and at last won, by a 

 young Cherokee warrior named Notley, ''The Daring Horseman," 

 who finally Ijecomes the head chief of the Cherokee and succeeds in 

 making perpetual peace between the two tribes. The story sounds 

 very pretty, but is a pure invention. 



Nacoochee: A village on the site of a former Cherokee settlement, 

 in a beautiful and fertile valley of the same name at the head of Chat- 

 tahoochee river, in White county. The Cherokee form is Nagu'tsi', 

 but the word has no meaning in that language and seems to be of for- 

 eign, perhaps Ci'eek, origin. About 2 miles above the village, on the 

 east bank of the ri\'er, is a large mound. White (Historical Collec- 

 tions of Georgia, p. 486) quotes a fictitious legend, according to which 

 Nacoochee, "The Evening Star," was a beautiful Indian princess, who 

 unfortunately fell in love with a chieftain of a hostile tribe and was 

 killed, together with her lover, while fleeing from the vengeance of 

 an angry father. The two were bvxried in the same grave and the 

 mound was raised ovei' the spot. The only grain of truth in the storj^ 

 is that the name has a slight resemblance to nakwUV, the Cherokee 

 word for "star." 



Nottely: a river rising in Union county and flowing northwest- 

 ward into Hiwassee. The ("herokee form is Na'du'li', applied to a 

 former settlement on the west side of the river, in Cherokee county, 

 North Carolina, about a mile from the Georgia line. Although sug- 

 gestive of ?ia'fuli, " spicewood," it is a difl'erent word and has no mean- 

 ing in the Cherokee language, being apparently of foreign, perhaos 

 Creek, origin. For a pseudo-myth connected with the name, see the 

 preceding note on Hiwassee. 



