MOUNEY] LOCAL LEGENDS OF GEORGIA 417 



Tai.kiN(i Kock: A rrcck ii; upper (i('ori;i;i tlowiiij^ nortliwiu'd to 

 join Coosawiiteo riviT. Tlii' Indian .settlements upon it were eonsid- 

 ered as belonging to Sanderstovvn, on the lower part of the ereek, the 

 townhouse being located about a mile above the present Talking Koek 

 station on the west side of the i-ailroad. The name is a translation of 

 the Cherokee Nfmyu'-guiiwani'ski, " Rock that talks," and refers, 

 according to one informant, to an echo rock somewhere u])on the stream 

 below the present railroad station. An old-time trader among the 

 Cherokee in Georgia says that the name was applied to a rock at which 

 the Indians formerly held their councils. l)ut the etymology of the 

 word is against this derivation. 



Tallulah: a river in Rabun county, noithea&tern Georgia, which 

 flows into the Tugaloo, and has a l)eautiful fall about '2 miles above its 

 mouth. The Cherokee form is Tfdulu' (Taruri' in the lower Cherokee 

 dialect), the name of an ancient settlement some distance above the falls, 

 as also of a creek and district at the head of Cheowa river, in Graham 

 county, North Carolina. The name can not be translated. A maga- 

 zine writer has rendered it "The Terrible," for which there is no 

 authority. Schoolcraft, on the authority of a Cherokee lady, renders 

 it "There lies your child," derived from a story of a child having 

 been carried over the falls. The name, however, was not applied to 

 the falls, but to a district on the stream above, as well as to another 

 in North Carolina. The error arises from the fact that a word of 

 somewhat similar sound denotes '"having children" or " l)eing preg- 

 nant,"' used in speaking of a woman. One informant derives it from 

 tdhdft'. the cry of a certain species of frog known as duli/si. which is 

 found in that neighborhood, but not upon the reservation, and which 

 was formerly eaten as food. A possible derivation is from a'td/nhV, 

 "unfinished, premature, unsuccessful." The fall was called Ugufi'j'i, 

 a name of which the meaning is lost, and which was applied also to a 

 locality on Little Tennessee river near Franklin, North Carolina. 

 For a mj'th localized at Tallulah falls, see number 84, "The Man who 

 Married the Thiuider's Sister." 



In this coiuiection Lanman gives the following story, which, not- 

 withstanding its white man's dress, appears to be based ujjon a gen- 

 uine Cherokee tradition of the Nuiine'hi: 



During my stay at the Falls of Tallulah I made every effort to obtain an Indian 

 legend or two connected with them, and it was my goofl fortune to hear one which 

 has never yet been printed. It was originally obtained by the white man who first 

 discovered the falls from the Cherokees, who lived in the region at the time. It is 

 in substance as follows: Many generations ago it so happened that several famous 

 hunters, who had wandered from the West toward what is now the Savannah river, 

 in search of game, never returned to their camping grounds. In process of time the 

 curiosity as well as the fears of the nation were excited, and an effort was made to 

 ascertain the cause of their singular disa])]iearance, whereupon a party of medicine 

 men were deputed to make a pilgrimage toward the great river. They were absent 

 a whole moon, and, on returning to their friends, they reported that they had dis- 



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