432 MYTHS OF THE rHERUKEE [kth. axx.19 



preserve of Kaiia'ti, wliom he makes an old (.'licrcikcc i-hit-f, in a i traditiiniah cave 

 on the nortli side of the Black mountain, now Mount .Mitchell, in Yancey county, 

 North Carolina, the highest peak east of the Rocky mountains, .\fter his father had 

 disappeared, and could not be found by long search, "The boy tired an arrow 

 towards the north, but it returned and fell at his feet, and he knew that his father 

 had not travelled in that direction. He also tired one towards the east and the south 

 and the west, but they all came back in the same manner. He then thought tliat he 

 would tire one directly above his head, and it so happened that this arrow never 

 returned, and .so tlie boy knew that his father had gone to the spirit land. The 

 Great Spirit was angry with th(> CUierokee nation, and to pmiish it for the offense of 

 the foolish boy he tore away the cave from the side of the Black mountain and left 

 only a large cliff in its place, which is now a conspicuous feature, and he then 

 declared that the time would come when another race of men should possess the 

 mountains where the Cherokees had flourished for many generations." 



The story has numerous parallels in Indian myth, so many in fact that almost 

 every important concept occurring in it is duplicated in the North, in the South, and 

 on the i>lains, and will probalily be found also west of the mountains when sufiicient 

 material of that region shall have been collected. The Ojibwa story of "The ^\'cen- 

 digoes,"' in particular, has many striking points of resemblance; so, also, tile Omaha 

 myth, "Two-faces and the Twin Brothers," as given by Dorsey.'' 



His tdfe was Selu, ''Corii" — In Cherokee belief, as in the mythologies of nearly 

 every eastern tribe, the corn spirit is a woman, and the plant itself has sprung origi- 

 nally from the blood drops or the dead body of the Corn Woman. In the Cherokee 

 sacred formulas the corn is sometimes invoked as Agawe'la, "The Old Woman," and 

 one myth (number 72, "The Hunter and Selu") tells how a hunter once witnessed 

 the transformation of the growing stalk into a beautiful woman. 



In the Creek myth "Origin of Indian Corn," as given in the Tuggle manu.script, 

 the corn plant appears to be the transformed liody of an old woman whose only son, 

 endowed with magic powers, has developed from a single drop of her (menstrual?) 

 blood. 



In Iroquois legend, according to ilorgan, the corn plant sprang from the bosom 

 of the mother of the Great Spirit (sic) after her burial. The spirits of corn, bean, and 

 squash are represented as three sisters. "They are supposed to have the forms of 

 beautiful females, to be very fond of each other, and to delight to dwell together. 

 This last belief is illustrated by a natural adaptation of the plants themselves to grow 

 up together in the same field and perhaps from the same hill." ' 



SpmiKj from blood — This concept of a child born of blood drops reappears in the 

 Cherokee story of TsuTkalCi' (see number 81). Its occurrence among the Creeks has 

 just been noted. It is found also among the Dakota (Dorsey, "The Blood-clots Boy," 

 in Contributions to North American Ethnology, ix, 1893), Omaha (Dorsey, "The 

 Ral)bit and the Grizzly Bear," Cont. to N. A. Eth., vi, 1890), Blackfeet ( "Kutoyis," 

 in Grinnell, "Blackfoot Lodge Tales"; New York, 1892), and other tribes. Usually 

 the child thus born is of wilder and more mischievous nature than is common. 



Deer shut up in hole — The Indian belief that the game animals were originally shut 

 up in a cave, from which they were afterward released by accident or trickery, is 

 very widespread. In the Tuggle version of the Creek account of the creation of 

 the earth w^e find the deer thus shut up and afterward set free. The Iroquois 

 "believed that the game animals were not alwavs free, but were enclosed in a cavern 



' H. R. Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, Comprising Inquiries Respecting the Mental Characteristics of 

 the North American Indians: first series, Indian Tales and Legends (two volumes); New York, 1839. 



- The Dhegiha Language, in Contributions to North American Ethnology, vi ( Department of the Inte- 

 rior, t.!. S. Geographical and Geological Survey of the Kocky Mountain Region. J. \V. Powell in 

 charge), Washington. D. C. 



^ League of the Iroqtiois, pp. IGl. W2. ami 199. 



