HOOSEY] NOTES AND PAKALLKLS 438 



where they had been I'oiu-ealed by Tawickara'; but tliat they niiglit increase ami 

 fill the forest Yoskehil' gave them freedom.'" The same idea occurs in the Omaha 

 story of "Ictinike, the Brothers and Sister" (Dorsey, in Contributions to North 

 American Ethnology, vi, 1890). The Kiowa tell liow the buffalo were kept thus 

 imprisoned by the Crow until released by Sinti when the iJeo))le were all starving 

 for want of meat. When the buffalo so suddejdy and completely disappeared from 

 the })lains about twenty-live years ago, the ))rairie tribes were unable to realize tliat 

 it had been exterminated, but for a long time cherished the belief that it had been 

 again shut up by the superior power of the whites in some underground |>rison, from 

 which tlie spells of their own medicine men would yet liring it back (see references 

 in the author's Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians, in Seventeenth Annual 

 Report of the Bureau of American l^tbnology, part 1, UlOl ). The Kiowa tradition is 

 almost exactly paralleled among the Jicarilla ( Russell, Myths of the Jicarilla Ajiaches, 

 in Journal of American Folk-Lore, Oct., bS98). 



Sloreliouxe — The unwada'll, or storehouse for corn, beans, dried pumi)kins, and other 

 provisions, was a feature of every Cherokee homestead and w-as probably common 

 to all the southern tribes. Lawson thus describes it among the Santee in South 

 Carolina about the year 1700: 



"They make themselves cribs after a very curious manner, wherein thev secure 

 their corn from vermin, which are more fietjuent in these warm climates than in 

 countries more distant from the sun. These pretty fabrics are commonly supported 

 with eight feet or posts about seven feet high from the ground, well daubed within 

 and without upon laths, with loam or <-lay, which makes them tight and lit to keep 

 out the smallest insect, there lieing a small door at the gable end, which is made of 

 the same comjiosition and to be removed at pleasure, being no bigger than that 

 a slender man may creep in at, cementing the door up with the same earth when 

 they take the corn out of the crib and are going from home, always finding their 

 granaries in the .same posture they left them — theft to each other being altogether 

 unpracticeil."- 



Rnhhed Iter stiimach — This miraculous procuring of |irovisions liy rul)l)ing Ihe body 

 occurs also in number 70, "The Bear JIan." 



Knerr their thoiujIiU — Mind reading is a frequent concept in Indian myth and occurs 

 in more than one Cherokee story. 



Seven times — The idea of sacred numbers has alreadybeen noted, and the constant 

 recurrence of seven in the present myth exemplifies well the importance of (hat 

 number in Cheroket.' ritual. 



A tuft of down — In the Omaha story, ''The Corn AVonian and the Buffalo Woman" 

 (Dorsey, Contributions to North American Ethnology, vi, 1890) , the magician changes 

 himself into a feather and allows himself to be blown about by the wind in order to 

 accomplish his purpose. The wolf does the same in a Thompson Kivermyth.^ The 

 self-transformation of the hero into a tuft of bird's down, a feather, a leaf, or .some 

 other light object, which is then carried by the wind wherever he wishes to go, is 

 very common in Indian myth. 



PUiyhitll iitjitiiiM till-Ill — This is a Cherokee figurative expression for a contest of any 

 kind, more particularly a battle. 



Left 11)1 Djien Kpaei' — When the Clierokee conjurer, by his magic spells, coils the 

 great (invisible) serpent around the house of a sick man to keep off the witches, he 

 is always careful to leave a small space between the head and tail of the snake, so 

 that the members of the family can go ilown to the spring to get water. 



' Hewitt, Cosmogonic Gods of the Iroquois, in Proe. Am. As.s. Adv. Sni., XLiv. IWr). 



= History of Ciirolina. ed. l.stiO, ji. 3.5. 



^Traditions of tlie Tliompson River Indiims uf Britisli ("oliiiiil)ia. collfclod iui<l niinntaicd liy .lames 

 Teit. witli introduction by Franz Boas (Memoirs of tlie .\inericau h'olliLon- .society, vi): Boston 

 and New Vorl;. 18<.i«, p. 7-1. 



lit ^:TH— 01 28 



