MOONEY] NOTKS AND I'AKAI.LKLS 443 



The corri'spdiKling IroinKiis mytli licliiw, as fiivcii by Mrs Knniiiiiie Siiiiili in her 

 Myths of the Iroquois (Second Annual Kejiort of Bureau of Ethnology, \i. SO), is 

 practieally the same so far as it goes, ami the myth was ]>rohahly onee oomnion over 

 a wide area in the East: 



"Seven little Indian boys were onre aeeustonied hi bring at eve llieir eurn and 

 beans to a little mound, upon the top of which, after their feast, the sweetest of their 

 smgers woulii sit and sing for his mates who danced around the mound. On one 

 oceasion they resolved on a more sumptuous feast, and each was to cnntribute 

 towards a savory souji. Rut the parents refused them the needed supplies, and they 

 met for a feastless dance. Their heads and hearts grew lighter as they flew around 

 the mound, until sud<leidy the whole company whirled off into the air. The incon- 

 solable parents t-alled in \aiii for them to return, but it was too late. Higher and 

 higher they aro.se, wlnrling around their singer, until, transformed into bright stars, 

 the.v took their places in the firmament, where, as the Pleiades, they are dancing 

 still, the brightness of the singer having been dimmed, however, on account of his 

 desire to return to earth." 



In an Eskimo tale a hunter was pursued by enemies, and as he ran lie grailutilly 

 rose from the ground and finally reached the sky, where he was turneil into a star 

 (Kroebei, Tales of the Smith Sound Eskimo, in Journal of American Kolk-Lore). 

 This transformation of human beings into stars and constellations is one of the nK>st 

 comniim inciilents of primitive myth. 



11. The Milkv Way (p. 259): This story, in .slightly different forms, is well 

 known among the Cherokee east and west. The generic word for mill is illMii'.in, 

 including also the .self-acting pound-mill nr i'ihtin'illi'(/t In the original \-ersion the 

 mill was probaVjly a wooden mortar, such as was cmiimiinly used liv tlic Cliei-okee 

 and other eastern and southern tri))es. 



In a variant reeiu'deci in the Hagar Clu'rokee manuscript there ari^ two hunters, 

 one living in the north and hunting big game, while the other lives in the .south 

 and hunts small game. The former, discovering the latter's wife grinding corn, seizes 

 her and carries her far away across the sky to his home in the north. Her dog, 

 after eating what meal is left, follows the pair across the sky, the meal falling from 

 his mouth as he runs, making the ^lilky Way. 



With the Kiowa, C!fieyenne, and other plains tribes the Milky Way is the dusty 

 track along which the Buffalo and the Horse once ran a race across the sky. 



12. Origin of str.vw-hehkies (p. 259): This myth, as here given, was obtained 

 from Ta'gvvadihl', who said that all the fruits mentioned were then for the first time 

 created, and added, "So some good came from the quarrel, anyhow." The Swimmer 

 version has more detail, but seems overdressed. 



13. The Gke.\t Yellow-j.\cket: Okigi.v of fish .\.nd fuogs (p. 2(i0): This story, 

 obtained from Swimmer, is well known in the tribe, and has numerous parallels in 

 other Indian mythologies. In nearly every tribal genesis we find the primitive world 

 infested by ferocious monster animals, which are finally destroyed or rendered 

 harmless, leaving (jnly their descendants, the present diminutix'e types. Conspicu- 

 ous examples are afforded in ^Matthew's Navaho Legends' and in the author's story 

 of the Jicarilla genesis in the American Anthropologist for .Tuly, 1898. 



Another version of the Cherokee legend is given l>y Lanman in his Letters from 

 the Alleghany Mountains, pages 73-74; 



"The Cherokees relate that there once existed among those mountains [about 

 Nantahala and Erankliu] a very large bird, which resembled in appearance the 

 green-winged hornet, and this creature was in the habit of carrying off the younger 

 children of the nation wIkj happened to wander into the woods. Very many chil- 

 dren had mysteriously disappeared in this manner, and the entire people declared a 



1 Memoirs of Aniuricaii Folli-L(jrti S<tuiety, v; Boston hikI Xew Vorii, l»y7. 



