MOONKY] • NOTKS AND PAKALLKLS 447 



labureil tlul^' to destroy their Jrii'iida. He represented, however, tliat tlio mi.-ifortune 

 was unavoidable, i^ince without doing so, tliey could by no means s^ubsii^t. The speech 

 ended, we all ate heartily of the bear's Hesh; and even the head itself, after reniain- 

 ing three days on the scaffold, was put into the kettle." — Travels, jip. 14.3-14.5. 



'Jill' liiilihil — The part ])layed Ijy the Kabbit or Hare and his syndxjlic eliaiacter 

 in Inilian myth has been already noted (see "Stories and Story Tellers"). In his 

 purely animal character, as an actor among the fonrfooted creatures, the sanu> attri- 

 butes of trickery and surpa-ssinj; sagacity are assigned him in other parts of the world. 

 In the folktales nf Angola, West Africa, "The Hare seems to surpa.ss the fnx in 

 shrewdne.ss." and "The Hare has the swiftness and shrewdness of the 3Ionkey, but 

 he is never reckless, as the IMonkey .sometimes appears to be" {('hatelain, Folk- 

 tales of Angola, pp. 29.5, 300). In farthest Asia also "The animals, too, have their 

 stories, and in Korea, as in some other parts of the world, the Rabbit seems to come 

 off l)est,as a rule" (11. X. Allen, Korean Tales, p. 34; Xew York and London, 1889). 



TJii' hiiffuli) — Timberlake rej)eatedly remarks upon the abundance of the buffalo 

 in the Cherokee country of East Tennessee in 1 "62. On one occasion, while in camp, 

 they heard rapid tiring from their scouts and "in less than a minute seventeen or 

 eightei-n buffaloes ran in amongst us, liefore we discovered them, so that several of 

 us had like to have been run over, especially the women, who with some difficulty 

 sheltered themsel\-0's behind the trees. Most of the men fired, but tiring at random, 

 one only was killed, tho' several more wounded" (Memoirs, p. 101). According 

 to a writer in the Historical Magazine, volume viii, page 71, 1864, the last two wild 

 buffalo known in Ohio were killed in Jackson county in 1800. 



The elk — This animal ranged in ea.stern Carolina in 1700. "The elk is a monster of 

 the venison sort. His skin is used almost in the same nature as the buffelo's [.vie]. 

 . . . His flesh is not so sweet as the Ie.sser deer's. His hams exceed in weight all 

 creatures which the new world affords. They will often resort and teed \\itli the 

 buffelo, delighting in the same range as they do'" (Lawson, Carolina, p. 203). 



ChIx (All tin: hiitnsirinij — No .satisfactory reason has been obtained for this custom, 

 which has been noted for more than a century. Buttrick says of the Cherokee: " Tlie 

 Indians never used to eat a certain sinew in the thigh. . . . Some say that if they eat 

 of the sinew they will have cramp in it on attempting to i-un. It is said that once a 

 woman had cramp in that sinew and therefore none must eat it" (Antiquities, p. 12) . 

 Says Adair, speaking of the southern tribes generally: "When in the wooils the 

 Indians cut a. small piece out of the lower part of the thigh of the deer they kill, length- 

 ways and pretty deep. Among the great number of venison hams they bring to our 

 trading houses I do not remember Xi> have observed one without it " (History of the 

 American Indians, pp. 137-138). 



^yh^te animals mcred — According to a formula in the Tuggle manuscript lor t'uring 

 the "deer .sickness," the "White Deer" is chief of his tribe in Creek mythology 

 also. Peculiar sacredness always attac:hes, in the Indian mind, to white and 

 albino animals, partly on account of the symbolic meaning attached to \\n- color 

 itself and partly by rea.son of the mystery surrounding th(> i)henomenonof alliinism. 

 Among the Cherokee the chiefs both of the Deer and i if the Bear tril le wen- white. On 

 the plains the so-called white buffalo was always sacred. .Vnicmg the Iroquoi.s, 

 according to Morgan (League of the Iroquois, p. 210), "the white deer, white sijuir- 

 rel and other chance animals (jf the albino kind, were regarded as consecrated to the 

 Great Spirit.'' One of their most solemn .sacrifices was that of the White Dog. 



The hear — A reverence for the bear and a belief that it is half human is very gen- 

 eral among the tribes, and is probably ba.sed in part upon the ability of the animal 

 to stand upriglit and the re.semblance of its tracks to human footprints. According 

 to Grinnell (Blackfoot Lodge Tales, p. 260), "The Blackleet believe it to he part 

 brute and part human, portions of its body, particularly the ribs and feet, being like 

 those of a man." In a note upon a Xavaho myth Matthews says (Navaho Legends, 



