448 MYTHS OF THK CHEROKKK [kth. anx.19 



]). L'4!i): "The licar is a f^arrcil animal witli tlic Xavalmcs; fur tlii.s reason the Iuto 

 dill ncit skin the hears or eat tlieir Hesli. Tlie ulil man, lieinjia wizanl, might do 

 Ijoth.*" 



T1k> ( )jil)\va idea lias been noted in connectioii with tlie oereniun)- of a.sking pardon 

 of the slain animal. A cnrious illustration of the reverse side of the picture is given 

 b)- Heckewelder (Indian Nations, p. 255); 



"A Delaware hunter once shot a huge liear and broke its V)ackbone. The animal 

 fell and set U]) a most plaintive cry, something like tliat of the panther when he is 

 hungry. The hunter instead of giving him another shot, stood up close to him, and 

 addressed him in these wf)rds; ' Hark ye! bear; you are a coward and no warrior as 

 j'ou pretend to be. Were you a w'arrior, you would shew it by youi' tiriiniess, and 

 not cry and wdiiniper like an old woman. You know, liear, that our tribes are at 

 war with each other, and that yours was the aggressor [])rol:)ably alluding to a 

 tradition which the Indians have of a very ferocious kind of bear, called the nahed 

 bear, which they say once existed, but w'as totally destroyed by their ancestors] . . . 

 You have found the Indiana too [lowerful for you, and you have gone sneaking about 

 in the woods, stealing their hogs; perhaps at this time you have hog's flesh in your 

 Ijelly. Had you conquered me, I w'ould have borne it with courage and died like a 

 brave warrior; but you, bear, sit here and cry, an<l disgrace your tribe liy your cow- 

 ardly conduct.' I was present at the delivery of this curious invective. When the 

 hunter had despatched the liear, I asked him how he thought that poor animal could 

 understand what he said to it? 'Oh,' said he in answer, 'the bear understood me 

 very well; ilid you not observe how ashamed he looked while I was upbraiding 

 him?'" 



The mtlf (md ii-dlf killer — Speaking of the Gulf tribes generally, Adair says; "The 

 wolf, indeed, several of them do not care to meddle with, believing it unlucky to 

 kill them, wdiich is the sole reason that few of the Indians shoot at that creature, 

 through a notion of spoiling their guns" (History of the American Indians, p. 16). 

 The author has heard among the East Cherokee an incident of a man who, while 

 standing one night upon a tish trap, was scented by a wolf, which came so near that 

 the man was compelled to shoot it. He at once went home and had the gun exor- 

 cised bj- a conjurer. Wafford, when a boy in the old Nation, knew a jirofessional 

 wolf killer. It is always permissible to hire a wdiite man to kill a depredating wolf, 

 as in that case no guilt attaches to the Indian or his tribe. 



16. The R.\bbit goes duck huntini; (p. "266); This story was heard from Swim- 

 mer, John Ax, Suyeta (east), and AV afford (west). Discu.ssions between animals as 

 to the kind of food eaten are very c<innnon in Indian myth, the method chosen to 

 decide the dispute being usually ([uite characteristic. The first incident is paralleled 

 in a Creek story of the Rabbit and the Lion (Panther?) in the Tuggle manuscript 

 collection and among the remote Wallawalla of Washington (see Kane, Wanderings 

 of an Artist among the Indians of North America, p. 268 ; London, 1859 ) . In an Omaha 

 mj'th, Ictinike and the Buzzard, the latter undertakes to carry the trickster across a 

 stream, but drops him into a hollow tree, from which he is chopped out by some 

 women whom he has persuaded that there are raccoons inside ( Dorsey, Contributions 

 to North American Ethnology, vi). In the Iroquois tale, "A Hunter's Adventures," a 

 hunter, endeavoring to tra)! some geese in the water, is carried up in the air and falls 

 into a hollow stump, from which he is released by women (Smith, ^lyths of the Iro- 

 quois, in Second Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnology). In the I'ncle Remus 

 story, "Mr. Rabbit Meets His Match Again," the Buzzard persuades the Rabbit to get 

 upon his back in order to be carried across a river, but alights with him upon a 

 tree overhanging the water and thus compels the Rabbit, by fear of falling, to confess 

 a piece of trickery.' 



' Joel C. HarrLs, Uncle Hemus, His Songs and His Sayings; New York, 1886. 



