470 MYTHS OK THE CUKKOKEE [f.th.an.n.19 



who aftenvai-il tiiuls liis way out alive. Xear to tlic Clierokee myth arc the Bible 

 story of Jonah, and the Greek story of Hercules, swalloweil l\y a fish and coniiut; out 

 afterward alive, hut halil. For parallels and theories of the orisin and meaning of 

 the myth amuuf; the ancient nations, see cliapter ix of Bouton's Bible Myths. 



In an Ojibwa story, the great .Manabozho is swallowed, canoe and all, by the king 

 of thefishe.s. With his war club he strikes repeated blows upon the heart of the fish, 

 which attempts to spew him out. Fearing that he might drown in deep water, 

 Manabozho frustrates the endeavor by placing his canoe crosswise in the throat of 

 the fish, and continues striking at the heart until the monster makes for the shore 

 and there dies, when the hero makes his escape through a hole which the gulls have 

 toni in the side of the carcass (Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, i, pp. 145-146). 



69. At.\g.\'hi, the enxh.vnted l.\ke (p. 321 ) : This story was heard from Swimmer, 

 Ta'gwadihi', and others, and is a matter of familiar knowledge to every hunter among 

 the East Cherokee. If Indian testimony be believed there is actually a large bare 

 fiat of this name in the difficult recesses of the Great Smoky mountains on the 

 northern boundary of Swain county. North Carolina, somewhere between the heafls 

 of Brad leys fork and Eagle creek. It ajjpears to be a great resort for bears and 

 ducks, and is perhaps submerged at long intervals, which would account for the 

 legend. 



Prayer, fcistimj, and vii/il — In Indian ritual, as among the Orientals and in all 

 ancient religions, these are i)rime requisites for obtaining clearness of spiritual vision. 

 In almost every tribe the young warrior just entering manhood voluntarily sub- 

 jected himself to an ordeal of this kind, of several days' continuance, in order to 

 obtain a vision of the "medicine" which was to be his guide and protector for the 

 rest of his life. 



70. The bride fro.m the south (p. 322): This miique allegory was heard from 

 both Swimmer and Ta'gwildihi' in neaily the same form. Hagar also (MS Stellar 

 Legends of the Cherokee) heard something of it from Ayasta, who, however, con- 

 fused it with the Hagar variant of number 11, "The Milky Way" (see notes to 

 number 11). 



In a myth from British Columbia, "The Hot and the Cold Winds," the cold-wind 

 people of the north wage war with the hot-wind people of the south, until the 

 Indians, whose country lay between, and who constantly suffer from both sides, 

 bring about a peace, to be ratified by a marriage between the two parties. Accord- 

 ingly, the jjeople of the south send their daughter to marry the son of the north. 

 The two are married and have one child, whom the mother after a time decides to 

 take with her to visit her own jieople in the north. Her visit ended, she starts on 

 her return, accompanied by her elder brother. "They emliarked in a bark canoe 

 for the country of the cold. Her brother paddled. After going a long distance, and 

 while crossing a great lake, the cold became so intense that her brother could not 

 endure it any longer. He took the child from his sister and threw it into the water. 

 Immediately the air turned warm and the child floated on the water as a lump of 

 ice." — Teit, Traditions of the Thompson River Indians, pp. 5.5, 56. 



71. The Ice Man (p. 322): This story, told by Swimmer, may be a veiled tradi- 

 tion of a burning coal mine in the mountains, accidentally ignited in firing the woods 

 in the fall, according to the regular Cherokee practice, and finally extinguished by a 

 providential rainstorm. One of Buttrick's Cherokee informants told him that "a 

 great while ago a part of the world was Ijurned, though it is not known now how, or 

 by whom, but it is said that other land was formed by washing in from the moun- 

 tains " (Antiquities, i^. 7). 



When the French built Fort Caroline, near the present Charleston, South Carolina, 

 in 1.562, an Indian vilUage was in the vicinity, but shortly afterward the chief, with 

 all his people, removed to a consideral)le distance in consequence of a strange 



